Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c13.392

c13.392

At the top, a round tank full of water with a lotus flower and aquatic birds; outside there are geese. The symbolic representation of the tank indicates that as in a tank closed on all sides no fresh water could come, so in a man who has stopped all the passages to sin in his body by right conduct and fasts, no further sins could penetrate, and those which are already there are gradually dried up as the enclosed water of a tank is dried up in the great heat of the sun. In the foreground is seated a Jain Sādhu; on either side may be seen a tree. The symbolic meaning of the trees seems to be that, as constant watering is instrumental in the growth of a tree, similarly a moral person grows by observing constantly the right conduct, but as a fully grown tree is prone to wither if watering is stopped, similarly, a human body to which all ingresses to fresh karmas are stopped, annihilates the accumulated karmas by strict penance, and in the end the withered body attains nirvāṇa.