The Digambar Jain Temple, a place of worship for adherents of the Jain faith, is a tranquil oasis amid the chaos and is the oldest Jain temple in Delhi, its simplicity being its main attraction. A bird hospital is attached to it where sick and injured birds are taken care of, though the odors can be quite overwhelming! The Gauri Shankar Temple, fringed with heaps of marigolds sold to people going in to pray, has an 800-year old lingam, a stylized phallus worshipped as a symbol of the Hindu Lord Shiva. Another interesting stop is the Sisganj Gurudwara of the Sikhs, where Shah Jahan's tyrannical son, Aurangzeb, beheaded the ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur.
History
In the 17th century, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built the new capital city of Delhi (Old Delhi today) with the main street, Moonlight Bazaar, within the city walls, located before the palace Red Fort. He invited many Jain financiers to settle there and allowed them to build temporary structures that served as Jain temples. The Jain community enshrined three marble idols in the temple.
In 1800-1807, the imperial treasurer Raja Harsukh Rai obtained permission to build a temple with a pagoda in the Jain community of Dharamapura, south of the Moonlight Bazaar. The temple is known for its fine carvings and is now known as the New Temple (Naya Mandir).
In 1931, a Tengyan Jain monk came to Delhi. He was the first Tirthankara Jain monk to visit Delhi in eight centuries.
The Hindu Gauri Sankar Temple, adjacent to the Tengyi Jain temple, was built about a century later in 1761. It, too, has been significantly rebuilt in the last few decades.