THE MADHURI J. SHETH JAIN STUDIES SYMPOSIUM CELEBRATING THE JINAS. CELEBRATIONS AND FESTIVALS IN JAIN VISUAL AND MATERIAL CULTURE
Speaker 1: Dr. Nandita Punj, Arizona State University
"Giving up and Living Life Large: Celebrating Wellbeing and Spirituality in Jain
Narrative Art"
Often Jain narrative tales, literally and visually weave complex plots of birth and rebirth,
with the ultimate aim of conveying Jain ideals, following which would help one progress
towards ultimate liberation. As much as they extoll non -attachment to material and
worldly ties, these narratives equally celebrate and emphasize the importance of social
and economic success for lay Jain followers. This presentation will focus on 18th century
painted iterations of one such narrative, a Shvetambara dana dharma katha (tale of
religious giving), the Shalibhadra Chaupai, and demonstrate the narrative strategies that
balance this idea of wellbeing and renunciation. It will exemplify how this balance is
achieved by artists who not only drew upon well-known visual traditions celebrating
events in the lives of Jinas but also catered to the contemporaneous aesthetic tastes of
their Jain patrons, who themselves comprised a historically conscious and affluent
community.
Speaker 2: Dr. Ellen Gough, Emory UniversityDigambara Jain Monks who Wear Clothes: The Art of Jain Festival Narratives
What do Jain monks look like in paintings and sculptures 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: Akshaya Tritiya, which
commemorates the first fast-breaking of the first Jina, Ṛṣabha, and Rakhi, or Raksha
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, some Jain monks look like brahmins. The
Śvetāmbara sculptures related to Akshaya Tritiya 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 some monks wearing a śikhā, and they even portray some
Digambara monks as wearing clothes: a white dhoti and upper garment. This material
culture, when put in conversation with written narratives 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.
Speaker 3: Dr. Anna Tosato, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignDancing in Celebration of the Jinas: A Study of Performing Artists and Performing
Arts in Ancient Jainism.
This presentation explores dance performances in the context of Jain celebrations and
their representations in the sculptures of Mathura (c. 100 BCE). The author analyzes Jain
sculptures representing performances through the lens of abhinaya, the codified
language of gesture and expression first enunciated in the Nāṭ yaśāstra of Bharata (2nd
century BCE - 2nd century CE?), a classical treatise on performing arts, arguing that
sculptors implemented the technical language of dance into their works with knowledge
and intention to inform sculptures with multi-layered meanings, including the expression
of emotions. These sculptures, when examined alongside epigraphical sources and
contemporary Buddhist and Jain representations from Mathura and Bharhut, prove to be
essential in understanding the cultural significance of performance in ancient India as
well as the identities of those artists who contributed to these communal and religious
practice.