Studies in Jaina Art

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

Page 22

A BRIEF SURVEY OF JAINA ART IN THE NORTH
Mother-Goddess terracottas from Mathurā, Hatharas and other sites in Northern India. Besides, this figure of Pārsvanātha bears no mark of Sri-vatsa symbol on the chest as obtained on later sculptures.
It is difficult to assign a correct age to the bronze in absence of any record about its findspot etc., but the above mentioned stylistic relations make it certain that it cannot be later than c 100 B.C. and may be earlier by a century or two. Kșatrapa and Kuśāna Periods
Jaina traditions refer to the practice of erecting stūpas over ashes of Jinas. One stūpa existed at Vaiśāli (Basarh ) dedicated to the Jina Munisuvratal and another at Mathurā dedicated to Supārsvanatha. According to Jinaprabha sūri (14th century A.D.), the Mathurā stūpa was repaired in the time of Pärśvanātha (c. 800 B.C.) and renovated by Bappa bhațţi sūri a thousand years later. 2 Excavations at Kankäli Țilā, Mathurā, which disclosed remains of two ruined temples, and a large stūpa of brickwork, yielded a veritable storehouse of Jain antiquities ranging from c. 150 B. C. to 1023 A.D., including images of Tirthařkaras, toraņas (gateways ), Ayāga pațas ( Tablets of Homage) railing pillars with reliefs of demi.gods and goddesses and a few sculptures including scenes from lives of Tirtharkaras, mostly assignable to the reigns of Kaņişka, Huviska and Vāsiska. Products of the Mathurā School of Sculpture, they offer an interesting study along with Buddhist and Brahmanical finds from other sites at Matburā.
Of the Jaina finds, perhaps the oldest inscribed is the Amohini Votive Tablet, followed by others including one set up by Sivayaśās showing a stupa with railing and approached through a tcraņa gateway ascended by a flight of steps (Fig. 7). Two nude dancing girls stand on the two sides of the gateway. A better view of a Jaina stūpa may however be obtained from another tablet, set up by Vasu, the daughter of Loņaso bhikā,' representing a stūpa of a high cylindrical type, with a basement showing arched niches. The only other instance of such niches was obtained on a stūpa basement at Sirkap, Taxila (Saka-Parthian period), with a double-headed eagle on one of them. 5 This led
1 Araśyaka-Curni of Jinadāsa (c. 676 A.D.), pp. 223-227, 567. 2 Vividha Tirtha Kalpa, edited by Jinavijaya, pp. 17 ff.
Smith, Jain Stüpa and other Antiquities of Mathurā (1901), p. 13. 3 Smith, op. cit., p. 19, plate xii.
i Vogel, Catalogue of the Archeological Museum at Mathurā (1910), pp. 184 f, pl. V ; Agrawal, JUPHS., XXIII (1950), pp. 69-70, has corrected the earlier reading of the inscription on this Tablet.
Marshall, Cambridge History of India, I, 633, also see Guide to Taxila (3rd Ed), pl. xiii, p. 88. Dr. Motichandra, 38 fai gtata, in Premi Abhinandana Grantha, pp. 229-249.