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Jaina Art and Architecture at Mathurā
numerous forms and poses.652 They are the finest specimens of the contemporary plastic art of Mathurā, and have elicited great praise from connoisseurs of art. 653 Cunningham held that these female figures represent dancing girls.654 Cunningham's judgement was wrong, and it was ably refuted by scholars like Vogel and V.A. Smith.655 Some of these figures are shown naked.656 But in other figures the apparent nudity is merely an artistic convention.657 Vogel described these female figures as figures of yaksinīs, like the somewhat similar figures of the railing of the Bharhut stūpa. 658 In fact, the females depicted on these railing pillars are śālabhañjikās. 659 In the terminology of art, the term śālabhañjika originally denoted 'the woman plucking (and gathering) śāla flowers by standing under a śāla tree' 660 A graphic description of such females, who are depicted on the Jaina and Buddhist railings at Mathurā, is embodied in the Jaina text entitled Rayapaseniya-Sutta.661 This and other Jaina sūtras clearly state that the term sālabhañjikā was used for beautiful female figures carved on the pillars of a stūpa-railing 662
652. JUPHS, III, pp. 53-67. 653. JAA, I, pp. 60-1; P.K. Agrawala, op. cit., pp. 5-6; V.S. Agrawala, Mathurā Kală, op. cit.,
p. 41. 654. ASIAR, III, p. 26. 655. ASIAR (1906-7), pp. 145-6; HOFA, p. 140. 656. HOFA, p. 140. 657. Ibid. 658. ASIAR (1906-7), pp. 145-6; HOFA, p. 140. 659. HOFA, pp. 140-1;JAA, I, p.60;P.K. Agrawala, op. cit., p. 6;V.S. Agrawala, Mathurā Kală,
op. cit., pp. 41-2. 660. P.K. Agrawala, op. cit., p. 6; V.S. Agrawala, Mathura Kalā, pp. 41-2. 661. Ibid., ibid. 662. Ibid., p. 11; ibid., pp. 41-2.
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