Cloth Painting 002

The Jain tradition was extremely conservative, with compositional arrangements and forms remaining unchanged for centuries, but the decorative elements becoming more exuberant and eventually contrived and ornamental. The Jains flourished in Gujarat, as did the textile industry with which they were associated as business people (then as now). Closely related to textile design, particularly painted cotton for which Gujarat was famous, Jain painting remained two dimensional, schematic, and symbolic. A red ground meant renewal or fertility, a single tree stood for a forest, an important element of a place or building was meant to be understood as that place. The patta shows eight important places of Jain pilgrimage and events in Jain history associated with them. In the center is the image of Mahavira in the temple at Pavapuri, where he attained enlightenment, with the shikara, or tower, of the temple above and a banner blowing in the wind. At the upper left is Mt. Satrunjaya surmounted by a temple in which the image is adored by three pilgrms dressed in white, holding long walking sticks. Below Mt. Satrunjaya is a temple housing the 24 thirthankaras, built by Bharata, the son of the first thirthankara Rishabhanatha. Next are five pilgrims on the rocky road up the mountain to the temple at Ambedadwil (?), sacred to Parsvanatha, the standing figure in green with the snake and parrot headdress.The concentric circles are a diagram of the eigth continent of Jaina cosmography, Nandisvaradvipa, where gods worship the Jinas. The the upper right is the temple on Mt. Girnar, sacred to the dark colored Jina Neminatha, whose fiancee, standing to the left of the pilgrims, renounced the world and became a nun when he refused to marry her. Ganesh is at the upper left of this square. Below Girnar is Sammet Shikara in Bihar, where 20 Jinas obtained nirvana. At the bottom right, Jiravala Parsvanatha in Gujarat, another Parasvanatha temple where pilgrims are sheltered and fed. In the lowest panel, the two pilgrims receive food spooned from a cauldron.