Jain Journal 2007 07

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

Page 21

JAIN JOURNAL: VOL-XLII, NO.1 JULY 2007
of Svetambaras were the people of the second wave entered Tamil Nadu.
This led to the Ganga influence in the sculptures. In the early period, he was represented nude, meditating in Kayotsarga posture. It is due to his long meditation, the creepers cover his body as they lean like subduing his nudity, the snakes emerge from the anthill and on both sides. His sisters Brahmi and Sundari were shown removing the creepers in profile, where their face expresses shyness in doing this, as their brother was nude. At Siyamangalam, they were represented gracefully standing and holding in one hand closer to Bahubalin as holding a flower or chamara, while the second one, the palın is held in nabhi. The creeper branching off from the thighs spreads round the bahu-valavas, bu the kukkuda sarpas are absent here. At Chittamur, not only Bahubalin was shown stout, but also his sisters were also in frontal position.
Although they were identified as his sisters Brahmi and Sundari by the early scholars, who according to the Svetambara texts, at the instance of Rsabhanatha came to Bahubali to persuade him to shake off the remnants of pride, in trance could attain omniscience only after that. But M.N. Tiwari refutes this, because the Digambara works, on the contrary, envisage the presence of the two Vidyadharis, who according to Harivamsapurana and the Adipurana, came down to earth to remove the entwining creepers from the body of Bahubali engrossed in tapas. These figures in any case could not be the figures of Jaina sadhvis, Brahmi and Sundari, in Digambara Jain context, since these figures are endowed with decorated mukutas and other ornaments. The Diganbara works further mention that Bahubali attained omniscience only after he received the homage of his elder brother Bharata Chakravarti. It is also mentioned that the devotion of Bharata was so deep that he caused an image of Bahubali to be made in gold and installed at Podanapura.
At Sravanabelgola, the iconographical colossus i.e., the Gommatesvara was carved in round from head to the lower half of the thighs, the part below were finsished in bold relief will go to