Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c6.164

c6.164

The Apabhraṃśa or ‘Corrupt Style’, the designation coined by Rai Krishnadasa, has much to commend, as it expresses the technical and aesthetic decadence of mediaeval Indian painting. However, his theory of the parallel development of Apabhraṃśa literature and art does not seem to be correct so far as the aesthetic interest of the former is concerned. The contemporary Apabhraṃśa literature is by no means decadent and is certainly an improvement on the contemporary Sanskrit poetry which is often dull and lifeless. On the contrary, painting in this period is definitely decadent, and seems to have been unable to keep space with the freshness and vigour of the contemporary Apabhraṃśa literature. Rai Krishnadasa denies any specific quality to Western Indian school, but there could be little doubt that it laid great stress on the linear conception at the cost of colouring and modelling. Unfortunately, only the decadent examples of the pictorial art of Western India have come down to us, and, therefore, it is difficult to say about its original conception, though it seems to have some improved version of the art which we see in the contemporary miniatures from Eastern India, which have preserved certain Ajaṇṭan conventions in greater purity than other mediaeval schools of painting. The Eastern school had also to bow down to Western Indian school and assimilate its linear conception. Owing to the paucity of early documents, it is difficult to assert whether this linear conception was due to some new artistic impulse or owed its existence to all round decadence. But if the contemporary sculpture be the guide of contemporary art concepts, then linear conception, even at the sacrifice of modelling, seems to have been an outstanding feature of Western Indian sculpture. This linear conception, however, does not find place in the Pāla sculpture of Eastern India which till the end retains the serene pose and restrained modelling which were the gifts of the Gupta age. Prof. Norman Brown has used the designation ‘Western Indian school’ though he does not seem to have finally given up his earlier designation of Śvetāmbara Jain. His suggested designation of Western Indian school is supported by the Tibetan historian Tārānātha who speaks about the foundation of the old Western school by Śringadhara in the 7th century in Mārwār and its consequent progress to Kashmir and Nepāl. As we have already said elsewhere, no early paintings of this school are found, but from the wall-paintings of Ellura, Madanpur, and the illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts from Gujarāt, we, at least, can determine the characteristic conventions of this school in decadent form. The paintings executed in this style have been discovered from the Panjāb, the United Provinces, Orissa, Southern India and Pagan, and that establishes its popularity after the 10th century.