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CHAPTER 373
MUSEUMS ABROAD
tiers, as is seen in an image of the same Jina in the British Museum, London." His hair falls on the shoulders and lobes of the ear are elongated. There is a plain circular prabha behind his head, and above it are shown a triple umbrella and the leaves of a banyan-tree, under which the Jina attained enlightenment. There is a miniature bull under the lotus-pedestal. The base in front shows a donor-couple on one side and naivedya-offerings on the other. The central figure is flanked by a flywhisk-bearer standing in devotional pose. Eight planets (Ketu missing) carrying their usual attributes are depicted on either side of the deity. The image can be assigned to the twelfth century. The figure is stiff and lacks delicacy.
A lintel of some Jaina images in the Musée Guimet shows in the upper central panel a Tirtharkara seated cross-legged in a niche, with palms resting on the lap. On either side of the main figure are executed two Tirthankaras standing in kayotsarga-pose. Below them are seated seven Tirthankaras in meditation in a row. Two other Tirtharkaras in the same pose are shown within the niches flanking the group of the Jaina deities. On either side of the lintel, a warrior with a sword in hand is shown fighting with a makara-a motif common in the late medieval sculptures. The figures are crude and stylized and remind us of the Jaina bronzes executed in western India during the medieval period. Of Rajasthan provenance, the image, carved in sandstone, can be dated to about the thirteenth century.
An image of Mahavira seated in dhyāna-mudră on a lion-throne is an important example for the study of Jaina art of the Deccan (plate 325B). The Tirtharikara is seated under a triple umbrella with the figure of a cauri-bearing attendant flanking his plain nimbus. His cognizance, lion, is depicted in front. On his right, Pārsvanátha stands in kāyotsarga-mudră against the coils of a serpent with its hoods shown over Pārsvanātha's head. It is interesting to note that the figure to the left of Mahavira is of Bahubali, a prince who later became an ascetic, with creepers entwining his body-a rare representation of the ascetic in a group. The figures of Yakşa and Yakşi of Mahavira are shown seated on lotuses issuing from the sides of the pedestal. The base in front depicted a dharma-cakra and the Nava-grahas symbolically represented by dots. The back-frame in the centre shows hands beating a drum, a
1 Shah, op. cit., fig. 35.
9 M. N. P. Tiwari, 'A note on the Bahubali images from north India', East and West, XXIII, 3-4, pp. 347-53.
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