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Lord Mahavira by four maidens holding the fan, chauri, a money-bag (?) etc., in their hands is especially noteworthy. Since Jaina traditions speak of dik-kumaris nursing and attending upon the mother at the time of the birth of a Jina, this sculpture probably represents the mother of Jina. This identification is the more likely because an old Jaina temple still exists at Pathari. It may be remembered that in Buddhist mythology, the Buddha is attended, not by females, but by Brahma and four other male deities while a similar group of female attendants is not known to Hindu iconography in representations of the nativity of Krishna. A ceiling slab in the Neminâtha shrine at Kumbharia (north Gujarat), which relates to the life of Pârsvanatha, (Pl. 11a) shows King Asvasena and Queen Vâmâ (the parents of Pârsva), seated side by side in the first row, while the second and the third rows contain in separate compartments, parents of all the twenty-four Tîrthankaras. They are seated on a cushion, close to each other, the mother carrying the future Jina on her lap.
With this type may be considered a group of miniature paintings of the Kalpasutra. King Siddhartha and Queen Trisalâ (parents of Mahâvîra) are shown, for example, seated beside each other in a miniature, 10 the seat of the former being larger and each with a chhatra above. Here Trisala narrates her dreams to Siddhartha who interprets them as auspicious omens. Of a similar type are other miniatures representing the parents of Rishabha, the patriarch Nabhi and Marudevi We also see Siddhârtha and Trisala, listening to the interpretors of dreams (svapnapâthaka) who are shown in a lower panel.11
A curious sculpture, representing a Tîrthankara seated on a simhâsana, and showing a lady reclining on a cot below the simhâ sana, is preserved on the Vaibhara hill, Rajgir (Pl. 11b) and dates from c. 9th-10th century A.D. The lady must be the mother of the Jina on the throne. A similar sculpture was seen in the compound of temple No. 12 at Deogarh, while there is another of this type in the collection of Sri P. C. Nahar, Calcutta.
This type of representation of the parents of a Jina (seated side by side) at Kumbharia on stone, or in the miniatures noted above, leads us to the examination of yet another group of
