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JAIN JOURNAL
Bhandara, now preserved in the National Museum, New Delhi (No. 70.64).25 Here Bahubali is represented as standing in meditation in the kāyotsarga posture. He wears a lower garment reaching just below the knees. Armlets and bracelets adorn his hands. This is unusual but can be explained because he stood in meditation on the battlefield itself. In this miniature, long hair have grown over the head of Bahubali in which are shown birds and on top, feathers or twigs or creepers suggestive of birds' nests, which are also suggested in the long beard with figures of birds in it. On two sides of the legs of Bahubali are shown birds, beasts animals and snakes running about while creepers have grown all around the feet.
On each side of the head of Bahubali is a small figure looking more like that of a Jaina monk, rather than of a Jaina nun. The figures stand with folded hands, with the broomstick under the arm-pit. The way of putting on garments by these figures, especially of the figure on the right of Bahubali would tempt one to identify it as that of a Jaina monk, rather than a nun. The figure on the left can be suspected to be a female, a nun, because of the small circle shown near the breast region. In fig. 129 of W. Norman Brown's Miniature Paintings of the Kalpa Sutra similar figures standing on the two sides are identified as Brahmi and Sundari. On the analogy of this miniature published by Brown, and because in our miniature, the identification of Bahubali is certain, we should identify these two figures as nuns Brahmi and Sundari and not as monks. This Kalpa Sūtra is generally assigned to c. 1475 A.D.
26
Published by U.P. Shah in Prachya Pratibha, op-cit., fig. 1.
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