Treasures of Jaina Bhandaras

Author(s): Umakant P Shah, Dalsukh Malvania, Nagin J Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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Notes on Art
and Dancing seem to have been so very popular in Western India that even in the illustrations of texts like the Kalpa-sūtra and the Uttaradhyayana sutra, they were introduced in decorations of borders.74 A comparative deeper study for several centuries from eleventh century onwards is possible with the help of several reliefs of scenes of dancing and music, and representations of gods and goddesses in various dancing postures, obtained in Jaina and Hindu shrines like the Vimala Vasahi and the Luna Vasahi at Delvādā, Mt. Abu, the Ajitanātha temple at Tārangā built by Kumārpāla in the twelfth century (fig. 184), earlier Hindu shrines at Abaneri and Sikar and Kirāļu in Rajasthan, the Lakulisa temple on the Pāvāgadh hill, the Sürya temple at Modherā, etc. The Sarigitopanixad-säroddhāra of Sudhākalasa Gani, composed in the thirteenth century by a Jaina monk in Gujarat fortunately provides valuable literary evidence for such a study. A number of Jaina manuscripts contain several illustrations of dancing figures. We have illustrated here as specimens, a miniature in figure 42, from the Uttaradhyayana sūtra painted in V.S. 1505-1458 A.D. from Mandal, fig. 63 from another ms. painted at Patan in 1492 A.D., and a panel from Kalpa-sūtra painted in V.S. 1516-1459 A.D. from DB. no. 2991 (Cat. no. 459) in figure 43. The wealth of such evidence, available in Jaina paintings can further be demonstrated from a group of dancing Dikkumaris (Quarter-maidens), illustrated in fig. 44, from the Pārsvanatha Padmavati Vastra-Para, datable in the fifteenth century A.D., and the dancing figures from the Uttaradhyayana, dated 1529 V.S. illustrated in figs. 45–46, in the collections of Devasāno Pado, Ahmedabad. Over and above the evidence of sculptures from Jaina Hindu shrines, and paintings from Jaina bhandāras, we further have such evidence from wooden architecture of secular buildings as well as Jaina shrines in Western India, mainly Gujarat. Two small plasters from a Jaina shrine, illustrated in figs. 183-184, have small dancing female figures on three sides of each of them, the fourth being covered up being attached to a wall. These, along with some other interesting pieces, originally probably from Gujarat, were lying in the collections of the Mahāvira Jaina Vidyālaya, Bombay and are now transferred to the L. D. Institute, Ahmedabad. Assignable to c. sixteenth century A.D., some of the figures also suggest relations with Odissi dance traditions.
14 Also in miniature of full page size like the scene of Indra-Sabha in Masterpieces of Kalpa-sutra Paintings, fig. 278. Also see, Ibid., figs. 267, 273, 241, 1, pls. A-G. figs. 1-42, 279-284, 363-366.
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