Re: [INDOLOGY] Tīrthaṅkara w/ ūrdhvatilaka?

[jacob at fabularasa.dk]

Thanks for scrutinizing, Dominik :) It only adds to my own suspicions 
(which are shared by British art historian Andrew Topsfield who has done 
the most work on gyān caupaṛ in the past).

Also thanks to Patrick Krüger for pointing out the use of ūrdhvatilaka 
in Jain painting, and to Paul Dundas for pointing out the relationship 
between Neminātha and Kṛṣṇa.

Regards,
Jacob

Dominik Wujastyk skrev den 2016-08-10 17:44:
> My very subjective impression, gained after ten seconds of intense
> scrutiny :-), is that this snakes and ladders painting is modern,
> perhaps late 20th century.  It's an indefinable impression based on
> the loose script, colours, and lax work on brush and pen strokes.  I
> may be wrong!  About the tilaka, I don't know.
> 
> --
> 
> Professor Dominik Wujastyk* [1]
> Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity
> 
> Department of History and Classics [2]
> University of Alberta, Canada
> 
> ​sas.ualberta.ca​ [3]
> 
> On 10 August 2016 at 00:48, <jacob at fabularasa.dk> wrote:
> 
>> Dear list,
>> 
>> I recently came upon a series of Indian snakes and ladders (gyān
>> caupaṛ) charts in a private collection in Germany. I am puzzled by
>> the fact that some of them appear to show Jaina tīrthaṅkaras
>> painted with ūrdhvatilaka marks (which, to my knowledge, are not
>> connected with Jainism).
>> 
>> The attached example is colophoned as being from "Bhāvāpurī
>> Pālīthānā" (allegedly a Jaina dharamshala near Palitana,
>> Gujarat) and apparently shows the tīrthaṅkara Neminātha with an
>> ūrdhvatilaka mark on his forehead. To add to my confusion, the
>> inscriptions on the chart clearly indicate a Vaiṣṇava
>> orientation.
>> 
>> According to the buyer's source, the game used to be played by
>> Brahmin pujaris working in or around Jaina temple grounds. While
>> there is some possibility that the game chart is a fake produced
>> solely for the antiques market, I would be very interested if
>> anybody could enlighten me as to what might be going on here.
>> 
>> Kind regards,
>> Jacob
>> 
>> Jacob Schmidt-Madsen
>> PhD Fellow (Indology)
>> Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies
>> University of Copenhagen
>> Denmark
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> 
> 
> Links:
> ------
> [1] http://ualberta.academia.edu/DominikWujastyk
> [2] http://historyandclassics.ualberta.ca/
> [3] http://sas.ualberta.ca/