Jain Journal 1974 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 17

OCTOBER, 1974
in Kayotsarga from Valabhi represent this tradition replete with a familiar and an intimate devotion.38 It is likely that the clothed Tirthankaras in the Jaina art indicate an age of transition when Jainism if it did not relinquish from any predilection for adaptation with social environments might have launched in propagating its doctrines in extraneous lands what had been accomplished by the Mahayana Buddhism unfolding a panorama of art often centering round the robed Buddha with the majesty of his eternal calmness and sublimity. The centuries will show that the ideals of the Nirgrantha in its main-stream remained as ever in its own austerity before a back-ground extending further in the past.
Under the perspective of Jina images from Akota, Sirohi, Valabhi, and Rohtak mention may be made of a unique sculptured panel from Mathura, now preserved in the Lucknow Museum.39 The panel which was discovered at KankaliTila depicts a saintly figure identified by Fuhrer with Mahavira, in the attitude of preaching before a group of royal devotees as if getting to their meditation the message of eternity. The snail-shell curl of the Jina wearing a Dhoti and an airy scarf so familiar with the Yaksas and the Devatas of Indian art as it is so with the Vidyadharas of Central Asia and China will again highlight an ancient ideal glowing with the spiritual grace of Bhakti. It is even possible that here Mahavira is conversing with the gods donning the divine clothes presented by Indra before or after attaining his liberation at Grimbhikagrama. The question raised by Mrs. Lohuizen-de-Leeuw regarding the Jainistic character' of this panel from Kankali-Tila is less acceptable. Dr. B. N. Puri has made the following remark in this connection : "Since it was found at the site of the ancient Jaina Stupa, it would be really interesting if we agree with Fuhrer and find Vardhamana dressed in Dhoti, and in the attitude of protection."40 The treatment of the scraf sliding down from shoulders in frills makes any identification with Buddha or Bodhisattva as envisaged in Kusana art less probable. The absence of the Srivatsa symbol may be regarded in the light of the development of iconographic conventions in the period concerned.
Studies in Jaina Art, Plate XII, Fig. 29.
39 B. N. Puri India Under the Kusanas, Bombay, 1965, p. 202 and plate.
40
Ibid., p. 202.
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