No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
A New Document of Indian Painting*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
The Cambridge University Library has in its collection a well preserved manuscript of the Buddhist Tantric text Kālacakratantra whose painted covers are of considerable significance to the history of Indian painting. According to the colophon the manuscript was written in Bihar in the 15th century, a period from which we have no documentary evidence of such painting in Eastern India.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1965
References
page 103 note 1 Add. 1364; cf. Bendall, C., Catalogue of Buddhist Sanskrit Manuscripts, Cambridge, 1883, pp. 69–70. This manuscript has so far not attracted the attention of students of Indian painting.Google Scholar
page 103 note 2 For a brief idea of the contents of the manuscript see, Dasgupta, S. B., Obscure Religious Cults, Calcutta, 1962, p. 25.Google Scholar
page 103 note 3 Bendall made a slight mistake in his reading of the colophon. In the last line instead of magadhadeśiyaka āragrāma he read magadhadeśiya kahyāragrāma. The letter following ka is undoubtedly ā and not the conjoint form hyā as read by him.
page 104 note 1 Buchanan suggested that the word Arrah derived from Araṇya-devī. Another tradition would make it Ārāma-nagara. A third tradition derives the word from ārā meaning “saw”. See Patel, D. R., Antiquarian Remains of Bihar, Patna, 1963, pp. 5–6.Google Scholar
page 104 note 2 Majumdar, R. C. (Ed.), The Struggle for Empire, Bombay, 1957, p. 477Google Scholar and The Age of Imperial Kanauj, Bombay, 1955, p. 394Google Scholar, n. 93 and 94 and other references cited therein.
page 104 note 3 Epigraphia Indica, Vol. XV, p. 301 f.
page 105 note 1 Mookerjee, M., “An Illustrated Cover of a Manuscript of the Ashṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā in a Private Collection,” Lalit Kalā, No. 6, 1959, p. 57Google Scholar, PL E.
page 105 note 2 Cowell's edition, I, 27.
page 105 note 3 Thomas, E. J., Life of the Buddha as Legend and History, p. 31.Google Scholar
page 106 note 1 ibid., p. 154.
page 106 note 2 Bhattacharyya, B. T., Indian Buddhist Iconography (2nd ed.), Calcutta, 1958, pp. 76–7.Google Scholar
page 107 note 1 Mitra, R. L., The Sanskrit Buddhist literature of Nepal, Calcutta, 1882, pp. 49–50.Google Scholar
page 109 note 1 Khandalavala, K. and Chandra, Moti, “A consideration of an Illustrated MS from Mandapadurga (Mandu) Dated A.D. 1439,” in Lalit Kalā, No. 6, 1959, p. 8Google Scholar f.; PI. II, Figs. 6 and 7, and PI. Ill, Figs. 9 and 10.
page 109 note 2 Coomaraswamy, A. K., Bulletin of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 08, 1921, Vol. XIX, No. 114, p. 47Google Scholar f. Coomaraswamy was not sure whether the manuscript belonged to Nepal or to India. The colophon definitely states that is was written in the 4th regnal year of Gopala, probably Gopala III of Bengal, as suggested by Coomaraswamy. Thus, there seems no reason to attribute it to Nepal.
page 111 note 1 Krishnadasa, Rai, “An Illustrated Avadhī Ms. of Laur-Chanda in the Bhārat Kalā Bhavan, Banaras,” in Lalit Kalā, Nos. 1–2, p. 66 f.Google Scholar