Mahavira Smruti Granth Part 01

SR No.: 010530
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Kamtaprasad Jain, Others
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Society Agra
Total Pages: 363
Language: Hindi
Classification: Smruti_Granth
File Size: 9 MB

Page 255

ASOS AKUMARATBHATTACHARTA
represented symbolically in association with the Trident or Tri-ratna symbols." The Buddha's hand touches the wheel of Law which is placed on the tri-ratna symbol flanked on two sides by a deer each depicting the preaching of the first Sermon at the DEER Park. In late period probably such symbols came to transgress their limits of narrow sectarianism. For the Jaina writer Thakur Feru mentions that goddess Cakreśvari's pankara is not complete without a Diarmacakra lenked by stags being shown on the front face of the pedestals " 19 Attention may also be drawn to the Cakra-ratna which is attributed to a cakravartin as his symbol as well as weapon. The representation of the Cakra in Jaina art can be traced as early as the first few centuries near the beginning of the Christian era. The yotive tablets, the Ayāgpatas, belonging to the Kusõna period and'unearthed from the Kankäli Tila at Mathură contain the figure of Cakra and the elephant placed on two figures placed on two pillars of the Persepolitan type on either side of a seated fina at the centre. 28
A consideration of the Astamangalas will not be out of place here. The Astmangalas are a kind of device in figures which are to be drawn before the TTthankara images or for the matter of that, in connection with any auspicious undertaking such as the study of the scriptures, etc. The kind of hicroglyphic art that is associated with the representations of this kind 19 not, however, of any particular religious sect, Brabmanic, Buddhist, and Jaina, but must be studiсd in the light of the peculiar senses in which they were taken by each sect The vocabulary and the forms were equally accessible to all the sects the difference lay only in interpretation. The Acãradınkara of Vardhamāna-sūri records to some extent the significance of these eight kinds of the auspicious marks.
The Mirror ( darpana) which forms the first of the group syrabolises the facts of the pious devoties standing very dear the ideal of the Tirthankara, In fact, what the mirror, signifies to the fact of a pious inquirer after Truth flourishing in a blessed region after having practised penance and performed
17 Arch. Survey of India, Ann Report for 1937-88 Fig No. 984. 18. Cf. Cakkadhari garudapka Tabsābe dhammacakka ubhaydigam'
harinajuam ramanīyam gaddıyamajjhammı Jinacinham" - II 28 - Vetthusärapayaranam (Ed by B Tain). Here the symbol of dharmacakra 18 to be placed on the pedestal at its centre The Pankara 18 not complete without it. The goddess Cokreśwarī primarily a šācanadevī of the first Jina 18 also attri. buted here with the Cakra symbol in her upper two henda (Cakkadhari)
19 Vide, Jinacstra-Kalpadruma, pl. XCVI, fig. 278,
20. A K, Coomaraswamy-History of Indian and Indonesian Art, p.37, pl. XIX fige 71 & 72