Mahavira and his Teaching

Author(s): C C Shah, Rishabhdas Ranka, Dalsukh Malvania
Publisher: Bhagwan Mahavir 2500th Nirvan Mahotsava Samiti

Page 385

374
KLAUS BRUHN
Jina) who is likewise represented with a hood-circle. It is said that Paréva (the twenty-third Jina) is shown with seven hoods, whereas Supārsva has only five. This is confirmed for example by a few imags at Deogarh showing side by side one Jina with seven and one Jina with five snake-hoods. "Seven" is the normal number for Pārsva, and there cannot be any doubt that, in these cases, the other Jina is Supārsva. However, we would overload the discussion of Pārsva's iconography by regularly taking the iconography of Supārýva into consideration.
The title of the present Section is "main divisions”. In other words, the six divisions (i-vi) are not just an effort to prepare a table of contents for an essay on the iconography of Parśvanātha, but are intended to demonstrate a specific category. The total number of Pārsva-images must be considerable. We may content ourselves with an identification and stylistic classification of all these images. But this would not give an adequate idea of the extent of variation: quite different images may all show one and the same Jina (e.g. Parśva) or one and the same god. Even Parsva-images following more or less the same style may vary considerably in their iconography. All this is lost sight of if we look only for identity-and-style. Likewise we cannot organize this material on the basis of *types. In the Deogarh monograph, much importance was attached to this category, and it is certainly indispensible in many contexts. However, it neglects the meaning and therefore separates Pārsva-images of different form from one another, while connecting the standard form of the seated Pārsva with images showing the seated Buddha sheltered by the nāga Mucilinda. The common sense category "main division", on the other hand, keeps all Pārsva-images together, and yet helps us to arrange this material and to obtain an overall view. It is natural that, in itself, a new category calls for some definition and clarification, but this cannot be achieved in the context of the present investigation. It cannot even be demonstrated that the emphasis on "main divisions" is more than a commonplace. The reader is, however, referred to p. 372 below where we use the term “main divisions" again (in connection