Studies in Jaina Art

Author(s): Umakant P Shah
Publisher: Parshwanath Vidyapith

Page 48

A BRIEF SURVEY OF JAINA ART IN THE NORTH
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noted above. The central roundel on the last folio suggests that it was painted by a lady.1 Contributions of the Digambara sect in the field of book illustra. tions are few and hardly known; no noteworthy specimens are available in Western (and Northern ) India, but a late illustrated paper manuscript of the Jaina version of the Rāmāyaṇa story is reported to have been now preserved in the Digambara Jaina collections at Arrah in Bihār.
It is indeed interesting to find that such an exquisitely painted manuscript is the work of a lady artist. Every folio has a different border, rich in colours and designs, all of which can serve as first class säri-designs and borders.
Another point which should not escape our notice in the miniatures of this manuscript is the use of thick sharp angular strokes of limbs of figures as well as of garments' ends. The style is not wholly similar to contemporary miniatures from Gujarat and Marwār. There is a contrast between the beautiful borders and the miniatures, in the use of colours which cannot escape notice of even a casual look. It would seem that they are works of two different artists.
1 The colophon at the end, on the last folio, gives the details about the donors etc., of the manuscript, including those of the scribe and the place of copying of the manuscript which is Yavanapur or Jaunapur. While in a roundel in the central margin is written in gold :-AY FETTET graal. Obviously the artist has added her own identity in the space which was left for the artist's brush. It cannot be a later addition by one who gave it as a gift to some monk. Nor can it be a contemporary record of the person giving it as a gift to some monk. All this is already included in the text of the colophon on the same folio (see a fehah, fig. 243 ), and we must acknowledge the daughter of merchant Sahasarāja as the painter of this manuscript.