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SYMBOL WORSHIP IN JAINISM
worship as the Caumukha, the Pratima-sarvatobhadrika of Mathura sculptures of the Kusana age. The conception being allied to and an essential part of the Samavasarapa, it may be inferred that installation of such Caumukhas (Figs. 28, 74 and 84) in ancient times were possibly regarded as symbolic represent tions of samavasaranas. It is safer to assume that the practice of installing sculptures of this type was an old practice common to the cult of Caitya and Yaks worship and separate images were installed and worshipped or four sides of a Caitya or a pillar. Another important part of a Samavasarana, in the Digambara tradition, is the Mana-stambha (Fig. 56 from Devagadh) or Indra-dhvaja, which has been very popular amongst the Digambara Jainas, and such free-standing columns erected near a Jaina shrine, in front of it on in the courtyard of the shrine, are very numerous in the South. An early example of such columns, with 4 different Jinas in relief near the base, is the inscribed Kahaon pillar (U. P.) erected in the Gupta age. Some later examples are obtained in the Devagadh fort, and still later ones are quite numerous at Sravana-Belgola and other sites in the South.
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Erected in A.D. 460-61, see, Fleet, Gupta Inscriptions, pp. 66-68.
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