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Jaina Iconography
in this respect is brought to bear upon their Iconography. The Jainas represent a high order of asceticism and other gods, according to the Jaina belief, cannot approach that order. In actual images, the Jinas are shewn as ascetics draped, sometimes naked in two Yogic postures of Padmāsana or Kayotsarga. In general appearance, the image of Tirthankara resembles that of Daksiņa-murti of Siva. This resemblance is significant and it may be possible to infer that the Jaina imagery might have been borrowed from Siva's asceticism. There is also some resemblance between a Jina image and a Buddha image and a layman is very apt to mistake one for the other. What are the differences between the two, common to all idols? Jaina images of Tirthamkaras, whether new or old, must have a Srivatsa symbol on the chest of the figures, must have a trilinear umbrella above the figure and except the early Mathura statues, have a Lānchana or symbol which not only distinguishes them from other images but differentiates them from each other. The fact that the Jaina images of the Kushan period from Muttra do not bear the Lanchañas prove that in the earliest stage of Jaina Iconography, there had not been a practice of marking out a Jina figure with a distinctive symbol. Next, probably a confusion arose to distinguish a Jina figure from another having a stereotyped appearance. Thus images of the Gupta and subsequent periods have invariably a Lanchana and cannot be misapprchended. Although the Tirthankara images of the Kushana age bear no Lãñchanas, in cases of the Parsva image, the Kushana artists have given a snake canopy behind the head of the figure and we are enabled to identify the Jina without any difficulty.1
In other cases, we are almost left in the dark as to the identification of the Jina represented unless inscriptions come to enlighten us with the actual names of the Jina.2 Of course, such inscriptions are only too limited in number. Thus, it may be repeated that the carliest Jina figures had no distinguishing Lanchanas. This conclusion does not probably imply that Larchanas were not known to the Jainas and to the Jaina artists.
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I. Fig 2. plate OXC. V.A. Smith's "The Jaina Stupa and other antiquities of Mathura.
2. Image of Sambhavanatha the year 48, Epi. Ind. Vol. X. Plate III, P. 112.
