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B.1.3.3
Jaina Sculpture Dr. R. G. Majumdar
SCHOOL
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SELF STUDY IS THE
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STUDY NOTES version 5.0
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For the believer in the Jaina faith from the beginning of its inception, the root term "Jina" signifies the paradox of a king who has conquered the world by renouncing every strand of material possession and power. This idea is visually manifested in the incarnate form of the tirthamkara meditating in the padmasana or the kayotsarga positions.
Jaina art in general and more specifically, Jaina sculpture comprise the process of iconographic embodiment of a faith rooted in myth and history across two and a half millennia. It is the iconic figure of Mahāvīra and some of the Tirthamkaras preceding him in their states of meditation, along with attendant deities and emblems within a contingent cosmology, that constitute Jaina art in a wide range of forms-miniature paintings, relief and monolithic sculpture, temple architecture in the form of singular edifices or an entire templecity.
In Jaina Art and Architecture (1974), A. Ghosh has divided Jaina iconography generally into three periods between 300 B.C. and 1000 A.D. He has also drawn the basic premise, that Jaina art in all its complexity and variety forms an integral part of the fund of India's total cultural heritage and thus cannot be seen in isolation. Jaina sculpture - like Buddhist and to an extent Hindu sculpture - constitute the artistic representation of a faith expressed through stone, wood, ivory, terracotta, metals of various kinds. The content and form of this dynamic faith in a unique artistic symbiosis, is the concern of this paper.
The Greeks during the same period of civilization as Mahāvīra's and Buddha's, namely the sixth century B.C. onwards, were also keenly interested in the literary and artistic representation of their essential truths. Aristotle used the term "mimesis" or imitation in his discussions on classical tragedy; Plato used it in his discourses on poetry in The Republic. The use of the word "mimesis" was in connection with the ritualistic worshipping of Dionysus: it was from the original impulse of enacting the passion of his life, death, dismemberment and resurrection that tragic drama evolved as a vital art form in Periclean Greece. It was similar with Greek sculpture, which like dithyrambic poetry began on a religious basis - portraying Apollo, Venus, Poseidon, et al - and then gradually adopting secular, literary and political attributes in tune with a maturing civilization.
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