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Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c8.s1: Carriers and Grounds

Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India c8.s1

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English

Contents

Carriers and Grounds

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The word 'ground' is a little ambiguous. For instance, if a picture is painted on brick-wall covered with plaster, then either the brick or the plaster may be called the ground: But by common consent now, the plaster, in this case, is usually called the ground and the brick-wall the carrier. In a painting, say on palm-leaf, the palm-leaf becomes the ground and the priming on which the painting is done, becomes the carrier. The distinction between the ground and carrier was at times lost, most obviously so in writing or drawing directly on palm-leaf or paper.

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Fig. 108 to 119

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Fig. 120 to 131

Palm-Leaf

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Before the advent of paper, which was probably introduced in India, at the earliest, in the 12th century, palm-leaf, coarse cloth and wooden panels served as writing and painting materials. But once paper was introduced, it gradually ousted palm-leaf. The increasing cost,³ difficulties of transportation from the South and Burma, the troublesome methods of writing on palm-leaf, and the political turmoil resulting from the internecine warfare between the Rājpūt states, on the one hand, and the Muslim invaders on the other, all combined to make the use of palm-leaf almost prohibitive. Yet again, paper, which probably came from Central Asia and Persia, was more easily available, and the burnished paper served as an excellent writing material. This easy availability of paper appealed greatly to the Jain writers and painters, though palm-leaf, which had served as writing material for centuries past, continued to be used on a much lesser scale for some time, till paper finally replaced it altogether. The art of writing on palm-leaf has been forgotten to such an extent that we are unable to say by what methods the writers made ink stay on the smooth palm-leaf surface, and we are unable to confirm which inkmaking formula from the several available is the simplest and best.

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³ There is a palm-leaf in the Jñāna Bhaṇḍār at Pāṭan datable to 14th century which gives the purchase price of palm-leaf. It works out at six annas per leaf. Jaina-chitra Kalpadruma, I, p. 25, fn. 31.

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The palmyra tree, which yielded palm-leaves for writing and painting, is known tāla in Sanskrit, its Hindī and Gujarātī equivalent being tāḍ. This palmyra is of two species śrī-tāḍ and khar-tāḍ, the latter grows in Gujarāt and elsewhere and its fronds are thick, liable to break at the slightest pressure, and its fibres have the tendency to rot and weaken in the course of time. Palm-leaves from this variety are not used for writing or allied purposes. Śrī-tāḍ, the second variety, grows abundantly in Madras, Ceylon, Burma, Bengal and elsewhere. Its fronds are smooth and delicate, measuring at times more than 37" × 3", which is their usual size. Its fibres do not decay easily and its elasticity prevents it breaking even under undue pressure. The fronds of this palmyra yielded palm-leaves for writing.

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It has been found from experience that the palm-leaves as they grow old develop a tendency to affect adversely cloth or paper coming in their contact. Muni Puṇya-vijayajī⁴ has observed that in the palm-leaf manuscripts certain paper leaves replacing the lost or decayed palm-leaves, in course of time, appear even in worse condition than the original leaves of the manuscripts. This may be due, as explained by Muni Puṇyavijaya, to certain acid property of the ink which weakens the texture of the paper. From his personal observations also, he has found that the cloth wrappers of the palm-leaf manuscripts develop a tendency to turn black within a few years. Now, here is a point for museum chemists to determine the chemical properties of the various kinds of inks employed in writing on palm-leaves and find out the actual cause of the deterioration of paper and cloth coming in contact with those inks.

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⁴ Ib., p. 29.

Cloth

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It is a well-known fact that cloth was used very extensively in ancient India for painting. Even entire books were at times written on cloth. Thus a Jain Jñāna Bhaṇḍār, located in Vakhatjinīserī at Pāṭan, possesses a cloth manuscript containing the *Dharmavidhiprakaraṇa Vṛttisahita*, *Kachchhūlirāsā* and eight chapters of the *Trisha-ṣṭiśalākāpurusha-charita*.⁵ Its date is made out as Saṃvat 1408 or 1410 (A.D. 1351 or 1353) and its leaves simulate palm-leaves. There are, however, a number of *Samavasaraṇa* scenes, cosmographical charts, charts dealing with such subjects as mythical two and half islands, Jambūdvīpa, Navadvīpa, Hṛmkāra, Ghaṇṭākarṇa, various mantras and tantras, canonical subjects as the *Saṃgrahaṇīsūtra*, *Kṣetra-samāsa*, *Prāyaśchitta*, the six *sthānas* of the *Samyamaśreṇi*, sixty-two *mārgaṇas*, etc., painted on cloth and dating from the 14th to 16th century.

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⁵ *Jaina-chitra Kalpadruma*, p. 26.

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Scrolls of cloth were generally prepared for the purpose of painting. To obtain a paper scroll, the paper pieces of required sizes were pasted in length, but cloth pieces were generally of great length, and, therefore, a cloth scroll did not require cutting and joining. It was folded breadthwise in two or more folds as required, and the long strips obtained by cutting served the purpose of scrolls. These scrolls served the purpose of illustrating the *Pāñchatīrthis*, for writing documents and the religious orders of the Jain teachers during the rainy season, horoscopes, etc. They were occasionally used for writing and illustrating large poems, such as the *Vasanta Vilāsa*.

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Surface preparation.—Before the painting was started on cloth, a priming of the paste made from the wheat or rice flour was applied to fill up the pores of the cloth. After the priming had dried, the cloth was thoroughly burnished with an agate burnisher.⁶ This was the regular method of preparing surface in Western Indian paintings on cloth. In the cloth-paintings from Bengal and Orissa, however, a different method was followed. Here, the cloth, which was usually of an even surface, was coated with a thin layer of plastic clay which had been carefully pounded and usually mixed with cow-dung beaten to thin paste. When dry, the surface was rubbed till it became smooth, and it was then ready for painting.⁷

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⁶ *Ib.*, p. 31.

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⁷ *Ind. Arts and Lts.*, Issue XI, 1926, p. 43.

Paper

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The invention of paper in 105 A.D., by one Tsai-Lun in China, was of far-reaching consequences, as it foretold the dawn of the new age in which paper plays such an important part. But in India four hundred years earlier, in B.C., 327 according to the observations of Nearchus the Cretan, a friend and follower of Alexander the Great, a kind of thin glazed sheets, made by felting cotton-wool, were used for the purpose of writing. We may place reliance in the authority of Nearchus, as unlike other historians of the time he never indulged in mythical stories. He was an honest reporter and took pains to verify the stories before he reported them. In the absence of any direct proof, however, it is difficult to say whether the writing material found in Panjāb was true paper.

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Fig. 132 to 135

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Sometime back, it was regarded as an established fact that the Arabs in the 8th century used cotton-wool and raw cotton for making paper. This belief led J. H. Royle, the author of *The Fibrous Plants of India*, to say that the art of paper-making from cotton-wool was learned by the Arabs from the Hindus. Researches in this field by the German scientists, who examined Archduke Rainer's collection of ancient Arabic manuscripts in 1874, have proved that the Arab paper was made of linen and that the Arabs had no knowledge of making paper entirely of cotton.⁸ If this is correct, then the theory of the Indian origin of paper-making in Arabia is negatived. Moreover, it is an undisputed fact that the Arabs learned the art of paper-making, after the battle of Kangli in 751 A.D., in Western Turkestan, from a Chinese workman. The first paper-making factory was opened at Samarqand and another was started at Baghdad, in 794 A.D., in the reign of Hārūn-al-Rashīd. Samarqand produced several sorts of paper by the 10th century, the most expensive being a variety of thick paper covered with gold dust, which was extensively used till 1500.⁹

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⁸ Indian Print and Paper, March 1936, p. 25.

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⁹ Basil Gray, *Persian Painting*, p. 23, London, 1930.

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Papyrus and parchment, which had served hitherto as materials for writing, were substituted by paper. In the 10th and 11th centuries of the Christian era, the craft of paper-making had spread all over the Muslim world. Paper was introduced in Europe after the Moorish conquest of Spain and the Arab occupation of Sicily. It is also an undisputed point that some parts of India, especially Western India, obtained the knowledge of paper-making through Arabs. According to William Raitt, Zain al-Ābedin (1420—1470), a ruler of Kashmir, imported paper-workers from Samarqand, whose technique is still followed by the paper-makers of Kashmir.

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In connection with the introduction of paper in India, it is interesting to note a reference in the *Fan yu tsa ming*, a Sanskrit-Chinese lexicon of the 8th century. Here, the Sanskrit equivalent of the Chinese *tche*, meaning paper, is *Kakari*, a word unknown to Sanskrit literature in India, though *kāgar*, in the sense of feathers, is used in certain dialects of Hindi. The word recurs in Yi-tsing's *Fan yu tsien tseu wen* (No. 233) under the form *kākali*. These words could be compared with the Persian *kaghad*, ancient Uigür *kāgdā*, and Mongol *Qaghudasum*. As is already known, paper-manufacture was started in China. It is also a fact that in the Sasanide Iran, paper was regarded as a precious commodity and was employed in writing royal mandates. It is, however, interesting to note that, though paper was introduced in India, in the 12th century¹⁰, it had entered the Sanskrit vocabulary of extra Indian origin in the 8th century. It proves that Sanskrit knowing Indian colonists in Central Asia knew the use of paper long before it came to the mother country. The different forms of the word for paper in modern Indian dialects, Hindi Kāgad, Urdu Kāgaz, Kashmiri kākaz, have, however, been derived from the Persian Kāghad and not from kākali—kakari.¹¹

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¹⁰ Buhler, Ind. Pal., p. 91.

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¹¹ P. C. Bagchi, *Deux lexiques Sanskrit-Chinois*, Tome II, pp. 351-352.

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It is difficult to determine the exact period in which the Jain authors took to writing on paper. Muni Punyavijayaji¹² quotes two references from the Kumārapāla-prabandha written in 1435 A.D. by Jinamaṇḍana-gaṇi, and Upadeśatarangiṇī written in the 16th century by Ratnamandiragaṇi. In the first reference it is related that Kumārapāla one morning after paying his respects to his teachers and monks proceeded on an inspection of his office (lekhaśālā). There, clerks (lekhakāḥ) were seen writing on paper (kāgadapatrāṇi). He asked for the reason of this unprecedented use of paper as writing material from his teacher and was told that as śrītālapatras had been exhausted in writing of the Jñānakośa, the use of paper could not be helped. The second reference mentions that Vastupāla once ordered the preparation of six copies of the Siddhānta, written on palm-leaves and paper.

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¹² Jaina-chitra Kalpadruma, I, p. 25, fn. 30.

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From the above references, it may be surmised that Śrī Hemachandra and Mahāmātya Vastupāla allowed the use of paper for writing books, and, therefore, the Jains of Gujarāt were acquainted with paper even in the 12th century. This assumption, could, however, be disputed on the following grounds: (1) The references quoted belong to the 15th and 16th centuries, and, therefore, their testimony to an event which took place four hundred years earlier, is not wholly trustworthy. (2) Muni Punyavijayaji, whose knowledge of Jain manuscripts is unparalleled, stands testimony to the fact that no paper manuscript prior to the 12th and 13th centuries are found in any Jain Jñāna Bhaṇḍār, and the earliest manuscripts on paper, which he had seen, belong to the 13th or beginning of the 14th century. In the Jñāna Bhaṇḍār of Sanghavinā Pādā, Pāṭan, there is a paper manuscript of the Stutichaturviṃśatikā, dated V.S. 1211 (A.D. 1154), but Muni Punyavijayaji is doubtful about the sanguineness of this date. That, however, is not the case with the fragment of a paper manuscript found in the Jain Jñāna Bhaṇḍār at Jaisalmer by Jina-vijayaji.¹³ It is a colophon from a very old manuscript of the Dhvanyāloka-lochana by Ānandavardhanāchārya, written for Jinachandra Sūri. Its date is determined by Jinavijayaji between V.S. 1213—1223 (A.D. 1156—1166). If his surmise is correct, then this solitary folio is perhaps the part of the oldest paper manuscript so far known in India.

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¹³ Bhāratīya Vidyā (Hindi-Gujarātī), III, p. 242.

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There is very little information available about the paper industry in this country from the 12th to 15th century. It is also not certain whether paper was being manufactured in this country on any considerable scale, as it was not very difficult to get paper of Persian and Central Asian manufacture through the Arab merchants. In the 16th century, however, paper was being extensively produced in this country, as is evident from the name of several manufacturing centres mentioned by ‘Alī Efendī, the author of the *Manāqib-i-Hunarwārān*.¹⁴ Speaking of the great centres of paper manufacture under Islamic domination, he says that the Turkish paper from Samarqand was of very good quality and the most ordinary kind was manufactured at Damascus. The best paper of Samarqand manufacture was known as *Sultānī*. The paper manufactured in northern China was *khatāī*, and the paper manufactured at Tabriz, which was of slightly yellowish texture, was known as *gaunī*. The Indian paper was generally known as *Hindī*. Various centres of paper manufacture in India are mentioned. Thus *Daulatābādī* denoted paper manufactured at Daulatābād, formerly known as Devagiri, *‘Adilshāhī* denoted paper manufactured within the domains of ‘Adil Shāh in Karnātaka and Mahārāshtra, and *Nizāmshāhī* was the paper manufactured at Nizāmābād. It is remarkable that ‘Alī Efendī does not mention any paper manufacturing centre in Northern and Western India. Perhaps he had no knowledge of the Kashmīrī paper industry started by Zain al-Ābedīn in the 15th century. *Ahmadābādī* paper is also not mentioned. It is also possible that all the varieties go under the generic title *Hindī*. Paper was also classified from the nature of the material from which it was made. Thus *harīrī* was the name given to silk paper.

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¹⁴ Martin, Miniature Painting in Persia, I p. 105.

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Fig. 136

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With the increased use of paper in India various centres began its manufacture, and in the course of time Kashmīr, Delhi, Patnā, Shāhābād, Kālpi, Ghosunda (Mewār), Ahmedābād and Kāghazīpurā near Daulatābād became famous for their good paper. These centres manufactured paper in great quantities to meet the demands of the provinces within which they were situated. The designations of the various kinds of paper were based on different cities and localities where it was manufactured such as Kashmīrī, Daulatābādī, Bangālī, etc; on the names of the manufacturers, such as *Sāhebkhānī*, etc.; on the materials or special technique used, such as *sanni* (made of flax), *mahājāl* (made from old fishermen’s nets), and *nukhayyar* (watered paper). The writers from constant experience found out the best kinds of paper for their requirements, and those varieties, in course of time, became standard qualities. To quote an example, to the users of handmade paper in Gujarāt *Kashmīrī*, *Kānpurī* and *Ahmadābādī* are still standard qualities, and in the United Provinces *Ahamdābādī*, for writing the account books, and *Serāmpurī* for rough works, are standard qualities.

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Various raw materials such as bamboo, jute, flax, etc., were used as materials for paper manufacture. The *Kashmīrī* paper is manufactured from the waste cocoons and is soft and strong. The best quality of this paper is kept aside for the use of the State. The best Kālpi paper was manufactured from the old discarded fishing nets and was known as *mahājāl*. This paper was very white as the flax obtained from a fishing net is perfectly water bleached.

Wooden Panels

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Wooden panels were used generally in medieval times by the merchants to note down their daily transactions, which they transferred to the account books at their leisure, and the writers to write the rough versions of their books before transferring them to the palm-leaf or paper manuscripts. They were also extensively used as book-covers, and, in that case, they were often illustrated with diverse scenes pertaining to life of the Jinas, incidents from the lives of the great Jain monks, etc. They also served as exercise books for children and often alphabets were painted over these for the children to copy.¹⁵

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¹⁵ *Jaina-chitra Kalpadruma*, I, p. 32.

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