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T'irlhamkaras
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of later growth, must have been borrowed from the Buddhist Iconography. Some of these symbols viz. Dharma-cakra, Chowris, lion-seat, 3 umbrellas, an aureola, an Asoka trec have been enumerated among the 21 Atisayas or supernatural qualities of a Jina by Hcmacandra in his Abhidhānacintāmaņi. The Jina sculptures of the Gupta and the later ages are found to be always marked with these well-known symbols.
The Jaina religion places some of the Hindu deities in a subordinate category (under Devas and not Devādhidevas) and makes them waiting upon the Tirthanikaras. This fact is strikingly borne out by some of the Hindu sculptures of the Gupta pcriod. For instance, in the illustration of the so-called image of "Rşabha," Mathura series, Kankāli silā, we can recognise in the two figures immcdiately to the right and left of the main figure, Balarama with a snake-canopy and a plough and Väsudeva with his usual attributes of conch, club (flute?), Vanamālā and disc. As the Jina represented is undoubtedly Neminātha known from his Yaksa Gomedha and Sāsanadcvatā Ambikā, this relation of Kșrna and Balarāma, the Jina's cousins, is ingeniously brought into relies by the sculptor. The sculpturing of the pedestal of the Jina images underwent some changes in the Gupta period. In many instances, the pedestal of the Kushan age shews a large group of male and female devotees surrounding the Dharma-cakra surmounting a pilaster, The pedestals in the Gupta age as mentioned before, portray a pair of deer and the figures of the planets in a lower row.
When we come to treat of thc race and families of the Jinas we find that history and mythology cannot be co-ordinated. The Jaina books inform us that twenty-two Tirthamkaras belonged to the Ikşvāku race and the two, namcly, Munisuvrata and Nemi belonged to the Harivam a family. From the stercotyped character of the birth, renunciation and salvation of the Jainas, we are led to believe that their lives had been cast into the same mould. They showed no novclty or variety in their character. The 24 Tīrthamkaras, as if, lcd a monotonous course of existence on carth. Although, however, their lives arc outwardly similar, there are in them a great many points of diffcrence which the Jaina mythology brings home to us. The names of the Jinas (explained by the commentators), their mothers'
