Studies in Jaina Art

Author(s): Umakant P Shah
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Page 18

A BRIEF SURVEY OF JAINA ART IN THE NORTH
5 reason to believe that the tradition of a life-time sandal-wood image of Mahavira is reliable.
That the Jina-Image was in worship in the Mauryan Age is evidenced by the find of the highly polished torso of a Jina Image from Lohānipur near Patnã and this further lends support to the view that an image of Mahāvira was carved in his life-time.
The Jina Image, as I have suggested recently in my discussion on “Yakşa Worship in Early Jaina Literature” has for its model the ancient Yakşa statues. I have also suggested that the mode of worship in the Yakşa-cult has largely influenced the worship in Jainism. The close similarity of the Jina and the Buddha image, and the fact that both Jainism and Buddhism are heterodox cults which protested against the Vedic Srahmanical priestly cult shows that Buddhism could easily have been influenced by the worship of the Yakşa and the Jina Images.
That the earliest image of Buddha hails from Gandhāra is a mere accident as suggested by Kramrisch and does not preclude the possibility of another earlier image being discovered in the land of Buddha's birth, as a product of the Native Indian School of Art. Jayaswal's discovery of a Mauryan torso of a Jina figure from Lohānipur (fig. 2) proves on the one hand the authenticity of Jaina traditions on image worship and on the other hand the existence in Magadha of an earlier model for Jina images of early Christian centuries. With the models and traditions of Yakşa-worship already existing, the Magadhan artists had no need to look outside for inspiration ; there is an equal chance of the case being quite the reverse, and Gandhāra could have followed the Magadhan conception. The Jina image definitely preceded the Buddha image as a cult-object.
Lohãnipur is a continuation of the Mauryan sites at Kumrahar and Bulandibāg near Patna. Along with this highly polished torso were revealed from the foundations of a square temple ( 8'10" X 8'10") a large quantity of Mauryan bricks, a wor: silver punch-marked coin and another unpolished later torso of a Jina in the kåyotsarga pose. Evidently, both the torsoes represented some Tirtharkaras and the foundations are the earliest known site of a Jaina
1 Journal of the Oriental Institute, Vol. III, no. 1, pp. 55-71 esp. see p. 66. The truth of my statement would be obvious to any one who compares the Lohānipur torso with the ancient Yakșa statues.
% Kramrisch, Stella, Indian Sculpture, p. 40. Also see Shah, U, P., in Journal of the Oriental Institute, Vol. I, No. 4, pp. 358-368.
Journal of Bihar and Orissa Research Society, XXIII. 1, pl. i-iv. The second torso probably belongs to the Gupta period according to Banerji-Shastri in a subsequent issue of the same Journal ( vide Vol. XXVI. 2. 120 ff.)