More Documents of Jaina and Gujarati Paintings

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

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Apart from this, a comparative study of only a few dated Sangrahani manuscripts will also reveal to us the new trend in Gujarāti painting of the seventeenth century.
The miniatures in a Sangrahani-sūtra manuscript can be divided into two groups : first a group of diagrams of the Cosmos, two and half continents, etc., second and the more important group includes scenes of dancing before Indra by the various gods and goddesses, figures of the various jewels of Cakravartins, Vāsudevas and others, and scenes of hell-tortures and so on. These contain very interesting data for a study not only of the art style but also the costume etc. of the age; this data had not been explored so far. With this view I am adding here a few more photographs from different Saṁgrahanī manuscripts (figs. 65-68, 72-73).
Since this text had been very popular with monks, we are fortunate in having evidence of art traditions from late sixteenth upto the middle of the nineteenth century. In the Muni Punyavijaya collection (now in the L. D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad), is an eighteenth century manuscript of Sangrahaņī painted at Rājanagara (Ahmedabad). In the collections of the Baroda Museum, is another Samgrahani copied at Bhuj in Kaccha, and having miniatures similar in style to the undated seventeenth century Samgrahanī of Punyavijaya collection (published earlier by us in New Documents of Jaina Paintings), and referred to above. Figures 72-73 are miniatures from a Samgrahanī manuscript painted in Bombay in Samvat 1914 (=1857 A.D.). The variety of costume, in this Samgrahaņi are especially noteworthy. Male and female figures throw light on the mixed population of Bombay of 1857.
It is hoped that all this new evidence will receive more attention of scholars from various points of view.
The style of Govinda as seen in the Mätar Samgrahanī can now be regarded as a typical style which became very popular in Gujarāt. It is the new Gujarāti style of the Sixteenth century. Of this style a few noteworthy examples discovered so far are as under: (1) Bhāgavata Daśama-Skandha, painted in 1610 A. D. by Govinda son of Narada
(fig. no. 50), from collections of the Oriental Institute, Baroda. (2) Bhāgavata with commentary painted at Ahmedabad in 598 A. D. (fig. No. 49).
From collections of the Oriental Institute, Baroda. (3) Rājapraśnīya Sūtra (figs. 38, 39, 40, 44) from Muni Punya vijaya's collection in
the L. D. Institute of Indology, Ahmedabad. (4) Bāla-Gopāla-Stuti of Kānkroli collection (figs. 45-48). (5) The Uttarūdhyayana sūtra of 1591, published first by W. Norman Brown, now
in the Baroda Museum.
The Bhägavata Daśamaskandha painted in 1610 at Ahmedabad about 30 years after the Mātar Samgrahani, is in the same style eliminating the farther eye (extended in space) and the long pointed nose. The turban used by several male figures is a peculiar sort commonly found in all these manuscripts (see fig. 38). The Bala
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