Jain Journal 1976 07

SR No.: 520043
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication
Publication Year: 1976
Total Pages: 49
Language: English
Classification: Magazine, India_Jain Journal, & India
File Size: 3 MB

Page 10

JAIN JOURNAL
kirti Gani who put it down into writing on Asvin Badi 6, 1678 V.S. (A.D. 1621) and the Ms. was illuminated with miniatures by the artist Salivahana for the brothers Bharamalla and Rajapala, sons of Jaitramalla of the Nagara Gotra and their family members such as Udayakaran, Mahasingha and others. Bharamalla, we are told in the same colophon, was not only highly religious in his dispositions and the most respected member of his own community but he was also a very well-known figure in the court of the Emperor Jahangir.
Of Salivahana, nothing is recorded in this Ms. beyond the fact that he was an artist (citrakāra). Fortunately we are able to supplement this information from a Jain pictorial roll (Vijñapati-patra) illustrated by him which is produced by N. C. Mehta in his “Studies in Indian Painting” (see pp. 69-73). Here it is recorded that “Ustad Salivahan(a) the court painter has painted the scenes as he saw them and sends his greetings to Acarya Vijayasena Suri”. This shows that besides being a great artist, a painter attached to the court of Jahangir, he was also himself a pious man.
Before entering into any critical estimate of his worth as an artist I should like to give some idea of the subject of the paintings themselves. They are highly interesting as they present us with scenes from the common life of the people outside of the conventionalised formalities and pageantry of the court-life.
In the first picture (Fig. 1) we see Salibhadra surrounded by his thirty-two wives. This merchant prince is here seen in the full enjoyment of his worldly bliss. What a life of ease and sensuous pleasure !
Salibhadra, the merchant prince, appears on the terrace under a canopy seated in an easy posture half turning to left upon a ‘paryanka' (bedstead) reclining on a bolster. His right foot is placed comfortably over a pillow and all his thirty-two wives are in attendance upon him offering their services in various ways.
Of the group of nine ladies to the left hand side of the picture standing, facing the prince, we see one of them massaging his right leg, another offering him attar (flower-essence) soaked in a piece of cotton-wool, another holding a piece of cloth (rumäl) in the shape of a fan to scare away flies and such other insects, another with a flower-stick in one of her hands while with the help of the other she is smelling a flower herself, another holding some object possibly a lamp upon a tray, while the