Studies in Jaina Art

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

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STUDIES IN JAINA ART
the Bengal ind Bihar specimens mainly on account of materials utilised, The Jaina zone of influence appears to have extended, according to R.D. Banerji, from the southern bank of Ganges to the western bank of the Bhăgirathi right upto the northern frontier of the jungle country of the wild Gonds. All the Jaina images belong to the Digambara sect. A few specimens from the Mānbhum district are preserved in the Pațnā museum. (cf. fig. 44).
In Orissa, no specimens are available for about nine centuries following the age of the Rāṇigumphā group, but rock-cut reliefs of Navamuni and Bārabhuji caves belong to c. 8th-9th centuries and the standing Jinas near Udyota kesari's cave were carved in c. IIth century. Khiching in the Mayurbhañj State provides interesting sculptures of these three or four centuries. A sculpture of Ambikā in the British Museum is a beautiful specimen of this period. Fig. 35 representing Rşabhanātha and Mahāvira on one stela, also in same Museum, is a beautiful specimen of c. 9th-Ioth cent. A.D., probably from Orissa. Another interesting specimen, a bronze of standing Adinātha (Fig. 36 ) from Puri district, is now preserved in the Indian Museum, Calcutta. 1 Temple Cities
A peculiarity of the Jaina sect is their love for building temple-cities, Satruñjaya in Saurāşțra being the most famous of them, with several hundreds of fanes (figs. 57, 58 ) erected in several lanes in various periods. The temple of Adinātha in Vimalavasi Tunk was built ( 1530 A. D.) upon the site of another older temple erected in c. 960 A. D., and there was also probably a still earlier structure. Jaina traditions assert that temples at Satruñjaya underwent mass-scale repairs at several intervals. A sculpture of Pundarīka in a small cell of the main Adinātha temple is one of the inost beautiful speci. mens of the roth century sculpture in Western India. Another noteworthy shrine is the Caumkha temple, built in 1618 A. D. enshrining a four-fold image, with four cardinal entrances to the sanctum, the eastern one connected with the assembly hall in front while three others have porches leading into the surrounding courtyard. Above each porch rises an elegant second-storey with balconied windows. A third noteworthy temple is the one reported to have been built by Kumārpāla and a fourth by Vimalasāha is in good state of preservation.2
Another famous temple-city in Saurāṣtra is on Mt. Girnār, 3 the
i Kuraishi, op. cit., Chanda, R. B. Ramaprasad, Mediaeval Indian Sculpture in the British Museum, 71 ff. pl. xxii. R.D. Banerji, History of Orissa, I. 84 ff., II. 394 pl. xc. Shah, U.P., in Journal of the University of Bombay, September 1940, 153, fig. 4.
2.3 Percy Brown, op.cit. 118 ff. cousens, Somnātha and other Mediaeval Temples in Kāthiāwād, 73 ff. xcii-çvi. Archaeology of Gujarāt, 109 f, pls. xxiixxiii- Burgess, Archeological Survey of Western India II ; Antiquities of Kāțhiāwāļ and Kachh. pp. 166 ff, pls. xxxi-xxxiv.