Jaina Philosophy Historical Outline

Author(s): Narendra Nath Bhattacharya
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

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30 Jain Philosophy in Historical Outline
indicating the continuity of Indian art style. The Harappan style is also found on a bronze statue of Pārsvanatha belonging to the first century BC which is now in the Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay. Its findspot is unknown.1 The Jain caves at Udayagiri and Khandagiri near Bhuvaneswar in Orissa, going back to the time of Kharavela (first century BC), are not laid out on definite and regular plan, but located at convenient places according to the physical configuration of the rock. Many of the caves contain a number of sculptured friezes and panels. The Manchapuri cave relief in Udayagiri and Anantagumpha reliefs in Khandagiri are marked by poor workmanship. The long friezes of the Ranigumpha and Gaṇeśagumpha came out much later. The reliefs follow mythological narratives with Jain affiliation on which nothing, however, can definitely be stated at our present state of knowledge. To the first century BC we may assign the Pabhosa caves, near Allahabad, dedicated for the use of the Kasyapiya Arhats i.e. the followers of Mahavira.2
From the first century onwards Mathura became the centre of Jain artistic activities. We have here the ruins of a Jain shrine dating back to the pre-Christian period and a large number of inscriptions engraved on the images of the Jinas, votive tablets and arches, etc. The Kankali Tila yielded a variety of Jain specimens, including railing pillars with reliefs of demigods and goddesses and a few sculptures containing scenes from the lives of Tīrthamkaras. A few specimens like the Amohini relief the Loṇaśobhika-āyāgapaṭa (Tablet of Homage), the Kankālī-Tila-āyāgapata, etc., probably belonging to the pre-Kaniska decades, show traces of heavy physicality, emphasising the stature of the main figure by raising its height and grading the subsidiary figures accordingly. But this style gradually changed; at best the Jain figures of the last quarter of the first and second century show that the heaviness of form was partly replaced by introducing new elements. Almost all the seated Tirthamkara figures in the Mathura Museum, which can be dated on the basis of their pedestal inscriptions in the Kuşapa period, show below their seat a wheel of law, placed on a pillar in the centre, flanked on either side by numbers of devotees with a lion at each end.3 In the Kuṣāṇa period the Jains seem to have worshipped, besides their usual symbols, images
1Shah, SJA, pp. 8-9.
*EI, II, p. 243.
'Bühler, ISJ, app.; Vogel, MMC, pp. 41-43, 66-82.