________________ 112 JAIN JOURNAL An image of Padmavati, the Yaksini of Parsvanatha, probably hailing from the Malwa region shows her seated on a cushioned. seat resting on her mount cobra with its hood raised in front (No. 74.282; ht. 17 cms.; pl. 5). The two-armed goddess with nine hoods of a cobra above her head, carries a fruit in her right hand and a snake in the left. She wears a karanda-mukula, circular ear-rings, necklace, sadi, etc.5 The broad face with a prominent chin, rendering of the bodily contours, and the typically decorated back-frame suggest the hand of a Paramara artist of c. 12th century A.D. Dr U.P. Shah has published a four-armed sculpture of Padmavati(?) from Nalanda showing the goddess seated under the canopy of a fivehooded serpent.6 Her attributes also slightly differ from the bronze image of the Devi mentioned above. But in none of these images, the figure of a Tirthankara (Parsvanatha) is shown above the hoods of the serpent, which we generally find in the images of the Yaksis of the Jaina pantheon. Photographs : Courtesy National Museum, New Delhi. These have been nicely prepared by Sri N. Shah. 5 A. K. Bhattacharya, An Introduction to the Iconography of the Jaina Goddess Padmavati, Muni Jinavijay Abhinandan Granth, Jaipur, 1971, pp. 218-229. . U.P Shah, Studies in Jaina Art, Varanasi, 1955, pl. XV, fig. 41. Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org
