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Digambara works further mention that Bāhubalī attained omniscience only after he received the homage of his elder brother Bharata Cakravarti. It is also mentioned that the devotion of Bharata was so deep that he caused an image of Bāhubali to be made in gold and installed at Podanapura. The image from Bādami (verandā of Cave IV) however contains two more female figures, standing close to Bāhubalī with folded hands, These figures may represent the adorers.
A splendid bronze image (20" in height) of Bāhubalī, assignable to c. eighth-ninth century A.D. and reported to have procured from a field at Śravanabelgola in Hassan district of Karnataka, is preserved in the Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai.'3 This image again is the earliest of all the known bronze images of Bāhubali The sky-clad Bāhubalī stands as he does in the kāyotsarga-mudrā with beautifully and tenderly delineated meandering stems with leaves which entwines his legs, thighs and arms. The hair combed back in almost parallel rows beautifully ends in lateral strands falling on shoulders. The oval face has the rare grace and introspective look. The rhythmic body contour combined with animation and plasticity is superb.
What is specially important in the images of Bāhubalī, who was neither a Jina, nor does he figure in the list of the 63 Salākāpurušas (Great Men), is that he occupies such a singularly venerated position in Jaina worship that the tallest images carved in Jaina tradition pertain to Bāhubalī. These colossi are carved at the places such as Śravanabelgola (nearly 57 feet high - A.D. 983), Kārkal (AD. 1432) and Velņur (A.D. 1604). all in Karnataka. Of all the three colossi, the imposing Śravanabelgola figure surpasses all the known figures of Bāhubali in scale and gradeur. The image prepared by Cāmundarāya (bearing epithet Gommata), the General of the Western Ganga king Rācamalla-IV (A.D. 974-84), shows Bāhubali as standing sky-clad in the kāyotsarga-mudrā with climbing plant fastened round his thighs and hands, and ant-hills carved nearby with snakes issuing out of them.
The Mahāmastakābhisheka of Gommateśvara- Bāhubali image at Sravanabelgola, marking the thousand year of the Pratişthāpan (installation) of the colossus, was celebrated in February 1981. The imposing colossus of rare beauty and grace is undoubtedly the greatest
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