Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c76.127

v2.c76.127

With this general account of the origin of painting, it may be pointed out that we have already quoted the religious merit of the paintings (cf. Hayaśīrṣa P.); their secular use also has been in vogue, since a very early age. The Jātaka literatute, Sanskrit Dramas and Kāvyas like Ratnāvalī, Raghuvamśa, Abhijñāna-Śākuntala, Uttara-Rāmacarita, to mention only a few of them, bear testimony to their secular use. In them from the picture gallery (citrāgāra) in the royal pleasure grove of Prasenajit, king of Kośala, to those many portraits and landscapes painted by artists of the royal and the servant class alike, there mention is made.