Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c6.5

c6.5

The wall-paintings of Ajaṇṭā, Bāgh, and Sittannavāsal are religious in the sense that the first two decorate Buddhist *Vihāras* and the third a Jain temple, and, therefore, they had to conform to certain religious traditions and certain hide-bound formulas peculiar to each faith. Of the frankly secular art of the early period about which we read so much in the contemporary literature, and which delighted in portraiture, we have no trace. Let us, therefore, see what the Jain literature has to say about painting.