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 238

Four More Popular Yakşinis
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Ambikā also supports the view that the sculpture represents an early tradition and that Cakreśvari here is a yakşi and not a vidyadevi. A similar form of this yakşi Cakreśvari is preserved in the Dhubela Museum, Nowgong, M.P.3
A similar form of Cakreśvari is seen on a loose pedestal of an Adinātha image lying in the compound of the Adiśvara temple in Mánek-Chowk, Cambay (Iconograghy of Cakreśvari, JOI, XX.3, pp. 280ff, fig. 2). The sculpture can be assigned to c. 12th-13th cent. A.D. A figure from a ceiling corner opposite cell 53, Vimala vasahi, Abu, is another good specimen of this variety (JOI, op. cit., fig. 3). The eagle vehicle is absent here but the symbols suggest the identity of Cakreśvari.4
Even though this figure represents Cakreśvari or Apraticakra, a question arises whether this Vimala vasahi figure is of the vaksi Cakreśvari or of the vidyadevi Apraticakrā who also has the cakra as her chief distinguishing symbol and who like the yakși Cakreśvari rides the eagle. Firstly, there is no such vidyadevi in the Digambara pantheon (which replaces a goddess called Jāmbūnada for Apraticakrā) and hence the confusion between the yaksi and the vidyādevi arises only in case of Svetämbara images. Secondly, Svetambara texts like the Acāradinakara of Vardhamana sūri and the Caturvimšatika of Bappábhatti sūri merely refer to the disc symbol of the vidyadevi called Apraticakrä,5 whereas the Nirvanakalikā (Šve.)6 specifies that this vidyā devi carries the disc in each of her four hands. A sculpture of this vidyä almost agreeing with this tradition is seen on the fansana of the Jaina temple at Ośia and dates from the last quarter of the eighth century A.D.7 The Mantrādhiraja-kalpa of Sāgaracandra follows the Nirväņakalika in giving the disc in all the four hands of the Cakreśvari vidyā but differs in giving a human being as her vahana instead of the usual eagle. In actual practice, however, the painters and the sculptors are found to have represented even the eagle like a human being and the Ośia figure of this goddess has the vāhana shown like a human being but our figure from Abu has no vāhana at all. Thirdly, available Svetämbara literary traditions describe only an eightarmed form of the yakşi Cakreśvari whereas a four-armed figure of the yakşi is frequently met with on pedestals of Adinātha sculptures. Against these difficulties there are several factors which suggest that the Vimala vasahi figure under discussion is preferably that of the yakşi rather than of the vidyadevi. In Vimala-vasahi itself, the Vidyadevi Apraticakra is represented with a different set of symbols, namely, the discs in two upper hands, the varada in the right lower and the fruit in the left lower hands. In a ceiling we find a group of four goddesses seated opposite one another with a full-blown lotus in the centre. One of these figures is Cakreśvari vidya with the varada and the fruit in the two lower hands while the remaining three goddesses in this group can be definitely identified as the three vidyādevis called Prajñapti, Vajraśnkhalā and Vajränkusi. The fourth figure should naturally be regarded as representing a vidyādevi and not a yakşi. Again, in the central mandapa we have around the big lotus-pendant a set of figures of all the sixteen vidyādevis wherein the Apraticakrā or Cakreśvari vidyā shows the varada and the fruit in her two lower hands. Hence it is advisable to regard the figure in the ceiling opposite cell 53, Vimala vasahi, with the conch symbol in her left lower hand, as representing the yaksini of Adinatha.8 The evidence of the Prabhāsa-Pātana and the Cambay figures only supports the above conclusion.
This form of yakşi is also found in one of the two sets of vidyādevis on the outer wall of the Caumukha shrine called the Kharatara-vasahi at Delvada, Mt. Abu. But since this Kharatara-vasa hi is a later shrine belonging to circa fifteenth century it may be argued that this form of the vidya in the Kharatara-vasahi is the result of a borrowing of an earlier form of the yakşi Cakreśvari. Such cases have led to a good deal of confusion in correctly differentiating the yaksi from the vidyadevi.
Of this variety of the yakşi another specimen is preserved in a ceiling plaque describing the life of Ādinātha in the Säntinātha temple at Kumbharia. A slightly different form of the yakṣi with the varada symbol of the right lower hand replaced by the rosary is preserved in the temple built by Vastupala and his brother on Mt. Girnår in Saurashtra. This form of the yakşi is again later represented as a vidya in the second set of vidyādevis on the wall of the Kharatara-vasahi. In this second set the vidyās are in a standing posture whereas in the first set noted above they are in a sitting posture.
On a metal image of Adinátha in the Pārsvanátha temple, Khataravasi padā, Patan (North Gujarat), is a small figure of the goddess showing the discs in the two upper hands, the fruit in the left lower and