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Chapter 2
Cultural Contribution of the Jaina Art of Madhya Pradesh
K.D. BAJPAI
Madhya Pradesh has the proud privilege of having preserved relics and monuments of art in a remarkable manner. Jainism flourished there from very early times and has left its vestiges in the form of art and architecture.
The Medieval Jaina art has characteristics of profuse ornamentation and iconometry. The iconographic details of the Jaina pantheon had been worked out in the Gupta period. The artists were compelled to pay more attention to the prescribed iconic norms than to the aesthetic sense of composition.
The iconographic forms of quite a large number of deities and semi-divine figures in the Jaina pantheon had already been thoroughly worked out by then, both in the Digambara and in the Svetambara sects. Apart from the statues of the twenty-four Tirthankaras, those of the sixteen Vidya-devis, twenty-four Sasana-devas (both Yaksas and Yaksis) the Kestra-palas,, eight Matrikas, ten Dik-palas and nine Grahas were made in the prescribed forms. Some of the medieval Jaina texts mention sixtyfour Yoginis, eighty-four Siddhas and fifty-two Viras, who had assumed the forms of popular divinities. The theological complex of the religion had gained ground in
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