Tīrthaṅkara Mahāvīra (Introduction)

Mahāvīra is the twenty-fourth and the last Jina of the Jain pantheon. He was the contemporary of Gautam Buddha. He was born as the son of Siddhārtha and Triśalā leaders of the Jñātṛ clan of Kṣatriyas of Kuṇḍapura (Kuṇḍagrāma), probably a suburb of ancient city of Vaisali, the capital of Videha contry in North Bihar (Saha 1987: 188). The Kalpa-Sūtra, the Uttarapurāṇa, the Triṣaṣṭhi-Śalākāpuruṣa-Caritra, the Vardhamānacaritra and other Jain texts have given us much information about the life history of Mahāvīra (Bhattacharya 1974: 61). Mahāvīra is also known as Vardhamāna. According to the Ācārāṅga Sūtra (Jacobi 1884: II.3.401:191, the name Vardhamāna was derived “since the prince was placed in the womb of the Kṣatriyāṇī Triśalā, this family’s (treasure) of gold, silver….. increased, therefore, the prince shall be called Vardhamāna (i.e. Increasing)” (ibid: 61). He was born of a royal family of Videha or North Bihar, his father Siddhārtha, being the ruling prince of Kuṇḍapura. His mother is known by the name of Triśalā. The Abhidhānacintāmaṇi explains that the Jina is called Vīra or Mahāvīra as he specially sent away the deeds (Karmans) (ibid.: 64 and f.n. 2). The lāñchana or emblem of the Jina is lion, the most befitting mark of his spiritual heroism. Siddhāyikā is regarded as his Yakṣiṇī or Śāsanadevī and Mātaṅga as his Yakṣa.

For the present study we have seventeen images (sixteen images from zone I and one image from zone II) of Mahāvīra found so far in different parts of ancient Bengal. Among these, single depictions of Tīrthaṅkara images are four, eight are Pañca-tīrthika varieties, three are Caubīsī type, Planetary deities are present in one image and eight Dikpālas are depict in the remaining one.