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Shantinath
Shantinath is the 16th of 24 Jain teachers, the
24th and last was Mahavira, a near contemporary of Buddha
Shakyamuni, the historic Buddha who lived in the 5th century BCE. Likely
the oldest but least well known of all the religions that began in South Asia,
none has had a greater impact on the lives of the poor and the downtrodden in
our lifetime than the teachings of the Jain Naths.
Though there are references to Jain communities in Bangladesh as far back as the 5th century, this sculpture dates from the time of the Sena kings. They were great devotees of the Jain Religion and built some of the largest Jain statues and most beautiful Jain temples in South India before becoming a ruling dynasty of Bangladesh.
This 12th century temple to Shantinath was built in Karnataka at the same time the Varedra Research Museum’s Shantinath was created in Bangladesh.
The Jains were a merchant community that was among the
wealthiest in South Asia and brought great wealth back to Karnataka that
contributed to the creation of the largest sculptured images in India. They were
certainly attracted by Bangladesh being the center of both the East-West and
North-South trade in South Asia. Fragmentary material evidence and the accounts
of Chinese Buddhist pilgrims strongly suggest that the Jains were an important
community in Bangladesh from as early as the 5th century and
possibly earlier.
How do we know this is the sculpture of one of the 24 great
Jain teachers?
One or more of these attributes and symbols that identify a
Jain saint may be absent but these specific attributes are so unique it is easy
to identify a sculpture of a Jain saint:
Is he depicted without any clothes?
Are his arms held at his sides and so long the fingertips
nearly touch his knees?
Does he have a diamond shaped symbol on his chest?
Is he surrounded with small images of the 24 great Jain teachers?
Shantinath is the Lord, Protector, the Refuge of Peace. As you can see from his sculpture, he has renounced the desire for any material possessions, including the wearing of clothes, as an unnecessary taking of the life of another living being that like us, possesses a “soul” and should be respected to every extent possible. The great teachers of Jainism went to such extremes to purify the soul and achieve enlightenment, ordinary devotees were not expected to follow their example unless they desired to be freed from the cycle of rebirth in this lifetime.
It is the Jain belief that the “soul” resides in all living
creatures from microscopic organisms to humans, that when an organism dies its
“soul” enters another life form in an unending cycle of births-and rebirths,
that we should take no more life than necessary for our survival, that became
the basis for vegetarianism. The Jains believe that you should only eat what
you can eat without taking the life of the plant or animal: milk from the cow,
leaves and fruit from plants and trees, but never the life of the plant or
animal.
This core Jain doctrine of Ahimsa-“the absence of desire to
harm any living creature” greatly influenced the thinking of both Mahatma
Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and became the basis of their
“Non-violent Civil Disobedience” campaigns that forced the British to grant India independence, and America to change its
legal system granting Africa Americans full civil rights. Similar mass
demonstrations of nonviolent refusal to obey unjust laws or the dictatorship of
unelected rulers has changed the political map of the world making it more
democratic and more inclusive.
Last updated by admin at 11 September, 2020