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Four More Popular Yakṣiṇīs
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queens figure invariably. One of the queens holds the umbrella over Parśva, while the rest are shown adoring him with folded hands (as in fig. 142, Panorama of Jaina Art), or dancing, to divert the attention of Pärśva from the storm and thereby help him in his austerities. Here the Nāga character of Dharana's queens is emphasised by representing them as having a snake-hood overhead and/or by showing some of them as mermaids with half-human and half-snake bodies as at Ellora in one such panel. There is a beautiful scene of attack of Kamatha carved on a boulder at Tirakkol, North Arcot district, Tamil Nadu, wherein only one queen bearing the umbrella with both hands and Dharanendra are represented as rescuing Pårśvanātha (Fig. 33 in Panorama of Jaina Art). In the Digambara tradition, it is Padmavati who is principally associated with Dharanendra in this act of rescue, and hence in all the Digambara panels at Ellora etc. the umbrella-bearer may be identified as two-armed Padmāvati.
It must however be remembered that in the cosmographical accounts, especially in the Svetāmbara tradition, the name Padmāvati does not figure in the list of Dharana's chief queens.
M.A. Dhaky published two elegant sculptures of this scene from Digambara Jaina temples at Humcha in Karnataka.206 in a miniature painting from the palm-leaf manuscript at Idar, N. Gujarat (Svetămbara tradition), Dharanendra and his queen are iepresented standing with folded hands by the side of Pārsvanatha. Here Padmavati is painted red and has three snake-hoods over her head. The painting belongs to the fourteenth century A.D.207 It is to be noted that the form of the yakṣi with the lotus symbol is absent here. A similar case is found in a miniature painting of a paper manuscript of Kalpasutra (c. 15th cent.) now preserved in the Cleveland Museum (Fig. 76).
Padmavati with both the hands folded together is also associated with another type of image representing Pärsvanātha. It is not the scene of Kamatha's attack. In such cases, Pårsvanātha is the chief figure represented either standing or sitting with Dharanendra and Padmavati occupying the flanks. Padmavati can be seen in these sculptures with two hands folded in the act of worship.
A mutilated sculpture from Arthuna, Rajasthan, now preserved in the Rajputana Museum, Ajmere, shows both Dharanendra and Padmavati in the position just described. Padmavati has only one hood overhead. This sculpture has another peculiarity in as much as it has, below the feet of Pārsva, two kneeling figures of Dharanendra and his queen, represented half-human and half-snake, with three hoods over the head and both the hands folded (Bulletin of the Clevelend Museum of Art, Dec. 1970, pp. 303ff, fig. 15). In the Mahudi bronze image of Pārsvanātha, now in the Baroda Museum, Dharana and Padmavati are similarly represented half-snake and half-human. But here they do not figure as the yakşa and yakşi of Pārsvanātha and seem to have been retained in order to suggest the act of rescue performed by them. In the Ajmere Museum sculpture they are twice represented, once perhaps as attendant yakşa and yaksi in their standing postures and once again as kneeling before Părśva in their act of rescue. In a bronze of Pärsvanātha preserved in the Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay (Mu. no. 67.23), Dharanendra and Padmávati, both half-human and half-snake, are shown sitting with folded hands on two sides of Parsvanátha, in positions generally assigned to yaksa and yaksini of a Jina. The bronze is assigned to c. 8th cent. A.D. This bronze and the Arthuna sculpture in the Ajmere Museum, referred to above, seem to represent a transitional stage. The introduction of Dharanendra and Padmavati as yakşa and yaksini of Parsva is a later conception. Some images from Bengal, for example the Pārsvanātha from Bahulara, Bankura (Studies in Jaina Art, fig. 38), represent the tradition of the Mahudi bronze by showing Dharanendra and Padmavati in worshipful attitude with their lower snake-halves joined and tied in a beautiful knot (naga-pasa), the knot being shown in the centre of the pedestal.208 In the Mahudi bronze we find Sarvänubhūti and Ambikä as the yaksa and yaksini. In a Vasantagadh-Pindwada bronze of Pārsvanátha, dated in V.S. 1088 = A.D. 1031, we also find Sarvānubhūti and Ambika as the yaksa and yakṣi while the half-snake half-human Dharana with folded hands is shown on the right of the simhasana and a similar Padmavati on the corresponding left corner. Here their lower bodies are not tied into a knot. The Bahuiara Parsvanatha noted above dates from c. Ilth cent A.D. The practice of showing Dharana and his queen joined with a beautiful naga-paśa knot seems to have been especially popular in Gujarat and Rajasthan (see Akota Bronzes, fig. 17b and fig. 34). As will be seen from a study of a number of Parsvanatha bronzes published by us in the book Akota Bronzes, at least upto the end of the
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