Jain Journal 1980 04

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

Page 55

166
us better now to distinguish what we should understand as salabhanjika and what should be placed under the category of dohada. On this ground the woman and tree carvings in Bharhut are nearer to what we have learned to understand as salabhanjika.
JAIN JOURNAL
The reader may ask, have we an indication that this term was in use, when the stone railings of Bharhut were erected? On p. 153 of this article I have shown that salabhanjiya can be traced in a very archaic metre of the Jaina Pkt. texts, which leads us into the pre-Christian era according to H. Jacobi's investigations. We may therefore assume thut this term was known at the time of the construction of the Bharhut Stupa.37
The motif of branch-bending females is repeated in one of the basreliefs on a pillar of the railing-piece which contains the life-size figure of an unnamed woman and tree representation noted in Mazumdar's Guide on p.25, No. 30. The two bas-relief figures emerging from a medallion in the middle of the pillar stand on lotus-buds and are carved on the left and on the right edge of the pillar. In one of the figures the right leg is thrown round the stem while the left hand is bending down a bough with a lotus-flower. (Fig. 4b) We may assume here that an alinganadohada motif has been incorporated into the salabhanjika pose though it could also be interpreted as an attitude of simply holding on or playfully clinging to the tree. This point appears to be somewhat modified in figure 4a. This figure is just hanging aside the tree, right leg and the raised right arm thrown round the stem. The right hand is just holding on to the lower part of a lotus stalk the blossom of which has not yet opened. The left arm is hanging down straight in the dandarekhakrti line, 38 i.e. vertically. This figure does not appear in the typical salabhanjika pose-bending down a bough, as the figure in Fig. 4b does; I therefore would like to see a sparsa-dohada representation in it. It is probable that the artist wanted to indicate here that the closed lotus-bud is just going to unfold, animated by the touch of the lady's hand like the fully opened lotus-flower above it!
The life-size figure of Canda Yaksi (Fig. 2), claimed for alinganadohada by Pisharoti, makes it clear that the bough of the tree is bent down in order to pluck the buds or the flowers. Canda Yaksi not only raises her right arm, seizing a clearly marked branch of the tree, but, while her left arm is thrown round the stem, thumb and forefinger of the left hand take graceful hold of a tender stalk ending with leaves and flowers belonging to the same tree. Other freshly plucked flowers with their leaves are delicately fixed in the hair near her right ear. artist could express himself more distinctly than the creator of this magni
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