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Jaina Monuments of Orissa
images present the figure of a Tirthankara on each of the four sides of a stone block. The figures on two faces in most cases can easily be identified as Rşabhanātha and Pārsvanathā distinguished by locks and serpent hoods respectively. Of the remaining two, one is certainly Mahāvīra and the other might be Neminātha who being the cousin of Krsna and Balasāma, was greatly esteemed at Mathura. Capped by umbrellas, the sarvatobhadrikā pratimas were most probably installed in the open, within the sacred precincts of the main stupa 11 The Grahas (eight in all cases of Jaina icons from Orissa) which decorated the Brahmanical Shrines came to be associated with the Jainas also and we find them generally figured vertically on the prabhāvalaya of the Jaina sculptures personifying the Tirtharkaras. In the iconographic representation of the Grahadevatās, the prevailing custom of the area was followed and there appears to be no deviation from their Hindu counterparts. In Orissa, they are found mostly associated with standing Jaina icons.
The Adipurāņa of Jinasena indicates U.P. Shah12 describes a type of pillars known as the mānastambha in the first rampart of the samvasārana. At the base of these pillars on four sides were placed four golden images of Jainas. Such pillars are also described in the Tiloyapannati which says that the Jina images were placed on the top of a pillar. The Kahaun pillar with an inscription of the Gupta age shows four Jainas on four sides at the top and one at its base. Such figures are usually enshrined in a square pavilion top, open on four sides. This practice remains even today amongst the Digambaras. At Deogarh are certain pillars which show variations in this order tradition of Mānastambha. Some times, besides the four Jina figures on the top, four figures of subordinate deities, Yaksis and Kșetrapalas etc. were shown at the base while on the top some times a Ganadhara or an Acharya replaced one of the four Tirthankara images. An elaboration of the same conception is the famous Jaina stambha at Chitor in Rajasthan.
There is a class of Jaina divinity styled as jyotiși or jyotiska representing the stellar world. In the early Jaina art the stellar world was represented by the symbols as is the case in Mañchapuri cave of Udayagiri where a scene narrating the event of worship of some Jaina religious symbol probably Kalinga Jina has been depicted. The symbol of twenty-four petalled lotus having five stellar symbols in the centre of it, stands for the stellar world or the sun and this lotus symbol we find invariably carved on the hands of the sun-God as his main emblem whenever we notice the sculptural representation of this Brahmanical divinity. 13
Gandharvas, Kinnaras and the Vidyādharas styled as Vyāntara Devatā in the Jaina canonical literature are common heritage to all major religious sects of India. They are
11. D. Mitra, Jaina Art & Architecture, A. Ghosh, (Ed.), Vol. I, p. 66. 12. U.P. Shah, Jaina Art & Architecture, A. Ghosh, (Ed.), Vol. III, p. 484. 13. T.N. Ramchandran, "Manchapuri cave", IHQ, Vol. XXVII, No. 2,
