Northern India, Probably Uttar Pradesh.

10th - 11th century.

H. 15 cms, 6 ins.

An exquisite pale buff sandstone head of a Jain Tirthankara (Jina), sensitively modelled with a benign, tranquil expression beneath bow-shaped brows.

The principal Jain pantheon consists of twenty-four Tirthankaras (or saviours), the first being Rishabhanatha and the last Mahavira. A Tirthankara, or Jina has successfully passed through all the cycles of rebirth to create a passage for believers.

Mahavira (c. 599-527 BC) was a historical figure and a near contemporary of the Buddha. For a comparable head, see fig. 53 in J. C. Harle and A. Topsfield, Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1987.