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Devādhideva Tirthankara
95
śravaka standing near the right leg, a śravikā near the left leg and on the pedestal a gaṇadhara to the right of the wheel and a nun to the left. No. J.20 in the Lucknow Museum72 is the pedestal of the image of Arhato Munirsurvrata (Arhat Munisuvrata) as correctly read by K.D. Bajpai and not of Arhat Nandyavarta as read formerly. The pedestal shows the Wheel on a Triratna symbol to the left of which all the standing females seem to be Jaina śrāvikās.
It appears that traditions about the parikara of the Jina-image were crystallised after the Kuṣāņa and Gupta periods. Perhaps the tradition of aṣṭa-maha-pratiharyas was also finalised later and its application to the image was certainly not finally settled till the end of the Gupta period as suggested by a study of images in the Mathura Museum, Lucknow Museum, at Sira Pahari near Nachana in Madhya Pradesh, the famous sculpture of Neminatha at Rajgir mentioning Candragupta, and the three images installed by Mahārājādhirāja Rāmagupta, obtained from a place near Vidiśā.
The description of the Sasvata-Jina-Pratimas makes no mention of the lanchanas of the Jinas nor do we find any reference to the Sasana-devatās or the attendant Yakṣa and Yakşi figures. These motifs are absent on Jina images in Mathura during the Kuşaņa period. Especially noteworthy is the śri-vatsa mark on the chest mentioned by the canons and almost invariably obtained on Tirthankara images of the Kuşăṇa period. But the canonical reference also cannot be certainly regarded as older than the age of the Mathura Council of the early fourth century A.D. The śri-vatsa mark is not seen on the polished Mauryan torso of a Jina image from Lohanipur near Patna nor is it seen on the standing Parsvanatha bronze in the Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay, which we have assigned to a period c. 1st cent. B.C. or earlier. It seems certain that like the motif of the two deer on the sides of the dharmacakra borrowed from the Buddhists, the śri-vatsa motif was introduced under Vaiṣṇava Pañcaratra influence at Mathura. This motif is absent on early Jaina sculptures in the South where the Jainas seem to have penetrated from about the third cent. B.C. In the South even in later periods the śrī-vatsa motif is only occasionally seen. This very fact suggests that originally the motif was absent on Jaina images and was introduced under strong Vaisnava influence probably at Mathura.73
It seems that marks on soles of feet and palms of hands and the śrī-vatsa mark on the chest, etc. taken from the ancient tradition of Mahāpurușa-lakṣaṇas came to be regarded as chief characteristics of a Jina image. The texts describing the saśvata-Jina-pratimas do not refer to garments on the figure of the śāśvata-Jina. No early Jaina text refers to the lists of (thirty-two) Mahāpuruṣa-lakṣaṇas so common in Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit texts and other Buddhist works. However, the Aupapatika sutra, an upānga Jaina Agama text (assignable to c. third or fourth century A.D.), giving the stock description (varnaka) of Mahavira's body, gives a very interesting account, which agrees, often in similar phraseology, with the Mahapurusa-lakṣaṇas of early Buddhist texts.
According to the Aupapātika sūtra description of Mahavira's body,74 Mahavira's height was seven cubits and the frame of his body as strong as the vajra, his breath fragrant like the lotus and he was handsome to look at. The body was free from sweating and such other defects. The front of his head (agraśiras) was strong and high like the peak (kūtākāra), and the hair on the head being dark and of thick growth, lying in schematic curls (pradakṣiņāvartta). The scalp of the Lord, resembling a bunch of pomegranate flowers, was pure and smooth like gold; his head was shaped like an umbrella (chatrākāra); his unsullied forehead (lalața) possessed the lustre of the new-moon, ears lovely, proportionate and good, the cheeks healthy and full. His eye-lashes thin, dark and smooth, looked beautiful like a bent bow, the wide eyes resembled the full-blown white-lotus, each eye-lash having a white hair; his nose was long, straight and uplifted like that of an eagle; his lower lip looked lovely and red like the coral, the cherry or the bimba-fruit; the rows of teeth, lustrous like the white moon, conch, milk, etc., were complete, indistinct, unbroken and smooth; his palate and tongue shone like the red-hot gold; his beard and moustache were well-dressed and grown in proportion to his age. His chin was well-set and well-developed like that of a lion; his neck, four angulas in length, looked like the conch (kambu-grīvā). His shoulder was broad and rounded (pratipurna) like that of a buffalo, the bull, the lion, the boar and the elephant; his round, well-developed, muscular arms, with steady joints, were long like the latch of a city-gate; his hands, big and strong, looked like a cobra with expanded hood; his palms were soft and muscular, red and
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