Book Title: Jain Rup Mandan
Author(s): Umakant P Shah
Publisher: Abhinav Publications

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Page 247
________________ 234 Jaina-Rupa-Mandana hand and the conch in the corresponding left one. One of the left holds the cakra while the remaining symbols are mutilated. A female attendant is shown on each side, while two worshippers appear near the feet along with two more figures of musicians. On the top of the sculpture are carved flying garlandbearers. The image certainly does not represent the Brahmanical goddess Vaisnavi who is also said to ride the eagle and carry the disc but is never known to have carried the citron. Khajuraho is a veritable mine of sculptures of both the Brahmanical and the Jaina pantheons and the find of an eightarmed Jaina Cakreśvari is not at all unlikely. Fig. 99 from the British Museum probably represents (Cakra-)dhsti-Cakreśvari. 5. Ten-Armed Variety On a pillar in the compound of the temple no. 12 at Devgadh is a figure of Cakreśvari with ten arms. The devi sits in lalitäsana, and carries in her left hands in descending order the cakra, the shield, the vajra, the bow and the conch while in the corresponding right hands are shown the cakra, the sword, the club, the arrow and the vardaud The eagle is her vähana (JOI, XX, op. cit., fig. 29). The figure may be said to date from c. twelfth century A.D. Another ten-armed figure of the goddess is found in the Navamuni Cave, Khandagiri, Orissa, where the devi sits in the padmasana and carries the disc in each of the first three pairs of hands while the lowest pair shows the pravacana mudră (gesture of discourse) in the right hand and the left one placed on the lap with the palm turned upwards (JOI, XX, op. cit., fig. 30). Of the remaining hands one holds a disc and the other a shield. The sculpture is assignable to c. ninth century A.D.35 A third form of the ten-armed variety is preserved in the Curzon Museum, Mathura. The goddess is represented in a standing attitude with the cakra in each of her ten hands. Over her head is a figure of her lord Rşabhanātha and the eagle is shown as her vāhana. The figure was wrongly described by Vogel as Vaisnavi of the Brahmanical pantheon;36 the mistake was probably due to the fact that a close relationship seems to have been maintained amongst the forms of these two goddesses. The sculpture appears to be a product of c. ninth century A.D. (JAA, I, plate 78). Another ten-armed form of the goddess is preserved in the Provincial Museum, Lucknow (JOI, XX, op. cit., fig. 31), on a fragment of an elaborately carved lintel along with the figures of standing Tirthankaras and the nine planets represented in a sitting posture. The sculpture comes from Siron Khurd, District Lalitapur in Madhya Pradesh. The goddess sits on an eagle represented like a human being. Although some of the symbols are mutilated, the remaining symbols leave no doubt regarding her identity. Beginning from the topmost hand they are in the following order: r. 1-disc, r. 2-diso, r. 3-?, r. 4—?, r. 5-varada-mudră, and 1.1-bell ?, 1. 2-disc, 1. 3-lotus, 1. 4-bow, and I. 5-arrow (?). There is a large unidentified sculpture of a goddess in the Khajuraho Museum. This seems to represent a rare form of the goddess Cakreśvari (JO1, XX, op. cit., fig. 32). She is terrific in appearance with a gaping mouth and big rolling eye-balls. She is shown as riding a bird which can be easily taken as the eagle. On top of the sculpture was probably a miniature figure of a Jina now mutilated and lost; just below this are two garland-bearers and two female musicians while on each side of the head of Cakreśvari, on each upper corner of the sculpture is a miniature figure of a goddess, seated in the lalitasana, and four-armed. The figure on the right shows the abhaya and the citron in the two lower hands while the deity on the left shows the varada (?) and the pot in the two lower hands. As the heads and the two upper hands of both the deities are mutilated, it is not possible to identify them correctly. Two female attendants stand on each side of the eagle beside four sitting worshippers. Almost all the hands of the goddess are mutilated. The partly mutilated symbol in her upper left hand is either a cakra or a shield. The ten arms of the goddess can however be counted. The sculpture is an excellent example of the early Candella art. The whole sculpture offers close similarity in the arrangement of figures, design, etc., with the other well-known Jaina sculptures like the twenty-armed Cakreśvari (JOT, op. cit., fig. 36) discussed below, or the four-armed Sarasvati from Khajuraho.37 The method of grouping three goddesses, one in the centre and two miniatures on the top, is common to all Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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