INDIA, RAJASTHAN OR GUJARAT, 18TH CENTURY

This richly detailed painting is a yantra, a spiritual diagram made to aid meditation or prayer. While the yantra has tantric origins, it was incorporated into Jainism circa 1000-1300 CE. This form of the yantra depicts a map of the universe in the form of a cosmic person, a common subject of later Jain painting. The map shows the jinas on the face of the cosmic being, the heavenly realms on the chest, the earthly realm on the central disk, and the lower, hellish realms on the lower half of the body. The central circle depicts Jambudvipa, the continent of the woodapple tree, with the cosmic Mount Meru (or Sumeru) at its center. This central realm is dwarfed by the many layers of heaven and hell, suggesting the rarity and significance of being human. While the denizens of the heavens know pleasure, and the dwellers of hell know suffering, only residents of Jambudvipa can know both and thus attain enlightenment. Diagrams like this allow the worshipper to see the parallels between the microcosm of the body and the macrocosm of the university, inviting contemplation of its incomprehensible vastness. For a comparable work, see P. Pal, The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India, p. 231, cat. 103.