Jain Journal 2006 07

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

Page 12

A.K. Bhattacharyya: Studies in Jaina Iconography
household. In so remote an age as that of the pre-historic MahenjoDaro, specific symbolism of fertility had been conveyed by the fish in that the Spring Fish of one of the inscriptions of the Indus Valley civilization has been interpreted as standing for the Spring God.58
In the Gupta age, among the paintings at Ellora, there is a curious composition of two fishes above the stem of an inverted lotus touching each other at their mouths. An emblem of a linga surmounted by two others is placed in between the two fishes. This is clearly a mode of representing the older tradition of fertility as perhaps origination in the third millennium before Christ in the Indus Valley Civilization. The age of the epic beginning roughly from the fourth century B.C., the fish played a very important part in the life of Indian Peoples. The story of King Matsya, in the Mahabharata, has it that the king was born along with Matsyagandhā Satyavatī from the womb of a fish. The Harivamsa corroborates the above stories along with a number of others. The pearcing of the eye of the fish in the Svayambara ceremony of Draupadi is a major episode in the great drama of the Kuru-battle. The Jain images of Tīrthankaras came to be associated each with an emblem at a late stage of their development.60 The images of the 9th Tirthankara Puspadanta has the insignia of a Makara or a fish. The fourteen dreams of Jina-mothers include a pond with playing fishes, signifying creation, freedom and prosperity. In Buddhism, too, the artist's eye did not leave the fish out in their search for art-forms. A Buddhist votive tablet or soapstone from Taxila, belonging to the Ist cent. A.D., has the figure of a fish embossed on it along with a number of other auspicious symbols, such as, the blowing conch etc. This shows how the Buddhist took the piscal symbol as very sacred at so remote an age as the Ist cent. of the Christain era. It is, indeed, worthy of note that the same ayagapata contains a figure
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58. Rev. Heras: Mahenjo-Daro, the People and the Land (Indian Culture Vol. III).
59. Harivamsa, i, 32. 91-93.
60.
See, infra.