Indian Sculpture c6.s2.9

c6.s2.9

The treatment of the religious subject-matter is the same within each province and also irrespective of creed. Buddhist and Jaina images, though far less in number than the many types and varieties of Brāhmanic images and reliefs, are regulated in one and the same manner, by śāstric prescriptions. They are to be distinguished by the attributes they carry, and by bodily peculiarities and other characteristics, that serve for their cognisance and are laid down in the sacred texts. Only in the case of the Jaina figures of Tīrthaṅkaras and saints formalism and rigidity prevail, not only beyond the Brāhmanical or Buddhist, but also beyond older Jaina figures.¹⁴⁴ But even there it is not the creed itself, but its spread, specially in western India, is responsible for the abstract mediæval Jaina image; whereas in the classical period (Mathurā) no such pronounced distinction existed between contemporary Jaina and non-Jaina images.¹⁴⁵