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MONUMENTS & SCULPTURE A.D. 1300 TO 1800
(PART VI
Emulating the practices of the contemporary painters, the sculptors working in stone and metal developed a fascination for decorative designs floral as well as geometric. The spirit of the artist found its way in the undulating creepers and foliage that they carved on the ceilings, pillars and walls of the temples throughout western India. A close scrutiny of such designs would reveal that in executing them their hands and minds were almost always equally alert. Their creative interest in decorative forms is further attested by the fact that they introduced some arabesque designs as, for example, in some of the pillars of the caumukha temple at Ranakpur.
The accent on the multiplicity may also be noted in the sculpture of the age. The characteristic contribution of the medieval Jaina sculpture seems to be the highly conventionalized motifs having full religious significance. The Satrunjaya-Girnar-pasta (plate 244), the Nandiévara-dvipa-pasta (plate 245) and the sahasra-phana-Pärsvanātha (plate 246), all from Ranakpur and in stone, the sahasra-kūta from Patan, Nandiśvara from Kolhapur and the Pañca-Meru from Surat, all in bronze, are some of the interesting motifs in which multiplication of a single form appears to be the chief motive force guiding the artist. A survey of the Jaina art and architecture belonging to medieval western India reveals throughout a single unifying factor, and that is unmistakably this feeling for multiple representation of forms.
ASOK K. BHATTACHARYA
i Shah, op. cit., fig. 64. ? Ibid., fig. 63. • Ibid., fig. 78.
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