Ambika on Jaina Art and Literature

Author(s): Maruti Nandan Prasad Tiwari
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 82

Ambikā in Art : Later Phase (9th to 16th centuries A.D.) Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh
The regions of Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh are taken together because the development of the Jaina art and iconography remained identical and unilateral in both these states. The area also forms a nucleus region for yielding the earliest Jaina vestiges at Mathurā, showing several early stages of the development of Jaina iconography, and also the collective renderings of the 24 Śāsanadevis on Šāntinātha temple at Deogarh and in the parikara of an image of Ambikā from Patian-dãi. Like Gujarat and Rajasthan in western India, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh also have witnessed the most vigorous art activity of the Jainas, belonging mainly to the Digambara sect. However, a few sporadic instances of the Svetambara Jaina images are also encountered in the region. Ambikā undoubtedly occupies the most exalted position among all the Yaksis in the region, as evidenced by innumerable instances of her visual manifestations. She is represented both in independent figures and in Jina-samyukta images. Contrary to the figures from western India, she mostly appears with her conventional Jina Neminātha. However, in few exceptions known from Mathurā, Deogarh, Eļāwā, Agrā etc. she also joins Rsabhanātha, Muni-suvrata and Mahāvīra (State Museum, Lucknow, I 782, 1 776) Jinas as their Yaksi.
In Jina-samyukta figures Ambikā is invariably rendered as two-armed and sitting in lalitāsana, sometimes accompanied by her
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