Some Aspects of Jainism in Eastern India

SR No.: 006725
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Pranabananda Jash
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi
Publication Year: 1989
Total Pages: 170
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 15 MB

Page 119

Jainism in Eastern India
Keśarī in the Lalitendu Kesari cave records that "in the year five of the victorious reign of the illustrious Udyota Keśari, on the illustrious Kumāra mountain,104 decayed tanks and decayed temples were caused to shine, (and) at that place the images of the twentyfour tirthankaras were set up. At the time of the dedication... Jasanandi... in the place (temple?) of the illustrious Pāraśyanatha (Pārsvanatha)."105 The second inscription is found in the Navamuni cave refers of Udyota Keśari issuing in his eighteenth year of reign refers to Khalla Subhacandra as the disciple of the lord of the illustrious, the acārya of the Deśigana derived from Grahakula, Kulacandra, belonging to the illustrious Arya Saṁgha.106 The bearing of the inscriptions is very significant showing that Khandagiri again became the centre of the Jaina activities in the eleventh century AD at the time of the Saiva king Udyota Keśari.
107
The discovery of a large number of Jaina icons primarily representing the tirthankaras in the eighth to eleventh centuries AD testifies the revival of Jainism in Orissa. Images of Jaina tīrthankaras are found in Jajpur, Nandanpur, and in BhairavaSinhapura of Koraput district. In the Keonjhar, Mayurbhanj and Puri districts we have the icons of Rṣabhanatha, Pārsvanatha and Mahavira. Of these an image of Ambika and that of Rṣabhanatha and Mahāvīra in one stela are preserved in the British Museum, while another, a standing bronze of Adinatha in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. In the Orissa State Museum there are four beautiful images of the tirthankaras from the village Charampa in the Balasore district and some of them have a number of double concave marks on their bodies. The Jaina temple at Cuttack has many rare specimens of tirthankaras of mediaeval period as objects of devotion. Among them the representation of Rṣabhanatha and Mahāvīra on a single slab and a wonderful slab containing Rṣabhanatha in padmasana pose being attended by Bharata and Bahuvali along with more than a hundred miniature standing figures, are of great iconographic interest.
108
It is, however, to be noted that inspite of the rise of the Saivas, the Jainas continued to have survived without any fear of persecution from the Brahmaṇical religious system. K.C. Panigrahi observes that the Saivas do not seem to have developed an antagonism towards Jainism as is evident from the fact that they have sometimes allowed the Jaina images to be carved on their temples. The Saiva temple of Muktesvara at Bhuvanesvara has thus a number
91