Manuscript Illustrations Of Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Author(s): W Norman Brown
Publisher: American Oriental Society

Page 91

the text, which hymns brings that is the
29. EXERTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS In this chapter are enumerated 73 topics of Jain teaching and practice, and the benefits they produce, culminating in final deliverance.
HV (fig. 115) and JM (fig. 118; misplaced in the manuscript with Chapter 31) show a god enthroned in some heaven, fully ornamented and attended, with sky elephants above sprinkling him. This is a common inconographic type for Tirthamkaras before they descend from heaven to earth for the final existence (cf. Brks figs. 2, 87, 101, 102, 116). Here the reference may be to sections 4 and 14 of the text, which state that obedience to the guru and to one's fellow religionists or the use of praises and hymns brings rebirth as a god. In these evil times, when the world is steadily on the down grade, that is the maximum good one may hope for at death, and the ordinary Jain euphemism today is that he (the one dead) has gone to heaven.
DV (fig. 117) has in its upper panel a seated monk preaching to a standing monk, with another monk beside the second, standing in the body-abandonment posture for meditation, which rids one of past and present transgressions (section 12). In the lower panel is shown the happy death of a perfected monk, which is mentioned in section 72 as coming with the annihilation of one's last Karma. The dying monk is lying on the ground, while another ministers to him, and still another sits by his head preaching.
JP (fig. 116) shows at the top a laywoman adoring a Tirthamkara, who is shown like the perfected beings in the illustrations to Chapter 28. The text says (section 9) that adoration of the twenty-four Jinas brings purity of faith. In the lower part of the painting a monk is preaching to three laywomen, who are adoring him. This may well be a reference to section 10 of the text, which points out the benefits that come from reverencing one's guru.