Jaina Art and Architecture Vol 03

Author(s): A Ghosh
Publisher: Bharatiya Gyanpith

Page 44

PAINTINGS AND WOOD-CARVINGS
(PART VII
against red grounds and both gold and silver are used. The workmanship is of good quality. The size of the miniatures is thus closer to the format of the palm-leaf illustrations than to the later-day miniatures on paper which usually tend to be larger. The number of illustrations is thirty-three and in this respect it is in keeping with the increase in the number of illustrations. It appears to be slightly earlier than the Prince of Wales Museum manuscript and should also be ascribed to the last quarter of the fourteenth century (plate 275B).
Such a large number of illustrated paper manuscripts exist that it is only possible in the present chapter to take note of a few of them which have a direct bearing on the development of the manuscript-illustration style in Jaina painting. One of the most important of the early-fifteenth-century illustrated manuscripts is a Kalpa-sūtra-Kalakācārya-kathā dated 1415. The Kalpa-sütra portion is in the collection of Shri Birla of Calcutta, while the Kalaka-portion is in the possession of Shri P.C. Jain of Bombay (col.-ills. 25 A, B, C, D): The workmanship is of a high order and several of the illustrations are indeed very attractive. Its provenance is not known but it could be Patan. Close to it in date and of quite good workmanship (col. ill. 27 and plate 274) is a Kalpa-sútra in the National Museum, which is dated 1417. Even at this early date, conventions such as sharp pointed noses, small pointed double chins and marrionette-like appearances and gestures have crystallized. The India Office Kalpa-sūtra* dated 1427 is elaborately decorated and the writing is in silver and gold ink. Though the majority of the highly-decorated manuscripts written in gold and silver ink on coloured pages belong to a later date the India Office manuscript affords evidence that at least the beginnings of this 'opulent styles are to be found in the second and third decades of the fifteenth century.
Though it is not advisable to make a categorical statement it may generally be said that the late-fourteenth and early-fifteenth-century illustrated paper manuscripts are of good quality. The main centres for the production of these manuscripts were the towns of Gujarat such as Patan, Ahmedabad, Broach, etc., and various places in Rajasthan, but the style of painting was not confined to these areas. At Mandu during the period 1435-40 two excellent illustrated manuscripts were produced in a local variant which certainly equalled if not surpassed the best Gujarati work of the period. A Kalpa-sūtra dated 1439 painted
1 Karl Khardalayala and Moti Chandra, New Documents of Indian Paintlaga Reappraisal, Bombay, 1969, p. 15, figs. 5-8.
A Coomaraswamy, Notes on Jaio Art', Journal of Indian Art and Industry, 16, no. 122. 28, 1913, plate 1, 8g. 5.
• Karl Kbandalavala, 'Leaves from Rajasthan', Märg, IV, no. 3, p. 10.
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