Jain Journal 1976 04

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

Page 18

150
JAIN JOURNAL
The figure was originally found by Mr. Yar Ali Mandal living in the vicinity of Khana-Mihirer Dhibi. Mr. Mandal found it on the marshy land (Beder Bil). I have collected this iconographic sculpture from him during one of my visits to the site.
The find struck me as a significant treasure because very few early relics relating to Jainism are now extant. Secondly, this is for the first time that a Jaina image has been discovered from Chandraketugarh and this is the only one of its kind so far reported. Thirdly, the early sculptures of Chandraketugarh mainly consist of terracottas and ancient images carved in stone are seldom found in the region.
Mr. Mandal also told me that he also found a small stone-elephant from the same marshy land and made it over to an unknown person. I do not know if the said elephant was any part of the torso in my possession. Perhaps, it could give, if properly examined, a clue for the identi fication of the image since elephant is the cognisance of Ajitanatha. On a different occasion, I collected a small fragmentary proboscis of an elephant made of grey sand-stone from another man living in Hadipur, close to the ramparts of Chandraketugarh. I have also collected a perforated miniature stone tortoise from the same site.
The sand-stone torso, under discussion, is in the round. Its height is 13 cm. This is a torso of a Tirthankara with śrivatsa mark on the chest. Its nudity, the stiff straight pose of its arms hanging down by its sides, indicative of the kāyotsarga attitude, characteristic of the Jainas, unmistakably prove that it is the image of one of the Tirthankaras. Dr. A. K. Bhattacharyya, the former Director of Indian Museum, Calcutta, after examining the torso assigned it to Gupta or Late Gupta period. This made me eager to find out, if there was any, contemporary or earlier Jaina image extant in Bengal. But I found no such icon. I only got a reference to a Jina image found at Paharpur (now in Bangladesh). But the writer has given no clue to what has happened to it. Probably it is lost again.
4 A mound at Chandraketugarh. It is associated by local tradition with the names
of Khana and Mihir, the famous astrologer couple supposed to be alive in the Gupta period. Beder Bil is now converted into a paddy field, where it is said that the rich and
fabulous palace of Raja Candraketu existed. 6 Debala Mitra, 'Some Antiquities from Bankura, West Bengal, JOAS, Vol. XXIV
No. 2, 1958, p. 131. ? U. P. Shah, Studies in Jaina Art, p. 15.