THE OTHER SIDE OF INDIAN MINIATURES

Indian Miniatures are rich in nature, subject, and popular worldwide for their minute details in drawing, coloring, and a lot more. Usually generalized and widely popular subjects of these miniatures were the mythological and religious subjects. Usually, the most common subject painted was mythology and most popularly that of Radha and Krishna.

While expressing the incidents from the life of Radha and Krishna we come across a lot of Miniatures that portray incidents of their life most popularly their endless love towards each other. Nevertheless while viewing a few of these miniatures people often question, and misunderstand how are such scenes depicted to portray the Lord. As certain paintings go beyond the basic portrayal of love. This is where the back story and simple between-the-lines reading becomes Mandatory.

Amidst the proselytism when the artists from Mughal courts settled into Rajput courts, they brought with them the style from Mughal courts. They were trained under the masters in these art schools of Rajput courts. Here along with depicting the incidents from the life of Rajputs the artists also painted miniatures depicting scenes of mythology. This was a part of the ongoing bhakti movement in India during that period of time.

Painting by artist Nihal Chand

One such ruler was Raja Sawant Singh who was a great devotee of Lord Krishna, it is said that he fell in love with Vishnu Priya (debatable name) later known as Bani Thani, and got married to her. Their love was often seen as one like Radha and Krishna, Love as pure as devotion. It is said that he had asked the artists to portray the incidents from the life of Lord Krishna, Some say he imagined himself and his Bani Thani who he loved the most as Radha and Krishna and asked the artists to paint them likewise, this also served as a source of inspiration for the artists to paint the various series of Radha Krishna paintings. This was Raja's expression of his devotion towards Lord Krishna and as a part to keep the bhakti movement going, That answers the questioned miniatures which might have been nothing but a mere portrayal of the life of their ruler with an amalgamation of divine bhakti rasa depicted in their paintings. The artists apart of this also painted and experimented with subjects like depicting different Musical Ragas (musical notes) and emotions like the 9 Rasas in their miniature paintings at times through depiction of lord Krishna.

Thus the widely popular Rajput miniatures have a lot more to delve into which goes deeper and beyond the general stereotype of just mythological paintings.

Hope you liked my shortly summarized lesser-known side of miniatures and I will be soon coming up with more such hidden, lesser-known, or forgotten Miniature stories.

HAPPY READING:)