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and rectangular stele in the shape of the shaft column, making a nichelike depth in which the image is emerging, is usually to be seen in Orissa and its adjacent areas as far as the central India.72 Even most of the images found from Suisa73 in the border of Purulia have this niche-like stele. The upper curvature of the stele top coming out of the depth while the stele format somewhat broader at the base as seen in the image of Rsabhanatha (No. 5, Pl. 11) remind particularly the Bihar images74 with that type of stele formation, of that period while the shallow curvature forming almost a triangle in one or two images (Nos. 32, 37, 1, Pls. 24, 30, 8) is to be met within the U. P. and central India images (cf. Allahabad, Rewa, Satna), particularly in 10th-11th Century A.D.75 However, the decorative elements on the stele face, as stated before, may be seen in all forms of stele. Along with it, this may be noted that not a single image found from this area shows the finial top at the centre of the upper curvature, popularly used in many images of Bengal of Pala period. But the fact remains that there is a conscious effort for bringing a unity in the use of stele with image. The stele is more meaningful and suggestive than the preceeding stages.
However, the stylistic traits that echoed through these Jain Tirthankara images are broadly characterised by their reduced nature of the traits of the period. They show, no doubt, the spreading of bodily formation, but the vigour and tension is reduced. They frequently switchover to a soft, fleshy and loose body type with a certain lankiness of the legs. It is to be noted here that even in the later period in Jain art, the tension has always been softened and the rhythmic stance usually to be seen in the images of other pantheons, in this period, has not had the scope to play.
This series shares, as usual, the Tirthankara images standing strictly in erect postures with kāyotsarga mudrā, flanked by cauri-bearers while some miniature Tirthankara figures as family members are represented in single or in pairs on the projected shelves or surface of the stele. Some
72 R. D. Banerjee, History of Orissa, Vol. II, Calcutta, 1931, pl. 72 (between pp. 404
and 405). Pramod Chandra, Stone Sculpture in the Allahabad Museum, A Descriptive Cata
logue, American Institute of Indian Studies, Poona, n.d., pls. 397, 420, 421. 78 None of the Jain Sculptures preserved at a sculpture shed constructed by the Direc
torate of Archaeology, Government of West Bengal, at Suissa, Dt. Purulia, have been published so far. The authors wish to discuss the stylistic features of these sculptures in a forthcoming paper.
For a report on the antiquities of Suissa, see, Beglar, op. cit., pp. 190-191. 74 Cf., Kramrisch. op cit., figs 22, 23. 75 Cf., Pramod Chandra, op. cit., nos. 284, 286, 378, 388, 397, 421.
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