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History of Jainism with Special Reference to Mathura
erudition and command over both prose and poetry in a single composition.366 The Jainas gave to the Telugu and Kannada literature the Campū kāvyas or poems in a variety of composite metres interspersed with paragraphs in prose.
367
ART AND ARCHITECTURE
Plastic Art
Jainism has made a significant contribution in the domain of Indian art, particularly architecture. In ancient India art was the hand-maid of religion.36 The Jaina temples and idols were built to satisfy the religious fervour of the devotees, and the Jainas invested immense money and labour to make them beautiful.369 A huge mass of Jaina images, made of stone, metal and other materials, belonging to the ancient and medieval period of Indian history, has been discovered from various places in Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, like Lohanipur, Mathura, Śravana Belgola, Rajgir, Udayagiri, Fatehpur Sikri, Kahaum, Deogadh, Gwalior, Chanderi, Khajuraho, etc.
The images of the Jaina tīrthamkaras have been described as cold and frozen,370 stiff in pose, devoid of expression and grace,371 characterised by puppet-like rigidity, primitive bareness372 and uniformity of pattern. It is held that the images of the Jaina tīrthamkaras present a stark contrast to the sublime gentleness and serene grace of the figure of the Buddha, and to the
366. AOIK, p. 187.
367. MJ, p. 263.
368.
369.
370.
371.
372.
373.
R.C. Sharma, Buddhist Art of Mathura, 1984, Foreword; JAA, I, p. 35.
JAA, I, p. 35.
H. Zimmer, The Art of Indian Asia, Vol. I, 1955, p. 15. JAA, I, p. 67.
H. Zimmer, op. cit., p. 132.
JSAI, p. 231; HOFA, Introduction, p. 11.
