Jaina Art and Architecture Vol 03

Author(s): A Ghosh
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 22

PAINTINGS AND WOOD-CARVINGS
[PART VII
perished' as there were no grantha-bhandaras (monastic libraries) where they could be safely stored. For the institution of Bhandaras as repositories of manuscripts merged and crystallized after the office of the Bhattaraka as the temporal head of the community was established. This development in the history of Jains religion appears to have taken place some time in the eighth century. Erudite and dedicated, these Bhattarakas were conscious of the importance of learning and urged their followers to donate manuscrips to the temples. Much religious merit was attached to such sastra-dana, which was performed as an atonement for past sins or as a celebration for the successful completion of a vrata. Sometimes a pious donor would have many copies of a particular text made and these copies would then be distributed far and wide to various Bhandaras. Occasionally, a manuscript with illustrations would be commissioned.
Whether or not manuscript-illustration was practised before the eleventh century is one of the most vexed problems pertaining to the history of Indian miniature painting. That other forms of painting such as murals and painting on boards and cloth were practised from quite ancient times is well-known. Concrete evidence of wall-painting as early as the first century B.C. is provided by the Satavahana paintings in Caves 9 and 10 at Ajanta, while literary references, the correctness of which need not be doubted, inform us about painting on wooden boards, cloth and even on shields made of hide.
Of particular interest to us are the references by Jaina writers. Uddyotana-Sari, a pupil of Virabhadra, who again was a pupil of the Jaina scholar-monk Haribhadra-Süri, in his Kuvalayamala-kaha, a Prakrit work composed in 778-79 at Jalor in Rajasthan, refers to a sarhsära-cakrapata, evidently a painting on prepared cloth depicting the futilities and miseries of human life as opposed to the joys of heaven. Its execution was regarded
1 Scholars versed in Jaina literature have come across early manuscripts with colophons that mention that the manuscript was copied from an older one which was in a state of disintegration.
V. Johrapurkar, Bhattaraka Sampradaya, Sholapur. 1958, Introduction in English. K. Kashiwal op. cit., pp. 4-7.
If the Pala king Mahipala mentioned in the colophon of the illustrated Buddhist text Astasahasrika-Prajñdpdramitd in the Asiatic Society, Calcutta (MS. G 7413), is Mahipala I, then the year 6 of his reign, in which it was written, would be approximately 992, ie, the late tenth century. It has twelve illustrations on palm-leaves.
Silappadikáram, ed. V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar, Madras, 1939, p. 206, canto XIII,
168-79.
Umakant P. Shah, Presidential Address to the All-India Oriental Conference, Fine Arts Section, XXIV Session, Varanasi, October 1968.
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