Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c10.2

c10.2

IN studying the technical process involved in the execution of Western Indian painting, we have to depend on the actual manuscript material as well as Sanskrit texts on the technique of painting. A few points in this connection need stressing. (1) In Western Indian illustrated manuscripts of both palm-leaf and paper periods, in common with the contemporary Bengali and Nepalese miniatures, the illustrations take the form of square panels applied to the page without organic relation to the text. Full page illustrations are rare. The square panels, according to Dr. Coomaraswamy¹, are reminiscent of the surfaces of painted walls reduced in size and added to the written page. (2) In the preparation of illustrated manuscripts, two persons were employed, the copyist of the text and the artist of the paintings. On the manuscript folios, rectangular spaces were marked off by the copyist before commencing writing; this feature is made clear from the minute examination of the manuscripts in which writing is detected running over the lines of the square panel reserved for painting. (3) The art is of pure draughtsmanship. It is an art of symbols and the lines are not calligraphic, meaning thereby that deliberate elegance of curves and sweeps are not sought for. All this results in rather an indifferent representation. (4) As observed by Dr. Coomaraswamy, generally, "there is no preoccupation with pattern, colour, or texture for their own sake," but in certain good examples of the *Kalpasūtra* manuscripts, the decoration speaks of certain preconceived plan and mastery in technical handling. (5) The physical peculiarities, particularly the angularity of features and the projection of farther eyes of the human figures, are shared with certain figure drawings of later Ajaṇṭā paintings, and more particularly with the human figures in Ellura paintings. (6) The idealised physical type manifested in broad chest, lion-waist and large eyes extended to the ear, the medieval Western Indian painting shares with the other schools of painting in India. (7) In the majority of the manuscripts, there are not only marginal legends describing the scene, but also thumbnail sketches of the subject as a guide to the painter. (8) In the treatment of landscape, the viewpoint is much elevated, so that in landscape subjects the horizon reaches nearly the top of the page, leaving only a narrow strip of the sky in which are depicted heavy storm clouds. Other features of the landscape will be discussed in due course.