The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
We tend to associate female deities with Hinduism. It was therefore, interesting to see different representations of female goddesses in the Jain caves of Ellora. Ambika is the Goddess of Prosperity. She is the Yakshi or the protector - goddess of the 22nd Teerthankara, Neminath. Here are two of her figures, seen in the caves of Ellora...
Here she is, in Cave 32, represented as mounted on her lion, under a mango tree. She holds a mango and noose in her hand, though neither are clearly visible because of the condition of the figure. Behind her are her two sons -Priyankara and Shubankara. There are two other people by her side, either attendants or those asking for boons...
We see her again in Cave 33, with almost the same representation, albeit with slight differences... different artist, can we say?
Isn't it interesting to see how some concepts recur across religions, in spite of apparent differences?
P.S. She appears in a lot more forms across the caves, but these are the only images I captured which are worth sharing. Looks like another trip to Ellora is called for, with a better camera this time!
Interesting, I always thought Goddesses appeared pretty late in Jain Iconography...
ReplyDeleteI would have thought so too, Anuradha. But, to be honest, at the time I visited Ellora, I had no clue Jainism had goddesses at all! This came as a big surprise.
DeleteI thought the first one is Indrani w/o Indra. Seems my understanding is incorrect.
ReplyDeleteThough not as important as God, in jainism we do worship goddess. During navratri we have kumkumaarchan and aarthi on all nine days to goddess..
ReplyDeleteGoddess Ambika, yakshi of Neminath bhagwan is well known as Kushmaandini devi..
Goddesses were always prominent in Jainism
ReplyDeleteAs yakshinis of tirthankar
namely Ambika mata
Chakreshwari Devi
Padmavati mata
Saraswati mata
And many more.