Jaina Monuments and Places First Class Importance

Author(s): T N Ramchandran
Publisher: Veer Shasan Sangh Calcutta

Page 65

IIRTHANKARAS OF THE PRESENT AGE
"enjoys its true and eternal character, whereof the characteristic is the four infinities-infinite perception of faith, infinite knowledge, infinite power and infinite bliss." And such a soul is. called a Siddha.
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TIRTHANKARAS OF THE PRESENT AGE (Vartamānakāla-Tirthankaras)-Images of the 24 Tirthankaras of the present age are usually placed on highly sculptured asanas, generally padmāsanas. In North Indian temples they are generally of marble, white mostly except in the cases of Mallinatha, Munisuvrata, Neminatha and Parsvanatha, where they are often black. There is no such preference in South India for white marble and though we do find it in some of the Jaina temples here it is due to North Indian influence. Ordinary granite is more often selected for image-making than polished stone or any other material, it being maintained that the colossal statues at Sravana Belgola, Karkal and Yeņur which are hewn out of rocks justify the selection.
Tirthankara imagès are luckily found only in two attitudes, sitting and standing. There, however, appears to be marked preference for the former attitude. Twenty-one Tirthankaras are said to have attained nirvana in the kayotsarga attitude, i.e., standing erect as, do Bharata and Bahubali at Śravana Belgola, while the other three d'd so while sitting on a padmasana. These three are Rishabhadēva, Neminatha, and Mahāvīra, who are considered the most important of all. The attitude in which they attained nirvana was thus specially emphasised and came later to be sometimes associated with all the twenty-four. When colossal statues of any Tirthankara were made they were hewn out of boulders, the standing posture being mostly preferred.
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