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- Jaina-Rupa-Mandana endowed with auspicious marks and had webbed-fingers with no intervening space in between (acchidrajäla-pani): the fingers again were both thick and soft with nails red and shining like copper. His palms showed marks of the moon, the sun, the conch, the cakra and the svastika, etc. He had a broad chest. well-developed and even, shining like a bar of gold, and having the mark of the sri-vatsa; his back was strong with bones invisible under the muscles. He had a beautiful healthy body shining like gold.
His sides were well-developed, beautiful and symmetrical; the hair on his body was pure, soft, slight, oily, delicate and charming. His abdomen was strong and well-developed (pina) like that of the fish and the bird, his belly like that of the fish, all the organs of his body pure and defectless; his navel, deep and developed like the newly-blossomed lotus, was spiral inside like the whirling wave of the Ganga. The torso or the middle of his body was like the tripod, the pestle, the mirror or the thunderbolt, broad at the ends and narrow in the middle; his hips were like those of the best horse or the lion; his privies like those of a horse, clean and well-formed. He had the gait of the best of elephants; his thighs were shaped like the trunk of an elephant: his knee-joints were invisible as if under the lid of a spherical box; his shanks were like those of a deer; his ankles were well-set and invisible under muscles: his feet, beautiful and good-looking and well-built like those of the tortoise, looked beautiful with closi-set fingers having copperred nails. The soles of his feet, soft and red like the lotus-leaf, showed marks of a mountain. a city, crocodile, ocean, disc, etc. Brilliant like a glowing fire, the lightning flash or the rising sun, Mahāvīra possessed all the one thousand and eight marks of the best of human beings.
All the Tirthankara or the Buddha images are based on the fundamental conception of the Mahapuruşa-laksaņas. The Jaina account given above seems to suggest the uşnişa (though not clearly stated) but not the urna. Hardly half a dozen Tirthankara images so far known or published would show the ürnă, but we do get the circular tilaka mark in a few cases.75 The uşnişa is often seen but images without it are also known from Mathura and other sites.
The Jaina description of Maha-puruşa-laksanas wonderfully agrees with the conception of the Buddha figure in the Ratna-gotra-vibhāga of Sthiramati.78 An ideal abridged description of the Jina-body is also obtained in the Vasudevahindi which is also a work of the early Gupta period.
In Jaina worship perhaps more common are single images of each of the twenty-four Tirthan karas, installed either as chief deity in the sanctum or as additional images for worship in the sanctum or in the adioining cells and devakulikäs. Such images are either with or without the parikara carved in relief around them. But Tirthankaras are also worshipped in groups of two (Fig. 79), three (Fig. 26), four (Figs. 14. 21), five (Fig. 69), six (Fig. 87), seven, eight, nine, eleven, twenty-four (Figs. 57, 86), fifty-two seventy-two, one hundred and eight, one thousand and eight (sahasrakūļa sculptures), 77 and so on. But the more common are groups of two, three, five, four, and twenty-four Jinas. Sāntyācārya in c. Ilth century A.D. has referred to such practices and has attempted to explain the significance of such groupings.78 According to him, a Tri-Tirthika image (three Jinas in one sculpture) signifies the worship of Jñana, Darśana and Caritra,79 A Panca-Tirthika image symbolises the worship of the Five Paramesthins: Covisis or Caturvimśati-patļas are carved out of respect for the Jinas of the Bharatavarşa, of this ārå, at the end of the Kalyānaka-tapa in honour of Kalyanakas (chief auspicious events) in the lives of Tirthankaras celebrated in the Bhäratavarşa. A person desirous of wealth installs a plaque of 170 Jinas, which is the maximum number of Jinas born in any age amongst human beings. 80
Tirthankaras in groups of two are found only amongst the Digambaras, often they are the first and last Tirthankaras standing near each other with their cognizances on the pedestals, all in one slab of stone, 81 Tri-Tirthika images and Panca-Tirthika images are found in temples of both the sects, but the former grouping is very popular. Four Tirthankaras are represented on four sides of a Caumukha (Caturmukha, the Pratimā Sarvatobhadrikā of Mathura inscriptions of the Kuşāņa age) sculpture and might have suggested the Samavasarapa in such cases. Camukhas are very common in temples of both the sects. A deviation however from the main concept of a Caumukha is seen from very early times.81 Even amongst finds from Kankali Tila, Mathura, we find, not one and the same Jina on each of the four sides of a Caumukla but a different Jina on each side (Fig. 14). Groups of six and eight seem to be rare. Groups of seven and nine are very rare but groups of seven or eleven are available amongst the
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