Makrana White Marble Mahavir Swami Mulnayak with Full Parikar, 41in

The stone

Makrana white marble comes out of the quarries in Nagaur district, Rajasthan, and it is the stone with the longest Jain pedigree of any material available today. The Dilwara temples at Mount Abu, carved between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, are cut from it, and so is a great deal of what followed them across Gujarat and Rajasthan. What makes it hold that kind of detail is its density: a fine, compact, lightly sugary crystal structure that takes an undercut cleanly instead of crumbling at the edge. Hairline grey veining runs through it sparingly, never as a pattern, and the stone is translucent enough at thin sections that light entering the torana arch glows back through it. Under a soft polish it reads bright natural white, with the faintest warmth rather than a cream cast.

The form, and how to read it

This is Bhagwan Mahavir, the twenty-fourth Tirthankara, carved as a mulnayak: the principal murti a derasar installs at the centre of its main sanctum. He is seated in padmasana with both hands open and stacked flat in the lap, right over left, the gaze carried down to the tip of the nose in nasagradrishti. The srivatsa is carved on the bare chest, and the lion, his lanchhana, sits on the face of the stepped pedestal, which is what tells a devotee at a glance which of the twenty-four this is. The carving follows the Śvetāmbara Murtipujak convention throughout, with the kandora waistband and kachota pleats at the hips and prominently open chakshus eyes. Nothing here borrows from Buddha iconography: no robe across the torso, no raised mudra, no topknot.

The parikar around him

A mulnayak of this standing is rarely installed bare, and the parikar is what turns a murti into a shrine. It is carved as one composition with the figure: flanking pilasters carrying attendant figures in their own niches, a makara torana arch springing across the top, kalash finials at the shoulders, a tiered chhatra parasol centred above the head, and lotus scrollwork filling the field behind. Each of those elements carries its own undercut, and it is the part of the commission that takes the longest, because the openwork has to be cut from the same block rather than pieced. The whole assembly stands 41 inches tall on its stepped lotus base, wide enough to hold the eye of a hall and still fine enough to reward standing close.

Commissioning one

Pieces at this scale are almost always a trust decision or a donor-family one, and they are carved to a brief rather than picked off a shelf. Plan on eight to twelve weeks from the confirmed drawing, longer if the parikar is expanded with additional attendant figures or the pedestal is cut to match an existing gadi. The height can be set to whatever the sanctum and the pratishtha muhurat require, the finish can move between a soft satin polish and a fuller shine, and a donor inscription can be cut into the base. The murti leaves Jaipur unconsecrated; anjanshalaka and pratishtha remain with your acharya and your trust. Send the sanctum measurements over WhatsApp and the drawing comes back before any stone is cut.