Studies in Jaina Art

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

Page 28

A BRIEF SURVEY OF JAINA ART IN THE NORTH
At Sarnath, near Banaras, is preserved a figure of Ajitanäth (G. 61, Sahani's. Cotalogue) rightly assigned by Sahani to the Gupta period1. A few more sculptures of the Gupta period are preserved in the Lucknow Museum; one of them, a headless statue of Mahavira, is dated in Gupta year 113, while some finer specimens are J. 104, O. 181, in this Museum and B. 7 (fig. 27) in Mathura Museum, besides a few more in both the museums.2
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In one of the Udayagiri caves, Gwalior State, is found an inscription. recording its excavation, in G.E. 106 (reign of Kumaragupta I), with a figure of Pārsvanatha, "awe-inspiring on account of the horrible fangs of a snake carved over his head". The relief-sculpture is however lost. At Kahaon in UP., is a free-standing pillar, dated in the Gupta year 141, with a figure of Pārsvanatha at the base and four standing Tirthankaras on the top.
At Paharpur, in Bengal, has been excavated the site of a monument with. Buddhist and Brahmanical remains. Here was discovered a small figure of a Jina and a copper-plate, issued from Pundravaradhana, dedicated to the worship of Arhats at the Jaina Vihara (monastery) of Vața Gohali, headed by a monk of the Pancha-stūpa lineage (anvaya) of Banaras. The grant is dated in the G.E. 159 478 A.D. The Vihara which was thus established in the 4th century, if not earlier still, probably occupied the site of the great temple and monastery unearthed at Paharpur."
In the north-west, at Murti near Ketās (in the Gandhala valley) are situated the remains of a sanctuary and a stupa which Stein identified with the site of Simhapur of Hieun-Tsang's description. The Chinese traveller referred to a Deva-temple and a stūpa where the white-robed ones practised rigorous austerities. A few sculptures from this site, brought to the Lahore Museum, are assigned to the Gupta period by Stein.*
The Deogarh temples have not been fully explored. At Deogarh fort,
1 The sculpture is now in the collections of Bharata Kala Bhavana, Banaras Hindu University, and antedates the Rajgir figure of Neminatha noted above.
For Jaina sculpture of the Gupta age, see, Fleet, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, III. 66-68; Banerji, R. D., Age of the Imperial Guptas, pp. 104, 106, 108, 129 and pl. xviii; Agrawal, V. S, Catalogue of the Mathura Museum, JUPHS., xiii, pp. 52 ff.
8 See f.n. 3 on p. 15.
Epigraphia Indica, XX. 59 fi. History of Bengal, I, p. 410.
Stein A., Archaological Reconnaissances in N.W. India and S.W. Iran (1937), pp. 47 ff. and plates. Not a single Jaina sculpture from this site is published. A few later ones exist in Lahore Museum, but I could not obtain. photographs.