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also carries the discs in her four hands and has the eagle as her vahana. It may be noted that in the Digambara tradition, list of the sixteen Mahavidyās replaces another vidyadevi called Jämbunada for Cakreśvari of the Svetambara lists.
There is a big sculpture of Ādinātha, in the Khajuraho Museum, with the bull symbol and a row of the nine planets on its pedestal. On the right end of the pedestal sits the four-armed cow-faced yakṣa Gomukha, with two pots of money near his leg. On the left end of the pedestal sits the yakși of Adinatha, namely, Cakreśvari, riding the eagle and carrying the vajra and the cakra in the right and the left upper hands respectively and the rosary in the right lower one. The symbol of the left lower hand is mutilated.
An image of Rṣabha in the Pudukkota Museum, Tamil Nadu, shows a four-armed Yakşi Cakreśvari carrying the cakra and the conch in her right and left upper hands respectively and the fruit in the right lower one. The left lower hand is held in the abhaya mudrā.26
No. 1667 in the Archaeological Museum, Khajuraho is a sculpture of Rṣabhanatha whose yakṣi shows the abhaya, padma, cakra and sankha in her four hands.
3. Six-Armed Variety
On the outer wall of the compound of temple no. 8 at Devgadh is a figure of Cakreśvari with six arms, the uppermost pair of hands showing the discs while sword and the club are held in the right and the left hands respectively of the middle pair. The lowest pair shows the varada pose in the right and the conch in the left hands. The goddess rides the eagle.
On the pedestal of a large sculpture of Adinatha, from the temple no. 4, Devgadh, is found a slightly modified form of the goddess. The symbols in the first and the last pair of hands remain unchanged, but the middle pair here carries the club in the right and the lotus in the left hands. The eagle is her vähana. The figure belongs roughly to the twelfth century A.D.
A third form of the six-armed variety is preserved on the door-frame of the Jaina temple no. 14 at Khajuraho. On two sides of Cakreśvari are the figures of Laksmi and Sarasvati. Cakreśvari here carries four discs in the four hands of the first and the middle pairs while the lowest pair shows the varada in the right and the conch in the left hands. The eagle is her vahana.
On an image in Temple 27 at Khajuraho and on Kha. Mu. no. K 27.50, the yakşi shows the abhaya, gadā, cakra, cakra, padma and the conch.
On the outer wall of the Jaina temple at Jinanathapura, Mysore State,27 is a figure of Cakreśvari facing the North and sitting in the lalita posture with a miniature figure of an eagle vehicle below her left leg. She carries the disc in each of the two uppermost hands, the vajra in each of the two middle ones and the lotus in the last left hand while the corresponding right one is held in the varada-mudra. The goddess sits under an ornamental arch of a creeper and wears a crown and various other ornaments.28
Another figure of Cakreśvari of this last variety is available on a sculpture of Rṣabhanatha in the Bhandare Basadi (early twelfth century) at Śravana Belagola, Mysore State. Here the yakşı is represented in a standing attitude and carrying the same set of symbols.
No descriptive dhyana is available in Jaina literature for the six-armed variety, but it seems pretty clear that the form was popular in Digambara tradition in the middle ages.
4. Eight-Armed Variety
The eight-armed form of the goddess likewise was popular in art, but no dhyana is available in literature. It seems that the six or eight-armed varieties were mere expansion of the conception underlying the four-armed forms since they can be easily reduced to the four-armed variety by merely omitting the second and the third pairs of hands.
At Gyaraspur, in the Maladevi temple (c. late 9th century A.D.), between the two eastern balconyprojections of the south facade the last course of the roof shows a niche containing an image of eight
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