History of Jainism

SR No.: 006741
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: U K Sharma
Publisher: D K Print World
Publication Year: 2002
Total Pages: 304
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 10 MB

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History of Jainism with Special Reference to Mathurā
sculptures.327 All jina figures of Mathurā assignable to the pre-Kuşāņa, Kuşāņa and Gupta period are nude.
But not all post-Gupta tīrthařkara images of Mathurā are naked.328 It is evident that the difference between the jina images of the Svetāmbaras and the Digambaras on the basis of drapery and nudity manifested in the medieval period. The four-fold or caumukha images of the jinas were also carved during the period under review. The fragment of a four-fold jina image discovered at Gopālakherā depicts the figures of Adinātha and Supārsva.329 The Jaina iconography of the medieval period furnishes unmistakable evidence of the fact that the Jainas sincerely believed in the tradition of twenty-four tīthaskaras. A medieval period stele discovered from Gūjar Ghātī, Mathurā depicts the figure of a standing Jaina tīrthamkara; the twenty-three miniature figures carved on this stele represent the other jinas.330
The lāñchanas of the twenty-four jinas having been evolved, the Mathurā sculptor of the Gupta period left nothing to imagination regarding the identification of the images of the various tīthamkaras.331 The pedestal of the jina figure depicted the dharma-cakra between two lions during the medieval period also.332 The practice of depicting the śrīvatsa symbol on the chest and other sacred symbols on the palm and sole of the jina figure was customary.333 Two figures or images provide a fair glimpse of the medieval jina iconography of Mathurā. One of them depicts tīrthařkara Adinātha,
327. MS, p. 46. 328. MM no. A.60. The images of the jinas belonging to the Svetāmbara sect are clothed during
the medieval period. See MM no. A.60; JUPHS, III, p. 24. 329. MM no. 559; JUPHS, III, p. 29. 330. Ibid., no. 536; ibid. 331. MM nos. B.21, B.22, B.76, 559, etc.; ibid., pp. 24-5, 28-9. 332. MM no. B.65; ibid., p. 27. 333. Ibid., nos. B.25, B.79, B.80, etc.; ibid., pp. 26, 29. The jina figures of the Digambara sect
of this period are nude. See MM nos. B.80, G.46; JUPHS, III, p. 29.