Religion and Culture of the Jains

Author(s): D C Sirkar
Publisher: University of Calcutta

Page 50

SM. K. BAJPEYI
U. P, Shah suggests that the lady can be identified with the mother of a Jina, probably Mahavira.
Another inscription37 incised on a large statue of an elephant surmounting the bell capital of a pillar records the erection of the image of Nandiviśāla by Rudradāsa, the son of Śivadāsa, for the worship of the Arhats. Scholars differ regarding the interpretation of the word Nandiviśāla. According to Cunningham, ss it refers to the elephant as the great Nandin. Bloch is of the opinion that the word is either a technical term of uncertain meaning or indicates the pillar which was 'as big as Nandin'. Further, he says that the appellation Nandiviśāla and the donor's and his father's names in the record allude to the fact that 'Jainism apparently already in those early times was as much mixed up with Śaivism as its great rival Buddhism'. Lüders40 thinks that the word Nandiviśāla 'is the proper name of the elephant represented in the sculpture' and does not accept Bloch's theory about the mixing up of Buddhism and Jainism with Saivism. In his opinion, Rudradāsa was probably a convert from Saivism to
Jainism.
41
The Jains pay homage to a class of divinities called Vidyadevi. According to their tradition, these goddesses, headed by Sarasvati, are sixteen in number. An epigraphic record*1 dated in the year 54 of the Kanişka or Śaka era records the dedication of a statue of Sarasvati by a Jain lay disciple. This is supposed to be the earliest image of Sarasvati discovered so far.*
Jainism, like Buddhism, is a monastic religion and its adherents are divided into ascetics and lay disciples. The
36 Op. cit., p. 11.
37 Lüders' List, No. 41.
38 ASIR, Vol. III, pp. 32-33.
39 JASB, Vol. LXVII (1898), Pt. I, p. 276 and note 2.
40 Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXIII, p. 41; also note 30.
41
Lüders' List, No. 54.
42 K. B. Pathak Commemoration Volume, 1934, p. 41; U. P. Shah, op. cit., p. 11.