Jain Journal 2007 10

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

Page 25

70
JAIN JOURNAL: VOL-XLII, NO.2 OCTOBER. 2007
dressed in flowing robes in the fashion of the Indo-Greeks with both hands raised upward as if holding the jar-like substance above head. The foliage ornamentation, the shape and conception of the jar (pūrṇakalasa) at the centre on the above together with the peculiar dress of the female figure on the out border speak of the Kuṣāna period of the tablet, when it seems, the fish motif continued to be used on votive tablets and other objects down up to the Gupta and the postGupta era. In the recent excavations at Nandangarh we have the alternation of fish designs on a pot-shera interspersed with a figure resembling a Cakra. The composition, if could be found in entirety, might well have established the popular acceptance of the piscal symbology in the late Gupta Period. The Jain significance for this symbol is very important. It represents the fact of the defeat of the Cupid before the Lord. The pairs of Fish which represents the Cognisance for Cupid on his banner is shown to be serving the Lord in humble submission.37
The seventh symbol, the Svastika, in the Astmangala group has very wide application in art is of a very ancient tradition in the history of world thought. Among the symbols bearing a hoary antiquity the symbol of svastikā finds a conspicuous place. It is the most 'philosophically Scientific' of all of them, as also the most comprehensive. The entire theory of creative evolution is summarised, as is said, in the few lines represented by it. From the universal principles of god-head or cosmeotheogony down to anthropogony or the principle underlying human forms of the deities, from the indivisible unknown Parabrahman to the humble moneron of common materialistic Science, it represents but one simple summary of them all. This is why Svastika, in whatever form or design it may be, is
37. tadvandhyapañcaśara ketanabhāva kalpataṁ kartum mudha bhuvananatha nijāparādhaṁ / sevām tanote puratastava minayugmam śrāddhaiḥ puro vilikhitoru nijanga yuktyā //
-- Acaradinakara, loc. cit.