Dr. R. G. Majumdar
Jaina Sculpture
For the believer in the Jaina faith from the beginning of its inception, the root term “Jina” signifies the paradox of a king who has conquered the world by renouncing every strand of material possession and power. This idea is visually manifested in the incarnate form of the tirthankara meditating in the padmasana or the kayotsarga positions.
Jaina art in general and more specifically, Jaina sculpture comprise the process of iconographic embodiment of a faith rooted in myth and history across two and a half millennia. It is the iconic figure of Mahavira and some of the Tirthankaras preceding him in their states of meditation, along with attendant deities and emblems within a contingent cosmology, that constitute Jaina art in a wide range of forms—miniature paintings, relief and monolithic sculpture, temple architecture in the form of singular edifices or an entire temple-city.
In Jaina Art and Architecture (1974), A. Ghosh has divided Jaina iconography generally into three periods between 300 B.C. and 1000 A.D. He has also drawn the basic premise, that Jaina art in all its complexity and variety forms an integral part of the fund of India’s total cultural heritage and thus cannot be seen in isolation. Jaina sculpture - like Buddhist and to an extent Hindu sculpture - constitute the artistic representation of a faith expressed through stone, wood, ivory, terracotta, metals of various kinds. The content and form of this dynamic faith in an unique artistic symbiosis, is the concern of this paper.
The Greeks during the same period of civilization as Mahavira’s and Buddha’s, namely the sixth century B.C. onwards, were also keenly interested in the literary and artistic representation of their essential truths. Aristotle used the term “mimesis” or imitation in his discussions on classical tragedy; Plato used it in his discourses on poetry in The Republic. The use of the word “mimesis” was in connection with the ritualistic worshipping of Dionysus: it was from the original impulse of enacting the passion of his life, death, dismemberment and resurrection that tragic drama evolved as a vital art form in Periclean Greece. It was similar with Greek sculpture, which like dythrambic poetry began on a religious basis - portraying Apollo, Venus, Poseidon, et al - and then gradually adopting secular, literary and political attributes in tune with a maturing civilization.
Jain (and Buddhist) art and sculpture, however, began and sustained the singular representation of the Jaina /Buddhist faith identified with their respective iconic paradigms - primarily figures like Mahavira and Buddha in a historical setting along with a mythological repertoire of divine, semi-divine and mutable icons like Yakshas, Yakshi, Bodhisattvas, humans, animals, birds and trees.
The result of such an artistic evolution through the media of sculpture and painting gave rise to a complex and heterogeneous iconography that sought to modify images/icons from much earlier religious and cultural contexts associated with pre-Aryan,Aryan and other civilizations, including the Harappan civilization of Mohen-jo-Daro. It is also interesting to note the uncanny similarity between Jaina and early Greek sculptures of kouroi. The Jaina kayotsarga pose finds almost a parallel in the portrayals of the Apollos of Tenea (6th cent B.C.) and of Kouros (600 B.C.), except for their slightly extended left feet.
For the purposes of sculpture and painting the most popular of the twenty for named Tirthankaras in the Jaina canon that have featured down the ages, have been four - Rshbnatha or Adinatha, Neminatha, Parashnatha and Mahavira. The Kalpasutra delineates mainly the lives of these four saints of whom only the last two earn a proper place in the chronicles of history leading up to the threshold of the 6th century before the birth of Christ.
At the heart of Jaina iconography, as mentioned earlier, is the figure of the archetypal Jaina tirthankara, Mahavira, depicted universally in two basic postures: (a) the standing, kayotsarga or khadgasm position in which the arms hang loosely by the sides reaching down to the knees, palms curved inwards, body completely relaxed, the eyes focused on the nose in the nasagri dristi, in deep meditation. The purpose of this meditation is to “to make an end to sinful acts.”In Hemachandra’s verse the ideal perception of the kayotsarga pose is portrayed: “ At dead of night he stands in the kayotsarga outside the city wall and the bullocks taking him for a post rub their flanks against his body;”(b) the second posture is the sitting, lotus-like padmasana position that corresponds with one of Buddha’s meditative positions. The Buddha has a third, reclining, position in his state of nirvana.
The basic core of Jaina iconography, the figure of the tirthankara, is supplemented by four layers of images that identify the icon concerned:
- Symbols of two types: (i). Characteristic attributes: Rsabhanatha’s flowing locks of hair, Parashnatha’s seven-hooded snake; (ii) emblems of cognizance: bull for Rsabhanatha, kalasa for Mallinatha, conchshell for Neminatha, lion for Mahavira, etc. Emblems common to all are the Srivatsa mark on the chest, the unisa on the top of the head - both being a post-8th century A.D. development in Jaina Sculpture.
- The tirthankara icon is also identified by a pair of Yaksha and Yakshi, superhuman attendants or sasana devatas, who seem to belong, as Ananda Coomeraswamy observes in his book on Yakshas to “an older stratum of ideas than that which is developed in the Vedas.” It is not surprising therefore to discover through the medium of sculpture (and ritual) Yakshas and Yakshis like Kubera and Ambika, acquire a stark individuality of their own beyond their honourable affiliations.
- Miscellaneous gods adopted from the Hindu pantheon—Indra, Shiva, Vishnu, Saraswati, etc.
- Panca Maha Kalyanaka: the five archetypal events in the phenomenal life of Mahavira. These events serve as universal Jaina paradigms of consciousness and knowledge, described in the Kalpasutra and depicted vividly in miniature paintings and sculptures. Almost every aspect of Jaina iconography, art and ritual is in some form or other connected with these five events.
The first event, the garbha kalyanaka was the conception of the embryo of Mahavira in the womb of Devananda, wife of the Bhahmin Rsabhadatta; and the transfer of this embryo (according to Svetambara scripts) to the womb of Trisala, a Magadhan princess with the mediation of the goat headed deity Harinegamesin. Both women saw in succession the fourteen auspicious dreams on the eve of their ‘conception’, which also form the subject of artistic renditions in paint and stone. The second event the janma kalayanka constitutes Mahavira’s birth in the phenomenal world; diksha kalayanka, the renunciation; kevala jnana, knowledge, enlightenment; and finally nirvana kalayanka , the event of final liberation. These five events are celebrated in the Kalpasutra, an excellent source of Jaina iconography from the Svetambara perspective; and are also recounted in Hemachandra’s Mahavirasvamicaritra
The fourteen-dream motifs are often shown in relief carving in wood on the lintel over the door of the Jina shrine in the Jaina households. Harinegamesin is shown seated or standing in sculpture, alone or surrounded by children. In the relief panels in Chandragupta Basti in Karnataka, Indra is shown purifying Mahavira after his birth, attended by four bulls. The enlightenment stage is usually represented by the ‘samavasarana’, the preaching hall of theJina, in the symbolic structure of the caumukha, four images back to back on a square pedestal, signifying the same tirthankara preaching in four directions of the world. Mahavira’s nirvana is normally depicted in the dhyana mudra, with the symbol of the crescent moon resting on mountain peaks figuring on his throne.
The Kalpasutra of Bhadrabahu delineates at length the lives of only the four tirthankaras mentioned earlier, a preference that becomes evident in the paintings and sculptures in museums in India and around the world. Others like Bahubali, the Mahavidyas, the Yakshas and Yakshis, and the Gandharas, also find find a place in the domain of sculpture and graphic representations.According to Svetambara belief, Mallinatha the 19th Tirthankara was a woman with the earthen vessel or kalasa as her emblem. Subsequent traditions attributed multiple facets to each Tirthankara—a special body colour, a pair of attendant daemons, gandharas, an emblem of cognizance and also a special vriksha or tree.
Jaina sculpture from the earliest stages also subscribes strictly to the conventional Indian tradition of artistic execution to the minutest degree.Sacred images were created strictly in a hierarchical order of images that called for a corresponding system of scales known as Tala. There were ten talas, starting with the highest unit of ten, dasatala, concerning divinities of the top order, and continuing with the human (ashtatala) and the lower forms (ektala) of life and images. The dasatala images were divided into three parts—uttam, madhyam and adham. Mahavira, along with Buddha, Bramha, Visnu and Maheshwara, belonged to the prestigious top-club category, the uttam dasatala. These were the images of the supremely realized souls who in their omniscience merited an appropriate artistic representation. The sculptured image of divinity demanded special attention to four main anatomical features: the entire body, face, eyes and nose—reflecting fulfillment, beauty, joyousness, elegance and serenity. The purpose of such an artistic composition of beauty would be to create a sense of awe and veneration in the beholder.
The shilpa texts prescribe in detail the measurements and nature for any image—in which the body is positioned perfectly straight with the arms by the sides in a natural way, the feet placed side by side with body weight equally distributed. The height of the body from crown to feet is divided into 124 parts, each part being known as dehangulam or viral, which in turn is divided in 8 parts, each known as yavai. The sculptor uses the established tala norms as well as his own prowess to create the perfect configuration of the features of the face and body of the divinity concerned, taking recourse to nature as well at every turn to enhance the beauty of his subject. The eyebrow can be shaped like a crescent moon and can be elegant and smooth as the arch of a bow; his eyes may parallel the lines of a kayal fish or a spearhead or the shy glance of a doe; his nose can be shaped like a flower gracefully ending with a deep fold. The upper lip should have an edge and three curves, the lower lip shaped like a half moon. The ear resembles a conch in shape.
The exception to Jaina iconography while being “in perfect correspondence “ with it, is the figure of Bahubali or Gommateshwara. He is no tirthankara in the conventional sense and yet all Jainas revere him as the unique son of the first tirthankara Rsabhanatha. He too renounced the world to find himself.He is one of the most visible of icons within the dynamic repertoire of Jaina sculptures.The colossal statue of Bahubali in Sarvanbelgola, Karnataka, stands 21 m. high on top of a hill, carved out of a single boulder of granite a thousand years ago.
Jaina art, and specifically Jaina sculpture relates the microcosm of the Tirthankara icon at its center to the glorious macrocosm of the faith at large among the laity at the circumference. This phenomena is symbolized in myriad ways: the sculptured magnificence of the Udaygiri, Khandagiri, Ajanta, Ellora and Badami caves; the temples of Mt.Abu, Ranakpur and Khajuraho;the victory pillar in Chitor; temple cities like that of Palitana in Saurashtra. All this and more, symbolically comprise the Jaina ‘universe’ that Mahavira chose to address in the state of his supreme knowledge, his kevala jnana. Such a ‘universe’ in all its multiplicity as well as unity, is the subject of Jaina art and sculpture. “The main achievements of this age” observes Jose Pereira in Monolithic Jinas , “are noniconographical.”