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Museums in India: The National Museum, New Delhi, has a rich collection of Jain sculptures and art from almost all regions of India. Sculptures and jina images, retinues, bronzes, paintings and other artwork is on display. Other museums where Jain art is exhibited include the Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay, the museums at Bikaner, Udaipur, Jodhpur, Bharatpur, Ajmer and Jaipur, the Durgapur Art Gallery, the Jain Trust at Sirohi and many more in Rajasthan; museums in Hyderabad, Golconda and elsewhere in Andhra Pradesh; museums in Dhubela, Gwalior, Shirpuri, Raipur, Ujjain, Ratanpur, Deogarh, Lukknow, Khajuraho in Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, Patna and Rajgir (Veerayatan) in Bihar; museums in Tamilnadu such as the Madras Government Museum and Pudukkotai museum; museums in Calcutta; and museums in Gujarat, such as the L.D. Institute of Indology, the Koba Aradhana dham and the Baroda museum.
Museums Abroad: The Jain Centre, Leicester, has a purpose-built museum that depicts the history, philosophy, way of life and the contribution of Jainism to various fields.
The British Museum, London has early Jain sculptures belonging to the Gupta period (circa fifth century CE). The museum has exhibited sculptures of Risabhdeva, Mahavira, Parsvanatha and the guardian deities Sarasvati, Padmavati and Ambika. The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, has a beautiful bronze statue of Shantinatha, and stone and marble sculptures of Parsvanatha, Risabhdeva, Neminatha, Ambika and other art works.
The Musée Guimet, Paris, has exhibited the head of a Jain image carved on the white-mottled red stone of the Mathura region, an eleventh century image of Risabhdeva, images of Parsvanatha, Mahavira, Bahubali, guardian deities of Mahavira, the wheel of the law and other Jain artefacts.
Museum Für Indische Kunst, Berlin-Dahlem, contains a red sandstone head of a jina, stone sculptures of Mahavira and Rishabhdeva in meditation, and a bronze sculpture of a standing jina, surrounded by sitting jinas.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has exhibited a bronze image of a tirthankara, a bronze image of three jinas, images of five jinas with Vimalanatha at its centre, and a bronze Shantinatha image with twenty-four jinas.
The Nelson Gallery in Kansas City, the Seattle art museum and New York museum also contain sculptures and some examples of Jain artwork.
A great exhibition of Jain art from India, presented at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1995-96 CE, brought the treasures of many museums and private collections to the attention of many thousands who visited it, or learned of it through the media.
Other fine arts, like dancing and music, vocal and instrumental, are still promoted by Jains, so far as these form part of religious devotion, worship and ritual. Jain literature, paintings and sculptures have numerous representations of, and references to, these arts. Several works on the art and science of music have been composed by Jains. Thus, the art of Jainism, has been developed over many centuries, even millennia, and is thriving in India and abroad. It is a true heritage of Jain thought and integral to the wider Indian heritage.
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