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Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c10.s1: Representation of the Human Figure

Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c10.s1

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Representation of the Human Figure

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Conforming to an ideal of beauty idolised in ancient Indian literature, the human figure dominates Indian painting. The man in Indian art has always a frail and mobile form of a youth. An elegant profile, little body without muscular development, large shoulders, delicate waist, and the lion-like stature constitute the idealised canon of physical beauty. The female form is characterised by its full sensuous development. The heavy swelling breasts simulating full rounded form of a water-pot, well moulded haunches, the slender waist gracefully poising the torso, the eyes comparable to the lotus-petal or fish with the black pupils alight with *joie de vivre* and terminating in long eyelashes, and the majestic gait of an elephant are some of the physical characteristics of women, which appealed greatly to the æsthetic sense of the Indians, and formed an idealised convention for their representation in ancient Indian paintings of Ajaṇṭā, Bāgh and Sittannavāsal.

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Indian art, however, would have lost most of its glory, had it confined itself entirely to the representation of these idealised types. It also knows of realistic types borrowed from life. In art, the correct representation of the human body in full view, profile, back-view, squatting or stooping are due to the knowledge of the science of foreshortening visible in variety of poses. Discreet modelling brings out the relief of the body, though, at the end of the ancient period, the linear aspect dominates the form, and the stability and repose of the human body are preferred more and more. The movement disturbing the static equilibrium of lines is not liked : it loses its surging vehemence and is transformed into serene pose. The rich and impetuous exuberance of the ancient Indian form is succeeded by an ideal of beauty ruled by the unchangeable laws of iconography and visibility. To represent the human figure in full visibility became a passion with the medieval Indian artists. To quote the *Viṣṇudharmottara*, "In representing certain figures the artist should avoid to place one figure before the other,"²⁷ or "the indistinct, unequal and inarticulate delineation should be avoided."²⁸ These injunctions of the *Viṣṇudharmottara* have been scrupulously observed in the spirit of artistic testament in the age following that text.

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²⁷ *Viṣṇudharmottara*, Part III, tr. by Stella Kramrisch, p. 55.

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²⁸ *Ib.*, p. 46.

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This predilection to represent the human body in full visibility resulted, in the course of many centuries, in the growth of a series of conventions. The bold foreshortening of the poses, formerly in existence, is more and more avoided, and the different parts of the body are treated as if they are fully exposed to view. The head, which the ancient art portrays under all conditions with a marked preference for the three-quarter view, in the course of time, changes to profile.²⁹

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²⁹ Stchoukine, *La peinture Indienne*, p. 104.

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It may be objected that the representation of a figure is in direct contradiction with the principle of full visibility, since in profile one side of the face remains invisible. But the full-view and the three-quarter view also suffer from this defect of incompleteness, because they also cannot render the individual contour of the face. The Indian artist had to make his choice among these attitudes. He had to sacrifice the outline of the head or give up the representation of one eye. He adopted the latter course. Due to these conventions which fettered originality, the human figures in medieval Western Indian painting have an air of detachment, and congealed in their poses they have a doll-like appearance.

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Fig. 176

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Fig. 177

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An analogous process is revealed in medieval sculptures in which the poses of the figures, formerly free, become rigid in the course of a few centuries and take to frontal aspect which correspond to the profile in painting. As the superb sculptures of Ellura, in the course of a few centuries, were metamorphosed in the static figures of the temples of Orissa and Mount Abu, similarly the human figures in the wall-paintings of Ajaṇṭā transformed themselves in the illustrated manuscripts from Western India. It is possible that this change in character was due to the tendencies of Western Indian school which laid emphasis on the linear aspect of art.

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The human figure in Western Indian school, in spite of the angularities in the treatment of the limbs, conserves the vestiges of the idealised form of the classical Indian beauty. The man still imitates the stature of a lion with his large chest and narrow waist, and the woman continues to imitate the torso in the form of an hour-glass with swelling breasts, narrow waist and well arched robust hips. Excessively large heads, measuring about one-fifth of the total height of the body, represented habitually in ‘profile perdue’, an attitude which rendered one eye less visible, is the vestige of a convention appearing at the end of the classical period. Careful of not hiding any detail of his model, the Western Indian artist represents this eye projecting into space beyond the facial line. In the palm-leaf period, this projecting tendency is less marked, but, in the paper period, it becomes a full fledged convention. The eyes are of two types, sometimes exceedingly long and narrow, and sometimes very small or very large. The pupils in the first case are represented by a circle and a point, and in the second case, by a black spot. The displacement of the pupils, that one may observe sometimes, denotes the desire of the artist to render the direction of the look. The eyebrows are very long and often reach the ears. The primitive character of these eyes stands in contrast with the treatment of the eyes in Ajaṇṭā frescoes, in which they are so beautifully rendered that one may regard them to be the outcome of some different tradition.³⁰

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³⁰ Stchoukine, *La peinture Indienne* pp. 105-107.

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One of the outstanding features of both male and female figures in Western Indian painting is the protuberance of the farther eyes beyond the facial line into space. Mr. Ajit Ghose³¹ attributes this phenomenon to the artist's desire to show that he was painting something flat, though his aim was plastic. Dr. Norman Brown³² advances the theory that this phenomenon is the direct result of copying the Śvetāmbara images putting on glass-eyes which extend beyond the natural eyes to a distance of a half-inch or more, and such images, if viewed from an angle, show the farther eyes protruding into space beyond the line of the cheek. Dr. Coomaraswamy's objection that this phenomenon also occurs in the contemporary Vaiṣṇava miniatures and in the wall-paintings of the Kailāsanāth Temple at Ellura, is not taken seriously by Dr. Norman Brown as, in his opinion, no direct contact could be established between the wall-paintings of the 9th century and the miniatures of the 15th century, and as in the Kailāsanāth Temple wall-paintings the painter probably intended to represent the eyelashes in the protrusion. It would be interesting in this connection to make further enquiries into the tradition of the protuberance of the farther eyes.

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³¹ *Artibus Asiae*, 1929, pp. 188 ff; pp. 278 ff.

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³² Norman Brown, *The Story of Kālaka*, pp. 16-17.

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Going back to Ajaṇṭā, we find that the human face is represented in three-quarter view, *i.e.*, one side of the face is fully represented, while two-thirds or three-quarters of the other side is usually represented. This was a well established convention in the art of Ajaṇṭā, but with the decadence of art we find in the later paintings of Cave Nos. I—II at Ajaṇṭā the development of a new tendency in which, though the three-quarter view is maintained, some changes are effected by representing the farther cheek somewhat lesser than the three-quarter part, with the result that the forehead, the nose and the chin remained in the same position as in the three-quarter view of the earlier paintings, but, with the pinching of the farther cheek, the farther eye began to protrude beyond the facial line till a stage is reached when this feature is conventionalised in Western Indian painting.

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Coming to the wall-paintings of the Kailāsanāth Temple (8th century), and Ganesa Lena (8th to 11th century), and Indra Sabhā (10th century), constituting the Jain Group of temples,³³ we find that the three-quarter view of Ajaṇṭā paintings has been modified. The pinching of the farther cheek has been carried a step further, with the result that it practically disappears, only the part near the nose being shown. In majority of cases the farther eye does not protrude into space, but there are occasions ³⁴ (Fig. 6) when the convention appears clearly. This convention at Ellura may be described thus: The representation of one side of the face is in profile, while the convention of the three-quarter view is maintained on the other side in the representation of the farther forehead, including the eye-brow and a part of the chin.

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³³ *Ann. Rep. Arch. Dept. H. E. H. Nizam's Dom. 1927-28, p. 20.*

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³⁴ *Ib., Pl. D. & F.*

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This convention seems to have gained a firm foothold in the twelfth century, as is evident from the painted ceiling of a *maṇḍapa* of the Viṣṇu temple at Madanpur ³⁵ datable betwen 1130—1165 A.D. The interest of these paintings lies in the fact that they have the same characteristics, such as the pointed nose, the farther eye protruding into space and the angularity in drawing ³⁶ (Fig. 8), as in Western Indian school.

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³⁵ *J. I. O. S. A., VII, p. 175.*

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³⁶ *Ib., Pls. XVII, XVIII.*

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In the earliest miniatures on palm-leaf and wooden panels as the *Jñātāsūtra* (A.D. 1127) and three other *Angasūtras* (Figs. 15-16), the tendency of the farther eye to protrude into space is noticeable, but it is not yet very pronounced as in somewhat later paintings. In a manuscript containing the *Ogha Niryukti*, etc., dated 1161 A.D., there are sixteen miniatures of Vidyādevīs. Here in most cases the farther eyes are shown protruding into space, though in certain cases the delineation of the farther cheeks controls the protrusion (Figs. 17—42). In an illustrated palm-leaf manuscript of the *Mahāvīracharita* (Figs. 43—45), dated 1237 A.D., though there is a lapse of more than hundred years, the art conventions have not undergone any change. The tendency of the farther eye to protrude into space is, however, more pronounced, but it is controlled by the representation of a part of the farther cheek which acts as a rest, as it were, for the protruding eye. But further we proceed, the tendency becomes more and more prominent till the farther eye protruding into space without any support becomes an outstanding feature of Western Indian painting.

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Fig. 178

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From the history of the development of the convention of protruding eyes, it is apparent that there was a sort of struggle between the old convention of three-quarter view and the new convention leaning towards profile, and gradually the latter was ousting the former. The rigid convention of three-quarter view was of much older standing to be eliminated all of a sudden, and, therefore, as an unconscious compromise between the old and the new, the painters allowed to remain in the new convention the representation of a part of the farther forehead and the eye which protrudes into space, owing to the pinching of the cheek. How far the ancient convention of three-quarter view has degenerated towards profile in Western Indian painting can be judged by the simple method of drawing a line from the middle of the forehead to the chin of a human figure. It will be seen then that, except for the farther eye and the portion of the forehead, the head is in profile. In later Western Indian paintings even the length of the farther forehead diminishes, and only the farther eye protruding into space remains to tell the origin of this view from three-quarter view.

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In this connection, we may revert to Dr. Norman Brown’s theory which attributes the protuberance of the farther eye to painters copying the Śvetāmbara Jain images putting on additional glass-eyes which, viewed from the side, showed that the farther eye protrudes beyond the line of the cheek into space. This is quite an ingenious explanation of the phenomenon, but there are a few serious obstacles in the way of accepting his theory. It has been pointed out above that this phenomenon occurs in more or less degree in Indian wall-paintings from the 7th century to the 12th, and, if we accept Dr. Norman Brown’s theory, we will have to assume that the Hindū and Buddhist idols, in common with the medieval Śvetāmbara Jain images, wore glass-eyes—an assumption for which there is no proof. As a matter of fact, the wearing of glass-eye or *netra*, as it is called, could not claim great antiquity. At least, we have not come across any reference to glass-eyes as a part of an idol in medieval Sanskrit texts on iconography. It is remarkable, however, that during the Mughal period or a little earlier such kind of decoration seems to have come into vogue, and not only the Jain but also the Vaishnavite images of the Vallabhāchārya sect of that period were decorated with the enamelled silver eyes. The practice continues even today. It is probable that this hideous invention was made with a view to impart æsthetic beauty to otherwise dull and commonplace images of the Mughal period. As I have said before, the reason for such a deformity is not to be sought in the extraneous circumstances, but in the historical development of the technique itself and I hope, I have been able to advance enough proof to support my thesis. In ancient India, there was more or less an uniformity of conventions relating to the model human types, aesthetic view-point and other artistic technicalities. These conventions, after the 7th century, continued in a decadent form. As from Sanskrit, different forms of Prākṛit and Apabhramaśas, the languages of the people, were evolved, so from the old pictorial traditions, which are truly the language of the artists, sprung medieval art traditions. They have provincial peculiarities as the regional dialects, nevertheless they are derived from a common source.

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The pointed nose seems to have been considered as a point of beauty by the artists of that age, as we are well aware from the contemporary literature which compares the nose with the parrot's beak. This preference for the angularity of the nose is also found in the sculptures of Orissa and Gujarāt. Hence, Western Indian miniatures also did not mind reproducing this sign of beauty.

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The hands, though drawn in various attitudes, are not flexible, and the delicately poised mudrās of Ajaṇṭā are entirely absent.

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Loyal to the tendency of showing the human body to the best advantage, Western Indian school equally emphasises all parts of the human body. It is, however, noticeable that the characteristic vigour and serene repose of the ancient figure drawing are absent.

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There is no variety in the treatment of human figures in Western Indian art. Dieties, Tīrthamkaras, kings, warriors, monks, princes and princesses, attendants, both male and female, are represented. Among them may be noted the curious type of the old ascetic with white beard, who stays for a long time as a favourite subject with the Indian painters. It is the same with the groups of dancers and musicians which are found right from Ajaṇṭā and Ellura to the miniatures from Bīrbhūm in Bengal and numerous Mughal and Rājpūt paintings.

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To sum up, the various characteristics of figure drawing in Western Indian painting we arrive to the following conclusions: The face is invariably represented in one-and-a-quarter-view; the nose juts out pointedly beyond the farther cheek and reminds us of a parrot's beak; the chin, in proportion of the face, is smaller and removed farther from the high cheek bones; the paḍol-shaped eyes, represented in close proximity, have their ends lengthened, and their pupils are very much smaller in their proportions; the farther eye protruding into space has the appearance of being attached separately; the chest is exaggerated; the attitudes and mudrās are contorted; the animals and birds have a doll-like appearance; comparatively, few colours with the predominance of red and yellow have been used, and the final outlining has been done in the lampblack and is so sharp as to give an impression of being drawn with a steel pen, as it were; in the mediocre works, the drawing is generally weak.

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Fig. 179

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Fig. 180

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