History of Jainism

Author(s): U K Sharma
Publisher: D K Print World

Page 7

Foreword
DR. V.K. Sharma, the author of this excellent book on the history of Jainism, asked me to write a foreword to it. It was an immensely rewarding exercise for me to go through this book and, the author deserves my sincere appreciation for his genuine labour. Mathurā enjoys a significant position in the cultural history of India, and Jainism also played a significant role to enrich the culture of this illustrious city. The author has explained that Jainism obtained a strong foothold in Mathurā by the second century BC and continued to flourish in this city up to the eleventh century AD in spite of fierce foreign invasions. The erection of Jaina religious edifices at Mathurā can, in fact, be assigned to a period much anterior to the second century Bc, if the inscriptional evidence regarding the construction of the at Mathurā is discussed and understood in totality.
Jaina art and architecture had their inception and evolution at Mathurā; the remains of Jaina sculptures discovered at Lohanipur near Patna are the notable exceptions. Mathurā had an unbroken history of Jaina plastic art embracing a period of more than one thousand years. No other centre of Jaina art in India has a record comparable to this. It is pertinent to note that Jaina art at Mathurā did not enjoy royal patronage; the artists who produced objects of art like the images and āyāga-pattas worked on the support of the Jaina community of this city. The specimens of Mathurā ateliers enjoyed demand for long and, tīrthamkara images in red sandstone, a peculiarity of the Mathurā school of art, were installed at distant places also.
The epigraphic evidence embodied in the pedestals of the jina images and āyāga-pattas constitutes the basic and the most authentic source for the reconstruction of the early history of Jainism in Mathurā. These inscriptions