More Documents of Jaina and Gujarati Paintings

Author(s): Umakant P Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 12

One of the Pattikās of Jinadatta Sūri, from Jesalmere, was already assigned by Moti Chandra 10 c. 1112-54 A. D., and another to c. 1130 A. D. Umakant Shah has assigned the two paltikās (wooden book-covers) with painting of Vidyādevis to c. late tenth century A. D. The pattikā illustrated as figures 3, 4 and 5, in JISOA, N. S. Vol. I (Western Indian Art), pp. 34 ff., from collections of Muni Punyavijayaji, is clearly assignable to c. 1030-1060 A. D., while the pattikās nos. 13 and 14 (in the list of published palţikās, given in JISOA p. 41) from Jesalmer13 are assignable to c. 9th10th centuries A. D. and show decorative designs of creepers, lotus etc., and figures of dwarfs, elephants, fishes, etc., which have their parrellels in Gurjara-Pratihāra art.
From a study of all these paintings, it is now safer to conclude that a few examples of the tenth and eleventh century paintings in Western India are now available and have their affinities with contemporary relief carvings in stone obtained in the Gurjara-Pratībära art in Western India.
Miniatures of Ogha Niryukti and the Daśavaikālika-tīkā (figs. 6-8, 10) depict an incense-burner, lotus, figures of elephants and lion, of Lakşmi seated in padmāsana and an exquisite painting of Kamadeva in the act of shooting an arrow.
What is much more important, however, is the style of these miniatures. The rendering of the elephant is certainly superior to later examples hitherto known, while the figures of the Goddess Sri and Kamadeva (with bow, arrow and his makara-dhvaja planted beside him) call for special attention. These do not show the pointed nose or chin, or the face in the typical three-quarters profile. The rendering of the figure of Kāmadeva is certainly of a superior type, in the tradition of the rendering of figures (on stone) in the age of the Gurjara-Pratīhāras. From the black and white photographs supplied to me, it is difficult to say whether there was any attempt at shading (and one would not venture unless the original or its transparencies are available). But the style of the miniature of Kamadeva is different from the one found in the Sarasvati of 1127 A D, and probably belongs to a tradition which was existing in Western India at least in the age of the Gurjara-Pratīhāras, in c 8th-10th centuries A. D.
True, it is in the Vişnu on Garuda at Kailasa that we had a first glimpse of the pointed nose and other beginnings of the Western Indian Miniatures-style; it is also true that on the copper-plate grant of Paramāra Vākpatirāja dated in 974 A. D., we have an incised figure of Garuda with three quarters profile, somewhat farther projecting eye and pointed chin, all reminding us of Ellorā Garuda, and in the charter of Paramāra Bhojadeva, dated in A. D. 102i, we again have a Garuda with similar traits, with the face more squarish, showing clearly that by the last quarter of the tenth century and the first quarter of the eleventh century these traits had already been current; but the Jesalmere palm-leaf MS., dated. in 1060 A. D., now suggests that the older style was co-existing though it was gradually being influenced and replaced by the linear Western idiom in the eleventh century. The Garuda of Harsola copper plate of Siyaka (fig. 1) dated in 949 A. D. seems to be in this older style.
13. Discovered by Muni Punyavijayaji and published in Jaina Citrakalpadruma, Vol. II, figs. 3-5, 6-3.