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

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Page 282
________________ Four More Popular Yaksinis 269 the citron in the corresponding lower ones (Fig. 127). The image belongs to the Digambara shrine. In the Neminātha temple at Kumbharia, Padmavati carries the same symbols. A sculpture of a goddess, probably hailing from Karnataka, preserved in the Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay, has been identified by Sankalia as Padmavati.219 She has a single-hooded cobra over head and is stylistically similar to a figure of Dharanendra in the same museum. She carries the lotus and the goad in her right lower and upper hands respectively while the noose is held in the left upper one. The left lower hand, partly mutilated, probably carried the citron (Fig. 110 in this book). A beautiful sculpture of this variety exists in the Pārsvanatha temple at Humcha, Karnataka.220 The form was popular as such images are available in the Pancakūta Basti, Humcha and Santinātha Basti, Jinanathapur, at Lakkundi, at Dharwar on a standing image of Parsva, in a stone image of Padmavati with 5 hoods in K.R. Institute, Dharwar, at Mudabidri where the devi has 3 hoods and also at Mugad, Karnataka, on a sculpture of Pārsvanatha standing. The form offers favourable comparison with the iconographic traditions given by Hemacandra and others noted above as well as with the late bronze from Jina-Käñchi described above. The form was known earlier in south India since it is carved on a rock at Vallimalai, North Arcot district, Tamil Nadu, in c. eighth-ninth or ntury A.D. (see Fig. 198 in this book). Sivaramamurti's identification of this relief as representing Srutadevi cannot be accepted.221 The goddess has a beautiful cobrahead above her crown and her figure is carved next to a sculpture of Pārsvanātha. This form is also found in a palm-leaf miniature painting of the Dhavala-tikä at Mudabidri. A four-armed figure of Padmavati from the Svetămbara Kharatara vasahi Caumukha temple at Abu represents the goddess sitting in padmāsana and carrying the same set of symbols as described above from Humcha etc. but Padmavati here shows only three snake-hoods overhead instead of five in some of the above-mentioned sculptures. Again, instead of the kukkula-sarpa a mermaid is shown as the vāhana. The Bhairava-Padmavati-kalpa, referred to below, omits the lotus and introduces the varada mudrā instead in the above set of symbols as in a sculpture of Padmavati in the Jaina temple at Anatur in Karnataka (Fig. 125), while in a relief in the Badami Jaina cave (Fig. 142) Padmavati's right lower hand shows the abhaya mudrā instead of the lotus. The Adbhuta-Padmivati-kalpa,222 composed by Sri-Candra sūri, pupil of Yaśobhadra Upadhyāya, says that the goddess rides on the swan, and shows the fruit, the varada mudra, the noose and the goad in her four hands (Figs. 46, 100).223 She is further addressed as terrific in appearance (bhairave, raudre), with blood-shot eyes (raudralocanavatäre) and is also called Tārā.224 The saviouress impregnable, she drives out, by her fierce laughter, the fifty-two kşetra pālas, the eighty-four Cetakas, and the hosts of the Bhutas. She is vanquisher of the sixty-four Yoginis and is ever ready to dispose of such supernatural beings as Kala, Vyhla, Vetāla, Karāla, Karkāla, Bhūta, Preta, Piśāca, Yakşa, Rākşasa, Gandharva, Kinnara, and Uragendra. The three cobra-heads hissing over her crown melt the pride of the wicked. Red in complexion, Padmavati removes all miseries and is, verily, the wish-giving Cintamani-stone. 225 The Bhairava-Padmavati-kalpa of Mallisena gives the set of symbols in the following order: the noose, the fruit, the varada and the goad. This order, according to the commentator Bandhusena, should commence with the left upper hand. 226 According to Mallisena, Padma is three-eyed, red in complexion, and resting on the lotus. Very probably, both Mallisera and Sri-Candra, the author of Adbhuta-Padmāvatskalpa, refer to the same form, although the vāhana is different in the two cases. This terrific aspect of the goddess was popular since similar dhyānas are also obtained from the still unpublished Jaina Tantra work Vidyanuśásana, composed in c. 16th century A.D. According to this work, the goddess Padmavati is three-eyed and sits on a red-lotus. In her four hands she holds the symbols in the following order:227 the noose, the fruit, the varada and the goad. Even though the text does not give the order of the hands it would be reasonable to suppose that it describes the same form as the one in the Bhairava-Padmāvati-kalpa. According to another dhyảna given in the Vidyānuśāsana, the goddess is called Kamalâvati, red in complexion, sitting on a big (full-blown) red-lotus and riding on the kukkuțasarpa. The lord of snakes adorns her crown. Symbols are given in the following order: the varada, the goad, the noose and the divine fruit. Obviously the text describes the same form.228 The unpublished Jina-Samhita of Bhatáraka Ekasamdhi (c. 11th or 12th cent. A.D.) describes the Jain Education International For Private & Personal Use Only www.jainelibrary.org

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