Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c6.111

c6.111

This old Western school is said by Tārānātha to have penetrated as far east as Nepāl and as far north as Kashmīr. Unfortunately, our knowledge of the painting of Kashmīr is practically nil. As regards the Nepālese painting, whatever we know of this merely shows that it was a mere shadow of the Pāla school of Bengal and Bihar. Its linear conception, however, seems to have been borrowed from the Western school. It is, however, in the 17th and 18th centuries that we find distinct Western Indian influences on Nepālese cloth-painting, but this seems to be due to the second migration of the art conventions of Rājputānā and Gujarāt, greatly influenced by the Mughal technique. In Orissa as well, this old Western Indian style seems to have exercised certain influence. No earlier document is available but the painted book-cover of the *Vishṇupurāṇa*⁵³, dated 1421 in Saka era (1499 A.D.), depicting the last six of the ten incarnations of Vishnu, shows definite characteristics of Western Indian style. The angularity in drawing is a characteristic feature and the small chin and pointed nose point to the physiognomical conventions of Western Indian art. In the 16th and 17th centuries, however, the style of the book-cover painting changes,⁵⁴ but again conforms to Western Indian art traditions modified by Mughal influences. In the book-cover⁵⁵, depicting the dance of Krishna, the trees in the background conform to the realistic treatment of the landscape in Jahāngīr period. In another book-cover⁵⁶, dated 1653 A.D., Krishna flattering his beloved depicting the tradition is Rājpūt. All this technical improvement may be attributed to the second surge of Western Indian influence, but the older conventions survived and a book-cover, dated in 1744 A.D.⁵⁷, shows the same angularity in figure drawing which we have seen in the painted book-cover dated 1499 A.D.