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• But this fact has not attracted the attention of scholars. On the contrary, Dr. J. N. Banerjee doubts the authenticity of the well-known Jain tradition, according to which the practice of worshiping images of Tirthankaras is as ancient as the foundation of the Doctrine itself. It seems that this tradition can be supported by the oldest extant imagos discovered at Mohenjodaro. And if this be possible (we shall scc below that it is possible), we shall be compelled to trace the antiquity of Jain Iconography to those distant protohistoric icons. Scholars have hithertofore taken the torso of oude male figure discovered from Lohnripur near Patna, to be the earliest and the oldest Jain image. As noted above, Dr. Hiralal Jain has pointed out its almost identical counterpart exists in the remains of what is called the 'Harappan' Culture. This Harappan counterpart, made of red sandstone, which as Dr. Benjamin Rowland says, "must have been intended as a deity of same sort", 9 is unfortunately mutilated, and is without any attributes. But it is highly probable that this male torso is a figure of one of the earliest Jipas in Khadgasana, standing upright posture, and sky-clad. Although quite incomplete to make out any clear idea, this beautiful, youthful and sky-clad male figure reminds us of some of the marks of an icon of a Jina as prescribed by the author of the Brhat-Samhită in these words :
Ājāaulambabahuh śrivatsāņkah prašantamartiśca / Digvāsāstaruņo rūpavāņśca käryyo Arhatam devāh //
(Bịhat Samhita, chapter 58, verse 45). 1. vide The History and Culture of the Indian People, vol.
2, The Age of Imperial Unity, Bombay, 1953 (2nd ed.),
P. 425. 2. see The Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research
Society, vol. xxiii, pp. 130-132, and plates; H. Zimmer, The Art of Indian Asia, vol. ii, New York,
1955, plate 244. 3. Benjamin Rowland, The Art and Architecture of India,
2nd ed. Penguin Books, 1959, p. 15, plate 2. 4. See Aocient India No. 9, 1953, Plate xxiiib.
