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The Followers of the Ever Growing One
163
The Contents of Certain Inscriptions
In addition to the āyāgapațas there was found in the ruins a considerable number of images of naked tirthankaras, 77 especially of Mahāvira, either standing in the kāyotsarga posture or seated in dhyānamudrā. Certain of these images are called caturmukha, fourfaced, and form a four-fold statue. On the pedestal, inscriptions indicate the donors' names (both men and women), the nature of the gift (very often: pratimă, image), and the date of presentation. These inscriptions are written in a mixture of Prākrit and Sanskrit in brähmi characters and were probably the work of munis whose knowledge of Sanskrit was not very advanced.78 Certain of them are of particular interest, for they relate how such or such a śrāvikā made an offering at the bidding or suggestion79 of an Arya (Aryya) or sādhvi. These inscriptions thus reveal to us not only the existence of sådhvis exercising a spiritual parentage (fisini or antevasini: disciple of a male or female Arya), but also their function as inspirers of devotion
of fish, and a bhadrâsana (or Indrayaşți?) shown in its four arms. In the centre of the big svastika, is another circle showing the Jina and the tri-ratnas. The circle round the big svastika shows male and female worshippers of the figures of a Jina, a Caitya-tree enclosed in a square railing, a stūpa and another object (badly damaged) represented on four sides in the rim of the circle. The pedestal of the pata shows in the centre a highly defaced inscription and partly defaced eight auspicious symbols, out of which the water-jar, the lotus, the tri-ratna, the śrivatsa, and the svastika can be recognised easily." U.P. Shah, 1955, pp.81-82. We may take note of the fact that, out of the 9 ayāgapatas discovered in the ruins of Mathurā and described in the above mentioned work, 5 of them were offered by śrāvikās, which indicates that they occupied an important place in the Jaina society of that epoch. One notices also the variants between the aștamangalas which appear in this connection and those which are mentioned in Scripture in a later epoch.
77 "All the figures of the Tirtharkaras are nude, showing that the difference between images of the Digambaras (sky-clad, worshipping nude images) and the Svetämbaras (white-robed, adoring Tirthankaras wearing a lower garment) was posterior to the Kuşāņa period." U.P. Shah, 1955, p. 11.
78 Cf. C.J. Shah, 1932, pp. 202-203.
79 Nirvartana: cf. Bühler, EI, vol. I, p. 380.
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