Jain Journal 1984 04

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

Page 23

APRIL, 1984
135
were entrusted with all necessary arrangements, made three life like images of the Lord and placed those in the other three directions so that every one present to hear him could see him face to face. In the caumukha shrines referred to above four different Tirthankaras are however found facing the four directions. Even if the original idea had come from the samavasarana as described by Hemacandra, later the caumukha shrines certainly had moved far from the original idea and came to correspond to similar Brahmanical concepts showing figures of four Brahmanical deities on four sides of similar shrines.
Images of Tirthankaras other than Rsabhanatha are also not unknown in Bengal. The collection of the Directorate of Archaeology, Government of West Bengal has in their collection an image of the 16th Tirthankara, Santinatha from Rajpara, District Midnapur.2 Standing in the usual kāyotsarga pose the figure stands in the middle of the stela with two cauri-bearing figures on two sides and the nine Grahas arranged in two groups above them. The lāñcchana, an antelope, is shown upon the pedestal. The figure as its style suggests belonged to the early part of the 10th century A.D. A stela from Bahulara in Bankura shows a stately figure of Parsvanatha bedecked with the canopy of snake hoods.
One small tablet collected from Raina in Burdwan, and now in the Asutosh Museum shows figures of two Tirthankaras side by side. One of the figures represents Candraprabha as would be evident from the crescent moon shown upon his pedestal. The badly damaged lāñcchana of the other comes to no help for its identification. This stone tablet has similarity to the tablet showing the figures of Rsabhanatha and Mahavira now in the British Museum and was very probably collected from Bengal.
No body will fail to notice the unparalleled grace of the bronze figure of Rsabhanatha in the Asutosh Museum collected from Manbhum. So far as the knowledge of the present writer goes, this is the only bronze image of any Jaina Tirthankara found from Bengal. In style and characterisation the figure bears affinity to the bronzes found from Kakatpur in Orissa and now to be found in the Indian Museum. It is quite that bronzes also had attained considerable maturity in Bengal and more of such bronze figures may be found in course of time.
The Jaina images of Bengal undoubtedly present a definite problem. There being no earlier specimen of Jaina art available to us, 9th and 10th
• A Bulletin of the Directorate of Archaeology, West Bengal, No. 1, fig. 25.