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MONUMENTS & SCULPTURE 300 B.C. TO A.D. 300
[PART IT
The images, normally robeless, with the Srivatsa-mark on the chest and with circular halocs, scalloped in some cases, are either seated cross-legged with hands in dhydra-mudra (plate 17) or standing in kdyotsarga-pose. While several of the images present the appearance of shaven heads, others have hair, rendered in short spiral curls or in lunate notches on rolls gathered round the head. In the images of Rşabhanatha the matted locks are thrown backward. Usnisa is usually absent. On the facade of the pedestal there is a relief of a dharma-cakra in many cases. In the absence of the cognizances and also of marshalling of images of twenty-four Tirthankaras together, it is not known if all the twenty-four Tirtharkaras were conceived and given form in this period, though there is no doubt about the emergence of at least seven Jinas." That four of the Tirthankaras were held particularly sacred by the Jaina community of Mathură is proved by the find of several quadruple images, called pratima sarvatobhadrikā (known as caumukha-pratima in later periods) in the dedicatory inscriptions, one being dated in the year 5, presumably of Kaniska. This interesting type of images (plate 18) presents the figure of a Tirthaikara on each of the four sides of a stone block. The figures on two faces in most cases can easily be identified as Rşabhanåtha and Pārsvanātha distinguished by locks and serpent-hoods respectively. Of the remaining two, one is certainly Mahavira and the other might be Neminátha, who being the cousin of Krspa and Balarama, was greatly esteemed at Mathură. Capped by umbrellas, the sarvatobhadrika pratimas were most probably installed in the open within the sacred precincts of the Main Stupa. Reference may be made to a slab already noticed in connexion with the stūpas, bearing a dedicatory inscription in the year 99. Here four seated Tirtharkaras--two cach on either side of a stūpam-are represented in the upper register, one being Pārsvanātha. It is not unlikely that the panel conveys the idea of four images either installed in front of the four cardinal directions of a stupa or within the stūpa-niches facing the cardinal directions.
An interesting class of images of the Kushan and post-Kushan periods represents a Tirthankara identified as Neminátha, flanked by Balarama and Vasudeva Krsna (or Vispu). One such images of the late Kushan period shows
1 The available inscriptions present the names of Vardhamana-Mahavira, Reabhanatba, Parsvandtha, Aristanemi (Neminatha) and Sambhavanatha. While the name of Santinatbe has boen doubtfully read by Bühler in a dedicatory inscription (Epigraphia Indica, I, p. 383), Bajpai road Munisuvrata in place of Nandidvarta (which is the cognizance of Aranktha) in an inscription dated 79 (Epigraphia Indica, II, p. 204) or 49 (Lüders, Liet, no. 47).
* Journal of the U.P. Historical Society, XXIII, 1950, p. 36. • AMM, 2502; Journal of the U.P. Historical Society, XXIII, 1950, pp. 50 f.
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