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15. NON-JAINA OULTS, CUSTOMS AND BELIEFS
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& lyre for the jñana-mudra. According to īśānaśiva (Mantrapada 18. 6), the emblems are varada-mudrā, a rosary, a lyre and a book.
The cult of Sarasvati seems to have been prevalent in the Kanarese districts in the age of Somadeva. There is an old temple of Sarasvati at Gadag, in the Dharwar district, which, though small in size, contains some of the most elaborately carved pillars throughout the whole extent of Cālukyan architecture. It stands close to the eleventh century temple of Trikūteśvara, and might possibly be of the same date. Within the shrine is an image of Sarasvati, seated cross-legged upon a high pedestal, which has a peacock depicted in the central panel below. Unfortunately, the image is mutilated, the four arms being lopped off at the elbows. Otherwise, it is a very finely carved example representing the graceful figure of the goddess, with the pearlstrings around the neck and the jewelled band about the waist. The elaborate pile of curly tresses on the head is surmounted by a six-tiered coronet of jewels. Another image of Sarasvati, of inferior workmanship, was found in the old Jaina temple at Lakkundi in the Dharwar district. It is a more complete
kample representing the goddess with four arms. "In her right upper hand is an elephant goad or ankuśa. The right lower rests open, palm upwards, upon her knee, with a small petalled flower upon it. In the left upper hand she holds a folded book, while the left lower holds a citron." While the iconography shows divergence in details, the cult appears to remain the same.
Traces of a temple of Sarasvati, older than that at Gadag. have been found at Aihole, the home of early temples in the Deccan. Close to the temple (No. 9) in the field to the south of the village, there stood another temple, but all that remains of it now is the shrine doorway and the seat or throne of the image. As in the temple at Gadag, a peacock, with its crest and long tail, is sculptured on the front of the pedestal, which seems to be an indication that the temple was dedicated to Sarasvati. "It thus occupies exactly the same position with regard to the temple as the later temple of Sarasvati does to the temple of Triküteśvara at Gadag. In northern India, there is a famous temple of the goddess Sarasvati, or Sāradā Devi' at Maihar, now a station on the railway between Allahabad and Jabalpur.
Pilgrimage to the shrine of the goddess Nandā on the Himalayas, evidently on the peak now known as Nandadevi, is mentioned in Yasastilaka
1 Cousens: Chalukyan Architecture of the Kanarese districts, pp. 25, 79, 110, 2 Ibid., p. 44. 3 Vincent Smith: History and Coinage of the Chandel Dynasty in Indian Anti
quary, 1908, p. 136.
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