পৃষ্ঠা:চিত্ৰ-ভাগৱত.pdf/৪

FOREWORD
by
K: K. HANDIQUI, M.A. (Cal. et Oxon),
Vice-Chancellor, Gauhati University

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 The history of medieval Indian painting has been the subject of considerable research in recent years, both in India and the West; but very little is known about the materials available in Assam, especially the illuminated manuscripts several of which are known to exist in private and other collections. The present publication is the first systematic attempt to reproduce the paintings incorporated in one such manuscript, that of a portion of the tenth Skandha of the Assamese Bhâgavata composed by Sankardeva, According to the editor, the manuscript is dated Saka 1461 or A.D. 1539, and contains both the text and the illustrations. "The text was published separately some years ago, and the present volume contains only the illustrations with explanatory notes in Assamese and Hindi. The descriptive notes just below the pictures are in. old Assamese and given from the manuscript. Although many of the pictures have been reproduced in one colour, there are enough examples to give an idea. of the brilliant colour sense of the original paintings.
 The publication of these illustrations will be welcome to all students of medieval Indian painting. The art of illuminated manuscripts, which was

developed in Gujarat or Western India in the twelfth century, and at first practised on palm leaves for embellishing Jaina texts like the Kalpasûtra, was later extended to Vaishnava works like the Bhâgavata and especially the Gitagovinda, not only in Gujarat but in Rajputana and the Hill States of the Western Himalayas. Large series of paintings were executed to illustrate the Râmdyana of Tulsi Das. and reference may be made also to the miniatures illustrating secular poems; for example, the Râgamâlâ and Vasantavilâsa paintings. ‘The pictures reproduced here illustrate the stories of Krishna’s childhood as narrated in the Assamese version of the tenth Skandha of the Bhâgavata, ‘These stories were popular with Rajput painters; and scenes from Krishna’s early life form the subject-matter of some of the best known examples of the Kângrâ school, which flourished in the second half of the eighteenth century. The Assamese manuscript dated in A, D. 1589 is of special interest in view of the paucity of known examples of Rajput painting earlier than the seventeenth century, and represents one of the earliest attempts to illustrate a version of the Bhâgavata composed in the vernacular,