Jinamanjari 1996 04 No 13

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

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which also provides us with a description of the platform on which the Venerable One was carried about:
[This palanquin] was adorned with pictures of wolves, bulls, horses, men, dolphins, birds, monkeys, elephants, antelopes, srabhas, yaks, tigers, lions, creeping plants, and a train of couples of Vidyaharas. (AS 21)
If we choose, as Marshall did, to think of the seated and horned figure in the Indus seals in terms of later Indian religion, we might better regard it as the prototype of this Jain scene than as a prototype of Siva Pasupati, as Marshall tends to indicate. The Jain parallel offers not only what seems to be the same asana -- and one in which Siva in never portrayed -- but also the platform with surrounding animal images.
Clearly these seals suggest some degree of continuity between the Indus Valley religion and the Jainism of Mahavira though possibly greater elements of discontinuity will emerge as we proceed.
The Indus Valley Visual Record - Part Two
The proto-Jain hypothesis gains credibility from other seeming parallels within the Indus Valley iconography. Parsva, the thirthankara before Mahavira, is said to have been protected on both sides by upright serpents at the moment when he fell into kevala. 17 One of the Indus seal impressions which shows a figure seated in mulabandhasana flanked by upright serpents may represent the prototype of this scene. Siva, of course, may be depicted with serpents on his person, Visnu reclining on a serpent, and Buddha sheltered by one, but only Parsva is traditionally described as flanked by upright serpents.
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