Historical Development of Jaina Iconography: A comprehensive study
 
In twelve chapters under two Sections the treatise presents the panorama of Jaina icons in their age-long growth, often, with reference to comparable and borrowed concepts from the cognate faiths, Brahmanism and Buddhism. Though Jainism subsists in the belief in man's elevation and emancipation by himself, and therefore, has very little, or no, supernaturalism in the forms of its originators, the TTrtharikaras, yet in the ages that followed, there grew quite a large number of icons with extra-normal features by the touch of the waves of Mahayana Buddhism and Tantric Hinduism.The volume has treated this developed iconography with references to the relevant back-drop of literature. It has taken into account the early forms, the Tirthankara images, studied their pedestals and followed them in their steady growth with the yaksa-yaksinl-s ushered in as Sasanadevatas. Gradually, further, the affairs of the mundane world with responsibilities for social peace, field protection, care of children and motherhood, and others, were considered with a social outlook, and concepts of Brahmas'anti, Ksetra-pala, Harinaigamesin and others came to be formally represented with definite and codified iconography-which all are aptly dealt with through appropriate illustrations.