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The Baroda Museum and Picture Gallery, Baroda has several examples of Jains wood carvings. 15
One of the most exquisite examples of wooden Jaina temple is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, built in 1594. It was in Patan's Zavevivad locality when Burgess and Cousens carried out their survey in 1890. Some other museums also have stray examples. 1 6
Sculptures
The Jainas believe that a sandal wood portrait sculpture of Vardhamāna was carved in his life time when he was meditating in his palace about a year prior to his renunciation.17 Inspite of the tradition, no wood carving in the round depicting Tirthankaras have been found so far. At what time the transformation from wood to bronze or stone took place it is difficult to say. But the ritual of daily washing the image with milk and water and the application of sandal paste etc. were perhaps responsible for this. However, subsidiary and allied carvings as part of architecture have a better continuity in wood and quite a few of these can be seen in museum and private collections. All such examples have the following common features : (i) they are smaller in size when compared to their counterparts in stone, (ii) once detached from the structure, most of these look as if carved separately and independently; (iii) they are carved in such a way that one side, which was earlier attached to the architectural piece, is not finished properly; (iv) usually they are coloured and (v) they come from one or the other parts of Gujarat and Rajasthan, thus inheriting the characteristic features of the region.
Conclusion
The foregoing discussion shows the wide range and variety of Jaina wood carvings. They not only help us to reconstruct the social history of the period but also fill up the lacunae of art history. All these carvings though small in size, reflect the taste of their rich Jaina patrons who believed in embellishing every inch of space available on their houseshrines or temples. Though mostly religious these carvings provide us with interesting social gleanings of the contemporary life. In wood carvings, the Jaina patrons took a lead over their Hindu or Buddhist counterparts.
References 1. Trivedi, R. K., Wood Carving of Gujarat, Census of India 1961, Vol, V,
Part VII.A (2), Delhi, 1965, pl. XI. 2. Ibid, 3. Ibid, page 9. 4. Ibid, p. 28. 5. Dwivedi, V. P., Wood Carvings, chapter 32 in Ghose, A., (Edited) Jaina
art and archi tecture, Vol. III, New Delhi, 1975, pls. 290-291,
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