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EAST INDIA the central bgure. These are arranged in tiers, seven on either side of the main image, and nine in three parallel rows of three on the top. These last three rows are made to project a little forward, thus serving as a sort of canopy to the principal figure. Two chowry-bearing attendants stand in graceful pose, one on either side of it, and at a level with its jara-mukusa, are shown garland-bcaring Vidyadhara couples. Aying among the conventional representation of the clouds. The whole composition is carved with minute skill and refined delicacy and probably belongs to the early Pala period'.
The northern part of Bangladesh has yielded several more interesting Jaina sculptures, including those which depict a seated couple with a child in their lap under a kalpa-voksa with spreading branches over these figures. They are the tutelary Yakça couple associated with the Jaina cult, representing the fertility aspects as Kubera and Hariti do in Mahāyāna Buddhism. An image of Rşabhanåtha (tenth century), now in the Asutosh Museum, University of Calcutta, is also from that region. It was collected by S.K. Saraswati from Mandol, District Rajshahi.
An exquisitely-carved bronze figure of Ambika, the Yakşi of Neminátha, was found at Nalgora, 24-Parganas. The deity, in graceful moulding, stands on a lotus, holding with her left hand a child on her waist, under the bent bow of a tree. In the left hand is some flower. A nude child is shown standing on her right side. At the bottom of the tree is Ambikā's cognizance, the hon. On stylistic grounds the image can also be attributed to the tenth century (plate 81B). That Jainism was very popular in this area during the medieval period is attested by the Kantabenia figure of Jina Pārsvanátha, of the eleventh century, standing in käyotsarga-posture, accompanied by the miniature figures of twenty-three other Jinas.
Jaina images are widely distributed also in many other districts of West Bengal. At Ujani in Burdwan, a rare image of Såntinätha, of the eleventhtwelfth century, was discovered; it is housed in the Vangiya Sahitya Parisad Museum in Calcutta. The back slab of the image shows the nine Grahas,
1 J.N. Banerjee in History of Bengal, ed. R.C. Majamdar, I, Dasca, 1942, p. 464 District Dinajpur has now been divided into West Dinajpur (West Bengal, India) and East Doelpur Bangladesh). It has not beco posible to ascertain from which of these two Districts the pricht valpture emneostes.Editor.)
