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CHAPTER 15]
EAST INDIA.
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pattern.. The corners are slightly chamfered in contrast to the ridge of the carlier group, but the sharp edges are retained."
Jaina images of this period have also been found in Midnapur District. Of them mention may be made of the Pärsvandtha image found at Barabhum. This image, which is now in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, shows miniature figures of the twenty-four Tirthankaras. The image shows excellent workmanship and may be dated to the tenth-eleventh century.
Bankura seems to have been a most prolific centre of Jaina art in West Bengal. The image of Pärsvanatha from Deulbhira, District Bankura, seated in the usual yoga-posture, with seven hoods of a snake over his head, is a fine example of Jaina art and can be attributed to the tenth century on stylistic grounds. The image is preserved in the Indian Museum.
Debala Mitra discovered many interesting Jaina relics of tenth-eleventh century in District Bankura, on the basis of which it can be said with certainty that this region was an important centre of the Digambara Jainas. The sites covered in her survey include the following villages: Ambikanagar on the confluence of the Kangsavati and Kumari; Chitgiri, opposite Ambikanagar; Barkola, 4 km. east of Ambikanagar; Pareshnath, 3 km. north-west of Ambikanagar; Chiada, opposite Pareshnath; and Kendua on the bank of the Kangsavati. Among the Jaina relics from Ambikanagar, the fragment of sculpture representing Ambika, the Sasana-devi of Neminatha, lying outside the village-temple (obviously the name of the village is derived from the deity), and a Ṛşabhanatha figure are important. The extant portion of the Ambika image is now being worshipped inside the temple as a Brahmanical goddess. The image of Rsbhanatha (plate 83A), lying by the side of the linga installed in a ruined temple at the back of the Ambikadevi temple, is of fine workmanship. This figure, with a beautiful facial expression and the jață-mukuta, stands in kayotsarga on a double-petalled lotus, below which is his bull. As usual, he is accompanied on either side by an attendant and over his head is a multi-tiered umbrella flanked by a flying couple holding garlands. Two pairs
1 S.K. Saraswati in Majumdar, op. cit., 1942, pp. 500-01. [The temple has been again brought to our notice by Mr S.N. Samanta, Curator, Museum and Art Gallery, University of Burdwan, who has also sent a few photographs, some of them reproduced here, of sculptures discovered by him at Sat-deuliya in 1957.-Editor.]
* Banerjen, op. cit., p. 465.
⚫ fbid., p. 464.
1 Debala Mitra in Journal of the Asiatic Society (Letters), XXIV, 1958, pp. 131-34.
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