Page 11 - Art and Crafts of Bangladesh

8 ART AND CRAFTS

belonging to the school of Mahayana Buddhism. Besides this, illustrated specimens
of Pancharaksha, Karandavyuha, Kalachakrayana, etc. books of the Vajrayana form
were also found. Prepared as a part of religious practice, this manuscript painting
method is known in the history of Indian art as Pala painting or alternatively as the
Eastern Indian style.
According to the renowned Tibetan historian Lama Taranatha’s account this pictorial
style was introduced in the times of Dharmapala Deva and Devpala Deva, in the first
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part of the ninth century AD. Although no specimen of any painting of that period
has yet been discovered, however, an abundance of specimens of these paintings from
the end of the tenth century have been found. Later on in the middle of the fifteenth
century, that is even during the early stages of Muslim rule in Bengal this style of
manuscript painting continued. However, at this last stage the beauty of previous Pala
painting had degenerated to a great measure. It can be supposed from the scanty
evidence of these paintings from a later period that after the establishment of Muslim
dominance, this ancient style of painting had begun to degenerate. But probably it
cannot be said that it had become completely extinct. The birth of the Murshidabad
style of painting later in the eighteenth century supports this notion.
The manuscript painting (fig.1.3) of the Pala Age was painted on specially processed
palm leaves and wooden boards were used as their covers. The size of the painted
sections were generally 6cm x 7cm, on each page there were five to seven lines of
writing and generally three pictures. In these paintings executed in the gouache
medium the white, yellow, blue, red, black and green colors were used. When writing
the text of the manuscript blank spaces were probably left for the paintings. After the
writing of the manuscript was finished the painter filled the blank spaces with
paintings. However, there was very little similarity between the painted pictures and
the subject of the writings on the puthi. Primarily the figures of the Buddha and other
Buddhist gods and goddesses were painted on the manuscripts to impart a divine
character to the manuscript, not for illustrating the written statements in the text. Yet in
Persian miniatures or western miniatures of the middle ages or in the other miniature
traditions the subject matter of the paintings were an aid to the text of the books.
Pala manuscript paintings established the age of miniatures or ‘anuchitra’ in India.
But in the context of the method or characteristics of these paintings some
dissimilarities need to be mentioned. Though they are miniatures, yet some qualities
of the miniature are absent from these paintings. These paintings follow the tradition
of wall paintings of a previous age and in appearance look as if they are small sized
wall paintings. Actually, it is not proper to call Pala paintings miniatures in the real
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sense. As the viewer has to see the miniature from up close, the carefully detailed
execution of the subject-matter in the painting is very important. In the European
miniature paintings of the middle ages, the traditional miniatures of Persia or Arabia,
the above-mentioned characteristic of very fine to yet finer drawing and
ornamentation is completely absent in the Pala paintings. In reality, though small in