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174
JAIN JOURNAL
3.
Tirthankara Rşabhanātha, 79.5 cm. x 38 cm.
Barring a few minor details like the absence of a rosette in the back slab, arrangement of the back of the throne, embellishment of the halo, the image (fig. 3) is iconographically identical to No. 2. above.
A few yards from the new Jaina temple a colossal image of a Tirthankara could be noticed on the northern wall of a modern structure enshrining a lingam, locally known as Shiv-Mandir. The image (170 cm. x 67 cm. fig. 4) is headless, weather worn, and could well be one of the two colossal images mentioned by Bloch,13 or the one described by Dalton.14 The Jina here stands in kāyotsarga on a double-petalled lotus placed on a small pedestal which bears no identifying cinha. Much of the back slab of the image is broken away ; on the extant part stands two male cauri-bearers flanking the Jina, the head of the one on the left being badly multilated. A further Tirthankara image can be seen in front of Hari-Mandir in the heart of the village. The image is embedded more than half in the earth. Nearby temple fragments can be observed strewn all over the ground.
The three Tirthankara images preserved at the modern Jaina temple bears close resemblance to the first group of sculptures at Anai-Jambad.15 On stylistic grounds these can be assigned a date of circa eleventh century A.D. The colossal image of Jina appears to be of a slightly earlier age and can be dated around tenth century A.D.
A number of sculptures and other antiquities were removed from Palma during the present century. Some of these, including a colossal image of Ajitanatha, are preserved in the Patna Museum.16 An inscribed miniature shrine has been installed in the modern Jaina temple at Purulia town.17
[The author would like to express his gratefulness to the President, Sri Sarak Jain Samiti, Kharkhari, district Dhanbad, Bihar, for kindly permitting him to publish the sculptures described under Nos 1 to 3 in the text. The photographs of these sculptures are published through the courtesy of the said Samiti.)
13 Bloch, op. cit., p. 14. 14 Dalton, op. cit., p. 186. 16 See my "Jaina Sculptures from Anai-Jambad", Jain Journal, Vol. XVIII, No. 2,
Calcutta, October, 1983, p. 70. 16 See, P. L. Gupta (edited), Patna Museum Catalogue of Antiquities (Stone Sculptures,
Metal Images, Teracotta, and Minor Antiquities), Patna, 1965, pp. 90-92; also, A. Ghosh (edited), Jaina Art and Architecture, Vol. II, New Delhi, 1975, p. 265, p.
158 B. 17 Subhas Chandra Mukhopadhyay, Glimpses of the History of Manbhum, Calcutta,
1983, p. 40.
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