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CHAPTER 37]
MUSEUMS ABROAD
protuberance. The nimbate figures have elongated ears, long cylindrical arms reaching down to the knees and well-proportioned bodily contours and their down-cast eyes reveal serenity and compassion. A couchant bull, the symbol of Rṣabhanatha, and a lion, the cognizance of Mahavira, are depicted on the base along with the tiny figures of Indra on his elephant Airavata in the centre and the donor-couple on the extreme right. An attendant holding a cauri stands on either side of the Jina. The image is an excellent example of Eastern Ganga period, eleventh century.
Among the images of Parsvanatha, one illustrates the deity as standing in kayotsarga-pose against the coils of a serpent with its seven hoods shown above his heavily-modelled limbs. The hair of the deity is arranged in spiral curls and has a protuberance above the head. The nude deity is flanked by a cauribearer and also the four planets on each side. The image is datable to the
twelfth century.
Another contemporary image of Pārsvanatha, though slightly damaged at places, is a fine sculpture and shows a beautiful modelling of the central figure standing against the horizontally-arranged coils of serpent in the background. Planets are absent in this image.
Ambika, the popular goddess, invariably under a mango-tree and with children, is represented on plate 318B as a charming damsel standing gracefully in a flexed pose with the miniature figure of Tirthankara Neminatha depicted above. Creepers carved on both sides of the goddess depict monkeys, etc., in different jovial poses. She wears a chignon, a broad necklace and an uttariya covering her left breast and passing under the right arm. The transparent sārī reaching above the knees is secured with a jewelled mekhala. Her elder son, Subhankara, standing on her right, is trying to pluck a mango from the bunch of the fruits held in the right hand of the goddess, while with her left she is supporting her younger child Prabhankara. A couchant lion and the figure of a donor of the image are shown on the base in front. The image, which is assignable to about the eleventh century, recalls to our mind an almost contemporary image of the Devi from Orissa, now preserved in the Stendahl Galleries, U.S.A.
From south India comes a caubist of Adinatha showing the Tirthankara in käyotsarga-pose on a pañca-ratha pedestal. The images carved on the
1 J. LeRoy Davidson, Art of the Indian Subcontinent from Los Angeles Collections, Los Angeles, 1968, plate 36.
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