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RELIGION & CULTURE OF THE JAINS
a considerable extent, and this fact gave ample scope to the talent of the Jaina artist.
The Images
The most distinctive contribution of Jainism to art was in the realm of icon-making. Innumerable Jaina images made of stone, metal including gold, silver and bronze, wood, terracotta, and even precious stones, are available. As Walhouse observed, "The Jainas delighted in making their images of all substances and sizes, but almost always invariable in attitude whether that be seated or standing. Small portable images of the Saint are made of crystal, alabaster, soap-stone, blood-stone, and various other materials; while the larger are carved from whatever kind of stone is locally available."
There is also no period or century in the annals of Indian art for which ample material pertaining to Jaina religious sculpture is not forthcoming. According to tradition, Bharata, the first paramount sovereign of the country and eldest son of the first Tirtharkara, was the first to raise temples to the memory of the Lord and instal the Jina's images in them.
Archaeologists have noticed a remarkable resemblance between the earliest extant images of Rsabha and the figures of standing or seated nude yogins found inscribed on some terracotta seals, relics of the prehistoric Indus Valley civilization, discovered at Mohenjodaro, as well as the nude Harappan red-stone statuette, almost equally old. The latter is remarkably akin to the polished stone torso of a Jina image from Lohanipur near Patna, which is ascribed to the Mauryan times (circa 4th century B.C.). The Hāthīgumphā inscription of Khāravela (2nd century B.C.) speaks of the re-installing by that emperor of an image of the Jina in Kalinga (Orissa) which had been taken away from that country to Magadha by a Nanda king in earlier times, thus taking back the antiquity of that image also to at least the 4th century B.C.
