Jinamanjari 2000 09 No 22

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

Page 24

Jinamañjari, Volume 22, No.2, October 2000
THE JAINA ARCHITECTURAL FORMS AT
MATHURĀ IN INDIA
Dr. Ann W. Norton, Professor of Art and Art History,
Providence College, U.S.
During the late Sunga and Kuşāņa ages Mathurā was an important centre politically and economically. It was also a place where different religions were allowed to exist and prosper in close proximity. During the period of around the 1st - 3rd C.E.. the popular șramanic religions -- Jainism and Buddhism were beginning to develop their own artistic character out of an often common matrix in Mathurā. (217) While it is certain that Jainism is the older of the two religions, Buddhist stūpas of an elaborate magnitude predated the Kuşāņa period by at least two hundred years. Nonetheless, some of the plaques at Mathurā prove that stūpa worship was also important to the Jains at that time.
TUS
TEAVI SVELDEN
SANAS
Fig 2. Fragment of a Jain tympanum/torana-archway, from Mathura, ca. Ist2nd c. C.E., National Museum, Delhi. Ibid (Also, Shah, U.P., op.cit., Plate VI, Fig.16.
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