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Architectural and Iconographic Trends
267 and J20 at Ellora. The representation of dancing Indra is very rare in the entire range of Jaina art. There are a few four-armed dancing figures of Indra in the Vimala Vasahi temple at Abu in Rajasthan and in the wall paintings in the Vardhamana temple at Jina Kanchi (Shah 1984: 46). Our examples show eight and ten-armed Indra dancing in chatura posture with hands in gajahasta and dance mudrā and surrounded by musicians. Since there are no characteristic attributes, it is difficult to identify these Indras, but probably they represent Saudhrmendra and Isanendra, the important and popular Indras.
Auspicious dreams
On the uttaranga of the shrine doorway of J20 at Ellora are depicted objects symbolising the auspicious dreams seen by the mother of every Jina at the time of conception, though the number of objects does not tally with either the Digambara or the Svetambara tradition (Shah 1955: 105-108). According to the Digambara tradition, the mother of a Jina sees sixteen dreams and according to the Svetāmbara tradition, the number of the dreams is fourteen, while the number of objects depicted here, is eleven or twelve. A bull, lion, Gajalaksmi, sun, moon, pair of fishes and a pair of full of vases can be identified, while other objects are indistinct. However, the elephant, the garland, the banner, the lake, the palace, the jewel heap and the fire as recorded by later Digambara and Svetambara traditions are absent here. The occurrence of the mina yugma is a typically Digambara feature as the Svetāmbaras omit this object. Again, the Digambaras prescribe two vases, while Svetambara tradition record occurrence of only one vase.
It was a common practice to depict the dreams on the uttaranga of the doorways. The earliest example is temple no. 12 at Deogarh; dated to 862 CE. Later on, the temples at Khajuraho, Abu and Kumbharia also display the same feature (Tiwari and Kamal Giri 1990: 3). It is mainly a central and western Indian feature. The depiction at Ellora is one of the earliest and probably still in conceptual stage.
Colossus
There are two colossi, at Chambhar and at Ellora and both of Parsvanatha. The occurrence of a gigantic icon is not a very unusual feature. As Bajapi has pointed out, there was a liking or a fashion in the medieval times to carve the colossus. As he suggests rightly, the large icon of Bahubali at Shravanabelgola set the trend and number of such huge icons were carved subsequently at Gwalior, Ahar, Banpur, Barhat, Deogarh, Bahuriband and several other places in central India (Bajpai 1990: 16). A twenty feet high colossus of Rsabhanātha is found at Bhojpur. It is dated to 1010 to 1055 CE, to the reign of Paramara monarch Bhoja. The Santinatha temple at Khajuraho also has a colossal of Rsabhanatha in the shrine. It is dated to 1027-28 CE (Bajpai and Srivastava 1980: 45, 47). There is a colossal statue of a Jina among the ruins at Navagaja or Nilakanthesvar near Alwa, Rajasthan, dated to circa 12th century CE (Fisher and Jain 1977: Fig. 48). At Badwani, there is a twenty-six feet high image of Rşabhanātha (Bajpai 1975b). Colossal images are also found at Samasgarh near Bhanbhada in the Bhopal district (Bajpai 1975b). In Bina-Barha in the Sagar district, a 16.6ft high image of Santinatha, dated to 1746 CE, has been found (Bajpai 1975b). Colossal images of
