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Jaina Art and Architecture at Mathura
Kubera after that tirthamkara's departure from this city.13 This story suggests that a stone image of Pārsvanatha was carved as early as the nintheighth century BC. But no image of Pārsvanatha assignable to this period has come to light at Mathura. U.P. Shah holds that a sandalwood portrait sculpture of Mahāvīra was carved in that tīrthamkara's lifetime. 14 Many scholars do not agree with this view. A. Ghosh writes,
That the practice was prevalent at the time of Mahāvīra himself is not established: the legend of the queen of Uddayana of Vitabhayapattana (unknown from any other source), a contemporary of Mahāvīra himself, having worshipped a sandalwood statue of the tirthankara, has its counterpart in the legend of Buddha's contemporary Udayana of Kausāmbī having installed an image of Buddha prepared out of the same material.15
But there is unmistakable evidence that the image of the jina was chiselled in the third century BC if not in the fourth century BC. There is a reference in the Hathīgumpha inscription to the removal of a jina image from Kalinga to Paṭaliputra by the Magadhan king Nanda at the time of his invasion of Kalinga.16 The Nanda kings ruled in the fourth century BC.17 It is, thus, evident from the Hathīgumpha inscription that the practice of chiselling tīrthamkara images was in vogue in the fourth century BC. A highly polished torso of a jina image has been discovered from Lohanipur near Patna.18 The Lohanipur jina image is a contemporary or near-contemporary of the yakṣa statues.19 It was carved on the stylistic pattern of the yakṣa statues.20 The
13. Vividha-Tirtha-Kalpa, pp. 17ff; SIJA, pp. 62-3.
14. SIJA, p. 4.
15. JAA, I, Editorial, p. 4 fn 1; also see JPV, p. 16.
16. EI, XX, pp. 71-89.
17.
K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, ed., Age of the Nandas and Mauryas, 1952, p. 12.
18. Ibid., p. 425; SIJA, p. 5; JAA, I, Editorial, p. 3.
19. JAA, I, pp. 3-4.
20.
Ibid.
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