Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c6.183

c6.183

Removed twenty years in date, are the miniatures in the palm-leaf manuscripts of Ṣaṭkhaṇḍāgama with Dhavalā Ṭīkā, a religious text of great importance to Digambara Jains. The manuscript lying at Mūla Bidrī could be dated somewhere between 1113–1120 A.D.⁴ The miniatures represent laymen hearing to the discourses of the monks, the Jinas, the goddess Chakeśvarī, and such decorative motifs as rosettes, etc.⁵ The importance of these miniatures cannot be minimised, as these are the earliest known miniatures of Digambara Jain sect, and set at rest the controversy that the Western Indian miniature painting was exclusively sponsored by the Śvetāmbaras.