Book Title: Jain Journal 1986 04
Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

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Page 30
________________ 132 JAIN JOURNAL (a) Sixteen sculptures in a permanent shed14 with cemented roofing due east to Temple No. 1. They comprise of eight Jina images, one of them fragmentary; five images of Jain tutelary couple, three of them fragmentary; one image of Yaksi Ambika; and two caturmukha images. (b) Five sculptures, all fragmentary, lying beside the entrance of the permanent shed described above. Four of these are parts of Tirthankara images, and one a temple fragment with a seated Jina figure. (c) Six sculptures resting in open air beside the wall of a kutcha structure with thatched roof belonging to the local school due east to the permanent shed. They are all fragmentary and represent images of Tirthankara. (d) Sixteen sculptures15 preserved within the kutcha school room described above. Nine of these represent Tirthankara images of which one is fragmentary; two represent caturmukha or Jain pratimäsarvatobhadrikā images of which one is inscribed; besides there are one image each of dvi-tirthika, Yaksi Ambika; a pillar fragment with Jina image, a Gargoyle, and a stele containing figures of 361 Tirthankaras. (e) Five sculptures collected in an open-roof walled enclosure of roughly assembled stone blocks to the south-east of the school room, locally known as thākurthān. They all represent Tirthankara images, one of them being fragmentary. It is now difficult to assess the relation between the temples and sculptures at Pakbirra. Because the sculptures are collected apart and not a single sculpture has been reported to stand in the temples.16 The three temples that are now standing are devoid of any image. Whether the standing temples and those that were found to be in ruins were contemporary or not is a matter of conjecture. They may have been built in different periods and images and sculptures were installed and set as often as the temples were built. David Mc Cutchion commented that in Pakbirra "there seems little doubt that these (the sculptures) were the images originally enshrined in the temples, or placed in the interior niches 14 This is probably the same shed that Beglar and others mentioned in their accounts, with later reconstruction made by the Directorate of Archaeology, West Bengal. 15 Aside a heap of fragmentary miniature sculptures representing mainly the accessory figures in the parikara of Jina images. 16 Barring a solitary reference in the List of Ancient Monuments in, Bengal, op. cit. p. 562-63, quoted in the text infra. Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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