Jaina Antiquities at Tarangasagarpur (Jajpur)

The site Tarangasagarpur is located right side of Jajpur-Mangalpur road and about 2km distance from Jhumpuri market. A Jaina Tirthankara panel, an image of Ambika with Yaksha Gomedha and a beautiful image of Risabhanatha are found in the Jagulei shrine located at the end of the village. Besides, an image of Ambika with Yaksha Gomedha is found inside the sanctum of Kasi-Viswanatha temple located at the middle of the village. A small standing Jaina Tirthankara image is also found on the left side of the temple. Further, a few Jaina images like head of a Parsvanatha, fragmentary Ambika image, a standing Tirthankara images, some headless broken Jaina images and 10 bronze images are found in the personal collection of Dr. Ekadasi Padhi, a historian belonging to this village^[1] (Pls.LIIA-LIIC).

Risabhanatha:

The Risabhanatha image is sitting in dhyanamudra over a double petalled lotus pedestal. An elliptical halo is marked behind his jatamukuta. The upper left side of the image is partially missing but the right side depicted a defaced figure of flying vidyadharas. The lanchana bull is noticed at the middle two spirited lions in the pedestal.

Parsvanatha image:

The Parsvanatha image found in the locality is a single standing figure without the depiction of flying gandharvas and chauri bearers. He also assumed relaxed or rather motionless poses with down cast eyes with a pleasant look and displays an ornamented aura than the former ones.

Ambika:

The spectacular figure of Ambika along with Yaksha Gomedha (46x23cm) is invariably shown seated in the left of Yaksha Gomedha in lalitasana pose over a single petalled lotus pedestal. She is decked with highly ornaments and costumes. She holds a baby in her left lap and right hand rests over her thigh. The Yaksha Gomedha also seated in lalitasana posture over a single petalled lotus pedestal. His right hand rest over his thigh as like the Sasanadevi but his left hand placed over the earth. He wears upavita at the chest, conical crown at the head, garlands in the neck and ornaments in the waist and feet. The mango tree is depicted behind the two figures along with a wavering child. An image of Risabhanatha is found seated in dhyanamudra over a double petalled lotus pedestal above the tree and his lanchana bull is depicted in between the petals of lotus pedestal. Two chauri bearers flank the image and flying vidyadharas with garlands appear on the top of the image. The kevala tree and trilinear umbrella are also seen over his head. Seven devotees in kneeling position are also depicted with these figures as the bottom.

Another such image is also found at Biswasvara temple having the similar stylistic and iconographical feature but carved in low relief. A fragment of such an image is also found in the collection of Dr. Padi’s collection.

Tirthankara image:

The stone slab depicted Tirtankaras in kayotsarga posture on two rows, five in each row. The upper as well as the lower part of the stone slab is broken for which it can be assumed that it represented the twenty four Tirthankaras.

Bronze Jaina images:

In a chance discovery ten number of Jaina images of bronze was found by a villager from the river Vaitarani during bathing. Among them six are in good state of preservation and four of them represented the svetambara sect of Jainism. All are depicted in kayotsarga posture and three of them have scarf like object behind their body which hangs from their head to ankle. Probably these are the earliest known svetambara sect Jaina images of bronze in Odisha.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

E. Padhi, op.cit.