Mahavira Jain Vidyalay Suvarna Mahotsav Granth Part 1

Author(s): Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya Mumbai
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

Page 629

164 : SHRI MAHAVIRA JAINA VIDYALAYA GOLDEN JUBILEE VOLUME
glass eyes, and studded metal pieces on different parts of the body of Pundarikasvāmi and the two smaller figures. This is a practice which has undermined the beauty of many a Jaina sculpture, old or new. The inscription reads as under:
(१) श्रीमद्युगादिदेवस्य पुंडरीकस्य च क्रमौ ।
ध्यात्वा शत्रुजये शुद्धयन् सल्लेखाध्यानसंयमैः ॥ १॥ श्रीसंगमसिद्धमुनिर्विद्याध(*)रकुलनभस्तलमृगांकः । दिवसैश्चतुर्भिरधिकं मासमुपोष्याचलितसत्त्वः ॥२॥ वर्षे सहस्त्रे षष्टयां चतुरन्वितयाधिके दिवमगच्छत् । (*)ACH STETTUATÈ curfedari ll R 11 अम्मेयकः शुभं तस्य श्रेष्ठिरोधेयकात्मजः।
पुंडरीकपदासंगि चैत्यमेतदचीकरत् ॥ ४॥ चतुर्मिः कलापकं ।। According to the inscription, Muni Sangamasiddha, moon of the firmament of the Vidyādhara-Kulas, meditated on mount satruñjaya, before Yugādideva (Adinātha) and Pundarika. Having purified himself by the practice of austerities and sallekhana, observing dauntlessly his fast for a month and four days, attained to Heaven on Monday the second day of the dark half of the month of Mārgaśīrsa, in V. S. 1064. Śreşthi Ammeyaka, son of Rodheyaka, caused to build this shrine and (consecrate) the image, for his own merit.
This Muni Sangamasiddha is probably the grand-teacher of Pädalipta, the author of Nirvāṇakalika..
This is the earliest known inscribed and dated image available at Śatruñjaya. It is important also as a fine specimen of art.
Fig. 2, preserved in a cell on the right side of the northern part of the circumambulatory passage of the main shrine, represents a householder, i. e. 'a śrāvaka, a Jaina lay worshipper. The inscription on its pedestal shows that this is a statue (a portrait sculpture ?) of śreșthi Nārāyana.
5 One of the four ancient lineages of Śvetāmbara Jaina monks. 6 Compare the colophon of Nirvāņakalikā, wrongly ascribed to the
first Pädalipta, who is said to have flourished in c. 2nd century A.D. But Dr. U. P. Shah, in his "Iconography of the Jaina Goddess Ambika", Journal of the University of Bombay, September 1940, p. 159, f. n. 6, pointed out that Nirvāņakalika was a work of c. eleventh century A.D.