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MONUMENTS & SCULPTURE A.D. 300 TO 600
PART II
this date. On the pedestal are shown miniature lions at the ends with a sharma cakra in the centre. On the analogy of the pedestal of a sculpture of a standing Rsabhapatha from this site, discussed below, one might suggest that this seated Tirthankara represents Mahavira with the lion-cognizance.
On the pedestal of the standing Rşabhanātha from Sira Pahari (plate 63) we find a dharma-cakra and two worshippers on the two sides. The sacred wheel is shown with the rim facing us as on pedestals of Jaina sculptures of the Kushan period from Mathură. Again, at each end of the pedestal of this sculpture is shown the typical Indian bull, which is the cognizance of Rşabhanåtha. In later Jaina sculptures lions are shown at the two ends of pedestals, suggesting a simhasana, while dharma-cakras are flanked by two deer as in Buddhist sculptures. But in this sculpture the bull-cognizance is thus shown, while there are no deer flanking the dharma-cakra. This suggests clearly that this sculpture belongs to an early stage of introduction of cognizances, when the position of a cognizance of a Jina was not yet finally fixed. On this analogy the sculpture illustrated on plate 62 may be identified representing Mahăvira.
The style of both these sculptures is that of transition from typical Kushan types of the classical Gupta idiom. But the Mahävira image is a beautiful specimen of art, the face especially being exquisitely modelled. Of the same period and perhaps only slightly earlier is another sculpture from the same site, that of a standing Parávanátha, without any drapery and having a huge serpent coiled behind the Jina's whole figure and making a canopy of snake-hoods over the Jina's head (plate 64).
It seems that near the Brāhmaṇical centre at Nachna was a Jaina centre at Sira Pahari during the Gupta period. Further exploration may yield more Jaina vestiges not only at this place but also at other sites around.
Joanna Williams has recently brought to light two beautiful Jina images of the Gupta age, now preserved in Rajendra Udyan, Panna, Madhya Pradesh,
Cognizances of Tirthad karas are not found on sculptures of the Kusban period from Katkall-tila, Matbură. They do appear on the sculptures of the Gupta period at Rajgir, but their position was not finally fixed even in the fifth century, cf., for example, the image of Neminātha on the Vaibhara hill, Rajgir, Ramaprasad Chanda, Archonological Survey of India, Annual Report, 1925-26, Calcutta, 1928, pp. 125 ff,; Shah, op. cit., p. 14, fig. 18. (Also above, plate 53.-Editor.] Here two conchor are placed on each side of the dharme-cakra in the cantre of tho podestal. The conch is the cognizance of Nemindtha.
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