Gautama's Pilgrimage to Ashtapada

A vertical textile artwork, with a burgundy backgroiund, embroidered with gold, silver and colored thread. There are four different scenes represented in a vertical stack.
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DESCRIPTION

Created to mark the completion of a fast, this choḍ pața illustrates the pilgrimage site (tirtha) Ashtāpada, a sacred mountain on which the first Jain Tirthankara, Rishabhdeva, attained nirvana. A tirtha (lit. "crossing") overlaps a space of worldly engagement with a transcendent one of liberation (moksha). Rishabhadeva's son, Bharata, built the first temples in our time atop the mountain, prophetically consecrating images of the twenty-four Jinas of our age. Perceiving a degeneration of morality over time, he hewed eight massive "steps" into the mountain, making it impassable to all but the most accomplished ascetics. In some Jain sources, Mt. Kailasa is considered the site of Ashtāpada but its exact location remains unknown.

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    PEOPLE

  • Lynna Dhanani wearing a brown turtleneck, smiling, with a bookshelf behind her

    Lynna

    Dhanani

    Assistant Professor

    Religious Studies, University of California, Davis

  • Syona Puliady against a brick background, wearing glasses and smiling

    Syona

    Puliady

    Curator of Textiles of the Eastern Hemisphere

    Fowler Museum at UCLA, University of California, Los Angeles

  • Steven Vose wearing glasses, with a pink shirt and black suit jacket

    Steven

    Vose

    Assistant Professor of Jain Studies, Religious Studies, and History

    University of Colorado, Denver

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