Holy Abu

Author(s): Jayantvijay
Publisher: Yashovijay Jain Granthmala

Page 41

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Holy Aame
decades, are now overdue. A proper evaluation of the art styles of different periods, with the help of inscribed or dated specimens and contemporary dated Western Indian miniature paintings deserves immediate attention.
About the conservation and repairs of the Jaina shrines the reader may note that the earlier repairs, carried sometime in the beginning of our age, were not fully satisfactory. Some of the Vidyādevī sculptures in the LūņavasahīRangamandapa, if they were replaced during these repairs, are the worst specimens of art and only create a wrong impression on a critical eye in the photograph of the ceiling published in well-known works of Indian art including Dr. Coomaraswamy's History of Indian and Indonesian Art. Recently, the Peờhī of Sheth Anandaji Kalyānji, Ahmedabad, the chief organisation of the Shvetāmbara sect, has undertaken extensive conservation and repairs to these shrines. The president of the Pedhi, Sheth Shri Kasturbhāi Lālbhāi has employed the services of Shri Amritalāl Trivedï who is an artist of the old school with rare gifts and the technique employed by him in replacing mutilated parts of fine carvings deserves to be appreciated and followed up in other parts of India. 1
In repairing such works of art which show the finest possible chiselling of soft marble and higly ornamental reliefs, care should be taken to take photographs of the original before repairing or replacing mutilated parts. Both the temples—the Vimala Vasahī and the Lūņa Vasahihave undergone several repairs in the past and there is a
1 The method of repolishing every carved surface in the shrines, by rubbing, should however be prohibited; even though this gives uniformly shining surfaces, some of the details of ornaments etc., are likely to be spoiled. In such repairs it would be better to invite suggestions of trained archæologists.