________________
pattikas. Thus, the cave sanctuaries display interesting group of sculptures in different iconometric ranges that do not find parallel in any religion. In the Visanavite tradition there are 24 forms of the God Vishnu adapted possibly after the Jain Tirthankaras. What iconometric norms they have, cannot be estimated in one unit. But, the varieties of forms from macro-cosmic to the micro-cosmic images, as in chauvimsis can only be pointed out, from the sculptural treasure, of the Jain caves of Gwalior.
The flow of the sculptural traditions in the images of Gopachala
Coming back to the longer images in general, it was observed earlier that there was a regular experimentation from the Gupta period onwards as evidenced at Suhania, Barai Panihar complex, Padhavali etc. Again, the inflow of the sculputral traditions could have come from the south through the Nimar valley upto the region of Gopachal. This was already indicated in the context of the sculptures in Neminath group of temples.
Moreover, the western Ganga image of Gomateswara (934 A.D.) at Sravanabelagola in the south, had initiated the tradition of making images big. There was also similar experimentations during the time of 'Western chalukyas' and the Rastrakutas, as found at Potelkhera, Vemulawada, both near Hyderabad, Deccan, and the Jain caves of Indra Sabha, Jagannatha Sabha at Ellora. Since the region of the Nimar valley upto Gopachal was under the control of the Rastrakuta kings for some time, it is quite likely the Gopachal Jain sanctuaries would have had the impact of sculptural traits from Rastrakutas.
Besides the elongated images of Gopachal in the Nimar valley, there are one or two places one at Bavangaj in Nimar valley and the other at Gandharvapuri near Dewas, where similarities in Jain sculptural traditions were attempted. Thus, from the Nimar valley upto Gopachal, Jains had been experimenting, to make Tirthankara images as big as possible.
Another alternative for the flow of the sculputral traditions could be the region of Gandhara. At Bamiyan, in Afghanistan, we have the high images of the Buddha. Since the region of Gopachal was under the control of Huns (6th east A.D) who patronzed the Jain art school, they would have initiated th Gandhara traditions. But the ethnic features found in the Tirthankara images were different from those of Bamiyan Buddha images. So, the association with the Gandharan tradition appears only in the concept of the proportion of the images.
The significance of the nudity of Tirthankaras
Although the sculptors are conscious of running the risk of poor visual effect in
(128)
