Up in alms, portraits in giving: the Śālibhadra Caupaī and Jain art in early modern South Asia
Creators: name: Punj, Nandita
Publisher: name: No Publisher Supplied
Year: 2022

description: My dissertation examines early modern painted iterations of the Shvetambara Jain narrative tale the Śālibhadra Caupaī from Rajasthan and Gujarat. It highlights the role of Jain communities in eighteenth century visual culture. This study demonstrates how the vernacular visual vocabulary seen in illustrated Jain manuscripts existed in dialogue with courtly traditions and epitomized elitist merchant culture while conveying Jain ideals. Directed at the merchant community, the Śālibhadra Caupaī, a seventeenth century narrative tale in old Gujarati, extolls the benefits of almsgiving to the monastic community. While the end goal remains (self-)realization of the futility of worldly ties, Śālibhadra’s story which is meant to be performed with music, promises an individual’s success in worldly as well as religious affairs. The illustrated Śālibhadra manuscripts concretely visualize this success through sumptuous imagery of a luxuriant and flourishing Jain merchant culture. They display essential characteristics of vernacular art: simplicity, ease of accessibility, freedom of expression, line driven qualities, energetic rendering and preference for bold colors. Their greater production and visibility establishes their importance as a window into the visual culture of the period, otherwise overshadowed by the illustrious narrative of courtly paintings. This focus on courtly art is largely responsible for the lack of interest in and marginalization of vernacular aesthetics which are equally important in defining early modern visual culture.This study examines twenty-one painted manuscripts of the Śālibhadra Caupaī from western India. They range from the early seventeenth till the end of the eighteenth centuries and are presently located in Jain Shastra Bhandaras (libraries), museums and archives in India and abroad. The text, meant to be performed with music, is composed as a versified poem in old Gujarati and is generally arranged into 536 stanzas and 29 dhalas (manners/modes), each of which with the exception of the last ends in a chorus. Except for one in the bound vertical format, all the manuscripts are in the horizontal pothi (loose leaf folios bound by a string/wooden covers) format, emulating the palm-leaf manuscript style and the material used is handmade paper, ink and watercolors with occasional use of gold leaf.By focusing on a group of manuscripts, often considered folk and simplistic, through the lens of pictorial vernacular this dissertation draws much needed attention to the painterly practices outside courtly circles. There is a tacit assumption that Jain painting exists in a state of decline post sixteenth century. Apart from studies on particular isolated genres of Jain painting of the later period such as cosmological texts, vijnaptipatras (letters of invitation), pilgrimage patas, hardly any studies consider the Jain painting tradition in totality and in dialogue with parallel traditions. Through a close study of the visual vocabulary of the Śālibhadra manuscripts coupled with an examination of textual sources, catalogues of collections of manuscripts and colophon studies, secondary art historical and historical readings of the early modern period, this dissertation extends the chronology of Jain painting beyond the sixteenth century and demonstrates their significant contribution to eighteenth century visual culture. Chapter one defines the vernacular genre of art as seen in the Śālibhadra manuscripts and contextualizes its development in the context of burgeoning Krishna bhakti (as seen in literature and art) in early modern western India along with the socio- economic and political changes seen in the region. It also offers a close visual and textual analysis of the Śālibhadra style of paintings to reveal the epitomization of mercantile culture directed at a targeted audience of Jains and non–Jains. Chapters two and three focus on two case studies of Jaisalmer and Bikaner respectively, demonstrating the existence and proliferation and circulation of a regional vernacular style existing alongside courtly traditions, both displaying an awareness of the other.This dissertation underscores the importance of Jain painting in the eighteenth-century world where artists serving Jain communities’ needs created a unique vernacular visual vocabulary that reflected local regional ties, historical consciousness and familiarity with parallel traditions as well. By problematizing the relationship between courtly and vernacular categories and by shedding light on a hitherto understudied group of painted Jain manuscripts, this study contributes to rethinking the larger issue of ‘courtly- vernacular/ regional binary’ in art historical and South Asian studies scholarship while providing evidence for dialogue between the two.