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ASOKAKUMÅRA BHATTACHARYA
number of others. The piercing of the eye of the fish in the Swayambara ceremony of Draupadi is a prominent episode in the great Drama of the Kuru. battle. The Jaina images of Tirtbankaras came to be associated each with an emblem at a late stage of their development The images of the ninth Tirthankara Puspdanta has the insignia of a Makar or a fish The fourteen dreams of Jina-mothers include a pond with playing fish in at, signifying creation, freedom, and prosperity. In Buddbism, too, the artists' eye did not leave the fish out 10 their search for artforms A Buddhtst yotive tablet of soapstone from Taxıla belonging to the 1st century A D. has the figure of a fish embossed on it along with a number of other aupicious symbols, such as the blowing couch etc This shows how the Buddhists took the piscal symbol as very sacred at so remote an age as the 1st Centy, of the Christian era. It is indeed, worthy of note that the same āyāgpata contains a figure of Swastika on the right hand side with its outer arms turned to the right. Although exactly there is nothing to prove the Buddhist affiliation, of the find under discussion, we have reasons to bebeve in consideration of the associate objects from Tafkian where the present ayagapata, was found that it is a Buddhist yotive tablet. Indeed 10 some of the ether tablets of offering ( votive) attributed to the Buddhists and excavated out of Taxilan sites we have dcinite and conclusive evidence of the traces of a pair of fish as a sacred symbol In the terracotta votive tablet just referred to there is a pair of fish on its left corner at the bottom surmounted by the figure of a lady dressed in flowing robes in the fashion of the Indo-Greeks with both hands raised upward as if holding the Jar-like substance above head. The foliage ornamentation, the shape and conception of the jar (pürnakalaša ) at the centre on the above together with the peculiar dress of the female figure on the out border speak of the Kusāna period of the tablet, when it seems, the fish motif continued to be used on vative tablets and other objects down up to the Gupta and the post-Gupta era. In the recent excavations at Nandangarh we have the alternation of fish designs on'a pot-shera interspersed with a figure resembling a Cakra. The composifion, if could be found in entirety, might well have established the popular acceptance of the piscal symbology in the late Gupta Period. The Jain significance for this symbol is very important. It represents the fact of the defeat of the Cupid before the Lord The pairs of Fish which represeats the Cognisance for Cupid on his banner is shown to be serving the Lord in humble submissions
37.
Tadvan'dhyapaficaśara Letanabhava Lalpatam Kartum mudha bhuvananātha nijāparādham/ Sevām tanate puratastava ming yugmam Sraddhaih puro vilihhttoru nijanga yuktya /
Acardinkara, loc. cit.
