Lessons of Ahimsa and Anekanta for Contemporary Life

Author(s): Tara Sethia
Publisher: California State Polytechnic University Pomona

Page 130

Sonya Quintanilla, “Exemplars of Anekānta and Ahimsā”
higher status than the celestial beings. Their ability to fly through the air as vidyā cāraṇa munis, is indicative of their advanced achievements in meditative practice. In the detail in Figure 6, the Ardhaphalāka monk is shown flying through the air, visibly nude; the colapatta draped over his left forearm does not shield his genitals at all. In his left hand he carries a small pot, and his right hand touches his forehead in a gesture of homage and veneration.
The high status of a flying Ardhaphālaka monk is also to be seen in the carvings on a large tympanum, which may have, when it was intact, formed the top of an imposing arched doorway leading into an Ardhaphālaka precinct of the early first century C.E. (Figure 7). Only a fraction of the flying nude Ardhaphālaka monk remains on the broken edge in the central register of this tympanum. His leg bent in the posture of flying is seen in the detail in Figure 8, as is his arm with the salient colapatta draped over the left forearm. The object held over the monk's right shoulder is the rajoharana, or whisk broom used by Jain monks to sweep the path before them as they walk. In the original center of this tympanum (now lost) would have been an object of worship, probably a seated Jina image, if it is analogous to other similar tympana that survive intact from the Kushan Period (Figure 9). Note that on the broken early tympanum (Figures 7 and 8) the Ardhaphālaka monk is placed closer to the holy object in the center of the tympanum than the flying gods who bear offerings of lotus flowers behind him.
The remains of another architrave from Mathura dating to the pre-Kushan period of the early first century C.E. depicts three Ardhaphālaka monks (Figure 10). The scene on the left portion seems to be in a monastic setting with a tank. One Ardhaphālaka monk, who is nude with the colapatta over his left forearm and a
10 For a discussion of the exalted status of Ardhaphālaka monks see my "Closer to Heaven than the Gods: Jain Monks in the Art of Pre-Kushan Mathura," Mārg, March 2001, pp. 57-68.
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