Sambodhi 2013 Vol 36

Author(s): Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 18

A note on the Jina Image from Medatā,
Rajasthan
M. A. Dhaky
Some years ago, Jitendra Shah, Director L.D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad, had gifted to the Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Museum, Ahmedabad, a stone image from Meďatā, of a seated Jina showing a surround of five (out of the eight) prātihāryas or objects and beings symbolizing the glory phenomena attendant upon the Jina. The image is one of the rare survivals in western India of the relatively early Jina images within the medieval period, a little abraded but largely intact, apparently since it had escaped the hand of an iconoclast?. The image being of medium size, originally may have been set up in a devakulikā (subsidiary chapel).
The Jina is seated on a lion-throne, the throne's two profile-wise lions are shown almost adorssed save for the presence between them of a wheel of Law (dharmacakra) shown edgewise and flanked by a pair of tiny dears. At the two extremities of the throne occur two small seated figures, customarily of the Yaksa Sarvānubhūti and of the Yaksī Ambikā. Above the throne, placed centrally is the seated figure of Jina Rsabha with usnisa on the head and hairtuft noticeable over the shoulders. The Jina is attended by a pair of cāmaradharas or fly-whisk bearers standing in an elegant dvibhanga posture. Behind the bhāmandala (aureole) gracing the head of the Jina, rises a chatratraya or the triple umbrella on a round staff carved in high relief. A pair of small figures of the mālādharas or garland-bearing gliding angels, one each shown above the cāmāras held by the cāmaradharas. Flanking the umbrella is the pair of Hiranyendras? where the elephants.in profile are unusually shown with the head gracefully turned toward the spectator, thus emphasizing their bodies' tridimensionality and thereby heightening their relief. On their back they carry the figures of a mahaut, then Indra in the centre, and plausibly his