The
Gitagovinda is among the most frequently illustrated of all the devotional
texts sacred to Krishna. Although the majority of extant Gitagovinda
illustrations hail from northern India, this particular example may have been
made at Aurangabad in the Deccan as it is stylistically similar to a manuscript
of the Rasamanjari (Posy of delights) bound with an unillustrated nayaka-nayika
manuscript by the same scribe that has a colophon stating that the portion of
the text with the Rasamanjari paintings was made there in t6so (Doshi).
Despite
this seemingly incontrovertible evidence of that manuscript's origin, the two
manuscripts and a related Ragamala set have proved to be one of the most
controversial and often discussed stylistic groups within Indian painting, with
suggested dates ranging from 1630 to 1700 and attributions including
Aurangabad, Mewar, Ghanerao, Bikaner, and Nagaur (see Doshi; Topsfield 199oa;
and Vatsyayan 1978). The controversy lies in the fact that there are a number
of Rajasthani, specifically Mewar, stylistic features present in the thirty-one
paintings of the now-dispersed Gitagovinda manuscript. Although there are minor
variations within it, the Rajasthani-style aspects generally include the figural
types especially the moustache, long sideburns, and ornaments of Krishna as
well as certain landscape, architectural, and compositional conventions.
These
stylistic anomalies can, however, be explained by the cosmopolitan nature of
the court culture of Aurangabad during the period when the paintings were
executed (Leach 1986, p. 15o). During the many years of Mughal-Deccani warfare
in the seventeenth century, large numbers of Mughal and Rajasthani troops were
quartered in the city and region. These troops were led by high-ranking
Rajasthani nobles, including Mohan Singh of Mewar, who commissioned the Rasamanjari
and nayaka-nayika manuscripts of 165o. Since several illuminated manuscripts •
in the same style were made at Mewar immediately following 165o, it seems
likely that Rajasthani artists accompanying their nobles to the Deccan were
exposed to and influenced by Deccani styles.
Writer Name:- Pratapaditya
Pal
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