Jain Journal 1977 07

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

Page 39

JULY, 1977
to the artistic genius of the time. A row of seated male and female figures (one male figure standing in the centre) in the lower pedestal, some with their arms folded in namaskāra-mudra are wonderfully living even to the present day. It is a matter of great regret that this superb sculpture is broken up to the knee.
Mr. Beglar mistook these sculptures (Fig. Nos. 1, 2 and 3) as Buddhist deities. But actually they all belong to the Jaina hierarchy. These sculptural representations of divine couple with a child are a pair like the Buddhist Jambala and Hariti or the parents of the Tirthankaras. Similar images are found at Deopara, Rajshahi district in Bangladesh, Deograh and Khajuraho in M.P.3
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Fig. No. 4. This sculptured stone (36" in height; 17" in width) is that of Ambika, a Sasanadevi of Jaina Tirthankara. Dressed in the lower portion and with rich jewellery all over her body she is standing on a full-bloom lotus pedestal in äbhanga posture with her right hand broken and the left hand stretched forward. Pressed under the lotus pedestal is a lion whose wide-open jaw is turned towards the deity. She is flanked by an attendant male figure who is standing at her right side. On her left side once there was a figure which no longer exists.
A meditating Tirthankara in lalitāsana posture is seated just above the deity with a divine umbrella overhead. From two sides of the Tirthankara emerge two bunches of leaves with beads or fruits which with two half round curves hang over the deity. On two top corners are two hovering Gandharvas or Vidyadharas.
In the lower part of the pedestal at the tail-end of the lion are three figures of which two are small; the middle one is comparatively bigger and is that of a female. Their arms are folded in namaskāra-mudrā.
In the same shed along with the sculptures already discussed there are a few full and mutilated Tirthankara figures. David McCutchion furnished a list of either standing Tirthankaras-three with the bull symbol (i.e. of Rsabhanatha); two with lion symbol (of Mahavira); one with horse (of Sambhabanatha); one with the lotus (of Padmaprabha; now non-existant) and one with half-moon symbol (of Candraprabha). Besides, there are two votive caityas, pratimā sarvatobhadrikā or caumukha pratima, one cut in black stone with usual rekha sikhara may be the
Jain Journal, Vol. X, No. 4, p. 154.