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The Laud Rāgmālā Album and Early Rājput Painting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

Though the Pahārī schools of Rājput painting are fairly well known since A. K. Coomaraswamy's monumental Rajput Painting (1916), the schools of Rājasthān, the principal Rājput area, have long remained a terra incognita and even to-day pose numerous unsolved problems.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1954

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References

page 63 note 1 The Kachhwāha School of Rājput Painting” (Bull. Baroda Museum, iv, pp. 33 ff., 1949)Google Scholar.

page 63 note 2 Hendley, Th. H., “The Razm-Nāmah” (Memorials of the Jeypore Exhibition, 1883, vol. iv), Jeypore, 1893Google Scholar; Cohn-Wiener, E., “Miniatures of a Razm-Nāmah from Akbar's Time” (Ind. Art and Letters, xii, 2, pp. 90 ff., 1938); Art of India and Pakistan, 1950, p. 147Google Scholar.

page 63 note 3 Goetz, H., Art and Architecture of Bikaner State, Oxford, 1950, fig. 91Google Scholar.

page 64 note 1 See Abū'l Fazl's Ā'īn-i Akbarī, and the Ma'āsir-ul-Umarā.

page 64 note 2 Dhama, B. L., A Guide to Amber, Bombay, 1931Google Scholar; Growse, F. S., Mathura, Allahabad, 1880Google Scholar; Sahni, D. R., Archæological Remains and Excavations at Bairāt, Jaipur, 1937Google Scholar.

page 64 note 3 An additional reason is the relationship with certain book illustrations and book covers from Bīrbhūm of the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century A.D. which differ from the average Bengālī-Orīyā-Assamese type. Rājput influence on Bengali painting presupposes some form of Rajput domination; and, in fact, at that time rājā Mān Singh of Amber had been governor of Bengal, Bihār, and Orissā. Therefore, the source of this Rājput influence had probably been Amber.

page 64 note 4 See the Ā'īn-i Akbarī.

page 64 note 5 Art of India and Pakistan, p. 110.

page 64 note 6 Dakhinī Kalam: Bījāpur” (Kalā-Nidhi, i, pp. 25 ff., S. 2004)Google Scholar.

page 64 note 7 Stooke, H. J. and Khandalavala, K., The Laud Rāgamālā Miniatures, Oxford, 1953Google Scholar.

page 65 note 1 Leaves from Rājasthān” (Mārg, iv, 3, pp. 2 ff., 1950)Google Scholar.

page 65 note 2 Brown, W. Norman, Uttarādhyayana Sūtra, New Haven, 1941Google Scholar.

page 65 note 3 Especially the beautiful Narsinghgarh Rāgmālā, A.D. 1680–1. See also Chandra, Moti, “An Illustrated Set of the Amaru Śataka” (Bull. Prince of Wales' Museum, ii, pp. 1 ff., 1953)Google Scholar.

page 65 note 4 Goetz, H., “Decline and Rebirth of Medieval Indian Art” (Mārg, iv, 2, pp. 36 ff., 1950)Google Scholar.

page 65 note 6 The First Golden Age of Udaipur (in the Press). Illustrated MSS. of middle seventeenth-century Mewār are not rare at all, e.g. the Sarasvati Bhandar Library at Udaipur possesses quite a number. For another dated one in the Baroda Museum, see Bulletin of the Baroda Museum, vii, pp. 53 ff., 1951Google Scholar.

page 66 note 1 Goetz, H., “The Problem of the Classification and Chronology of Rājput Painting” (Mārg, v, no. 1, pp. 17 ff., 1951)Google Scholar; see also Gray, Basil, “Intermingling of Mogul and Rājput Art” (Mārg, vi, 2, pp. 36 ff., 1953)Google Scholar.

page 66 note 2 At least this is the picture which we obtain from the aggregate evidence of all aspects of art, architecture, sculpture, industrial arts, and, as I believe, not less painting.

page 66 note 3 In the Pāliyās the folk style occurs first in the twelfth century, generally in the fifteenth, but the fully developed Rājput type not before the early-seventeenth.

page 66 note 4 In Vijayanagar we have a similar folk style, e.g. on the reliefs of the throne terrace, of the Hazāra Rāma Temple, and on those of the Mallikarjuna Temple at Śrīšailam (Kurnool), the memorial stones, etc.

page 66 note 5 For Orissā and Bengal the absence of dated MSS. ia for the time being a bad handicap. But for Assam see Dattabaruva, H., Chitra-Bhāgavata, Nalbādi, 1950, an illustrated MS., dated A.D. 1539, in a style very near to early Rājput paintingGoogle Scholar.

page 66 note 6 See Goetz, H., “Indian Painting of the Muslim Period” (JISOA., xv, pp. 19 ff., 1947, 1950)Google Scholar; the same, Decorative Murals from Champaner” (J. Bombay Univ., 19, pt. 2, pp. 94 ff., 1950)Google Scholar; the same, in the Legacy of Persia, Oxford, 1953Google Scholar; the same, A New Key to Early Rājput and Indo-Muslim Painting (Roopa-Lekha, 23, nos. 1–2, pp. 1 ff., 1952)Google Scholar.

page 67 note 1 Chandra, Moti, Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India, Ahmedabad, 1949, figs. 108–119, 138, 139Google Scholar.

page 67 note 2 Coomaraswamy, A. K., “The Rasikpriyā of Kesavadās” (Bull. Boston Museum, 10, 1920)Google Scholar; the same, Two Leaves from a seventeenth-century MS. of the Rasikpriyā” (Metropolitan Museum Studies, iii, pt. 1, 1930)Google Scholar, also Catalogue Boston Museum, vol. vi, pls. 8–19.

page 67 note 3 See note 4, p. 66.

page 67 note 4 See note 5, p. 66.

page 67 note 6 e.g. the Krishna Temple at Nūrpur, see “Hirananda Sastri” (in Ann. Report, Arch. Survey of India, 19041905, pp. 110 ff.)Google Scholar.

page 67 note 6 Studied by me in 1938 and in 1952.

page 67 note 7 Coomaraswamy, , Catalogue Indian Collections, Boston Museum, v, pp. 6978, pls. i-ixGoogle Scholar.

page 68 note 1 Coomaraswamy, Rajput Painting, pls. i-iii.

page 68 note 2 First mentioned by Sahni, D. R., Archæological Remains and Excavations at Bairāt, 1937. A study on the Bairāt murals is in the Press. In the meantime sixteenth-century murals in another Kachhwāha palace have been tracedGoogle Scholar.

page 68 note 3 Binyon, L. (in Rūpam, 29, pp. 4 ff., 1927)Google Scholar; Goetz, H., “La Peinture Indienne: Les Écoles du Deccan” (Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 05, 1935)Google Scholar; Arnold-Wilkinson, , Catalogue of Indian Miniatures in the Chester-Beatty Collection, ii, 1936, pls. 3–5; St. Kramrisch, Survey of Painting in the Deccan, pls. x—xi; Art of India and Pakistan, pls. 140–1Google Scholar.

page 68 note 4 Kramrisch, Survey, pls. xii-xiii; Heras, H., The Aravidu Dynasty of Vijayanagar, Madras, 1927, pp. xvii ff., pls. iii-viiiGoogle Scholar.

page 68 note 5 Goetz, H., Art and Architecture of Bikaner, 1950, pls. 2, 4Google Scholar; the same, Indian Painting in the Muslim Period” (JISOA., xv, pp. 19 ff., 1947 [1950], fig. 4Google Scholar; Art of India and Pakistan, pls. 142–3.

page 68 note 6 Goetz, H., “A Unique Deccani Miniature” (Bull. Baroda Museum, i, pt. 1, pp. 37 ff., 1944)Google Scholar.

page 69 note 1 Cousens, H., Bijapur and its Architectural Remains, Bombay, 1916, pl. 93. Here the reader would expect a reference to the miniature in the Bharat Kalā Bhavan, Benares (see Art of India and Pakistan, pl. 146, no. 807), the more so as it is quoted as evidence by Khandalavala. But it is, like the Laud Rāgmala, only attributed to the Deccan for style reasons. The costume, however, is different from that of all the documented Deccanī paintings, but in harmony with the Rājput type. Such hybrid works are not so rare; probably they were done by Deccanī painters for Rājput princes stationed with the Mughal army in the Deccan. But they cannot be adduced as evidence for the present purposeGoogle Scholar.

page 69 note 2 H. Cousens, Bijapur, pl. 76. The miniature, Art of India and Pakistan, pl. 146, no. 818, is closely related to those murals and, thus, probably likewise of the reign of Muhammad 'Ādil Shāh.

page 69 note 3 Of the Khawār-Nama (Golconda, A.D. 1645) in the Bombay Museum (22, 3256) only one detail is published in Stooke-Khandalavala, p. 58. Most costumes are more or less identical with those in the Āthār Mahal murals.

page 69 note 4 Art of India and Pakistan, pls. 147, 148; Kramrisch, Survey, pls. 21–4; Goetz, H., “Notes on Indian Painting” (Bull. Baroda Museum, vii, pp. 53 ff., 1951)Google Scholar.

page 69 note 5 Gangoly, O. C., “Portrait of a Court Lady from Hyderabad” (Rüpam, 4, pp. 16 f., 1920)Google Scholar; Goetz, H., “Kostüm und Mode an den Indischen Fürstenhöfen der Grossmoghul-Zeit” (Jahrbuch der Asiatischen Kunst, 1924, pl. 37, fig. 18)Google Scholar.

page 69 note 6 Khandalavala regards the transparent Oṛhnīs with white spots as a Deccanī characteristic not found in early Rājput painting. However, they were likewise common in the north, as the Vasanta-Vilāsa, Balagopālastuti, early Mārwārī paintings, and the Razm-Nāma prove.

page 70 note 1 Kh. claims also the turban to be Deccanī, but it is found also on many early Rājput miniatures, e.g. the well-known Bundela Rāgmālā. In this respect there existed then not much difference between north and south.

page 70 note 2 Especially the protuberance on the crown of the head, where the hair is collected into the plait, ia characteristic. The angular head-type is found in the Jaipur Razm-Nāma, the ovoid one in the Baroda MS.

page 70 note 3 Ā'īn-i Akbarī; identical with the Jaipur MS.

page 70 note 4 The Baroda MS., date discovered by Basil Gray.

page 71 note 1 Hendley, T. H., “War in Indian Art” (J. Ind. Art and Ind., xvii, no. 130, 1915, pls. 4–11)Google Scholar.

page 71 note 2 Wellesz, E., Akbar's Religious Thought reflected in Mughal Painting, 1952, fig. 22Google Scholar; Coomaraswamy, , Boston Catalogue, vi, 1930, pls. 3 and 4Google Scholar; Arnold-Wilkinson, , Chester-Beatty Collection Catalogue, ii, pl. 21, 1936Google Scholar.

page 71 note 3 Wellesz, fig. 23.

page 71 note 4 Coomaraswamy, ibid., pl. 5.—In the scenes from the Mughal court also another Rājput lady's costume appears, the upper half of which is identical with the Persian female dress, the lower part the Rājput pointed skirt (see also Kühnel-Goetz, , Jahangir Album, 1926, pls. 2 and 16). It might be claimed to have been the real Amber costume type. But it seems to have been an innovation for the Rājput ladies of Akbar's zenāna, and not peculiar to any part of Rājasthān. A wooden statuette in the same costume, from a Jain temple in Mārwār or Gujarāt, e.g. is in the Baroda MuseumGoogle Scholar.

page 71 note 5 For a later portrait of her see Martin, F. R., Miniature Painting and Painters, 1912, ii, pl. 201Google Scholar.

page 71 note 6 e.g. Art of India and Pakistan, pls. 119, 120, 122, 125, 126, 131.

page 72 note 1 Art of India and Pakistan, pls. 119, 636; 125, 240; 126, 660.

page 73 note 1 Rāgas and Rāginīs, Calcutta, 1935Google Scholar.

page 74 note 1 Goetz, H., “The Fall of Vijayanagar and the Nationalization of Muslim Art in the Dakhan” (J. Ind. Hist., xix, pt. 2, pp. 249 ff., 1940)Google Scholar.

page 74 note 2 Goetz, H., “Fall of Vijayanagar”; the same, “An Illustrated Early Rājput Manuscript” (D. V. Potdar Commemoration Volume, 1950, pp. 82 ff.)Google Scholar.