Treasures of Jaina Bhandaras

SR No.: 001583
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Umakant P Shah, Dalsukh Malvania, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1978
Total Pages: 274
Language: English
Classification: Book_English, Literature, & Art
File Size: 19 MB

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Treasures of Jaina Bhandaras
achieved with few colours.22 The ms. is dated in 1335 V. S. = 1278 A. D. Five miniatures of another Kalpasūtra msfrom the same Bhandāra, Patan, noticed by Nawab and Moti Chandra, 23 are dated in 1336 V. S. = 1279 A. D.
Miniatures of Lakşmi, Sarasvati and Sri Deva sūri from the Cambay no. 94, entitled Yogašāstra (Cat. no. 405, p. 64), assigned to latter half of thirteenth century V. S. = c. 1200 - 1250 A. D., though of a narrow size like Cambay no. 78 of Uttarādhyayana noted above, are interesting. The figures of Lakşmi and Sarasvati bear a certain relation, in style, to the Chāņi Vidyādevis, but the figure of Deva sūri (from folio 198 ) is more interesting and realistic. He sits with right hand in Jñāna-mudrā, under a beautiful arch on a seat, but with the back-rest remaining on his left side. The broad borders of his two garments are noteworthy (fig. 17)
Paintings from Daśavaikälika - sūtra (Cat. no. 396, p. 62 ) from Cambay no. 80, dated in V. S. 1314 = 1257 A. D., of Neminātha and a Jaina monk, are some more good specimens of the style of the latter half of the thirteenth century A. D. To this period also belongs the ms. of Pārsvanātha-stotra (Cambay no. 101 / 14 ) d. in V. S. 1308 (1252 A. D.) which unfortunately the present writer could not see. (Cat. no. 394)
Miniature paintings of the palm-leaf ms. of Viveka-Manjari from the same śāntinātha Bhandāra, Cambay, no. 176 (Cat. no. 397, p. 63) are however more interesting. The document is securely dated in V. S. 1322 = 1266 A. D. The figure of Sarasvati, while on brick-red dull background, sitting under an arch is neatly drawn. She wears a coli of dull blue, a lower garment of white and black stripes, a scarf with broad flying ends of green borders, a crown, ornaments etc. The modelling of the face is different from those of figures in Cambay Cat, 'no. 78, Cambay Cat. no. 94 etc. referred to above. Here Sarasvati 24 shows almost all the features of fourteenth and fifteenth century style so far as the modelling of
?Moti Chandra, ibid., figs. 49-49, p. 30
23Moti Chandra, ibid., p. 30; Nawab, op. cit., figs. 48-49. 24Shah, U. P., Iconography of the Jaina Goddess, Sarasvati, Journal of the Univ. of Bombay Vol. X, part 2, p. 204, fig. 11.
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