Jinamanjari 2000 09 No 22

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

Page 20

sarvatobhadrika images whose pedestals have empanelled sāsanadevi figures of Padmavati, Ambika and Cakreşvari.10 In the same town the images at Subhash Park also interprets the images of Sohagpur and Jabalpur."
South Kosala Region
Geographically it covered almost the whole of the present Chattisgarh and Bastar regions besides Amarkantak and Marakanda in Maharashtra state. Images are known from Bilaspur and Ranipur districts at such places as Sirpur, Malhar, Dhanpur, Ratnpur, Padampur,
etc.13
Some Jaina Images of Rśabha belonging to late 7th or probably 8th C.E., the buried Jina image outside the enclosure of Parghaniadeva temple as well as the later dated Jina images studded in the walls near the house of Amarnath Sao at Malhar (Bilaspur district) exhibit a distinguished sophistication and purity by balanced surfaces bounded with a rhythmic movement. The mellowed and sensitive form of the torso is accentuated with a balanced dispersal of solidity and mass sophistry, but somewhat stiff thrust of limbs seems subdued. These features represent a re-statement of classical idiom. In due course of time the sculptural forms evidently were decline in South Kosala while the early phase Orissan features of artistic tradition were imbedded in
them. 18
The images cut in black stone (Ratanpur, Bilaspur) or in greyish sandstone (Malhar) have come up at various places during the Kalachuris. The images have lengthy limbs tending towards extreme lateralism, swollen faces, broad plump chest suddenly constructing to an almost triangular waist with a central lump near the navel, below which are attached feet which look more like unhappy appendages. The sculptures of South Kosala during this phase thus interpret an idiom which is emphatically provincial. The exuberate variations are fairly recurrent from about 10th C.E. to 14th C.E. in South Kosala (Candraprabha, Rśabha and other images in black stone from Ratanpur have such features).
The Jaina temple of Bhand-Dewala at Arang (Raipur district) is stellate in plan standing on a lofty pitha decorated with seven mouldings in which the major ones consist of gajapitha, așwapitha and narapitha. The jangha of the temple has six vertical buttresses decorated with two bands of sculptures. The sculptured bands are demarcated from each other by a moulding called vidydhara pattika. The images on the jangha represent sāsanadevis on the bhadra niches and minor deities - dikpālakas and apsaras on the other projections.
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