Jaina Monuments and Places First Class Importance

SR No.: 011058
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T N Ramchandran
Publisher: Veer Shasan Sangh Calcutta
Total Pages: 112
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 11 MB

Page 47

L'AINTING
3)
The whole subject is dealt with in 160 verses in a chapter which the author characterises as "Varnasamyojana,, Citralekhana, firatimă-laksana-nirūpanam".
Having had a peep into those early citra-śālās or picture galleries, thanks to the innumerable litcrary references attesting 10 their existence, it is our pleasant task now to examine the fresco paintings at Sittannarāsal with a view to find out how best the cave answered the description of a Citru-śālā or picture-gallery.
Being the most perishable of the fine arts the painting in this cave has suffered a good deal owing to age and age-long neglect and indifference darkening of the interior of the cave by smoke from the fire of way-side wandering pilgrims who appear to have cooked their food in, the peeling off of the plaster here and there owing of course to neglect and the almost horrible vandalism to which it has been subjected at the hands of cattle-boys, the natives of the soil and the over-zealous cerisus recorder. This vandalism has been described by Mr. M. S. S. Sarma, who has made 'beautiful copies of the remaining frescoes (some of which are figured by Mehta in his "Studies in Indian Painting') as follows: "....nuch of what remains intact has been also darkened by smoke from fires lit in the cave by resting bairāgis. Balls of dung have been freely hurled at the ceiling; evidently the village urchins must have used the picture on the ceiling as a good target for their balls of dung and clay, which can now be seen sticking here and there! Any attempt to remove them brings away the plaster too, so that they are better left there to tell there tale. ... With regard to the very facet of the pillar wherein is located the dancing figure...., the delicate brush lines of the master-artist have bcen marred ruthlessly by the crude brush, probably of the census enumerator whose only paint is black tar, with the result that you find there, in hideous prominence, the figure 165 with something more added on to it." Surely the entire cave must have been