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Nalini Balbir, A 17th century Digambara Yantra
101
known about the provenance and the way the object entered the British Museum, either directly from India or through the India Museum.' The yantra is available for display to the viewers in Room 33 of the British Museum, case 8 where 8 other yantras (non-Jain) are nicely presented. The Digambara object is found among the highlighted objects for India on the Museum website, where an image and a short description are available on line (Plate 9.4)."
The mantras This yantra is heavily inscribed and the text is often crowded. It is incised everywhere, from the centre to the very edge. The script is Devanāgarī. The language is Sanskrit, with some inaccuracies or spelling mistakes: for instance, -aya instead of -āya in the ending of the dative, single consonant when a double consonant is required (e.g., pata for patta), etc. Occasional orthographic features reflect the pronunciation of the Hindi
· North Indian language) spoken by the person who incised the yantra, whoever he may be (e.g. -ja-for-ya- in Kundakundācārje). The text is transcribed here as it is, without any attempt at corrections, most of which are obvious anyway.
Text 1) Centre: inscribed triangle inserted within a circle (Plate 9.5).
In the middle is the syllable hrīm in characters larger than the rest. In the first angle: om hrīm samyag-darśanāya namah. In the second angle: om hrīm samyag-jnānāya namaḥ. In the third angle: om hrīm samyag-cāritrāya namaḥ
2) Around the central triangle is a circle arranged in three compartments, each of which is divided into two parts.
a) om hrim astitva-dharmāya namaḥl om hrīm vastutva-dharmāya namaḥ b) om hrīm prameyatva-dharmāya namah. I om hrīm agarulaghutva-dharmāya
namah c) om hrim cetanatva-dharmāya namah. I om hrīm amūrttatva-dharmāya namaḥ
3) Around this circle is a larger circle in the shape of a flower with ten petals. On the ten petals we read:
(i) om hrīm uttama-kşamā-dharmāya namah (ii) om hrīm uttama-mā(r)dava-dharmāya namaḥ
om hrīm uttamārjava-dharmāya namah (iv) om hrīm uttama-satya-dharmāya namah
om hrīm uttama-soca-dharmāya namah
V)
omb
10 Such is the information which was kindly communicated by Dr. Michael Willis, Curator for South Asia, Asia Department, British Museum. 1 http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_objects/asia/j/jain_yantra.aspx
