Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c6.152

c6.152

3. In his study of the *Vasanta Vilāsa*, a painted scroll, dated 1451 A.D., in which the miniatures are executed after the so-called Jain style, Mr. N. C. Mehta comes to the conclusion that the title ‘Jain’ for such a highly secular subject would be a misnomer and the designation ‘Gujarāt’ would be better 6. In a later study of the *Vasanta Vilāsa*7, he says that there is nothing specially Jain in the so-called Jain painting and that all the characteristics of the so-called Jain school are common to the folk-art prevalent in Western India. In support of his view, he quotes some 15th century pieces of painted stucco in the collection of Mr. Purushottam Vishram Mawji of Bombay, which formed the interior decoration of a contemporary house, “which exhibit the same features of simple colour schemes, angular faces, eyes drawn out to the ears, eyebrows in simple curves, and a certain indifference to elegance, and careful, refined and finished workmanship, as are found in the medieval *Kalpasūtras*.”