Jaina Gazette 1927

SR No.: 034889
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: J L Jaini, Ajitprasad
Publisher: Jaina Gazettee Office
Publication Year: 1927
Total Pages: 568
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 47 MB

Page 134

MIRACLE PLACES (ATISHAYA KSHETRAS) 79
to the face. The mouth is now, as ever, an eternal blossoming of a smile of irresistible calm and never failing compassion and sweet beneficence. The neck seemed to me to be a little, just a little too short perhaps. But it may possibly be due to the artistic conventions of the age of Sculpture when the Image was carved. The right foot resting on the left thigh showed a life-like firmness in the curve between the ankle and the toes. Similarly the hand, specially the left hand, showed a life-like rendering of flesh in stone. According to Jainism, by installation (Sthapana), a nonliving material becomes the very person installed. Thus the nonliving becomes living, at least a kind of living substance : something like the conversion of Real into Personal Property and vice versa in English Law. An image of Christ or Mary is more than a mere statue or work of Sculpture, to the faithful Christian. To him the image is almost, or really, the Jesus Himself or the Holy Virgin Herself. Thus alone any irreverence to or profanation of the image, is a painful stab to the heart of the faithful. So my mind recoiled with pain at the thought of any insult to the Image before me ; thus exhibiting to me my sub.conscious feeling that the Image is to me more than an image, it representing and being to the eye of my Faith. the Lord Mahavira Himself. So I gazed on and on at the figure of Calm Compassion and Serene Bliss, hardly ever daring to feel that I had my fill of looking at the Wonder of Calm Omniscience which is everlasting, but is not visible to us now in our world. The thought also flashed across my mind that the Creator of Galatea, was perhaps acting in the true spirit of the Jaina doctrine of Sthāpanā (installation), when the statue made by him moved and won his living love and adoration. Highest efforts of artistic sensuousness sometimes are curious reflections of spiritual Truth. Kaats was a true seer when he identifed Beauty with Truth, and both with “Joy for ever." Indeed Joy, Truth and Beauty are identical in their nature. They are three distinct aspects of the same one indivisible Fact or Experience or Insight. I insighted all three in my gluttonous gaze at the Glory before me.
I had a long gluttonous gaze at the Lord. He is unattached ; Vita Raga. He shows that Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat