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A Note on an Image of Rama and Sita on the Parsvanatha Temple, Khajuraho
MARUTI NANDAN PRASAD TIWARI
Among the Jaina temples of Khajuraho, the Parsvanatha temple of 954A.D.1 is the best in its elaboration of plan and sculptural embellishments. An exquisitely carved image of Rama and Sita (2 ft. 10 in. high) is sculptured in the northern facade of its mandapa.
The figures of Rama and Sita carved in the lower relief represent them as standing on a bracket in the tribhanga-mudrā. Rama is depicted as possessing four arms. A long arrow is held diagonally downwards with its rear in his upper right arm and the head in the lower left. Dr. Bruhn mistaking the arrow for a Sakti has wrongly identified this image with Kumara? However, he is not sure of his identification as he puts a question-mark against the name of Kumara. It seems that he has overlooked the short statured figure of the monkey-faced Hanumana, a staunch devotee of Rama, on the right, whose association with the main figure only makes the identity of the latter with Rama unques
1 An inscription of eleven lines, carved in Nagari characters, on the left side of the
door-jamb at the entrance bears the date V.S. 1011 (A.D. 954) and also records and enumerates gift (argha) and endowments of gardens (vatika) to the temple by a Jaina devotee named Pahila. See, Zannas, Eliky, Khajuraho, Hague, 1960, p. 147. And also see, E.I., I, pp. 135-56. Bruhn, Klaus, “The Figure of the two Lower Reliefs on the Parsvanatha Temple at Khajuraho", Acarya Sri Vijayavallabhasuri Commemoration Volume, 1956, Eng. Sect., p. 18, x 5a.
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