Jaina Sculpture in Madhyadeśa: Klaus Bruhn’s Photo Documentation 1954-63

The aim of this project is to digitise, index, and publish the archive of photographs Jaina sculpture in Central India produced by the late Professor Klaus Bruhn between 1954 and 1963 on the SOAS Digital Library. The identification of the locations of the photographed sculptures involves fieldwork in India. Digital images will be uploaded to the SOAS Digital Collections. The digitised materials will be accompanied by structured metadata, configured using customisable settings. 

The history of the Jaina tradition in medieval Central India is still not well understood. The project is intended as a stepping stone for the reconstruction of the artistic, religious, and social history of the Digambara Jaina tradition in Central India through correlation of large sets of unexplored epigraphic and iconographic data. One of the datasets is the photo documentation of medieval Jaina sculpture in Central India produced by the late Professor Klaus Bruhn between 1954 and 1963 in the context of a DFG funded project on Jina images in Deogarh. The aim of the project is to digitise, index, and publish the archive in the online SOAS Digital Library. 

Prof. Klaus Bruhn's collection of high-quality black & white photographs of early and medieval Jaina sculpture in Central India, taken by himself 1954-1963, is the most significant record of its kind, besides the photographic documentation of Indic art and architecture produced by the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIIS) in the 1960s and 1970s, and a few photographs preserved by regional offices of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Bruhn’s collection is the most complete record of medieval Jaina (and Hindu) temples and sculpture in Central India which are exclusively Digambara. The collection has gained in value because many of the documented archaeological sites have been unrecognisably altered over the last half century through art thieves, musealisation, willful destruction, and renovation. Together with the materials of the AIIS, it now offers in many cases the only visual archive of sculpture in situ at historical sites which have been renovated or suffered from fragmentation through protective musealisation.

For the study of Jaina art and architecture the images of Bruhn’s Collection are a priceless resource. Together, negatives and scanned images will form a first-rate resource for the study of Indian art and architecture. The full value of the images for scholarship can only be realised if digitisations are produced and made freely accessible online by a suitable archive. They need to be preserved for posterity in a suitable archive, and scans of the negatives need to be made available online open access under creative commons license.

L & L Dallapiccola Foundation SC027138

Gerda Henkel Stiftung 40/V/25

• Bruhn, Klaus. 1956: The Figures of the Two Lower Reliefs on the Pārśvanātha Temple at Khajurāho. In: Ācārya Śrī Vijayavallabha Sūri Smāraka Grantha / Ācārya Vijayavallabha Sūri Commemoration Volume. Bombay: Shri Mahavira Jaina Vidyalaya. Angrezī Vibhāga, Lekha Vibhāga [English Section]: 7-35 & Alterations and Additions & 3 Plates.
• Bruhn, Klaus. 1958: Jain Tīrthas in Madhyadesha. (1) Dudahi. In: Jain Yug (November): 1-5.
• Bruhn, Klaus. 1959a: Jain Tīrthas in Madhyadesha. (2) Chandpur. In: Jain Yug (April): 67-70.
• Bruhn, Klaus. 1959b: Jain Tīrthas in Madhyadesha. (3) Devgaḍh. In: Jain Yug (May): 3pp. (in Hindi).
• Bruhn, Klaus. 1960: Distinction in Indian Iconography. In: Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute 20: 164-248 (S. K. De Felicitation Volume).
• Bruhn, Klaus. 1969: The Jina-Images of Deogarh. Translated by Michael McDonald. Leiden: E. J. Brill (Studies in South Asian Culture 1).
• Bruhn, Klaus. 1973: Wiederholung in der indischen Ikonographie. In: Indologen-Tagung 1971. Hg. Von Herbert Härtel & Volker Moeller. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag: 99-125.
• Bruhn, Klaus. 1977: Further Observations on the Iconography of Pārśvanātha. In: Mahāvīra and His Teachings. Ed. A. N. Upadhya et al., 371-388. Bombay: Mahāvīra Nirvāṇa Mahotsava Samiti.
• Bruhn, Klaus. 1985: The Identification of Jina Images. In: Berliner Indologische Studien 1: 149-176.
• Bruhn, Klaus. 1986a: The Ācārya Motif at Deogarh. In: Gouriswar Bhattacharya (ed.), Deyadharma. Studies in Memory of Dr. D.C. Sircar. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications: 179-187.
• Bruhn, Klaus. 1986b: The Analysis of Jina Images. In: Berliner Indologische Studien 2: 133-174.
• Bruhn, Klaus. 1995: The Grammar of Jina Iconography I. In: Berliner Indologische Studien 8: 229-283.
• Bruhn, Klaus. 1998: The Jaina Art of Gwalior and Deogarh. In: Jainism. A Pictorial Guide to the Religion of Non-Violence. Ed. Kurt Titze, 101-118. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
• Bruhn, Klaus. 2000: The Grammar of Jina Iconography II. In: Berliner Indologische Studien 13-14: 273-337.

1 October 2025 – 31 October 2027

Jaina Non-Tīrthas in Madhyadeśa

Courtesy of K. Bruhn:

1. Pārśva-Ṛṣi image at Golākoṭa
2. Golākoṭa (group shot)
3. Temples at Pacarāī