Ramayana in Pahari Miniature Painting

Author(s): Jutta Jain
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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The Rāmāyaṇa In Pahari Miniature Painting
1720 as well as the Gita Govinda series. Another link to Guler is painter Manaku, whose name is mentioned in the Gita Govinda colophon, and who is believed to have been a descendant of Guler, where his father, Pandit Seu, was active as a painter.
The place of production does not play that big a role in the formation of a specific style. The typical expressions that help to identify are more due to the individual or combined creative efforts of a painter and his colleagues. It is the hand of the painter, which does not escape the age-old traditions, that formulates the peculiarities of a style within a certain area. Location plays the part of background music, necessary for the composition of factors and softly felt, but not dominant. Alterations, new trends and departure from the convention happen because of the individuality of the painter or influences from outside. A very important factor in this respect is also the taste and likings of the patron who commissions a work of art. All these have their contributions in the creation of the peculiar idioms of a certain style.
W.G. Archer in his publication Indian Paintings of the Pahari Hills (1973) assigns this Rāmāyaṇa series of ca. 1720, of which three leaves are reproduced there, to the style of Nurpur. He admits that there are similarities in style between this Rāmāyaṇa series, the Gita Govinda af 1730 and the 'Siege of Lanka' series 28. K.Khandalavala sees a connection between the two series and puts the date of the Rāmāyaṇa, however, in the ruling years of Raja Jit Pal of Basohli (A.D. 17361756)29 which might be slightly too late considering the more advanced state of the Gita Govinda series which is dated A.D. 1730 by the colophon.
The 'Siege of Lanka' series.
Since A.K. Coomaraswamy's days this extensive Rāmāyaṇa series, generally attributed to the style of Guler, has been known as 'Siege of Lanka' series. In the successive literature this specifying name was kept and is used here also. A.K. Coomaraswamy might have conceived this name, because he could identify the leaves which he acquired from a dealer in Amritsar, as the illustrations to the episode of the 'Siege of Lanka' from the yuddhakända, the 'Book of battle' of the Rāmāyaṇa. As a probable place of or origin he suggested Jammu in the Pahari
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