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Framing the Jina: Narratives of Icons and Idols in Jain History
Contributor(s): Cort, John (Author)

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 ISBN: 0195385020     ISBN-13: 9780195385021
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
OUR PRICE: $56.70  

Binding Type: Hardcover - See All Available Formats & Editions
Published: January 2010
* Out of Print *
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- Religion | Jainism
- Religion | Eastern
- Language Arts & Disciplines | Linguistics - General
Dewey: 294.437
LCCN: 2009011339
Physical Information: 1.2" H x 6.2" W x 9.3" L (1.55 lbs) 416 pages
Features: Bibliography, Glossary, Illustrated, Index
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
John Cort explores the narratives by which the Jains have explained the presence of icons of Jinas (their enlightened and liberated teachers) that are worshiped and venerated in the hundreds of thousands of Jain temples throughout India. Most of these narratives portray icons favorably, and so
justify their existence; but there are also narratives originating among iconoclastic Jain communities that see the existence of temple icons as a sign of decay and corruption. The veneration of Jina icons is one of the most widespread of all Jain ritual practices. Nearly every Jain community in
India has one or more elaborate temples, and as the Jains become a global community there are now dozens of temples in North America, Europe, Africa, and East Asia. The cult of temples and icons goes back at least two thousand years, and indeed the largest of the four main subdivisions of the Jains
are called Murtipujakas, or Icon Worshipers. A careful reading of narratives ranging over the past 15 centuries, says Cort, reveals a level of anxiety and defensiveness concerning icons, although overt criticism of the icons only became explicit in the last 500 years. He provides detailed studies
of the most important pro- and anti-icon narratives. Some are in the form of histories of the origins and spread of icons. Others take the form of cosmological descriptions, depicting a vast universe filled with eternal Jain icons. Finally, Cort looks at more psychological explanations of the
presence of icons, in which icons are defended as necessary spiritual corollaries to the very fact of human embodiedness.
 
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