Some Aspects of Jainism in Eastern India

Author(s): Pranabananda Jash
Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal Publisher's Pvt Ltd New Delhi

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Some Aspects of Jainism in Eastern India
image, they also stand in kāyotsarga pose, with their respective cognizances carved below e::ch."66 A few more mutilated Jaina images are also found in this village showing that the village was once a thriving Jaina centre.67
A headless image of Rşabhanātha in kāyotsarga pose hails from Mondoil, Rajshahi district, Bangladesh and is now preserved in the Asutosh Museum of the Calcutta University. The Jina image stands on a lotus placed upon a pañcuratha pedestal, on which is shown the bull, his lāñchana and a number of devotees. There are two fly-whisks bearing figures on two sides of the main figure and the nine grahas with Gañesa are shown in low relief on either side of the stela. Behind the lost head is the decorated prabhā-mandala upon which is a chatra and on both sides of these there are flying gandharvas and celestial hards carrying gariands and other offerings. The extreme elegance of the figure of the Jina and the sensitiveness of its fingers cannot escape admiration.48
A standing Jina image of Santinātha in usual pose between two cauri-bearing attendants is discovered from Ujāni in the Burdwan district ar d is now urder the possession of the Vangiya Sahitya Parishad Museum, Calcutta. On the back-slab are carved the nine grahas, five on one side and four on the other, and the lāñchana (an antelope) is shown on the pedestal. This sculpture can be roughly assigned to the twelfth century AD. Another image of Sāntinātha (ht. 1'11'') in kayutsrga pose on a double-petalled lotus with an attendant on either side of his legs is now lying over the scanty remains of the village Chitgiri in the Bankura district. 70 The back-slab is relieved with four more tirthunkaras, in the same pose, and two flying figures at top corners. The cognizance below the pedestal seems to be a deer; and the image may, therefore, be of the sixteenth tirtankara, śāntinātha. Situated in an interior village of Jhargram sub-division of Midnapur district at Rajpura two Jaina tirthankarus were noticed which were being worshipped as the ‘Buddha' and 'Ananta'. The representation of the tirthankara
usual lañchana, an antelope, and flanked by the cauri-bearers and asta-graha-devaius revcals a specimen which can be attributed to c. tenth century AD on stylistic ground. It is now preserved in the State Archaeological Gallery, Calcutta, West Bengal. Another image of the Jaina tirthankara Pārsvanātha standing in käyotsarga pose having a canopy of a seven-hooded serpent over his head, is still lying at the site.?1