Jaina Stupa At Mathura Art And Icons

Author(s): Renuka J Porwal
Publisher: Prachya Vidyapith

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About the Book
Mathura's Jain Stupa : Art & Icons
There are two ways in which the religious traditions in ancient India have been studied The Indologists studying the scriptures, along with the current practices; and the Archaeologists and Art Historians studying the excavated and explored remains, or the living monuments. Scholars have come to realize now that such study only of the oral tradition and the religious practices, or only of the material remains results in a partial understanding of the past, or even of living religious traditions. In the case of the Vedic-Hindu tradition, it was Ananda Coomaraswamy and Stella Kramrisch, who first tread the path and showed how to complement the understanding of the scriptural / oral tradition with the help of the material, especially the Art Historical, evidence. Current studies carried on by scholars like Dr. Cohen (Later Phase of Ajanta) and Professor Schopen (Buddhism in Andhra Pradesh, Mahayana Buddhism) show us the way the discipline is going to take shape, in this regard, in the near future. Dr. U. P. Shah and Professor Dhaky have done pioneering work in this direction, in the case of Jainism.
I am very glad, therefore, that Dr. Renuka Porwal has taken a very bold step by undertaking the study of the Mathura Sculpture to reconstruct the History of the Jain Church. Besides Valabhi, where the Shvetambara Canon was finally redacted (in early 6th Century), Mathura is the only archeologically important site that has got potential to help understand the cultural history of Jainism.
Mathura was the southern capital of the Kushans (1st to 3rd Century C. E.), who established a vast empire that comprised regions forming parts of modern India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia. This was significant from the economic/ commercial point of view; the area ruled by them was at the hub of the famous Silk Route and Mathura was a strong commercial hand that joined the vigorous international trade with a political authority that treated different religious traditions equally. The Kushan emperors in return expected legitimation from the diverse religious communities that they ruled. The era of Kushans is significant not only archaeologically, but also art historically; it is often described as the 'melting pot' of divergent cultures, and art historically described as the 'Cusp-Era'. As a result two distinct art schools, viz. the Gandhara and the Mathura school of art took their origin and prospered vigorously, in two different parts of the empire. In the initial stages, the two exchanged certain stylistic features as also artistic motifs that