The Manuscript Painting Tradition

India’s vibrant culture and traditions have gifted the world with numerous heartwarming paintings. Paintings are the visual representations of words or scripts or sometimes thoughts. This visual depiction narrates a whole different story to the people because of its visual connotation. The history of paintings can be traced back to the 7th century AD, and this history provides us with a text that acts as a guiding medium for all painters. The evolution of painting in India starts from the culture of manuscript and miniature paintings. Still, earlier, the resources were different, and so were the patterns and styles that depicted a different aesthetic manner.

History of Paintings in India

Vishnudharmottara Purana, an Indian mythological text from the 5th century, is considered a source of knowledge of art for all painters. The text in great detail describes the materials, backgrounds, colours, etc., that are to be used for the painting. The ancient book does not fail to teach the rules of paintings and all the key points that a painter should keep in mind. It is through the rules listed in this text that a painter learns about basic skills like appearance, structure, distance and posture of the objects drawn. Earlier, the paintings were painted on leaves, and thus the Vishnudharmottara notifies us about the leaves and the types of leaves that can be used for painting.

What is Manuscript Painting?

As the name suggests, these paintings are related to the religious texts and in simple words these texts are given a back support by the medium of painting, that is the texts are changed into the form of paintings. 

There was this shift in interest  of depicting manuscripts and literature like Mahabharata Ramayana into visual pictures or paintings. A lot of them are painted on walls and sometimes on leaves and papers. These manuscript paintings were and still prevail to be prestigious identification of India through the medium of art as they were the visual translations of the most pious texts of the country. These paintings were regarded as a medium of proper gifting that was both devotional and precious. Miniature paintings were used as a part of manuscript paintings for enhancing the details and structure. 

Illustrations of the stories in the way of paintings. 

• They are visual artefacts 
• It makes the story more interesting 
• Uses detailed artwork and forms 
• A superior form of gift and art

Manuscript paintings were very popular in India and continue to flourish in various parts of the world. These paintings were a great source of information regarding the history of India. These paintings also act as a medium to learn and decipher things from history in the most accurate form. also gives us a brief knowledge about the textile or clothes and other such indicators of social and cultural life. 

What are Miniature Paintings?

As the name suggests, miniature paintings are paintings that are done in great detail. One needs to get close to the painting to observe it because of the large amount of miniature objects used in these pictures to depict the story. These paintings were mostly given as gifts rather than wall hanging because of the minute details it had. 

Western Indian Schools of Painting

 The Western Indian Schools of Painting had most of their paintings from the theme of manuscript paintings and the Jain paintings. Painting activity in the country’s western area was greatly spread in Gujarat and the southern parts of Rajasthan. One of the most widely illustrated and famous paintings is the Kalpasutra which depicts the biographies of the 24 Tirthankaras in great detail, depicting their life, birth, renunciation, enlightenment and death.  

Other than the jain paintings art form the rich class or rich citizens used to buy manuscript painting because of the devotional value attached to it. These illustrations of secular, religious and literary themes focused on the plants, monuments, Courts, and female dressing. The most famous among them was the transparent odhani theme. The paintings that were theme based were also valued and were regarded as a rich artefact.  

Conclusion

Both the miniature paintings as well as the manuscript paintings are highly valued in Indian culture because of the magnificence as well as the religious value that is attached to it. Manuscript paintings are the ones which are a pure depiction of literature in pictorial or painting format while miniature paintings are those which have minute designs and texture. The culture of Jains and the message that has been spread just by the help of paintings, the visual transformation of the written texts in pictorial forms helps anyone to read these mythologies that are famous around the world.