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Iconography of 24 Tirtharkaras
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preserved in the Patna Museum (Arch. no. 6533). The Jina stands on a rectangular pedestal. All along his back are a serpent's coil with the cobra-hoods broken and lost. All the standing Jaina bronzes in this hoard are Digambara, i.e., they show no garment on the person of the Jina. These standing figures are mostly of the Kuşāņa age.
Pramod Chandra published a stone sculpture of standing Pārsva from Patna, now in Shri Kanodia's collection. The image shows snake's coils all over the back of the Jina. The sculpture dates from c. fourth century A.D.314 At Sira Pahari near Nachna Kuthara, Madhya Pradesh, is a standing Pārsva image assignable to c. fourth century A.D. There is an almost circular canopy of seven hoods behind the head of the Jina. Over the hoods is a single umbrella. Thick coils of the snake, carefully arranged one above the other on the back of the Jina, leave no intervening space and form as it were an artistic stela behind the figure of the Jina (JAA, Vol. I, pp. 129-130, pl. 64).
Parsva images show what Klaus Bruhn calls "hood-circle" in a conventional manner or unconventional manner. The snake coils behind the body of the Jina are indicated either in a cursory manner or they are missing altogether (see Bruhn's The Jina Images of Deogarh, fig. 225) or in an unconventional manner as in Bruhn's Deogarh, figs. 338, 339. The Rajgir image (see.Bruhn's fig. 341) seems to show two snakes. But the two smaller snakes near the shoulders of the Jina in Bruhn's fig. 338 (drawing of a Vasantagadh image of Pārsvanatha) are actually two queens of Dharaṇa or Dharana and his queen in añjali mudrā. Bruhn's figure 260 shows a standing Pårśva flanked by two theriomorphous Nägas. Here Pārśva has no canopy of snake-hoods nor coils behind his body. This is a very rare type of Pārsvanátha image (Bruhn's p. 198).
An image of standing Pārsvanātha, no. J. 100 in Lucknow Museum, is assignable to c. 4th-5th cent. A.D. On the right of the Jina is a male figure and on the left a female with a snake-hood overhead (a Nägini) holding an umbrella with both the hands. In the Pudukkottai Museum, Tamil Nadu, is a bronze image of standing Parśva with five snake-hoods overhead and coils of the snake on the back. With thin, slender limbs and typical nigroid face, the style of this bronze obtains comparisons with the style of Nilgiri terracottas in the British Museum and to some extent with the archaic style of face and limbs) of the Mohen-Jo Daro and Chhahnu-Daro dancer figurines and the bronze figure of Chalcolithic period from Adicchanallur. We have assigned this bronze to a period around third or fourth century A.D.315
In the Tulasi Samgrahālaya, Ramvan, Satna, M.P., is a sculpture of Pārsva sitting in dhyāna mudrā on snake coils. Two fly-whisk bearers attend on him. The image is assigned to c. Sth-6th cent. A.D.316
Of about 600-625 A.D., we have from Akota (Gujarat) an important bronze image of Pārsva gifted by a śråvika of the Nivsti kula according to an inscription on the partly mutilated pedestal. Párśva stands on a lotus pedestal in kāyotsarga pose (Akota Bronzes, pls. 17a, 17b). The arrangement of the dhoti folds is analogous to that on the Jina installed by Jinabhadra obtained in the Akota hoard (ibid., pl. 12b), assigned to c. 550-600 A.D. Both are modelled in the same style though the head of the latter is more beautiful. Dharaṇendra, the snake-king who protected Pārsva from the attack of Kamatha, is shown with a beautiful coiled body and seven snake-hoods held like a chatra over the Jina. The two Nāga figures on top of the pedestal also represent Dharanendra and his chief queen, both wearing ekávalis. They have half-human and half-snake bodies and their tails are entwined into a fine knot (naga-paša) in the centre. Dharanendra on the right has one snake-hood overhead and holds an indistinct object in each hand, the right hand extended a little was perhaps meant to show the abhaya mudrā. Dharanendra's queen on the left end of the pedestal also shows the abhaya mudrā with her right hand and holds a lotus-like object in her left hand. In front of the pedestal are small standing figures of the (eight) planets excluding Ketu. On a lower level in the centre and on a full-blown inverted lotus motif is the dharmacakra flanked by a deer on each side.
A type of Tri-Tirthika image of Pärsvanatha became very popular probably from the seventh century in Gujarat and Rajasthan. A beautiful Tri-Tirthika brass or bronze image of Pārsvanātha, gifted by the ariik, Khambhili in c. middle of seventh century A.D., is obtained in the Akota hoard (Akota Bronzes, pls. 22, 23a, 23b). The image is almost completely preserved except for the seven partly mutilated hoods of the snake-canopy and the haloes of the two Tirtharkaras standing on the sides of Pārsva seated in
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