Images of Tīrthaṅkara Ṛṣabhanātha (Introduction)

Ṛṣabhanātha is regarded as the founder of Jainism and he is also the first among the twenty-four Tīrthaṅkaras referred to in the Jain literature. The Mahā-Purāṇa (III. 190-191) vividly describes the reasons for Ṛṣabhanātha’s birth. The Bhāgavata Purāṇa (V. Chs. 4-6; XI, 14-26, etc.) has given interesting details about the birth of Ṛṣabhanātha (Bhattacharya 1974: X-XI). The details of his life are found in the Ādipurāṇa of the Digambaras, the Kalpasūtra and Hemachandra’s Triṣaṣṭhi-Śalākāpuruṣa-Caritra of the Śvetāmbaras. Interestingly, the Bhāgavata, Agni and Varāha Purāṇas refer to him as an incarnation of Viṣṇu, although his symbol of bull and his place of Mokṣa in Kailāsa establish his connection with Śiva.

From the categorical list of the lāñchanas or cognizances of the Jinas given in the Pravacanasāroddhāra, it appears that Ṛṣabhanātha’s lāñchana is Bull (Vṛṣa). In addition to this, he also has the symbol of Dharmacakra. His bull-cognizance explains the origin of his name, Vṛṣabhanātha or Ṛṣabhanātha (Bhattacharya 1974: 36). In our present study area good number of Ṛṣabhanātha images, either in standing (kāyotsarga) or seated (dhyānāsana) postures has been discovered and also minuately documented.

Before discussing the details about the Ṛṣabhanātha sculptures from ancient Bengal it is very necessary to mention about the earliest stone sculpture of Tīrthaṅkara from the present study region. Though a headless torso of Tīrthaṅkara image was discovered from Chandraketugarh (Pl.XVI.A) and it bears the depiction of śrīvatsa mark in chest, which is not a common iconographic feature of this region, accepted as the earliest stone image of ancient Bengal. However, there is a great controversy about the discovery of this image and it location. So it is very much difficult for us to accept this torso as earliest Tīrthaṅkara sculpture from the study area. On the other hand a terracotta Jain image was discovered from the excavation at Tilda, though it is very difficult for us to detarmin the date of this image as well as its identification (Biswas 1981: 87).Whereas, the Tīrthaṅkara image from Surohar near Rajshahi (Pl.XVI.B), can be accepted as one of the earliest Tīrthaṅkara icons of ancient Bengal. This image is now in the collection of the Varendra Research Society Museum, Rajsahi, Bangladesh.