Jain Rup Mandan

Author(s): Umakant P Shah
Publisher: Abhinav Publications

Page 30

Introduction
17 an early work probably to be dated about 100 B.C. or 50 B.C." This evidence, along with the frieze depicting the dance of Nilāñjana and the retirement of Rşabha, illustrated here in Fig. 18, and the representation of a Lion-Pillar being circumambulated by a male and a female illustrated here in Fig. 164 prove that the original Stupa on the Kankali Tila site was decorated with reliefs etc. in the first century B.C. and it was perhaps enlarged and repaired during the Kuşāna age ard embellisted richly with decorative sculpture as well as cult-images and plaques etc. meant for worship.
SYMBOL WORSHIP IN JAINISM
Worship of symbols like the Dharmacakra, Pillars like the Mcrastin the, and the Indradhvaja, Caityatrees, the Siläpafas later known and worshipped as Āyagapatas, and the Stipas, is discussed above. Worship of some other symbols may be briefly noted here. We have elaborately discussed Symbol Worship in Jainism in our Studies in Jaina Art.
The most highly venerated in Jainism are the Farca-Para meşthis or the Five Highest Dignitaries, who came to be worshipped in a Diagram Mandala or Yantra) known as the Siddha-Cakra (Svetambara) or the Nava-Pada (Digambara) diagram. These will be discussed in Chapter Three.
During the Kuşāna period at Mathura we find worship of symbols like the Stupa, the Caitya-tree, the various Stambhas, the Aşta-Mangalas, the Dharma-Cakra, the Ayagapata, the Tri-Ratna, etc. Later, during the mediaeval period we find representations of the Fourteen or Sixteen Dreams seen by a Jina's Mother, models in stone and metal, as also diagrams in paintings, of the Jaina conception of the Samavasaraña, the Nandisvara-dvipa, the Panca-Merus (the Five Meru mountains), the Aştāpada, the Sthăpanacārya, and the Carana-pădukås or the Foot-prints and the Nisidis or the Memorial structures of great monks and nuns.
1. Auspicious Dreams
Belief in auspicious dreams and omens is very old in India. The Chāndogya Upanişad, V.2.7.8 speaks of the prosperity that would come if a woman is seen in dream. Belief in dreams and omens dates from pre-Mahāvīra epochs and Nimitta-pathakas or sooth-sayers were called by Siddhārtha to interpret the dreams seen by Trišalá, the mother of Mahavira. Nimittaśāstra was very popular with the Ajivikas from whom Kalakācārya mastered it in the second-first century B.C. The Angavijja is a very early Jaina text on Nimitta and dates from c. fourth century A.D.
Whenever a Tirthankara descends from cne of the teavens into the womb of his mother, she sees fourteen dreams according to the Svetambara tradition ard sixteen according to the Digambara sect. The fourteen dreams seen by Trisalā, the Mother of Mahavira, as noted in the Kalpa-Sutra €8 are: (1) a white elephant, (2) a white bull, (3) a sportive lion, (4) the goddess Sri, four-armed and carrying lotuses and lustrated by two celestial elephants, (5) a garland of various flowers, (6) the Full Moon, (7) the Sun, (8) a wondrous beautiful banner fastened to a sc!den staff with a licn at the top, (9) a full vase filled with water and lotuses, the abode of fortune, (10) a large lake full of lotuses, (11) the Ocean of Milk, (12) the Dzvavimāna (celestial palace), (13) the jewel-hcap (ratra-resi) and (14) smokeless fire with constantly moving flame.89
Kalpa-sútra miniatures show representations of these dreams, either in a group as in Fig. 180 (also fig. 19 in Brown's Miniature Paintings of the Kalpa-sutra) or singly as in Brown's op. cit., fes. 20-33, pp. 19-22. The most common type of miniature (cf. Brown's figs. 6, 18) represents the Mother of a Jina lying on a cot in the lowest panel and in the two cr three upper panels are shown, in different rows, smaller figures of the fourteen dreams.90 Dreams are also represented in store reliefs of the lives of different Jinas (Fig. 82) or in paintings on wooden book-covers of palm-leaf manuscripts showing lives of Tirthankaras as also above the door-lintels of Jaina shrines91 (see also Studies in Jaina Art, figs. 83, 87). In modern times they are generally shown in reliefs on wooden or metal stools and platters used for placing offerings in Jaina shrines of both the sects.