Jain Journal 1980 04

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

Page 69

174
JAIN JOURNAL
emerges from wave-like creepers and his face with half closed eyes suggest that he may be the Yaksa who sees his beloved wife in the visions of his dreams'.
A glance at the composition of the Allahabad salabhanjika and her supporting vahana shows how masterly the whole is laid out. Behind the head of the main figure a kind of a head-cover appears (Fig.5c). Two heavy ear-rings hang down. The round necklace frames the face together with the upright slightly bent arm which flows into a curved branch above the distinctly curled hair characteristic of the Gupta style. A. piece of cloth is placed round the shoulders, the right portion of which is hanging down in vertically accentuated lines, running parallel to the strictly vertically kept arm while the left portion of the cloth is leisurely gliding down the left arm arranged in diagonally accentuated lines which point to the right hip. At this junction they appear to be diverted into the powerful diagonal line of the right leg. But they run parallel on the other hand with the lower part of the leisurely bent left leg, a movement continued by the left arm of the supporting figure. The movement reaches its end in the hand of this figure indicating the lowest spot of the whole composition which can be connected in a straight line with its highest spot : the right hand of the salabhanjika seizing a branch of the tree!
NEPALESE SALABHANJIKA
Fig.6a represents the front-piece of a carved wooden facade from a temple at the border of Nepal. I could not get any details from which place this piece exactly comes. It is housed in the National Museum, Raj Bhavan, New Delhi, Measurements : 4x11.1".
Fig.6b is a detail of it. In the right wing of the facade near a window like opening a salabhanjika is depicted with a makara as her vahana. I saw this motif frequently in Nepal in places like Bhatgaon, Patan and Kathmandu itself, used as bracket-figures on doors and windows. This piece of art is a work of the seventeenth century A.D. most probably. It is a strong reminder of Buddhacarita V. 52 : avalambya gavaksaparsvam ... capavibhugna-yastih ... torana-salabhanjikeva. (Text, pp.149, 154, 159)
This type of salabhanjika fixed in a kind of a bower is reminiscent of a similar conception in Kankali Tila near Mathura. Compare one piece designated as Yaksi or Vrksaka from this place, date c. first century A.D., now housed in the Lucknow Museum. (see A. K. Coomaraswamy, History of Indian and Indonesian Art, London, 1927, Plate XX, 75)