Jainism in North India

SR No.: 011067
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Chimanlal J Shah
Publisher: Longmans Green and Compny London
Publication Year: 1932
Total Pages: 66
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 3 MB

Page 304

JAINA ART IN THE NORTH Bodhisattva, no scene distinctly traceable to Buddhist legends. Trisulas open or pointed, Stupas, Swastikas, barred railings, railed trees, wheels, the goddess Sri are found, but they are as common to Jainism as to other religions 1 Furthermore this is a fact generally accepted by competent scholars, antiquarians and archaeologists like O'Malley, Mon Mohan Chakravarti, Bloch, Fergusson, Smith, Coomaraswamy' and others. Thus the oldest extant Jaina sculptures show that, like the other sects, Jainas also excavated cave-dwellings or Bhakshugrhas for their recluses, but the practical requirements of their cult had an effect on the nature of the structure adopted by them. As a general convention Jaina monks did not live in large communities, and this combined with the nature of therr religion did not necessitate them to have large assembly halls like the Cartyas of the Buddhists. As seen before, the oldest and the most numerous of these earliest caves of the Jaina sects are in the hill on the east called Udayagiri; the modern in the western portion designated Khandagiri. "The picturesqueness of their forms, the character of their sculptures and architectural details, combined with their great antiquity, render them one of the most descrving of a careful survey." 8 If not from the architectural at least from the archaological point of view the first to arrest our notice among the Udayagiri caves is the Hathigumpha cave, a great natural cavern, the brow of which must have been smoothed to admit of the inscription. As to the inscription, it has been already dealt with at length by us Though as it stands now there is very little of architectural importance left in it, this much is certain that in spite of its being a natural cavern, looking to the importance of the record the Hathigumpha must have been an excavation of no mean consideration. This is because the predilection for cutting temples or caves in the rock is of Chakravarti (Mon Mohan), op at ,p 5, Fergusson, op cit, p. 11 * O'Afalley, B.DGP, 266 "After having examined the caves carefully during my visits I has come to the soudusion that all the caves, so far as the present data are available, should be ascribed to the Jains and not to the Buddhists "_Chakravarti (Mon Mohan), op and loc cil "That the caves contain nothing Buddhistic, but apparently all belong to the AS, S a Lact which is DOT. I think, generally accepted by all competent scholars" --Cf tord ,p 20 "Till comparatively recently, however, they were mistaken for Buddhist, but this they clently never were"-Fergusson, op af, i, p 17 . Cf Smith, op cit, 84 * cf. Coomaraswamy, History of Indian and Indonesian Arl, p 37. . Fergusson, op cit, ut , p 9. 249