Tirthankara stele

Description

The Tīrthaṅkara are a group of Jina deities, masters of the Jains, with a traditional number of 24. They are represented standing or sitting on a throne, in a rigid attitude, sometimes accompanied by a lion or yakṣa.

On this black stone stele a couple is relaxing. Seated on a lotus, the woman and the man, richly adorned, hold a fruit and each carry a child. Between them, a stem rises, forming at its top the branches of a tree on which a Jina sits in meditation. He is accompanied by celestial beings presenting garlands of flowers. The lower part of the stele houses a row of seven worshipers and, engraved on the base, an inscription.

The female figure can be identified as Ambikā, a yakṣi usually depicted with one or two children, and a mango in her hand. The male figure would be his companion, the yakṣa Gomedha, possessing as an attribute a citron, a fruit similar to the lemon. In Jain texts, this yakṣa assists the Jina Neminātha, 22^th Jina Tīrthaṅkara, probably represented on this stele.

Provenance: Former Japanese private collection, acquired in Bangladesh in the 1970s.