________________
Tirthaskaras
In fact, we find a large number of these distinctive symbols, to wit, a bull, ram, deer, Krauñca bird, clephant, dolphin. Syena bird, conch, lion, lotus, rhinoceros, buffalo, represented on rail-bars and coping stones discovered in Kankāli pīlā of Mathura." The Kalpasūtra, a very early text of the Jaina canon (date 300 B.C.) gives a list of all the 24 Lāùchanas for the 24 Jinas, monumental evidences fail to show their early association with their master in sculplural art. In no sculpture of the Kushan age from Mathura the Tirthainkara figure is seen attended by either a Yaksa or a Yaksiņi. Curiously, however one example of a Yakşiņi named Ambikā is to be noticed in a sculpture on the reverse of the Jina statue of the year 9 from Mathura. From the Gupta period onwards, we find the Jaina sculptors have regularly appended the Yaksa and Yakşiņi figures to the sculptures of the Tirthamkaras, 3 Thus, it may be concluded that the Lāńchanas as well as the Yakşa figures might have remained as isolated and in a germinal state and their actual association with the Jaina images did not take place in the Kushan age of Jaina art.
Another fcature of the Jina icon is the presence of Ganadharas just to the right and left of the main figure. Jaina texts specially of iconography mention them as attendants of a Tīrthainkara. Such figures are represented as holding some Chowris, one of them might be shown with its hands clapsed in adoration. Though Yakșa figures are absent from the early Jina images of Mathura, Ganadhara figures are prominent by their presence in many of these images."
A further feature of the Mathura Sculpture is that most of the Jina figures are shown completely naked. No conclusion,
1. Ibid, Plate LXXV, Figs 1, 3, 5, Plate LXXIV, Figs 2. 3. 4. 5, Plate
LXXI, Figs. 2.7. Plate LXXX, Fig. 3. Plate LXXXI. Fig. I. 2. Jaina Fig. the year 9, back, II, 1, Ep. In. Vol. X. p. 104. 3. A pair of conches, deer or lion indicate nothing of this image with
conches below the seat. Ancient image of Rşabhanātha from Kankāli Tilä, V.A. Smith's "Mathura stupa" plate XC VIII wrongly identificd for Neminātha. The Sāsana-devatā scen in this case is not Cakreśvari with discs but
Ambikā with a child in her lap. 5. New Brāhmi inscriptions of the Scythian period by R.D. Bancrji. Epi.
Ind. Vol. X. Plate 1, p. 109.
