Manuscript Illustrations Of Uttaradhyayana Sutra

Author(s): W Norman Brown
Publisher: American Oriental Society

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INTRODUCTION
The "Early Western Indian" school of painting is known in manuscript illustrations from the year 1127 A.D.1 and in temple decoration from about 1170 A.D. It has been described in a fair amount of literature and needs no exposition here, short of the briefest. From its beginning until about 1400 A. D., that is for approximately three centuries, the book illustrations appear on palm leaf, which is the material for writing; after 1400 books in western India are generally made of paper, and the makers of book illustrations had from that time a larger surface at their disposal for the application of their art. The miniatures become larger, fuller of detail, and more decorative, with an increase of gold as a pigment at the expense of yellow, which it displaces; but the style of drawing remains essentially the same. The best examples of the art were executed during the 14th century and early part of the 15th. At the end of the 16th century the Early Western Indian style is giving way in Gujarat to the newly formed Rajput, which is a blend of the Early Western Indian and Persian, and there exists at least one manuscript with a precise date, Samvat 1647A.D. 1590/91, which shows the transition. This is the manuscript JP treated in this work, and all its paintings are reproduced among the illustrations."
The Early Western Indian style is chiefly employed by the Jains to illustrate their texts, although an examination of the works cited in the bibliographical notes will show that a few Vaishnava, Shaiva, and secular works also use it. With the Jains, the subject matter of the paintings falls into two general classes. One is that of Tirthamkaras (Saviors), monks, nuns, deities, and lay patrons of the manuscripts, who have little, if anything, to do specifically with the content of the works to which the paintings are attached but when. represented suggest a more general edifying connotation for the observer. The other class, which comprises by far the greater number of specimens of the art, consists of illustrations directly connected with events narrated in the texts. Of the second class the most frequent series of illustrations are those attached to the so-called Kalpa Sutra (see BrKS), and the next most frequent are those adorning the story of Kälaka (see BrKK). One other work, the Uttarädhyayana Sütra, was reported to me as long ago as 1928, by the
1 BrKK, pp. 13 ff. (For abbreviations see below in this Introduction.)
2 See Stella Kramrisch, "A Painted Ceiling," Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, 1939, PP. 175-182.
See Bibliography in BrKK, p. 13. Of new titles add especially Sarabhai Manilal Nawab, Jaina Citra Kalpadruma (a work in Gujarati), Ahmedabad, 1936; W. Norman Brown, "Stylistic Varieties of Early Western Indian Miniature Painting about 1400 A.D.," Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, 1937, PP. 2-12; W. Norman Brown, "A Jain Manuscript from Gujarat illustrated in Early Western Indian and Persian Styles," Ars Islamica, Vol. 4, 1937, pp. 154-173; Stella Kramrisch, article cited in note above.
See W. Norman Brown, Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, 1937, PP. 2-12. For the rarity of paper manuscripts before 1400 and of palm-leaf manuscripts after that date, see BrKK, p. 15, and also C. D. Dalal and L. B. Gandhi, A Descriptive Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Jain Bhandars at Pattan, Vol. I (Gaekwad's Oriental Series, vol. 76), pp. 34 ff.
5 See Brown, Ars Islamica, Vol. 4, PP. 164, 170-172 for mention of this manuscript.
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