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A Jina in samavasaranathe celestial assembly, Western India, c. 1975. Rolio from a Laghu Samgrahanistra manuscript.
most of its height above the knees, with a rear side as perfectly shaped and modelled as the front. Heinrich Zimmer observed: "It is human in shape and feature, yet as inhuman as an icicle; and thus expresses perfectly the idea of successful withdrawal from the round of life and death, personal care, individual destiny, desires, sufferings and events."
Added to this is the mirror-like smooth and shining polish of the entire body that brings out the rich fine grains of this grayish white granite, an art that had been lost or forgotten for more than a millennium since the workmen of Asoka and his grandson Dasaratha had polished the extensive interiors of the Ajivika caves in the Barabar and Nagarjuni hills near Gaya in north India. For a hypaethral statue on a high hill-top exposed to sun, rain, heat, cold and abrasive dust and rain-carrying winds, the polish acts as a great refractory, a fact which the sculptors seem to have understood. Unlike the earlier examples of Gommața at Ellora and other places, the creepers entwined round the body have been shown here with great restraint with their distinctive foliage well-spaced apart and in a way that would not detract from the majesty of the main figure itself.
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