Jain Journal 1974 10

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

Page 20

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JAIN JOURNAL
be mentioned a beautiful and elegant bronze image discovered amidst the ruins of an ancient Pidha-Deula of laterite at Nunia close to Gidni in Jhargram sub-division of Midnapur district. Standing in Kayotsarga pose the Jina has his usual Lanchana, the lion. The lyrical grace of the figure visualised in spite of the firmness delineated will assign it to the stylistic idiom of eleventh century A.D. As it seems, the representation of Mahavira in sculpture reveals the glory of his realisation as much as the wider appreciation of the holy institution of the Tirthankaras bears credit to his spiritual grandeur. Defining a succession of Arhats, Vardhamana's greatness does not glow alone. His ideals have merged, as it has been already observed, into the eternal knowledge of the Jinas, the conquerors of the Self. His idyllic association with the lion and the Sala tree may be reminiscent of the ancient environments of eastern India aside their being of symbolic purport. On the basis of the discovery of a fossil at Susunia in Bankura district the palaeontologists have now agreed about the existence of lion in this part of India as early as the Pleistocene. Scholars will have to consider in future whether the throne of the Tirthankaras with two couchant lions has also an iconographic tradition emanating from an early symbolism relevantly associated with the legend of Mahavira, the historical founder of the religion of the Nirgrantha. Revealing as it were, the efficacy of Dhyana, the highest meditation, Mahavira's knowledge and perception have imparted a feeling of intimate yearning for liberation as also a sense of eternity and sublimity in Indian art along the landscape of past history often characterised by human enquiry in respect of the greatness of life.