Jaina Art and Architecture Vol 03

Author(s): A Ghosh
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 42

PAINTINGS AND WOOD-CARVINGS
(PART VE Tejabpila of the Vaghela kings, and Pethad Shah, minister of the Paramäta ruler Jayasimha in the second half of the thirteenth century.
U.P. Shah maintains that the earliest illustrated Jaina manuscript on paper is a Kalpa-sútra-Kalakdcarya-katha dated Vikrama-sarhvat 1403 (A.D. 1346). The format is narrow, namely 28 cm. x 85 cm., and the text is only six lines to a page. But this date cannot be accepted as authentic. For one thing, the date 1403 appears in the margin of one of the folios and not in a colophon and seems to be a later addition. The ond of the Kalpa-sútra section states it was deposited in the Mahävira Bhandara in Vikrama-sarvat 1505 (A.D. 1448). The latter dato is in all probability also the date of the execution of the manuscript, it being deposited in the Bhandāra in the very year in which it was prepared. On stylistic grounds the date A.D. 1346 is much too early, and this conclusion is reinforced by another manuscript in the National Museum, also of the Kalpasitra-Kalakdcarya-katha (accession no. 51-53), which is very similar in style and format (col-ill. 26). Both manuscripts are 28 cm. x 8.5 cm. and have only six lines to a page. Moreover, the style of the paintings in both manuscripts is the same and the sizes of the illustrations are also alike. The National Museum manuscript bears a date in the colophon (plate 273) which is Vikrama-samvat 1509 (A.D. 1452). There can be no doubt about this date as it is in the colophon itself and is not a later addition. Thus, the manuscript published by U.P. Shah bearing the date 1346 is in fact is a mid-fifteenth-century one and the date of its being deposited in the Mahāvira Bhandara, namely 1448, fits in most suitably with the suggested period of its execution. The two manuscripts are obviously very close to each other in point of time. The National Museum manuscript, incidentally, indicates that even if the format is somewhat narrow in imitation of the palm-leaf manuscripts and the text is only in six lines, nevertheless, such features are by no means conclusive factors in favour of a very early date such as the middle of the fourteenth century or the second half thereof.
In the Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay, there is a manuscript of the Kalakacārya-katha bearing the date of A.D. 1366 and, interestingly enough, executed in Yoginipura (Delhi). The manuscript has only three illustrations depicting a deity seated in a frontal pose. The style of the painting is identical
Moti Chandra and U.P. Shah, 'New documents of Jains paintings', Shri Mahdvira Jaina Vidyalaya Golden Jubilee Volume, Bombay, 1968, pp. 375, colour-plate fig. 1 and figs. 1-3. Moti Chandra differed and regarded it, and rightly, as a fifteenth-century menuscript.
IS. V. Gorakahkar, 'A dated manuscript of the Kalakdcharya-kathd in the Prince of Wales Musoum', Bulletin of the Prince of Wales Museum, 9, pp. 56-57, figs. 69-71.
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