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A BRIEF SURVEY OF JAINA ART IN THE
NORTH
Jainism is a living faith in India and its followers have spread over all parts from very early times. A study of Jain antiquities scattered over extensively in the North as well as in the South is therefore indispensable for the reconsiruction of India's Cultural History. No attempt has yet been made to give a connected account of these finds. The subject is both vast and intricate and cannot be given full justice in a small review. Here only a critical outline of some of the more noteworthy specimens is attempted from Jain sites in North India including all states north of the Vindhyas, parts of the Deccan, almost the whole of Madhya Pradesha and Orissa. Of these no definite evidence is available of any Jain remains in Assam, Burma, Kashmir, Nepal, Bhūtän and Tibet while Kutcch in the West has yielded a few vestiges of the mediaval period.
It must be remembered that classification of arts on sectarian basis does not stand to reason, for no art is entirely Jaina, Buddhist or Hindu. The same artists who worked for one sect, were employed also by other sects in any particular unit of time and space. So, when we talk of Jaina Art we discuss art specimens created under the patronage of followers of the Jaina Faith, for do we not find identical art style in the Jaina, Buddhist and Hindu specimens of the Kuşāna period obtained from Mathurā ? Pre Historic Period
Pre-historic sites in India do not lend any definite clue to the existence of Jainism. A few seals from Mohen-jo-Dāro showing human figures standing in a posture closely analogous to the free standing meditative pose (kāyotsarga mudrā ) of the Jinas, ? or the seal representing a male divinity seated in meditation, the prototype of Siva?, corresponding with later Jaina, Buddhist or Brahmanical sculptures in such postures, cannot, in the present state of uncertainty of the reading of the Indus-valley script, be definitely used as attesting to the Pre-historic antiquity of Jaina art or ritual. Jaina traditions
Marshall, Mohen-jo-Dāro and the Indus Valley Civilisation, I, pl. xii. 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 22. Ramaprasad Chanda, in Modern Review, August 1932, Pp. 152 ff.
? Marshall, op. cit., xii, 17, 52 ff,
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