ISJS Jainism Study Notes E5 Vol 04

Author(s): International School for Jain Studies
Publisher: International School for Jain Studies

Page 116

1.3.a
Jaina Sculpture Dr. R. G. Majumdar
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 trtha kara meditating in the padm sana or the k yotsarga 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 Mah v ra and some of the trtha karas 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 temple-city.
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 Mah v ra'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 dythrambic 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.
Jain (and Buddhist) art and sculpture, however, began and sustained the singular representation of the Jaina / Buddhist faith identified with their respective iconic paradigms - primarily figures like Mah v ra and Buddha in a historical setting along with a mythological repertoire of divine, semi-divine and mutable icons like Yakshas, Yakshi, Bodhisattvas, humans, animals, birds and trees.
The result of such an artistic evolution through the media of sculpture and painting gave rise to a complex and heterogeneous iconography that sought to modify images / icons from much earlier religious and cultural contexts associated with pre-Aryan, Aryan and other civilizations, including the Harappan civilization of Mohen-jo-Daro. It is also interesting to note the uncanny similarity between Jaina and early Greek sculptures of kouroi. The Jaina kayotsarga pose finds almost a parallel in the portrayals of the Apollos of Tenea (6th cent B.C.) and of Kouros (600 B.C.), except for their slightly extended left feet.
For the purposes of sculpture and painting the most popular of the twenty for named Tirthankaras in the Jaina canon that have featured down the ages, have been four- abhan tha, Nemin tha, Prashn tha and Mah v ra. The Kalpas tra delineates mainly the lives of these four saints of whom only the last two earn a proper place in the chronicles of history leading up to the threshold of the 6th century before the birth of Christ.
At the heart of Jaina iconography, as mentioned earlier is the figure of the archetypal Jaina trtha kara, Mah vra, depicted universally in two basic postures: (a) the standing, k yotsarga or khadg sma position in which the arms hang loosely by the sides reaching down to the knees, palms curved inwards, body completely relaxed, the eyes focused on the nose in the nasagri d şti, in deep
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