________________
જૈન યુગ
એપ્રિલ ૧૯૫૯
interest for this solitary place.
The two images to be described here have been kept in the aforesaid Jain compound. The motif represented has so far puzzled all the scholars and no satisfactory explanation has yet been proposed. We have tried to shed some light on the motif in an article on Indian iconography to be published this year in the Deccan College Bulletin. The present investigation is confined to a number of details which have no direct bearing on the problem of identification and which appear only on a limited number of specimens. Since we have no name for the two figures we shall refer to them simply as the "sacred couple".
(Fig. 1) The most interesting features of the first piece are the tree and the relief with the horsemen. The crown of the tree has the shape of two round arches. They consist of lanceolate leaves (forming as it were a garland) with clusters of berries or small fruits. Such "garlands" of lanceolate leaves recur on two representations of the sacred couple as Dalmi and Pākbiră (both in Mänbhūm) respectively4; but there the fruits seem to be missing. The trunk of our tree resembles that of a date-palm. We have to explain the tree either as a highly stylized date-palm5 or as an imaginary tree which has no model in reality but whose
constituent elements reflect existing botanical forms. A final solution will only be possible on the basis of a general study of tree-stylizations in Indian art. Friezes with horsemen appear in quite a few cases below the sacred couple, but serial representations of other figures (children etc.) are more common. On an image at Budhi Chanderi (kept in the temple in the south-west corner of the dharmshala compound) horse-riders alternate with elephant-riders. On the Pākbirā image mentioned above the bottom frieze shows various scenes with children, including a child riding on a lion. A Gandhāra sculpture in the Peshawar Museum has on the bottom frieze among other children one seated on an unidentified mount. It may be tempting to connect the riders which appear on medieval representations of the sacred couple with the riding children of Hellenistic art. But not only is the distance in time considerable, not only are the motifs different (the medieval images show riding men instead of riding childrens), we also find no support for this theory in Gandhāra art; there the the children below the sacred couple (appearing here in its Buddhist version) are not shown as riders. The solitary riding child of the Peshawar image on
(4) Jas. Burgess : The Ancient Monuments,
Temples and Sculptures of India, Pt. II,
Pl. 293 f. (5) I am indebted to Shri S. K. Chopra (B.
Sc. Ag.) for the following information regarding the tree in Fig. 1: "The tree seems to be a date-palm. (1) The trunk clearly shows persistent leaf-bases which is the most characteristic feature of the date-palm. (2) At least some varieties of the date-palm have a crown which is similar to that represented by our sculptor. (3) The fruits also appear to be of a date-palm (perhaps in an early stage of maturity).”
(6) Normally the tree above the sacred
couple is of a very general character and has no relation whatsoever to existing vegetable objects (see Fig. 2). The three cases mentioned above and the tree on a specimen from Vaibhara Hill (Rajgir; see Arch. S. of India, Annual Rep. 1935-36, PI, XVII, g) are
among the exceptions. (7) Arch. Survey of India, Annual Report
1906-07, Pl. XXXII, C. (8) In our photograph, some of the riders
seem to have a female bosom, but this impression is only due to the peculiar distribution of light and shadow.
