Ambika on Jaina Art and Literature

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

Page 95

31 Khajurāho (Pārsvanatha temple), A.D. 950-70 (p. 77)
lotus-cum-manuscript was very popular at Khajuraho. (These symbols, however, were shown both with the Brahminical and Jaina deities without having any specific connotation.)
However, in a solitary instance of the figure of four-armed Ambikā (25.3"X12"), preserved in the modern Jaina temple No. 13, she is provided with goad and noose in her upper-right and left hands, in place of lotuses. The rendering of the second son of Ambika was seenningly not very regular. The two fly-whisk bearing female attendants, sometimes also holding lotuses, are carved with Ambikā possibly to suggest her exalted position at the site. The point is explained even more explicitly in a unique image of Ambikā at the site. The image (39" x 24"), assignable to c. 11th century A.D. is now in the collection of the Archaeological Museum, Khajurāho (Acc. No. 1608). Although the three hands are broken off, the child in her surviving lower left hand, lion mount and the branches of mango tree overhead make her identification with Ambikā doubtless. Besides the figures of adorers, and the male and female attendants, holding fly-whisk and lotuses, the rendering of the figures of Yakşa and Yaksī at the two extremities of the pedestal and a few minor goddesses, showing either viņā