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 312

JAINA ART IN THE NORTH firmly believed in at the beginning of the Christian cra, and even earlier. The Tirthankaras are generally represented seated in the same cross-legged attitude as Buddha, with the same stolid, contemplative expression of countenance. If the dancing figures in both the Orissa and Mathura sculptures stand for evolution, the everlasting becoming, the Yogi type of seated Jina is an equally dramatic image of withdrawal, of complete independence of evolution. It is well to remember that this does not represent any sort of mortification of the flesh; it is simply the position which has been adopted by Indian thinkers from time immemorial as most convenient for meditation. It need not also be considered as cxprcssionless because it does not reflect the individual peculiaritics which makc up expression as we commonly conceive it. On the other hand, in the opinion of Rothenstein the plastic interpictation of Samalhi. or religious absorption, forms one of the supreme conceptions in the history of art which the world owes to the genius of India. "This concrete crystallisation of a spiritual mood," observes the Icarncd scholar, " was developed into a form so perfect and uncvit. able that it remains, after more than 2000 years, one of the most inspiring and satisfying symbols crected by man." Coming to the Jainn remains in Vathura, a city of memorial antiquity, it may be said that they were excavall front or near the Kankali or Jaini mound (Tili), about half-1-mile south of the Katra The importance of this school in the history of Indian art lics as a link between old Indian and maival Sculpture and its close affinity with the Gandhira Schuyl, 20 called luxud ita centrs was in the region of Gandlari, the north-Western frontier, and of its finest crcations linic been found there. "G ruplar alls.' obscrves Smith. "Mathura exccupies a central patron inte mcdiatc bclucen Gandhira to the borts-Host. Imiris ili tti, south-cast, and Sirnatli to the east. It is than fort : Surprot* that the local school of art Should deployment teru, linking it on the one hand with the tell 12!**" G . and on the other with the purely I l ustlinn. This Gandhara-Mathur. school is to k n .) !. first century 1.c. and founded in full m. . - 1 Roti tein, m i s , 11 .1.