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8 PART V
GUIDELINES TO MAHAVIR-DARSHAN
The Jaina contribution to painting also is not negligible. There are remains of beautiful paintings in some of the Jaina caves at Udayagiri and Khandagiri. It is, however, in illuminated manuscripts that this Jaina art finds its fullest expression. Referring to such paintings of the 15th century A. D., the late great art critic, A. K. Coomaraswamy, remarked:
The Jaina art of painting is one of pure of draughtsmanship; the pictures are brilliant statements of the facts of the epic, where every event is scen in the light of eternity... There is no preoccupation with pattern, colour or texture for their own sake, but these are achieved with inevitable assurance in a way that could not have been the case had they been directly sought. The drawing has in fact the perfect equilibrium of a mathematical equation, or a page of composer's score. Theme and formula compose an inseparable unity, text and pictures form a continuous relation of the same dogma in the same key.
The light and casual handling manifest in these paintings does not imply a poverty of craftsmanship, but perfect adequacy and is the direct expression of a flashing religious conviction and of freedom from any material interest.
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It was, however, at the hands of Shalivahana - the great artist who flourished in the reign of that great connoisseur, the Mogul Emperor Jehangir - that Jaina painting attained their consummation. In the private collection of Shri Narendra Singh Singhi of Calcutta, there is a manuscript of Shalibhadracharita illuminated by this artist with more than 20 paintings, some of which are of superb execution.
Jainism has thus significantly enriched Indian culture in the fields of ethics, philosophy, literature, science and aesthetics.
[From Lecture by Dr. Nathmal Tatia M. A., D. Litt.]
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