Jaina Paintings

This work presents a set of Jaina paintings in the State Museum, Lucknow, depicting life-episodes of Neminatha–a popular theme with Jaina writers and painters. Majority of the paintings bear label-inscriptions in Rajasthani dialect related with the theme of the paintings. All the paintings and the inscriptions have been illustrated. The 'Introduction' deals with the general features of the paintings. This is followed by the description of the painting and identification of the theme, one by one. The sequence followed is: description of the painting, text of the inscription, rendering of the text in khadi boli, and its English translation. The episodes of the paintings have been compared with literary evidence and other paintings on the same theme published earlier, and similarities and differences have been highlighted. Some paintings demonstrate superiority of Neminatha over Krsna, who according to the Jaina tradition was his cousin. The showing of more than one episode in the same painting in the style of continuous narration, and the anomaly between what the painting shows and what the inscription describes, in a few cases, have been highlighted. The language and orthography of the inscriptions and the silpshodness in their composing have been commented upon in the appendix, at the end of the book.