Jinamanjari 1996 04 No 13

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

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in the same general area do not in themselves preclude the possibility of intrusion. Attribution to a later period is also not free from difficulty, and doubt can only be resolved by further and more adequately documented discoveries of a comparable kind (Cambridge History of India, 1953:66).
From this concluding remarks, it is clear that the attribution of a later period to the statuette is as difficult a position to establish as the earlier date of the third millennium B.C.E. The case for both dating periods are equally strong. Suffice to say, art critics have declared that for pure simplicity and feeling, nothing that compared with these two masterpieces was produced until the great age of Hellas.
With this in mind, let us attempt to determine the subjective and objective qualities of the statuette under description. From the subjective perspective, as was already noted, the one stature is of a naked god/saint standing erect in the elemental pose of "frontality," with shoulders well-backed and clear-cut physical features delineating that life is moving within the modelled mass in a well regulated, controlled -- yet, amazingly fluid order. The genital pose rhymes with the spirit of control, bringing out what could be interpreted as the force contained within the religious and philosophical image of a Jina (conqueror of the senses).
By way of contrast and comparison to this interpretation, one may study the engraved seal from MohenjoDaro (Cambridge History of India, 1953, pl. XXIII) of the third millennium B.C.E. which represents, according to certain scholars, Rudra Pasupati>Mahadeva seated in meditation in the midst of mortals such as men, animals such as rhinoceros, buffalo, tiger, elephant, antelopes, birds and fish. The meditation pose is termed peniserectum (urdhva-etas), representing the upward force of creative activity. The iconography of the god noticed in the Mohenjo-Daro seal
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