Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c6.399

c6.399

In spite of innumerable references to painting on cloth in ancient India, no examples of such painting are known prior to the fourteenth century. This may be attributed to the perishable nature of cloth and the wanton destruction of art treasures and manuscripts which followed in the wake of foreign invasions. The earliest clothpaintings, which have survived, belong to the fourteenth century. In the three paintings available, two are the *mantra paṭas* or the mystic diagrams with the figures of the Jinas and Tantric gods and goddesses of Taruṇaprabhāchārya and Bhāvadeva Sūri, and the third is a *Samgrahaṇī Ṭippaṇaka Paṭa*.