The Western Indian (Jain) School

The Western Indian School of painting was centred on Gujarat, with southern Rajasthan and western Central India. Its main patrons were rich Jain merchants, so its Jain part is called the Jain School.

Among Jains, shaastradaan, donating books to the libraries of monasteries (called bhandars), was a meritorious, charitable act. This encouraged the making of many illustrated manuscripts.

The favourite text was the Kalpasutra, the lives of the 24 Tirthankaras: their conception, birth, renunciation, enlightenment and salvation. It includes the fourteen dreams that Queen Trishala saw before Mahavir was born. Other texts: the Kalakacharyakatha (the story of Acharya Kalaka rescuing his sister), the Uttaradhyana Sutra, and the Sangrahini Sutra, a text about the universe.

Early paintings were made on palm leaves; paper came only in the fourteenth century. The leaves were threaded together through a hole in the middle, and protected by painted wooden covers called patlis.

The style: the page is divided into sections; bright colours; textile patterns; thin, wiry lines; and a strange 'further eye' that sticks out beyond the face in profile. Buildings show Sultanate domes and arches. The most creative phase was about 1350 to 1450, when artists used gold and lapis lazuli (a costly blue stone).