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JULY, 1981
tranquil expressions in the faces of the Tirthankaras add to the beauty of the relief.
At the bottom of the relief, a female deity is found sitting in meditative posture. The deity has two hands, one of which is in varada mudrā and the other is holding a citrus or vijapüraka. She should not be mistaken as yakşini Cakresvari of the Digambara order, for, she has two hands while Cakresvaris are generally found having four or eight or twelve hands.1
The iconographic features of the relief, as shown above, bear postGupta characteristics of Jaina art. The Tirthankara images of the postGupta period invariably have lanchanas, yakşas, cauri-bearers and yakşinis, and therefore, the relief could be assigned to the post-Gupta period.
1 Bhattacharya, B.C., The Jaina Iconography, (Delhi, 1974), pp. 86-87.
Ibid., pp. 28-30; Gupta, R.S., Iconography of the Hindus, Buddhists and Jainas, (Bombay, 1972), p. 175.
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