Jain Rup Mandan

SR No.: 001961
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Umakant P Shah
Publisher: Abhinav Publications
Publication Year: 1987
Total Pages: 466
Language: English
Classification: Book_English & Art
File Size: 27 MB

Page 134

Iconography of 24 Tirtharikaras
121
The Lucknow Museum preserves a sculpture of Adinātha from Kankali Tila, Mathura (Museum no. J.78), 43 illustrated here as Fig. 55. The simhasana shows the dharmacakra in the centre with a worshipper and a bull figure on each side. The bull cognizance definitely proves that the Jina sitting in padmasana (head lost) is to be identified as Adinātha. Traces of hair-locks can be seen on the shoulders. On the right side of this Jina is a four-armed standing male figure with snake-hoods overhead and holding a cup (wine cup) in his right lower hand. The left lower is placed on the kați (girdle region) while the left upper seems to have carried the plough. The figure represents Balarāma of Hindu mythology. To the left of the Jina is another four-armed male standing and carrying the mace (gadā) and the lotus (padma) in his two upper hands while his left lower hand holds the conch (sankha) and the right lower is held in the abhaya mudrā. Evidently he represents Krşna-Vasudeva identified with Vişou. The presence of Krşqa, who in Jaina Purāņas is described as a cousin brother of Neminātha, the twenty-second Tirthankara, has led some scholars to identify this Jina figure as representing Neminātha. But another explanation can be offered for the presence of Krsna and Baladeva with Adinātha. Firstly, Jaina mythology admits nine Baladevas and nine Vasudevas of whom only one pair of mors flourished in the age of Neminātha. However none of them was contemporary of Adinātha. Secondly, Mathura which is the findspot of this sculpture is well-known as the centre of Kșsa-Vāsudeva worship, at least from about the second century B.C. Our sculpture dates from about the seventh century A.D. when Vişņuism or the Bhagavata cult had already been very popular. It is obvious that an attempt was made to show the Hindu deities in the subordinate position of attendants to the Jaina Tirthankaras. Even the presence of Kļşņa and Balarāma on Mathura sculptures of Neminātha dating from the Kuşāņa age should be interpreted as an attempt to show Brahmanical deities in a subordinate position. We have a small figure of Ganesa on an early mediaeval sculpture of the Jaina Ambika, No. D.7 in the Mathura Museum. The sculpture of Adinātha under review has a figure of two-armed Sarvānubhūti Yaksa on its right end and a figure of two-armed Ambikä on the corresponding left end. The presence of Ambikä need not tempt us to identify this Jina as Neminātha because, as we have demonstrated long ago, this Yakşa-Yakşi pair was a pair common to all the Tirtha karas from c. sixth century A.D. to about the ninth-tenth century A.D.
A somewhat later sculpture of Rşabha, from Orai, district Jalaun, U.P., preserved in the State Museum, Lucknow (no. 0.178) is noteworthy.44 The Jina has an uşnişa and stylised schematic curls of hair over head and hair-locks on the shoulders. In the centre of the simhasana is the dharmacakra to the left of which can be seen only a part of a boldly carved figure of the vrşabha lāñchana. The upper parts of the beautiful sculpture are mutilated but the remaining small figures of sitting Tirthankaras in two rows on each side of the Jina suggest that this was a Caturvimšati-paļļa of Rşabhanātha. The pedestal of the sculpture is noteworthy. On the right of the simhāsana is a beautiful figure of two-armed Kubera-like Yaksa with a money-bag in his left hand and a pot of money (nidhi) below the left leg. Kubera-like, he is the Yaksa Sarvānubhūti of Jaina traditions, found as the Sasanadeva of the various Jinas. On the corresponding left end is Cakreśvari eight-armed riding on the eagle. To the right of the dharmacakra is a small figure of Lakşmi partly mutilated, while on the left is a small figure of Ambikā.
Temple no. 4 at Devgadh, M.P., has a big Pañcatirthi sculpture of Adinātha (Studies in Jaina Art, fig. 43). Below his seat are two figures of Rşabha's gapadhara (or an äcārya) and his disciple with a sthapan, between them. Just above the sthāpanā on the end of a cloth hanging is the bull cognizance of the Jina. What is more interesting here is that on the right side of the simhāsana we find a figure of twoarmed Ambikā instead of the Sasana Yakşa, while on the left end we have a figure of four-armed Cakresvari riding on the eagle. M.N.P. Tiwari45 has noted one more such example. In the Jardine Museum, Khajuraho, on a sculpture, Acc. no. 1651, Cakreśvari and Ambikä are carved on two sides of the dharmacakra and a figure of Lakşmi with lotuses in two upper hands at left corner of the throne. We have already noted above a similar case of Cakreśvari and Ambika figuring on two ends in a bronze from Sanauli, Rajasthan.
A Pañcatirthi of Rşabhadeva from the temple of Adinatha, Khajuraho (DGA's negative 142 of 1923-24) shows a small figure of the bull läñchana near the dharmacakra. The Jina has uşnişa on top of the head but no jață; there are traces of hair-locks on the shoulders. On the right of the simhasana