Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Ashmolean − Eastern Art Online, Yousef Jameel Centre for Islamic and Asian Art

Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum

A catalogue of the Ashmolean’s collection of Indian art by J. C. Harle and Andrew Topsfield (published Oxford, 1987).

Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum by J. C. Harle and Andrew Topsfield

Publications online: 143 objects

Reference URL

Actions

Send e-mail

Contact us about this object

Send e-mail

Send to a friend

The Tirthankara Kuntunatha

  • Literature notes

    Just as the historical Gautama Buddha came to be seen by later adherents of the faith he founded as only one of a long line of former Buddhas, so the historical Mahāvīra, founder of the Jaina faith, came to be counted as the twenty-fourth Tīrthaṅkara (literally “ford-maker”) or great teacher of that religion. The present image is a representation of Śrī Kunthunātha, the seventeenth in the line.

    A comprehensive inscription on the back of the image states that is was commissioned by a certain merchant Simghāka together with his wife and two brothers, and was installed by Śāstrī Lakṣmīsāgarasūri, a monk of the sixth gaccha (tapāgaccha) of the Śvetāṃbara or white-clad branch of the Jain faith. It was made in the town of Vasantapura, one of the major centres of Jainism at this time as attested in works such as Hemacandra’s Pariśiṣṭaparvan , which corresponds to the modern Vasantagaḍh in southern Rajasthan, where other bronze Jaina images dating from as early as the 7th century A.D. have been found.

    Amongst the small attendant figures in the prabhāvali are doubtless the yakṣa and yakṣī associated with Kunthunātha, the latter the only recognizable female figure, seated in a lalitāsana. There is the outline of a goat, Kunthunātha’s vāhana, lightly etched on a panel below the seated figure. Otherwise the little figures have no distinguishing marks or attributes, and are stylized to an extraordinary degree into the quasi-geometrical forms of the last Western Indian Jain style.

    The Ashmolean possesses another almost identical image [EAOS.110], also of Kunthunātha, consecrated in 1470 by the same Lakṣmīsāgara.
  • Details

    Associated place
    AsiaIndiawest IndiaRajasthan Vasantagarh (place of creation)
    Date
    1476 (Samvat 1533)
    Associated people
    Simghaka (active c. 1476) (commissioner)
    Material and technique
    brass, inlaid with silver and copper
    Dimensions
    18.2 x 12.4 x 6.8 cm max. (height x width x depth)
    Material index
    Technique index
    formed cast,
    Object type index
    No. of items
    1
    Credit line
    Presented by Mrs C. E. Luard, 1936.
    Accession no.
    EAOS.108
  • Further reading

    Harle, J. C., and Andrew Topsfield, Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1987), no. 57 on pp. 47-48, pp. xii, 11, 47, & 61, illus. pp. 47-48

    Lisbon: Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Cultures of the Indian Ocean, Abdul Sheriff and others, eds. And Nicholas Taylor, trans., English ed. (Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 1998), no. 75 on p. 211

    Luard, C. Eckford, ‘A Collection of Brass from Central India’, The Journal of Indian Art and Industry, 16, (1914), pp. 115-116, pls 10 & 12

Location

    • First floor | Room 32 | India from 600

Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.

 

Publications online

  • Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum by J. C. Harle and Andrew Topsfield

    Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum

    Just as the historical Gautama Buddha came to be seen by later adherents of the faith he founded as only one of a long line of former Buddhas, so the historical Mahāvīra, founder of the Jaina faith, came to be counted as the twenty-fourth Tīrthaṅkara (literally “ford-maker”) or great teacher of that religion. The present image is a representation of Śrī Kunthunātha, the seventeenth in the line.

    A comprehensive inscription on the back of the image states that is was commissioned by a certain merchant Simghāka together with his wife and two brothers, and was installed by Śāstrī Lakṣmīsāgarasūri, a monk of the sixth gaccha (tapāgaccha) of the Śvetāṃbara or white-clad branch of the Jain faith. It was made in the town of Vasantapura, one of the major centres of Jainism at this time as attested in works such as Hemacandra’s Pariśiṣṭaparvan , which corresponds to the modern Vasantagaḍh in southern Rajasthan, where other bronze Jaina images dating from as early as the 7th century A.D. have been found.

    Amongst the small attendant figures in the prabhāvali are doubtless the yakṣa and yakṣī associated with Kunthunātha, the latter the only recognizable female figure, seated in a lalitāsana. There is the outline of a goat, Kunthunātha’s vāhana, lightly etched on a panel below the seated figure. Otherwise the little figures have no distinguishing marks or attributes, and are stylized to an extraordinary degree into the quasi-geometrical forms of the last Western Indian Jain style.

    The Ashmolean possesses another almost identical image [EAOS.110], also of Kunthunātha, consecrated in 1470 by the same Lakṣmīsāgara.
Notice

Object information may not accurately reflect the actual contents of the original publication, since our online objects contain current information held in our collections database. Click on 'buy this publication' to purchase printed versions of our online publications, where available, or contact the Jameel Study Centre to arrange access to books on our collections that are now out of print.

© 2013 University of Oxford - Ashmolean Museum