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Jaina Art and Architecture at Mathurā
Mathurā have brought to light a number of Jaina sculptures which contain depiction of stūpa-worship, realistically as well as artistically. 27
THE PILLAR
The pillar known as cetiya-stambha was also an object of Jaina worship at Mathurā.28 Therefore, construction of pillars at Mathurā was a logical outcome of the Jaina urge for pillar-worship. One of the corner uprights assignable to the second century BC discovered at Mathurā, depicts a lion pillar within a railing being worshipped by a male and a female devotee.29 There is nothing specifically Jaina in this depiction. But depiction of lion pillars of this type on Jaina art objects called āyāga-pattas or silā-pattas30 is indicative of the practice of pillar-worship in Jainism in this period. The artists of Mathurā also built elephant pillars for Jaina worship. This is manifest from a Jaina inscription of Mathurā belonging to the time of the Kusāna king Huviska, which records the setting-up of an elephant named Namdiviśāla for the worship of the arhats.31
THE SILĀ-PATTAS OR AYAGA-PATTAS
The word āyāga-patta frequently occurs in the Jaina dedicatory inscriptions exposed by excavations at Mathurā.32 The word silā-patta also finds mention in one of the Jaina inscriptions discovered from this city.33 Ayāga-patta is a compound word. Patta means a slab or a tablet. The list of names embodied in the Jaina text entitled Angavijjā,34 and a passage in the Rāmāyana of
27. MM no. Q.2, etc. 28. MCH,p. 333. 29. SML no. J.268; MCH, p. 333. 30. MM no. Q. 2. 31. EI, X, Appendix, no. 41. 32. Ibid., pp. 2ff. 33. Ibid., Appendix, no. 102; MM no. Q. 2. 34. MCH, p. 333.
