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Jaina Sculptures and Paintings in the United Kingdom
171 society. These paintings also include the respective cognizances of the Jinas and customary features in entourage. Besides, the paintings also contain some principal events in the lives of the Jinas like their conception and the rendering of the 14 auspicious dreams seen by the mothers of the 'would be' Jinas on the nights of the conception. These also contain fourarmed figure of Indra celebrating the birth and anointing ceremony of the Jinas, the renunciation of the Jinas, by way of plucking out the hair and their first discourse in the devanirmita congregation hall (samavasarana) after attaining the omniscience. The samavasarana with figures of the animals of great enmity sitting together face to face has deep suggestion of the impact of the preachings of the Jinas. These paintings mostly belonging to the Svetambara tradition do come from the Western India and represent the Apabhramsa or Western Indian style of Jaina paintings.
The Jaina sculptures particularly the icons portraying the Jinas and other deities in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum, London and the Ashmolean Musuem, Oxford were studied in detail alongwith the few pieces in the Private Collection of Art Rayland House Galleries Collection, London. The Victoria and Albert and the British Museums do preserve both on display as well as in their reserve collections the rich variety of Jaina sculptures, spanning in date between the first century AD and the 19th century AD. If all the Jaina sculptures in U. K. Museums are taken together their number would come to 150 or even a little more. These sculptures are in stone and metal and they represent almost all the important regions of India. These mainly include the examples from Mathura, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar. I have noted that these examples exhibit all the important phases of the evolution of the Jaina iconography. The Jaina collections in these museums include the figures of the Jinas, the Yaksis, Sarasvati, Bahubali, Ganesa and Jaina tutelary couple or the parents of the Jinas. The figures of the Jinas include Rsabha, Ajita, Abhinandana, Sumati, Padmaprabha, Suparsva, Candraprabha, Suvidhi, Vimala, Santi, Kunthu, Malli, Munisuvrata, Neminatha, Parsvanatha and Mahavira while those of the Yaksas and Yaksis include Cakresvari, Ambika, Padmavati Yaksis and Kubera and Dharanendra Yaksas. The figures of the 23rd Jina Parsvanatha outnumber all other Jinas and the figures of Rsabhanatha, Suparsvanatha, Vimalanatha, Santinatha and Neminatha are only next in number to Parsva figures. Some of the rare figures are also preserved in the museum collections which exhibit Mallinatha (as female Jina) and seven-headed Candraprabha Jina, Sulocana Yaksi, Bahubali, Sarasvati, Padmavati, Ambika and portable Jina figures suggestive of domestic worship.
Before presenting the succinct study of the Jain sculptures in the three main museums i. e. Victoria and Albert and British Museums, London and Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and in the Private collection, it would be proper to give an overview of the evolution of Jaina images as a backdrop.? The earliest Jina image comes from Lohanipur (Patna, Bihar) and is assignable to c. 3rd century BC. The nudity and the posture both are suggestive of this identification. During the Kushan period at Mathura, certain initial and formative features of Jaina images both in respect of the iconography and the thematic representations are
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