Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c6.109

c6.109

It is difficult to make any surmise about the distinguishing features of the old Western school founded in Mārwār, as no painting from Mārwār or Western India from those early times has survived. But if sculpture be the index of the art conventions of those times, then the angularity in the treatment of human figures may be counted as the distinguishing features of the Western Indian art of Bundelkhand, Mālwa, Rājputānā and Gujarāt. It would have been an interesting study to trace the migration of the art conventions of the old Western school to the Deccan and the South, but unfortunately no wall-paintings of the 7th or 8th century have survived from Western India. In the middle layer of the wall-paintings at Kailāsa, Ellura, datable to the 9th century, one is confronted with peculiar conventions such as angularity in the representation of human figures, pinching of the farther cheek and the consequent protrusion of the farther eye into empty space. As these conventions are still in embroynic stage in the later cave paintings of Ajanṭā, they may be attributed to the extraneous influence probably of Gujarāt and Rājputānā. The influence of Western Indian art at somewhat later period may be marked in the Viṣhṇu temple at Madanpur, in Lalitapur District, U.P., adjoining Mālwa. The battle scenes in the Western porch of Kailāsanātha, Ellura, depicting rows of horsemen, and the inscriptional evidence, indicating their connections with the Paramāras of Mālwa, also show Rājpūt or Western Indian influence.