Studies in Jaina Art

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

Page 37

STUDIES IN JAINA ART
Gāḍarmal temple at Badoh, built from remains of temples of the 9th and 10th centuries has a nativity sculpture variously identified with Krsna-Devaki or Trisala-Mahavira. The account of the Dik-Kumāris, given in works like the Jambudvipa-prajñapti, performing the satika-karma at the birth of a Jina, will show that the sculpture deserves to be identified as Jaina. The inference is further supported by the existence of Jaina remains at Badoh and Pathäri. The sculpture is well-known and illustrated by Coomaraswamy, History of Indian and Indonesian Art, fig. 178. A number of other sites in this state disclose remains, from the 10th century down to the end of the Moghul period, belonging mostly to the Digambara sect.1
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In Khandesh, Digambara Jaina vestiges are found at Erandol and Cahardi while there is a late Jaina cave at Patna. An exquisite big bronze covisi of Adinatha from Cahardi is preserved in the Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay. It is assignable to the 10th century A. D., if not a little earlier. In the Deccan, where a mixture of North Indian traditions with southern ones could take place, Digambara temples existed at Miri and Ghoțan in the Ahmednagar district, while in the Nasik district are a few Jaina caves. The Ankai Tankai group belongs to c. 12th-13th centuries while the Mangi Tungi group on the western border of the Nasik district (and very close to the Sulher fort of the Gaekwads of Baroda,) has, besides other later ones, a cave assignable to c. 9th century A. D. The style of carvings, however, in most of the Deccan caves has a southern stamp and are therefore excluded from this survey.
Thousands of Jaina bronzes scattered over Western India require a special study as most of them are stylistically related to the miniature paintings of the Western school which flourished in the medieval period, old Gujarat including Rajasthän, had, like Bihar and Bengal, its own school of sculpture and painting, the school of art which Taranatha referred to as the School of Ancient West. A glimpse of the importance of some of the earlier bronzes can be had from the bronze of a female chauri-bearer from Akoță (fig. 33) discussed elsewhere by the present writer. Of the later phases of bronze-casting in Western India, a glimpse can be had from a sahasrakuṭa sculpture with figures of 1008 Jinas (fig. 64).
1 M, B. Garde: op. cit.
3.8.4 Cave Temples of India by Fergusson and Burgess, 492 ff. 505ff. A.S. I., A. R. for 1921-22, 66 ff, for 1925-26, 167 ff. pl. lxc. b. For an illustration of the beautiful Câhardi bronze, see, Indian Metal Sculpture by Cintamani Kar, pl. 18. The figure is wrongly identified as Neminatha, the hairlocks on the shoulders of the main figure unmistakably prove that he is Rsabhanatha. Shah, U. P., Female Chauri-Bearer from Ankoffaka and the School of Ancient West-Bulletin of the Prince of Wales Museum, Vol. I., No. 1. pp. 4346 and plates.