Jain Journal 1970 04

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

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JAIN JOURNAL
illustrated in a manuscript where the actual text does not describe the scenes. For example, the incident of Kalaka getting the ball out of the well does not appear in the text of Bhavadeva's version, yet one of the manuscripts of that text illustrates it in a painting. Thus we see clearly that the artist was illustrating the body of legend clustering around the name of Kalaka rather than the actual text in which his miniatures were appearing.
The art also appears outside the Svetambara milieu. A secular roll manuscript of a text called the Vasantavilasa, dated Vikrama Samvat 1508 (A..D. 1451) contains miniature of this style31. Another manuscript outside the Svetambara environment is partly preserved and is now owned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. It is Vaisnava in subject, being devoted to the worship chiefly of Krishna. The latter manuscript is not dated but seems to be from about the middle of the fifteenth century32. In neither of these manuscripts do the illustrations seem to be cliches ; rather they have the charcter of originals.
Additional elements appear in the compositions, particularly in the wider use of foliage decoration, a greater number of animals represented, the more profuse illustration of architectural settings, the picturing of domestic and other new types of scenes. The drawing becomes more delicate and refined, the compositions more complicated, new bodily poses appear.
Very suggestively there are present in the Kālakācāryakathā paintings a new type of face and with it a new facial pose. The face is decidedly Mongolian in shape, moustaches, and beard, and is used only for depicting the foreign Sahis, Saka by nationality, whom Kalaka has led from the western bank of the Indus to the eastern and into Kacch, Gujarat, and Malwa. The very name of these Sahis is Persian, being a Prakrit word for Shah, “King”, and their overlord is called Sahanusahi, Persian Shahan Shah. The face of the Sahis is never shown in the slightly less than full profile pose with the protruding eye that is the invariable pose for the faces of Indians. Instead it is shown in something less than full front face and the eyes are always contained within the facial contour33
The costume of the Sahis is often different from that worn by any Indian figures. They are frequently dressed in long coats of overlap
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Gangoly (1); Mehta, (1), (2), (3). Brown (2); Gangoly (2), (3). Although Gangoly's article was published in an issue for 1930 the issue was not distributed until 1931 ; hence he had not seen my article in Eastern Art, nor had I seen his when I wrote. Brown (1).
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