History Of Jainism With Special Reference To Mathura

SR No.: 022807
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: U K Sharma
Publisher: D K Printworld P L
Publication Year: 2001
Total Pages: 304
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

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History of Jainism with Special Reference to Mathurā
The figures of the jinas were the most significant products of the Jaina iconography of this period. But images of other Jaina deities were also carved. One of these figures depicts the Jaina male deity Kșetrapāla.340 A jugaliya figure shows Marudevī and her husband seated under a tree, possibly kalpaurksa.341 One of the characteristic features of Jaina religious life in the post-Gupta period, both in north and south India, was independent worship of Jaina yaksīs.342 Therefore, images of the yaksīs, too, were chiselled for worship at Mathurā during the post-Gupta period.
Two beautiful images of Jaina female deities called the yaksis or the śāsana-devīs belonging to the medieval period have come to light at Mathurā. One buff sand stone image of the tenth century AD represents Cakreśvarī, the yaksī of Rsabhanātha.343 She stands on a lotus seat which is supported by her mount Garuda.344 The head of the figure is gone; the broken head is sorrounded by an elaborated halo depicted in the shape of an expanded lotusflower,345 Originally, the image must have had ten arms, each of which held a cakra.346 A female attendant stands on each side of the figure; the attendant to the right side holds a fly-whisk (camara), and that to the left holds a wreath.347 On both sides of this figure there is a flying figure which carries a garland.348 According to V.S. Agrawala and R.C. Sharma, this image of Cakreśvarī appears to be the Jaina version of the Brāhmaṇical female figure with ten arms, i.e., Vaisnavī.349
Another buff sand stone image of the ninth-tenth century AD depicts
340. MS, p. 46 and figure 97. 341. MM no. 1111; JUPHS, III, p. 34; MS, p. 46. 342. MS, p. 46. 343. MM no. D.6; R.C. Sharma, The Splendour ... op.cit., pp. 158-9. 344. Ibid., ibid., pp. 158-9; JUPHS, III, p. 31. 345. JUPHS, III, p. 31. 346. Ibid. 347. Ibid. 348. Ibid. 349. Ibid., III, p. 31; R.C. Sharma, The Splendour..., op. cit., p. 158.