Jainism in Rajasthan

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JAINISM IN RAJASTHAN
twenty four lañchhanas for twentyfour Jinas. In the sculpture of the Kushana period, the figure of Tirthankara is not seen attended by either a Yaksha or Yakshini. It seems that the lanchhanas as well as the Yaksha figures remained separate for long.
When confusion as to how to distinguish one Jaina image from another having a steriotyped appearance arose, it probably became necessary to mark the images with their respective symbols. In this way, the practice of associating the lañchhanas started in the Gupta period. Besides, the figures of the Yaksha and Yakshini also became necessary adjuncts. Other motifs were a trilinear umbrella, a drum player surmounting it, and a pair of clephants on two sides of the umbrella and a dharmachakra symbol attended by a pair of other bulls or deer form the parts of the Jaina sculpure. Evidently this type of development in the Jaina iconography is due to external influence of contemporary iconographic types.
METAL IMAGES: Images are made of both metal and stone. Metal images are important from the artistic point of view, and they can be preserved also for a long time. Inscriptions on them can be inscribed clearly without any difficulty. Their construction does not cost so much and hence they were made in large numbers. Their smallness of size enables the people to carry them from one place to another easily if the circumstances demand it. The construction of the metal images may be traced to very early times in Rajasthan. From the poet Samayasundara of the early seventeenth century A.D., it is known that Chandragupta Maurya and his great grandson Samprati installed the golden images of Parsvanatha and Padmaprabha respectively in the Jaina temple of Ghanghani Whether we believe in this late evidence or not, we are on the sure grounds of the existence of metal images from the seventh century A.D. On one pair of the images of Rishabhadeva discovered at Vasantagadh is incised an inscription dated 687 A.D., and it is the earliest image so far known to us in Rajasthan. Along with it, many old brass images have been also found out.
In 1582 A.D., the combined efforts of Rayasimha and of his minister Karmachandra succeeded in obtaining from Akbar no less than 1050 Jaina metal images which had been looted in 1576 A.D. during the capture of Achalagarh and the defeat of Surtanasimha of Sirohi by Turasankhan. At