________________
the tree also had the power to bestow all precious things on its worshippers.
Stories about trees in India are legion; with every Jain tirtharkara, one particular tree is associated, under which he received enlightenment. Thus trees are highly venerated amongst the Jains.
Floral, vegetal and geometrical designs are an integral part of the ornamentation in these temples. Amongst these scrolls, creepers, diamond-shaped lozenges, lotus, campaka and mandaraka flowers are most frequent. In the Lunavasähi temple, in particular, these patterns have been employed in great abandon and have been carved with great subtlety and imagination. Some ornamentation motifs like lotus petal-and-bud and ardhapadma are of special significance. The former consists of pointed lotus petals alternating with stalks carrying buds. This motif occurs for the first time on the ceiling of the slab of the gūdhamandapa dome of the Vimalavasāhi. Here it forms the corollas of a full-blown lotus flower. Later it occurs in the rarigamandapa and the corridor ceilings of the temples Vimalavasāhi and the Lunavasāhi. In the Lunavasāhi specifically this motif is carved in the subtlest of details.
The ardhapadma consists of full-blown half lotus flowers set up in beaded garland loops with lotus buds as pendants. This motif is seen in the gūdhamandapa dome and corridor ceilings of the Vimalavasāhi and in several ceilings of the Lunavasāhi.
Another motif is that of chain-and-bell alternating with tassels and underlined with a horizontal band adorned with leaves. It is an embellishment of the pillar-shaft and occurs from about the middle of eleventh century until about the middle of the twelfth century. It is seen in the mukhamandapa and the two pillars of the rangamandapa of the Vimalavasāhi. There are no examples of it in the Lunavasāhi.
In addition to the lotus, as observed earlier, the tree symbolising nature itself and the cosmic pillar, and the serpent, representing fertility and periodic renewal, are important to Hindu, Buddhist and Jain iconography.
Another symbol of universal significance is the wheel, which has been variously interpreted. In Jain art it is an auspicious symbol, associated with a particular jina as his cognizance. Amongst Buddhists it is conspicuous and frequently used symbol of the religion itself, and the Buddha is said to have set 'the wheel of the law', dharmacakra, in motion when he preached his first sermon at Sarnath near Varanasi. This use of the symbol, as has been observed by Pal, was borrowed from the more ancient idea of cakravartin, a universal monarch, one who literally turns the wheel (cakra), presumably of a chariot, as he conquers the world. Alexander, Asoka, Kanishka, and Samudragupta are such universal
helddhist Bor symbo
163
