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CHAPTER 35)
ICONOGRAPHY
Belief in auspicious objects is very old, common to all the three main secte-Jainism, Buddhism and Brahmanism. V. S. Agrawala has already Teferred to the mangala-mala of Sanchi reliefs. The Mahabharata, Drona-parva, 82, 20-22, mentions numerous objects which Arjuna looked at or touched as auspicious when starting for battle, amongst which maidens are also mentioned. The Vamana-puräna, 14, 35-36, mentions several objects which are auspicious. The Brahmavaivarta-purana also gives lists of animate and inanimate o regarded as auspicious. Belief in mangalas and mangala-dravyas is also known to the Ramayana..
Several yantras or tantric diagrams on metal are found worshipped in Jaina shrines. Also, several patas or paintings on canvas or on paper of the diagrams of the sūri-mantra, the hrithkara-yantra, the Vardhamāna-vidya-pata, the siddha-cakra, the rşimandala-yantra, etc., are worshipped by Jaina monks and the laity. Of these, the śrutaskandha-yantra, very popular with the Digambaras, is especially noteworthy. Rarely it has also a figure of Srutadevată, the goddess of learning, also carved on it. The diagram lists the twelve Agamas with the grantha-pramäņa of each of them according to Digambara traditions. A specimen of such a yantra from Mudbidri, Karnataka, is illustrated on plate 314.
U. P. SHAH
1 V.S. Agrawala, Harsa-carita etc., op. cit., p. 120.
* Also see Kanc, op. cit., II, p. 511. He cites the following verse from a manuscript of the Sakuna-kárika, which speaks of eight auspicious objects : darpanah pürna-kalasah kanya sumanaso'akstah/ dipa-mala dhvajd läjäḥ samproktam castamangalam
Quoted in Sabda-kalpa-druma, III, p. 564. The same lexicon, I, 148, quotes from the Byhannandikesvara-purana : mrga-rajo viso nägah kalaśo vyajanam tatha/ vaijayanti tatha bheri dipa ity asfamangalar|| Again from the Suddhi-tattva : loke'smin mangalány asfau brähmano gaur hutdšanah/ hiranyaṁ sarpir aditya apo rdja tathdspamahl/
Råmdyana, II, 23, 29. Also see V.S. Agrawala, 'Asfa-mangala-mäla', Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, New Series, II, pp. 1 ff.
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