Jain Yug 1958

SR No.: 536282
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Sohanlal M Kothari, Jayantilal R Shah
Publisher: Jain Shwetambar Conference
Publication Year: 1958
Total Pages: 82
Language: Gujarati
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Yug, & India
File Size: 8 MB

Page 76

જૈન યુગ
relationship and the continuity of the older tradition in representing female figures, up to the papr-period of the style.
We will now passingly review notable representations of the Jaina goddesses in various palm-leaf, paper and cloth Mss. One very interesting example of Ambika, the Yakshi of Neminatha, is furnished by a miniature painted on a palm-leaf at the Chhani Bhandara, dated Samvat 1301 (Fig. 35 of the Chitrakalpadruma). Here the goodess has two hands and is seated in lalitäsana, with her left foot hanging, on a lion. Her left hand holds a bunch of mangoes while with her right arm she holds a child in her lap. She wears ornaments, a lower garment, a scarf and a crown.
Another miniature of the four-armed Ambika, shows her holding lotuses in her upper hands, in her lower right hand carrying a baby; and her lower left hand a mango fruit; below her is crouched a lion, which is her vehicle (See Plate 1 Fig. 2 on P 116, of "The Story of Kalaka", by Brown). No dhyana for four-armed variety of Ambika is available, but it appears likely that the original two-armed form served as a model for the four-armed one in which the earlier symbols were multiplied in order to accentuate artistic and symbolic effect. A painting of Ambika Devi from the palm-leaf Ms. (dated V. S. 1198; A.D. 1142) of the Neminatha-charitra of Hemachandra Sūri preserved in the Santinatha Bhaṇḍār, Cambay illustrates this fourarmed form."
The palm-leaf Ms. Ogha-niryukti at the Viravijaya Bhandar at Chhāņi has
7. Illustration Fig. 15 in Dr. U. P. Shah's paper on "Iconography of the Jaina goddess Ambika" Bom. Uni. Journal, September 1940.
૨૮
ડિસેમ્બર ૧૯૫૮
a miniature (2" X 2") of Sarasvati, representing her as holding a lotus in the right upper hand and a book in the left lower, while the remaining two are engaged in playing on the viņā.
The Miniature painting of Sarasvati (3" x 2.5") on the palm-leaf Ms. of Upadesamälä Vritti at the Santināth Bhandar, Cambay gives the lotus, the vina, the rosary and the book as her symbols; and the one (11" 23") in the other palm-leaf Ms. of the Uttaradhyayana Sutra represents the same form. This form seems to have been very popular and is identical with the Hindu Mahavidya described in the Rúpamandana. In the palm-leaf miniature (2.5" X 2.5") of the Vivekamañjarī at the Santinath Bhaṇḍār, Cambay, Sarasvati is shown with vină and the lotus in the two upper hands and the Varada and the book in the two lower ones. The Upadeśamälä Ms. (V S. 1293) in the Sanghavi Pādā Bhandara, Patan, shows the same form on folio 2.
A representation of Sarasvati on cloth found in a Varddhamana-Vidyapata of circa 15th century form the collection of Muni Shri Punyavijayaji shows the four-armed goddess seated on two swans, carrying the lotus in the left upper hand, the vină in the left lower, the rosary in the right lower and the book in the right upper.
Sarasvati in a standing pose is unique in Jaina as well as in Hindu iconography
8. एकवक्त्रा चतुर्हस्ता मुकुटेन विराजिता । प्रभामण्डलसंयुक्ता कुण्डलान्वितशेखरा ॥ wzmachungchngifàm afffm"
रूपमण्डन अ. ५ श्लो. ६१. ६२."
9. For the photograph, see Fig. 6 of Dr. U. P. Shah's paper on "Iconography of the Jaina Goddess Sarasvati", Bombay University Journal, September
1941.