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JAINISM
as inhuman as an icicle; and thus expresses perfectly the idea of successful withdrawal from the round of life and death, personal cares, individual destiny, desires, sufferings, and events. Like a pillar of some supraterrestrial, unearthly substance, the Tirthankara, the "Crossing-Maker," the breaker of the path across the stream of time to the final release and bliss of the other shore, stands supernally motionless, absolutely unconcerned about the worshiping, jubilant crowds that throng around his feet.
At Sravana Belgola, Hásan District, Mysore, is a colossal figure (Plate VIII) of this kind that was erected about 983 A.D. by Cāmundarāya, the minister of King Rājamalla of the Ganga dynasty. It is hewn from a vertical rock needle, a prodigious monolith, on a hilltop four hundied feet above the town. The image measures fifty-six and one-hall feet in height and thirteen seet around the hips, and is thus one of the largest sree-standing figures in the world; the feet are placed on a low platform. The savior represented is indicated by vines clambering up his body, which refer to an cpisode in the biography of Gommata (also called Bahūbali, "strong of arm”), the son of the first Tīr. thankara, Rşabhanātha. He is supposed to have stood unflinchingly for a year in his yoga posture. The vines crept up to his arms and shoulders; anthills arose about his feet; he was like a tree or rock of the wilderness. To this day the entire surface of this statue is anointed every twenty-five years with melted butter, as a result of which it still looks fresh and clean.
There is a legend to the effect that the image goes back to a date much earlier than 983 A.D., and that for ages it was forgotten, the memory of its location being completely lost. Bharata, the first of India's mythical Cakravartins,”? is supposed, accord
27 For the legend of the birth of Bharata, see Kalidasa's celebrated plav, Sakuntala (Everyman's Library, No. 629). Bharata was the ancestor of the clans of the Mahabharata. The land of India itself is called Bharata ("descended from Bharata"), as are also its inhabitants.
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