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Abstract
This article explains the changes found in patas (cloth paintings) depicting Shatrunjaya, which were produced for Shvetambara Murtipujak Jains during the nineteenth century in Gujarat. These patas differed from earlier tirtha patas in that they were much larger and depicted Shatrunjaya as the central subject matter. They were also meticulous in depicting the topographical and architectural features of the site, and included Palitana, the adjacent town ruled by the Hindu Thakur. The emergence of the site as a centre for Jain pilgrimage, as well as changes in Jain perceptions of the site, led to these transformations.
Notes
1 Pata translates as cloth, curtain, or canvas, or paintings on any of these media. Although the correct transliteration of the Hindi word would be paṭ, pata is commonly used in art historical and cartographical studies.
2 This article only focuses on Jain patas. Patas depicting Hindu pilgrimage sites are not common, with almost all remaining examples dating from after the nineteenth century. One example is the picchavais (cloth hangings) of the Vallabhacharya Sampradaya, a Krishna sect founded in the late fifteenth century. The centre of picchavai production was Nathdwara, a town 22 miles northwest of Udaipur in Rajasthan, which was also the centre of the sect. While most of the picchavais focus on Nathji, a form of Krishna, a few of these picchavais depict the pilgrimage of Vraj, the surrounding area including Mathura and Mount Govardhan. However, unlike Shatrunjaya patas, these tirtha patas of Vraj were used as temple hangings behind the main image and none of them predate the eighteenth century. Another example are the pata chitras (cloth paintings) of Orissa, which depict the Jagannath Temple at Puri. See Kay Talwar and Kalyan Krishna, Indian Pigment Paintings on Cloth, Historic Textiles of India at the Calico Museum, Ahmedabad (Ahmedabad: B.U. Balsari on behalf of the Calico Museum of Textiles, 1979), pp. 26–7, 106.
3 See, for example, Shridhar Andhare, ‘Jain Monumental Painting’, in Pratapaditya Pal (ed.), The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India (New York: Thames and Hudson; New York/London: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1994), pp. 77–88; Susan Gole, Indian Maps and Plans: From Earliest Times to the Advent of European Surveys (New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1998); Joseph F. Schwartzberg, ‘South Asian Cartography’, in J.B. Harley and David Woodward (eds), The History of Cartography (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 293–509; and Talwar and Krishna, Indian Pigment Paintings on Cloth, pp. 82–90.
4 James Legge, A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms; Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hsien of His Travels in India and Ceylon, A.D. 399–414 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, rpr. 1965), pp. 105–6.
5 Moti Chandra, Jain Miniature Paintings from Western India (Ahmedabad: Sarabhai Manilal Nawab, 1949), p. 46. Chandra also lists several other traditional sources that discuss cloth paintings, including the Samyutta Nikaya, Visuddhimagga, Mahavamsa, and the Kamasutra.
6 Andhare, ‘Jain Monumental Painting’, p. 78.
7 John Cort, Jains in the World: Religious Values and Ideology in India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), p. 176.
8 Diana Eck, Darsan, Seeing the Divine Image in India (New York: Columbia University Press, 2nd rev. and enl. ed., 1996), p. 3.
9 Umakant P. Shah, Jaina-Rupa-Mandana: Jaina Iconography (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1987), p. 165.
10 According to the Shatrunjaya Mahatmya, the peacock is said to have been listening to Adishvara (the first Tirthankara) preaching at Shatrunjaya, and was reborn to achieve enlightenment. The snake also appears in a story related to Shatrunjaya. Shatrunjaya Mahatmya relates that a Brahman named Susharma killed his family in a rage and was reborn as a snake. The snake overheard an ascetic preaching about Shatrunjaya and yearned to go to the sacred site. Hearing his wish, the ascetic took the snake to Shatrunjaya where it was reborn and achieved enlightenment. See Kanchansagarsuri, Shri Shatrunjay Giriraj Darshan in Sculptures and Architecture (Kapadwanj: Aagamoddharak Granthamala, 1982), p. 13. It is also possible that the two animals, by nature enemies, are depicted as a symbol of the samavasaran, the celestial assembly in which Tirthankaras preach to all the gods and humans and animals, who all listen in peace.
11 Shridhar Andhare, ‘Jain Monumental Painting’, in Jan Van Alphen (ed.), Steps to Liberation: 2,500 Years of Jain Art and Religion (Antwerp: Etnografisch Museum Antwerpen, 2000), p. 73.
12 Personal interview with Haribhai, owner of Haribhai Painters, Palitana, 26 July 2003.
13 For example, the depictions of the paths on Shatrunjaya hill are not identical in most of the nineteenth-century Shatrunjaya patas, which may reflect how the painter (or viewer) experienced the site. Among the several gates at Shatrunjaya, most patas show Hathi Pol (Elephant Gate), but only a few patas show Vaghan Pol (Tigress Gate), even though both gates existed during the nineteenth century. Although one can argue that the artist was careless or the depiction of Vaghan Pol did not matter that much, if the patas were copied from a source, it would be likely that they all included significant buildings at the same place and with the same identification. More likely, the experience of the viewer varied at the site, resulting in different depictions. On the other hand, a few patas are almost identical to each other in their depictions of temples, paths, gates, and architectural details; it may be possible that they were either produced by the same artist/workshop or one was a copy of another.
14 The religion of the artist would not be relevant to the production of patas, since Pal argues that the same artists would work for Hindu, Jain, or Muslim patrons. Rather, it is popularly believed that Jains should not be artists, especially as painters have to work with brushes made of animal hair, which are avoided in the religion. See Pratapaditya Pal, ‘Introduction’, in Pratapaditya Pal (ed.), The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India (New York: Thames and Hudson Ltd.; New York/London: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1994) p. 24. Pal states that the inscription on one Jain painting employs the term chitram, apparently used by Muslim painters from the region of Mewar and which refers to artists as well as to cloth paintings.
15 Andhare, ‘Jain Monumental Painting’, 1994, p. 78.
16 Chandra, Jain Miniature Paintings, p. 46.
17 One example with Tirthankaras as central images is ‘Samavasaran of Adishvara’, in the collection of Sarabhai Nawab, published as Figure 187 in Chandra, Jain Miniature Paintings, p. 51. Another example is ‘Varddhamana Vidya Pata’ with the image of Mahavira at its centre, in the collection of Muni Punavijaya, published in U.P. Shah, ‘Varddhamana-Vidya-Pata’, in Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, Vol. 9 (1941), p. 42.
18 It is possible to see the similarities of the figures to those in ‘The Annual Distribution of Alms’, in a Kalpa Sutra manuscript dated to 1432, collection of Acharya Jayasurishvara, Plates 89, 90 in Chandra, Jain Miniature Paintings.
19 This pata was commissioned by Kothari Vaghaka and Saha Gunyaka, two merchants from Champaner, a town in eastern Gujarat. Currently divided between the Jain Tadapatriya Pustak Bhandar and the L.D. Museum of Art, Ahmedabad, it has been published partially by both Chandra and Mehta. See Chandra, Jain Miniature Paintings, p. 51; and Nanalal Chamanlal Mehta, ‘A Picture Roll from Gujarat (A.D. 1433)’, in Indian Art and Letters New Series, Vol. VI, no. 2 (1932), p. 71. The paintings of pilgrimage sites are separated by blank spaces, which were probably intended to be filled with text. The third painting of this cloth scroll depicts the main temple at Shatrunjaya.
20 M.S. Commissariat, ‘Part II: Shantidas Jawahari, the Great Jain Magnate of Gujarat in the 17th Century’, in Studies in the History of Gujarat: The Thakkar Vassonji Madhavji Lecture of the University of Bombay for the Year 1930–31 (Bombay: Longmans, Green & Co. Ltd. for the University of Bombay, 1935), pp. 53–78.
21 Pedhi translates as firm or company. Although Sheth Anandji Kalyanji Pedhi may sound like a common Gujarati name (i.e. Sir or Mr Anand Kalyan, or Joy Blissfulness), it is a fictional name referring to the trust that manages the site of Shatrunjaya.
22 The Sheth Anandji Kalyanji Pedhi declined to give permission to publish images of the pata for this article. Images of the pata may be found in Hawon Ku Kim, ‘Re-Formation of Identity: The 19th-Century Jain Pilgrimage Site of Shatrunjaya, Gujarat,’ unpublished PhD Dissertation, University of Minnesota, 2007, pp. 265–6.
23 Talwar and Krishna, Indian Pigment Paintings on Cloth, p. 85.
24 Tunk is a Gujarati term that may be translated as enclosure or complex. It is used to indicate an area surrounding a temple, normally enclosed by walls that are lined with subsidiary shrines.
25 Dated ca. 1750, one Shatrunjaya pata stands out in this group, namely Figure 43 in Pal, The Peaceful Liberators. Andhare suggests that this pata was rendered in Jaipur, ‘where the artist was not familiar with the highly detailed style of farther west’. See Andhare, ‘Jain Monumental Painting’, 1994, p. 252. Not only the style, but also the depiction of the temples and tunks, are highly inconsistent with other examples; it may have been commissioned from an artist unfamiliar with contemporary patas.
26 As one climbs up Shatrunjaya hill, the temples can be divided into three groups. Shatrunjaya hill itself consists of two summits with a valley between. The Main Adishvara Temple is the most important temple and is located on the southern summit. Its surrounding tunk has several names, including Adishvara Bhagavan (The Lord Adishvara), Dadani Tunk (Grandfather's Enclosure), Adinath Temple, Vimala Vasahi or Vimalvasi Tunk, etc. The number and names of tunks on Shatrunjaya vary according to different authors: however, the popular understanding is that there are two or three tunks on the southern summit (Dadani Tunk, Vimala Vasahi Tunk, and, sometimes, Keshavji Nayak Tunk), two in the valley (Motishah Tunk, Balabhai Tunk), and eight on the northern summit (Modi Tunk, Premabhai Tunk, Ujambai Tunk, Pandava Tunk, Sakar Shah Tunk, Chaumukh or Kharatara Vasi Tunk, Chip Vasi Tunk, and Narshi Keshavji Nayak Tunk). Vasahi, or vasi, is sometimes interchangeable with the term tunk.
27 James Burgess, The Temples of Satrunjaya, the Celebrated Jaina Place of Pilgrimage, Near Palitana in Kathiawad, with Historical and Descriptive Introduction (Gandhinagar/Delhi: Gujarat State Committee for the Celebration of 2,500th Anniversary of Bhagwan Mahavira Nirvan; exclusive distributors Motilal Banarsidass, rpr. 1976), p. 25.
28 The inscription translates as ‘Bhandariji of Kanpur had this Siddhakshetra tirtharaja pata repaired and repainted at Kishangarh by artist Himmatvijay, who was a native of Patan, Gujarat. It was done in Samvata 1942 (1885 AD) on Tuesday, the fifth of Magha Shukla Paksha by the order of Shri 1008 Shir Vijayraj Suri’. See Talwar and Krishna, Indian Pigment Paintings on Cloth, p. 85.
29 According to a legal case surrounding the ownership of Shatrunjaya that was filed in 1886, the definition of ‘Shatrunjaya and its hills’ was challenged by the Jains and the Thakur of Palitana. This case led to a British court defining ‘Shatrunjaya’ as including the hill itself, the timber from the hill, and the grass from the hill that was fed to cattle. See Hawon Ku, ‘The British Courts and Rise of a Modern Jain Identity during the Nineteenth Century’, in Andrea Luithle-Hardenberg (ed.), The Jaina Community, British Rule and Occidental Scholarship from 18th to Early 20th Century (Berlin: E.B. Verlag, forthcoming late 2014).
30 Kunjlata N. Shah, ‘Motichand Amichand: A Shipping Magnate of Bombay, 1782–1836’, in Amitabha Mukherjee (ed.), Studies in India's Maritime Trade (Kolkata: Institute of Historical Studies, 1999), p. 99.
31 Hawon Ku, ‘Temples and Patrons: The Nineteenth-Century Temple of Motīśāh at Śatruñjaya’, in International Journal of Jaina Studies (Online), Vol. 7, no. 2 (2011), pp. 1–22.
32 For example, Motishah of Bombay spent Rs1.1 million to build his new temple complex at Shatrunjaya, and an additional Rs700,000 for the consecration ceremony in 1837. Motishah's family rented a ship from Bombay to transport attendees; other patrons from Ahmedabad paid separately to bring their own sanghs (assembly of worshippers, or pilgrimage groups) to Shatrunjaya. See Motichand Girdharlal Kapadia, Sheth Motishah (Mumbai: Shri Godiji Jain Derasar and Trustees of Dharmada Department, 1991), pp. 175–6.
33 One example is a stone relief sculpture at the Adinath Temple (Dharana Vihara), Ranakpur, 14401500. See Plate VI in U.P. Shah, Jaina-Rupa-Mandana, p. 48.
34 Phyllis Granoff, ‘Jain Pilgrimage: In Memory and Celebration of the Jinas’, in Pratapaditya Pal (ed.), The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India (New York: Thames and Hudson Ltd; New York/London: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1994), pp. 69–70. This is repeated in contemporary Jain temples. Dundas has also argued that ‘[the] ideal of the temporary suspension of the householder's life to journey as a pilgrim remains before lay Jains even when they go to worship in their local temple. Most Shvetambara temples contain painted representations of the great holy places, depicted without any normal artistic perspective and in the standard garish style of contemporary demotic Indian religious art, which can serve as ancillary focuses of devotion after homage has been paid to the main temple image’. Paul Dundas, The Jains (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 188.
35 Kama Maclean, ‘Making the Colonial State Work for You: The Modern Beginnings of the Ancient Kumbh Mela in Allahabad’, in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 62, no. 3 (2003), pp. 873–905.
36 Granoff argues that the description of Shatrunjaya in texts such as the Vividha Tirtha Kalpa relate to ‘a broader literary tradition of magical lands, often islands, and paradises that we know from early medieval Indian stories’, which suggest ‘another possible topography, one that is not visible under ordinary circumstances, but that is also paradisiacal, and grants infinite wealth, long life, and sensual pleasures, all of the bounties of heaven’. Phyllis Granoff, ‘Medieval Jain Accounts of Mt. Girnar and Satrunjaya: Visible and Invisible Sacred Realms’, in Journal of the Oriental Institute Baroda, Vol. 49, nos. 1–2 (1999), pp. 155, 161.
37 Ku Kim, ‘Re-Formation of Identity’, p. 43.
38 Alexander Kinloch Forbes, Ras Mala: Or, Hindu Annals of the Province of Goozerat in Western India (London: Richardson and Co., new ed. 1878); James Tod, Travels in Western India, Embracing a Visit to the Sacred Mounts of the Jains, and the Most Celebrated Shrines of Hindu Faith between Rajpootana and the Indus (Delhi: Oriental Publishers, rpr. 1971); James Burgess, The Temples of Satrunjaya, the Celebrated Jaina Place of Pilgrimage, Near Palitana in Kathiawad, with Historical and Descriptive Introduction (Bombay: Sykes and Dwyer, 1869); and James Burgess and Henry Cousens, Revised Lists of Antiquarian Remains in the Bombay Presidency: And the Native States of Baroda, Palanpur, Radhanpur, Kathiawad, Kachh, Kolhapur, and the Southern Maratha Minor States (Bombay: Printed at the Government Central Press, 1897).
39 Ku Kim, ‘Re-Formation of Identity’, p. 45.
40 As a result, Burgess’ work was republished in 1976 for the celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of Bhagwan Mahavira Nirvan, and the Jain Journal, the outstanding scholarly journal of Jainology, reprinted Burgess’ work on Shatrunjaya as homage to the site. James Burgess, The Temples of Satrunjaya, the Celebrated Jaina Place of Pilgrimage, Near Palitana in Kathiawad, with Historical and Descriptive Introduction (Gandhinagar/Delhi: Gujarat State Committee for the Celebration of 2,500th Anniversary of Bhagwan Mahavira Nirvan; exclusive distributors Motilal Banarsidass, rpr. 1976).
41 Tod, Travels in Western India, p. 294.
42 Ku, ‘The British Courts and Rise of a Modern Jain Identity’.
43 Ratilal Dipchand Desai, Sheth Anandji Kalyanjini Pedhino Itihas (The History of the Anandji Kalyanji Pedhi) (Ahmedabad: Sheth Anandji Kalyanji, 1983), Vol. 2, p. 318.
44 Svetlana Alpers, ‘The Mapping Impulse in Dutch Art’, in David Woodward (ed.), Art and Cartography: Six Historical Essays (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 66.
45 J.B. Harley, ‘Maps, Knowledge, and Power’, in Denis E. Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels (eds), The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design, and Use of Past Environments (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 300.
46 Gole, Indian Maps and Plans, p. 14.
47 Most Jains comply with the prohibition against climbing the hill during the four months of the rainy season. Even during the pilgrimage season, there are only several days when the site is as truly crowded as in the Shatrunjaya patas; these include festival days around Karttiki Purnima (Oct./Nov.) or Akshaya Tritiya (May).
48 Vasudeo Smart and Jagdeep Smart, Jain Kashthapat Chitra: Survey and Documentation of Mural Paintings in the Jain Temples of South Gujarat (Surat: Acgartashri Omkarsuri Aradhna Bhavan, 2002).
49 Julia Hegewald, ‘Visualising Jaina Pilgrimage: Sacred Centres, Temple Cities and Tirtha Patas’, paper presented at ‘Jain Art & Ritual: From Antiquity to Modernity’, Yale University, Nov. 2008.
50 One of the most visited websites on Jainism, http://www.jainworld.org/, has a separate category for images of Jain temples, as well as clips of worship. Most websites on Jainism, either maintained within India or abroad, have sections for images of temples. See ‘Jain Temples’, at Jainworld.com: Jainism Global Resource Center [http://www.jainworld.org/, accessed 16 Feb. 2013].
51 Michael Meister, ‘Ethnography, Art History, and the Life of Temples’, in Michael Meister (ed.), Ethnography and Personhood (Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2000), p. 40.