Jain_Satyaprakash 1941 08

SR No.: 521572
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jaindharm Satyaprakash Samiti - Ahmedabad
Publisher: Jaindharm Satyaprakash Samiti Ahmedabad
Publication Year: 1941
Total Pages: 48
Language: Gujarati
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Satyaprakash, & India
File Size: 20 MB

Page 26

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sts (of which Nos. 4, 5, and 6 seem to be effaced, but the strokes indicating their heads are seen) on the pedestal of Fig. 3 must be the Navagrahas.
Now Jaina iconography recognises both these secondary divinities, and the Navagrahas are found sculptured on the pedestals of the images of Jaina Tirthankaras-usually brass, from about the tenth century onwards;+ whereas in Buddhist iconography Astadikpalas may be found represented in early sculptures but rarely, if ever, in later bronze images, while, so far as the repiter is aware of, the Navagrahas are not found at all.
According to Dr. Sastri himself our figures are late, and „so on the evidence of pedestal-figures again, the central figures are Jaina and not Buddhist.
Further, the fragmentary inscription on the prabhavali of Fig. 1 mentions the word Sravakas which is not usually found in Buddhist dedicatory inscriptions but is common in Jaina inscriptions.
In the external evidence the following facts have to be noted. So far bronzes-including brass and copper images-have come principally from three regions in India: from N. E. and E. India (Bihar, Bengal, Nepal and Tibet); from Gujarat-Rajputana; and from the temples of S. India. The bronzes from the first area are mostly Buddhist (often of the Tantric School) and to a certain extent Hindu, but very few of them are Jaina; those from the second are mostly Jaina and Hindu, Buddhist none at all; those from the last are mostly Hindu and slightly Jaina (Digambara) and hardly any Buddhist.
On this ground alone, it would be surprising to find Buddhistand that too late-images from N. Gujarat, for Buddhism was a spent force in these parts by the 8th century A.D.
4 See SANKALIA, "Jaina Iconography," NIA, 2. 497-520; Rosa Volume. pp. 335-358.
5 Roport, Appendix (d), p. 28. Mr. GADRE thinks that the script is late Brahmi of o. 200 A.D. whoreas Dr. SASTRI thinko (p 7) and righ. tly that the figures are late,