Jain Rup Mandan

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

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Jaina-Rupa-Mandana
to the Svetambara view. According to the Digambara text Tiloyapanṇatti (c. 6th-7th cent. A.D.), these three are. Ṛsabha, Vāsupujya and Nemi.10 According to the Avasyaka Niryukti gāthā 969, the Jinas are represented in this world in the posture in which they left it. But in actual worship this is not strictly adhered to.
Images of Tirthankaras were made of costly gems, metals, wood, clay, precious jewels or semi-precious stones. The Acara-Dinakara, a Svetambara text of the fourteenth century, provides instructions regarding the selection of any of these materials. One may prepare images of gold, silver or copper, but never of bronze (kāmsya), lead or tin. Brass is often used in casting images, though, as a general rule, mixtures of metals are discouraged.11 It is also enjoined that images of iron, stone, wood, clay, ivory or cow-dung or paintings should not be worshipped in private houses by persons desirous of welfare.12 Vasunandi (Digambara), in his Sravakācāra, says that images of Jinas and others (Siddhas, Acāryas and others) should be made according to iconographic formulas (padima-lakkhaṇa-vihi), the materials used being gems, gold, jewels, silver, brass, pearls, stone, etc.13 Vasubindu (Dig.), in his Pratiṣṭhā-pāṭha, adds crystals, and says that the wise praise images accompained by a big lotus-seat,14 the lotus being shown as rising hish.
The Acara-Dinakara, while distinguishing the images to be worshipped at home from those to be installed in temples, adds that one should not worship images whose limbs are mutilated or bent etc. Images made of metals, stucco or plaster deserve to be repaired but wooden and stone sculptures need not be repaired for worship. However, images more than one hundred years old or those installed and consecrated by the best of men must be continued in worship even when they are mutilated. They should be preserved in temples but are not to be worshipped at home. 16
Images made of crystal are seen in many Jaina temples. Tirthankara images made of precious stones like ruby, sapphire, emerald, etc. exist in Jaina shrines at Śravana Belagola, Mūḍabidri, and in some collections in Bihar, Bengal etc. A Tirthankara image in jade, presented to L.D. Institute of Indology by the late Sheth Kasturbhai Lalbhai, is published by us in the Treasures of Jaina Bhandaras. Metal images in brass, bronze, alloys of copper, as also rarely in silver, are available in Jaina shrines. Tirthankara images on wood work of Jaina shrines and private houses are well known.
The State Museum, Lucknow, preserves two old terracotta images of Tirthankaras. A third such terracotta image is preserved in the Ashutosh Museum, Calcutta. Recently, B.B. Lal and S.K. Srivastava have found, during excavations at Ayodhya, a terracotta figure of a Jina, which has been assigned to c. third century B.C. with the evidence of stratigraphy.17 This find further supports our belief that already in the third century B.C., worship of the Jina image had started. This further supports the earlier theory of K.P. Jayaswal, supported by this writer, and by some other writers, that the highly polished torso of a Jina image excavated from the site of Lohanipur (an extension of old Pățaliputra) dates from the Mauryan period. The high polish was known in the Mauryan period. The terracotta Jina excavated by B.B. Lal further shows that it is reasonable to assign the Lohanipur torso of a Jina image to at least the age of Samprati, the Mauryan ruler well-known for his patronage of Jainism.
Jina images painted on cloth, palm-leaves and paper are known. One of the earliest dated Jina image on palm-leaf is dated in v.s. 1157. Earlier paintings on cloth or palm-leaf have not survived in Indian climatic conditions. Wall paintings are known from Ellora. Sittannavasal, Tirumalai etc. The tradition continued from ancient times as is suggested by literary sources.
Tirthankara images are carved and installed in sanctums of Jaina shrines and outside in temple-wall niches, in ceilings, on beams of ceilings, in the interior decorations of domes of temple halls, on tops and/or bases of pillars (e.g. the Kahaon pillar, various types of manasthambhas at places like Devgadh, the Jaina Victory pillar at Chitod in Rajasthan, etc.), on door-lintels of temples, in book-illustrations of Jaina manuscripts, on cloth paintings representing various Jaina Tantric diagrams, and even in CitraPatas, in scroll-paintings like the scroll depicting life of Neminatha from the Digambara collection at Kāranjā, in Vijñapatipatras, on wooden book-covers of palm-leaf manuscripts etc. Some of these bookcovers, discovered hitherto, depict scenes from the previous as well as the last existences of Tirthankaras, Mahavira, Santinatha and Parsvanatha. A set of such wooden bock-covers (kastha-pattikas) show in a