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BOOK REVIEW
JAIN PRATIMA VIJNAN (in Hindi) by Dr. Maruti Nandan Prasad
Tiwari, published by Parsvanath Vidyashram Research Institute, Varanasi (1981), pages VIII+316, figures 79, Price Rs. 120.00.
T. N. Ramachandran's book "Tiruparuttikunram and its Temples" was the first serious work on Jaina iconography, published in the Madras Bulletin Series way back in 1934, but its scope of enquiry was confined, not unjustifiably, to South Indian Digambara tradition to which the remains at Tiruparuttikunram pertained. Ramachandran was followed by B. C. Bhattacharya whose title “The Jaina Iconography" (1939) had an all-India outlook, but it provided a mere thumb-nail sketch of the iconographic traits and prescriptions of the Jinas and the principal Jaina divinities without any critical discussion of the cultural background, origin and historical evolution of the images. A penetrating study of Jaina iconography was indeed initiated by U.P. Shah through his book “Studies in Jaina Art” (1955), followed by his monograph "Akota Bronzes” (1959) and a number of brilliant research papers which laid a firm foundation of the scientific study of the Jaina images and their concepts. Since then many scholars, Indian as well as foreign, have contributed to various aspects of Jaina art and iconography and recently two tomes of encyclopaedic proportions covering Jaina art, architecture and philosophy have been released, one titled “Jaina Art and Architecture" in three volumes and the other "Aspects of Jaina Art and Architecture" in a single volume. By and large, the studies hitherto undertaken generally emphasize the regional or dynastic peculiarities of Jaina art and iconography or highlight the contributions made by some well known centres like Mathura, Deogarh, Mt. Abu, etc.
The book under review departs from the current practice and presents in one volume a comprehensive historical and cultural background of the emergence of the various Jaina icons and their concepts, the changes introduced from time to time and the bases for such changes which have been studied in the light of Jaina texts and traditions supported by the collateral evidence of art and epigraphy
The book has seven chapters of which the first two are introductory and the next two provide a story of the emergence of the Jaina pantheon in a historical perspective and a site-wise analysis of the various categories of icons, revealing a regional pattern of evolution according to the Digam
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