Category: | Jain Art |
Type: | Bronze sculpture |
Motif: | Seated Tirthankara |
Name: | Enthroned Jina Neminatha in meditation |
Site: | Context of discovery unknown |
Union state: | Gujarat |
Country: | India |
Year: | 675-825 CE |
Material: | Copper alloy |
Height: | 34,9 cm |
Width: | 28,6 cm |
Inscription: | Yes |
Dated inscription: | No |
Custody: | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Purchase: | Several members of The Chairman's Council Gifts and Josephine Jackson Foundation Gift, 2008 (2008.279) |
Description: | This Jain savior is meditating on a jeweled cushion atop a lion-supported throne. He has the auspicious markings (lakshanas) of an Enlightened Being, especially the ushnisha denoting sacred wisdom. He sits in a yogic posture, a pan-Indian sign of a spiritually advanced being, and before him, supported on a lotus platform, are two recumbent deer flanking a sacred wheel (dharmachakra), the latter emblematic, as in Buddhism, of sacred teachings. Projecting lotus stems support the principal attendees commonly linked to Neminatha: the yaksha Gomedha and his consort, the yakshi Ambika, supporting a standing infant. On the reverse of the base is an incomplete donor's Sanskrit inscription in seventh-century script. |
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