Vastu-shastra (Vol. I: Hindu Science of Architecture; Vol. II: Hindu Canons of Iconography and Painting) v2.c76.205

v2.c76.205

The Vaiṣṇavism of Vallabhācarya has given rise to another form of paṭa painting within hundred years or even more. Śrīnāthadvārā in Udaipur State, Rajputana, is the chief place of pilgrimage of the Vaiṣṇavas and also the centre of Vaiṣṇavite art. The portrait of god Kṛṣṇa on small pieces of cloth in olden times were in great demand by the devotees. Much bigger paintings on cloth were and are still turned out representing various episodes from the life of Kṛṣṇa and are generally used in the Vaiṣṇava temples as tapestry curtains known as pichvaī. The priming is not the cowdung mixed with clay as in Bengal paṭas but thin coating of safedā or zinc-white. Paintings conforming to pichvāi but dealing with the episodes from the lives of the Jain Tīrthaṅkaras were also produced in Gujarat in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries"—ibid.