Jain Rup Mandan

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

Page 88

Kulakaras and Salákāpuruşas
75 depicted as superior to them in as much as the first eight Baladevas obtain emancipation and the last of the list is said to have obtained one of the heavens. The Vasudevas, as already shown, go to one of the different hells after death.
The Samaväyånga sūtra gives the following list of the Baladevas and their mothers, who lived in the present Avasarpini age: (1) Acala, Bhadrā; (2) Vijaya, Subhadrā; (3) Bhadra, Suprabha; (4) Suprabha, Sudarsanā; (5) Sudarśana, Vijayā; (6) Ananda, Vaijayanti; (7) Mandana, Jayanti; (8) Padma, Aparājitā; (9) Rāma, Rohini.46
The Digambara texts give the following list: Vijaya, Acala, Sudharma, Suprabha, Sudarśana, Nandi, Nandimitra, Ráma, and Padma.47 .
According to both the sects, they wear garments of dark-blue colour. On their banners is seen the mark of the palm-tree (tala).48 They carry the bow, the plough, the pestle and the arrow according to the Svetāmbara tradition 49 while the Digambaras describe the following symbols: the club, the garland of jewels, the plough, and the pestle. The Tiloyapannatti however notes the following iconographic marks of a Baladeva: the plough, the pestle, a chariot and a garland of jewels (ratnāvali).50
Like the Vasudevas, the Baladevas have their parallels in the Hindu mythology, although of course, changes have been made in the Jaina accounts to suit their own environment.
Images of Baladevas and Väsudevas, installed for worship in Jaina temples, are not known hitherto, but scenes depicting their stories are sometimes available in temple carvings. Again, a Baladeva and a Väsudeva are seen on two sides of a Jina, one on each side, especially during the Kuşāna age at Mathura, and this fact helps us to identify the Jina as Neminātha since, in Jaina mythology, both Krsna (Vasudeva) and Baladeva or Balarama are regarded as cousin brothers of Neminátha. Sculpture no. J.47 in the State Museum, Lucknow, shows Neminātha standing in the centre and to his right is standing Balarāma with snake-hoods overhead and holding the gadā and the hala (plough) in his two upper hands and the wine-cup in one of the two lower hands. To the left of Neminātha is Kļşna, four-armed, wearing a vanamála and showing the gadā, the abhava mudrā, etc.51 In sculpture no. J.121, in the same Museum, also from the Kankali Tila, Mathura, we find Krsna showing the gada, the sankha (conch), etc., while Balarama with seven snake-hoods overhead is two-armed. The symbols shown by Balarama are not distinct. The sculpture dates from the Gupta age, c. fourth century A.D., for illustration of J. 121 see Shah, U.P., Evolution of Jaina Iconography and Symbolism, Paper no. 6 in Aspects of Jaina Art and Architecture, fig. 6. Figure 7 in the same paper, no. J.117, State Museum, Lucknow, is identified as Neminātha by some scholars but the figure on his right with snake-hoods has both his hands in the añjali mudrā and the figure on the left is also a two-armed figure with both the hands in the uñjali mudri. This figure has no snake-hoods and should be regarded as a Yaksa while the figure to the right of the Jina represents a Nāga figure. In the descriptions of the Saśvata Jina Pratimas in Jaina canons we find Yaksa and Naga figures accompanying the Jina figure. No. J.60 in the same museum also has a Nāga and a Yaksa as attendants. They are not Baladeva and Vasudeva.
This practice of showing Balarama and Krsna with Neminātha lingered on even upto the tenth or eleventh century in U.P. and M.P. as can be seen on a sculpture of Neminātha in Temple no. 2 at Devgadh and another sculpture, probably from Mathura, is no. 66.53 in the State Museum, Lucknow. and dates from c. eleventh century A.D. In both the above sculptures, Krsna and Balarāma are fourarmed (for illustrations, see M.N.P. Tiwari, Jaina Pratima Vijñana (Hindi), figs. 27-28). Figure 55 illustrated here is preserved in the Lucknow Museum. In the centre of the pedestal, on the right of the dharmacakru is a bull which shows that the Tirthankara sitting in padmasana must be Rşabhanātha. The head of the Jina is lost. The sculpture hails from Orai in U.P. and may be assigned to c. cighth century A.D. The Jina is attended upon by a camaradhara-vaksa on each side. Beyond the Yaksa on the right is a four-armed standing figure of Balarama with the guda (?) in his right upper hand, the winecup in the right lower one and the plough (hala) in the left upper hand. The left lower is placed on the kati. On the corresponding left side of the Tirthankara is standing four-armed Krsna-Vasudeva showing the mace and the cakra in the right and the left upper hands respectively and the conch in the left lower one. The right lower hand is held in the abhaya mudra. The sculpture is published as figure 98 in