Jain Journal 1981 04

SR No.: 520062
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1981
Total Pages: 79
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 6 MB

Page 75

APRIL, 1981
185
the workmen of Asoka and his grandson Dasaratha had polished the extensive interiors of the Ajivaka caves in the Barabar and Nagarjuni hills near Gaya in North India. For a hypaethral statue on a high hill-top exposed to sun, rain, heat, cold and abrasive dust and rain-carrying winds the polish acts as a great refractory-a fact which the makers seem to have understood. Unlike the earlier examples of Gommata at Ellora and other places, the creepers entwining round the body have been shown here with great control with their distinctive foilage well-spaced apart and in a way that would not detract from the majesty of the main figure itself.
The three later colossi of Gommata from Karkala (A.D. 1342), Venur (1604) and the one not far from Bangalore, all in the Karnataka
do not compare with this either in stature or in beauty of finish. The apparent shortening and thickening of the legs below the knee in proportion to the general stature of the body and the limbs above or to the total height, suggested more by their still organic contact with the parent rock, are more than offset by the flanking rock-mass and its sculptures of ant-hills, serpents and the growing creepers. The artist in the choice of the proportions has been quite well aware of the unusual location of his hypaethral subject on the top of a massive ovoid hill dominating the landscape for miles around, that was to be Digambara in the real sense, with the etheral firmament and space as its canopy, background and vestment. His work was one to be viewed distinctly against such a background of endless space and that too from a distance if the eyes of the viewer were to take in the whole figure. In such a view all the parts of the body fall into proper proportions and the dignity of the work is not a little whittled..
The inscriptions on either expanse of the flanking rock at the base in three scripts, Tamil-Grantha, Nagari (Old Marathi) and Kannada, and others elsewhere, indicate that the Gommatesvara was got made by Camundaraya, the minister of the Ganga king Rajamalla Satyavakya or Racamalla (1974-84) some time after 978, the date of the Cāmundarāya-purāņa composed by Camundaraya himself, which does not mention this great achievement of his. The date of its creation is taken to . be A.D. 983, though the traditional date of its consecration, according to several literary works, is Sunday, the fifth lunar day of the bright fornight of Caitra in the cyclic year Vibhava which might be equated to A.D. 1028. The inscription at the base also states that the suttāla or pillared cloister with shrines of twenty-four Tirthankaras was added round the colossus by Gangaraja the general under Hoysala Visnuvardhana. In such an act of erection of the part of the mandapa with flat