Creator: Artist Unknown, India, Rajasthan or Gujarat, Jain
Date Created: 1100/1299
Location: Rajasthan,India
Physical Dimensions: w24.5 x h79.5 x d15 mm (work with base)
Label Copy: The fine white marble and refined, deeply undercut surface of this column suggest that it was made for one of the great Jain temple complexes of southern Rajasthan and northern Gujarat. There, between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, sculptors transformed local marble into grand structures with elaborate, lace-like surfaces, using abrasion rather than the chisel to achieve the detail visible in this fragment. On the front are four parikaras, or image frames, each of which suggests a tiny temple housing a Jina—a Jain teacher—seated in lotus position. By housing figures in this manner on its every structure and surface, the temple becomes a panorama of the Jain pantheon. The figures, which include Jinas, subdivinities, dancers, ascetics, and angels, are arranged so as to symbolize the vault of heaven and the divine assembly.