Jain Journal 1970 04

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 17

APRIL, 1970
211
lines of the earlier miniatures now give place to a more delicate, if often weaker, drawing and to an elaboration of the composition with minor elements and a multiplication of detail. The miniatures of the paper period are more elegant, more sophisticated, and more decorative.
A great change takes place in the colour scheme. Gold is employed where yellow appears in the palm-leaf miniatures, although the yellow still persists in some examples. Gold is also sometimes used as ink for writing the text, as too is silver. Possibly the gold would not adhere to the palm-leaf as well as it would to the paper. As time went on the use of gold increased ; its ornamental value was appreciated, and we see it substituted for white in monks' drapery with the whiteness indicated by white dots, or, strangely, often by red dots. As much gold as possible was used in the paintings, adding brilliance to the colour effect, and technique was developed of applying first the gold, then the other colours 28. Blue is more freely applied than in the palm-leaf period, thus giving a richer colour scheme, and is often used to form backgrounds, even in the fifteenth centuty. An old rose is used, and very rarely an ochre. Green still remains rare. Both the brick-red or vermilion of the palm-leaf examples and a red containing some purple quality are used, usually not in the same miniature, although the two may appear on the same page in the case of those manuscripts which write the text with gold ink on a prepared red background. The background for the writing is never to my observation, done with the brickred or vermilion.
In the subject matter of the miniatures also there is change. The old balance of few narrative scenes to many of Tirthankaras, gods and patrons, changes to a heavy preponderance for the illustration of narratives. In the new field it is confined among the Svetambaras so far as is now known, to the Kalpa Sutra and the Kālakācāryakathā29, which often appears as an appendage to the Kalpa Sutra. The scenes depicted are fairly well stereotyped. Each artist reproduced those known to his predecessors and the depicting of new scenes was a rarity, although as time went on new ones were done, and the late manuscripts of the Kalpa Sūtra contain sometimes twice as many as the early paper manuscripts 30. The compositions are standardized and appear with only slight individual variation in different manuscripts. In the case of the Kalaka legends which appear in a number of different versions, scenes are sometimes
28 Ghose. 29 Huttemann; Coomaraswamy (2).
A descriptive catalogue of miniature paintings of the Kalpa Sutra has been prepared by me, and, I hope, will shortly be published.