The proposed panel explores the representations of festivals and celebrations in Jain material and visual culture, highlighting how these community practices convey important information regarding not only the rituals, sacred objects, and artworks, but also, in the case of performances, the artists/devotees who performed on such occasions and the recipients/viewers of their performances. Presentations should examine how Jain celebrations are performed, portrayed and experienced in the material and visual culture from different geographical areas and chronological periods. The aim of the panel is to deepen our understanding of the symbolic and material dimensions of Jain festivities and their significance within the broader cultural and religious landscape of India. Also, the panel wishes to throw light on the identity of the performing and visual artists who worked for the Jain community, connecting historical and contemporary practices.
This paper examines Jain sculptures, performing arts, and festivals in ancient India, focusing on the role of abhinaya, as codified in Bharata’s Nāṭyaśāstra, in Jain culture. Using a sculpture of a dancer performing in the presence of Jina Ṛṣabhanātha from Kaṅkālī Ṭīlā, Mathura (c. 100 BCE) as a case study, the paper examines it with reference to epigraphical sources and to contemporary Buddhist and Jain representations of performances from Mathura and Bharhut. This analysis highlights the importance of performers and performances in the religious life of ancient India and shows that sculptors skillfully integrated the technical language of dance into their works, thus imbuing sculptures with layered meanings, including religious concepts and the expression of emotions. The paper demonstrates how examining sculptures of performances can enhance our understanding of ancient performing artists, their arts, and the cultural significance of festivals and celebrations in ancient India.
What do Jain monks look like in paintings of the narratives linked to Jain festivals? This presentation will address this question by looking at 20th-and 21st-century temple wall paintings and sculptures, from Delhi, Hastinapur, Rajasthan, and Gujarat. It will focus on the narratives linked to two Jain festivals: Akṣaya Tṛtīyā, which commemorates the first fast-breaking of the first Jina, Ṛṣabha, and Rakhi, or Rakṣā Bandhan, which commemorates the Jain monk Viṣṇukumāra’s rescue of 700 Digambara monks from the fiery torments of a king’s minister-turned king, Bali. In the paintings and sculptures representing these narratives, Jain monks look like brahmins. The Śvetāmbara sculptures related to Akṣaya Tṛtīyā portray Ṛṣabha with a śikhā, or a tuft of hair required of brahmins initiated into the Vedic sacrifice. Digambara paintings of the Rakhi narrative also have a monks wearing a śikhā, and they even portray Digambara monks as wearing clothes: a white dhoti and upper garment. This material culture, when put in conversation with the written narratives of these festivals, from the medieval period to the present day, shows how these festivals emerged as a way to argue that Jain monks are the true brahmins.
The Shalibhadra Chaupai is a 17th century Shvetambara Jain narrative tale that extolls the benefits of alms giving and is directed at the merchant community. It celebrates merchant culture using visual tropes that refer to the traditional depiction in paintings of celebratory events in the lives of Jinas. This presentation examines two identical Shalibhadra Chaupai manuscripts set a hundred years apart, both painted in Jaisalmer. Keeping patronage and viewer reception in mind, it discusses the role of Jain monks not just as scribes but as artists as well. What types of visual interpolations take place when the artist is also a monk? How might that affect the reception and circulation of the painted manuscript? The latter are some of the questions and issues the presentation seeks to examine.