Book Title: Jaina Archaeology Outside India
Author(s): Jineshwardas Jain
Publisher: Bharat Varshiya Digambar Jain Mahasabha

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Page 18
________________ bound his feet in prayanka (crossed legs) on the great Vajra lion down to the root protect [9]. This passage seems to portray the tirthankara as the lion upon the pole which is a center of Mt. Meru and the pole continues down through the ocean to its base. which according to previous Javanese legend is the Badvan-anala. A poet named Ashvaghosh mentions that Sakyamuni could not be shaken by the evil principles 'Maya" anymore that is Mt. Meru by the wind and the same idea is expressed in the Ratubuka inscription. Here I would like to mention that Kirtistambha-tower like structure are found in many places in India. A shloka in Bhaktamar stotra reads as follows: Chitram kimatra yadi te tridashangnabhirnitak managapi manona vicar margam, Kalpantakala marutam chalitam chalanam, kim mandaradri shikharam chalitam kadachit. The meaning of this shloka matches well with the above description. Alex Wayman (12) mentions that on the basis of an inscription of Candi Plaosan of pre-ninth centuary, the temple was built by constant flow of Gurjara. Here the word Jina clearly refers to Tirthankara. The historians have been calling Tirthankara Padmasan mudra as Dhyani Buddha. Kemper (5] believes that, besides other things, Borobudur represents the Universe. To achieve this the architect used a well established device -the Stupa. The stupas are a spherical body having a circular or square base. Luis O Gomez (14] summarizes his findings by mentioning One could conceive of the Borobudur simultaneously be a stupa ( the nirvanized emptiness of the absolute, the cosmic samadhi of Vairochana), a cosmic mountain ( the mundane sphere contained in the absolute) and perhaps a type of Mandala (as a map the correlation of the unmanifest absolute and man's ascent to it with the mundane sphere and Bodhisatva's descent from the absolute) to reveal its presence in the world. The situation of Borobudur so close to the equator shows that the zodiacal stars north and south of the ecliptic would be viewed with equal clarity. I further assume that the puranic name of Java island was Nandishwar dveepa, the 8th Island as per Tilloy pannatti. It may be added here that the Puranic name of Borneo was Varun dveepa (see map, Fig.1) which happens to be the fourth island. According to one stanza of Nandishwar dveepa pooja written by Dhyanatraiji as: 'Ek sau tresath kodi yojan maha, laakh chaurasiya ek dishi mein laha Ashtamon dveepa nandishwaram bhaswaram bhawan bavanna pratima namo sukh karan'. This shloka means that Nandishwar Dveepa island is 163000000 18

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