Risabha Deva

Author(s): Champat Rai Jain
Publisher: Jain Mitra Mandal

Page 87

LAST WORD
71 tion of the body) posture is pecularily Jaina. It is a posture not of sitting, but of standing. In the Adipurana (XVIII) Kayotsarga posture is described in connection with the penances of Rishabha or Vrishab the first Jina of the Jainas... Not only the seated deities engraved on some of the Indus seats are in Yoga in the Indus valley in that remote age, the standing deities on the seals also show Kayotsarga posture of Yoga described above.........A standing image of Jina Rishabha is in Kayotsarga posture on a stelle...... in the Curzon Museum Mathura .. It will be seen that the post of this image closely resembles the post of the standing deities on the Indus seals...... The name Rishabha means bull and the bull is the emblem of Jina Rishabha. The Standing deity figured on seals 3 to 5 may be the proto-type of Rishabha.”:15
There is not only the resemblance of the Jaina image of Rishabha the first Jina, with the figures on Indus seals, but a certain Indus seal (No. 449) bears an inscription, which Prof. Pran Nath reads as Jineshwara. 16 This is sufficient to prove the authenticity of the Jaina tradition about the antiquity of Rishabhadeva.
Further more the ancient Hathi Gupha inscription of King Kharvela mentions clearly an image of Agra Jain (i, e., the first Jain; i e., Rishabha) which was 15. Modern Review. August 1932, pp. 156-159 16. Indian Historical Quarterly, Supplement, Vo VIII
2 No;