ARTS
Moral tales in painting
A range of themes has been covered in the illustrations of verses of the 14th century Sanskrit text, Sharangadhara Paddhati. These include sayings on kama, artha and dharma, besides mundane matters such as omens, portents, horses, swords, gardening and agriculture

The riches that India had, or created in the past, in terms of didactic but vastly entertaining literature seem to have been incalculable. Great texts — the Panchatantra, the Hitopadesha, the Dashakumaracharita, the Tantrakhyayika, the Kathasaritasagara, even the Jatakas, to take some examples — emerged from this land and went round the world in one form — avatar might be the more appropriate term — or another. These were freely borrowed from, translated, transformed: one thinks thus of Aesop’s Fables, the KalilawaDimna, the Anwar-i-Suhaili, and the Fables of Bidpai. For their appeal and ability to teach or bring valuable lessons home while remaining pleasurable and diverting to read was almost universal. The pleasure was naturally enhanced when these texts were accompanied by images and we have had, based on these, some great paintings made, at levels ranging from the folk to the highly sophisticated. There are delights to be discovered, everywhere.

To this category also belonged the 14th century Sanskrit text, Sharangadhara Paddhati, the name of its author — Sharangdhara — woven into its title. Sharangdhara clearly was both an author and a compiler, for the work is an anthology consisting of as many as 4,689 verses, some of these his own and others from one of the more than 300 poets whose works he drew upon to include. He was certainly a great admirer of subhashitas — literally, ‘great utterances’ containing maxims or aphorisms — and a believer in the saying that,

“Too late to dig a well for water when your house is on fire.” Folio from a Sharangadhara Paddhati series; Mewar, ca. 1700. Simon Ray Collection, London

“Grief, like poison, is one’s own; joy, like nectar, is shared.” Folio from a Sharangadhara Paddhati series; Mewar, ca. 1700. Metzger Collection, now in the Museum Rietberg, Zurich

“Who can escape misfortunes?” Folio from a Sharangadhara Paddhati series; Mewar, ca. 1700. Metzger Collection, now in the Museum Rietberg, Zurich

"On this earth, there are only three things that are truly precious: water, food and subhashita.

In any case, the sayings that he put together or wrote were filled now with wit or humour or satire, now gave rise to scorn, led now to deep thought, but always used subtle word-play. The range of themes covered by the verses is bewildering, ranging from sayings on kama, artha and dharma to mundane matters such as omens and portents, horses and swords, gardening and agriculture. The text is not known to have been widely popular among painters elsewhere but, interestingly, at the court of Mewar at Udaipur in the late 17th century, it elicited enormous interest.

For, as Andrew Topsfield noted, as many as five illustrated series of the work appear to have been painted, three of them topped by text-panels in Sanskrit and two in Hindi, although not in the most elegant of hands. It is unlikely that all of more than 4,000 verses were chosen for illustration but a fairly large number were.

Considering the possibility that it was for different members of the royal family that the series were produced, one can imagine the discussions that must have taken place and the exchanges they must have led to.

The quality of the paintings of the Sharangdhara Paddhati versions is varied, and is certainly not of the highest that painters at the Mewar court were capable of. But the works command great interest, for sometimes in them lies a hidden challenge for the viewer: the challenge of decoding not only the words of the text but of following the painter’s train of thought as he struggled to create visual parallels to them. It is entirely possible that, while painting, the artists were guided by learned pandits who could interpret for them what the Sanskrit verses truly mean. But in the matter of decoding, the viewer would have to be entirely on his own.

Consider, thus, the painting which contains the moral that: "It is too late to dig a well for water when your house is on fire". Some things in the rendering can be grasped instantly. Thus, the wise saying, one can see, is the subject of a conversation between two persons who appear in a chamber prominently at right: the royal-looking figure seated on a throne and a man standing close by and gesturing. In the lower half of the painting, again, the scene is unambiguous: a house on fire with elegantly rendered flames coming out of the roof; a couple looking back at the calamity while hastening to escape with whatever they have been able to retrieve of their possessions; and a man beginning to dig a well next to them. But, one wonders, is the painting simply a genre rendering of a house on fire? On closer examination, one discovers that the real point lies in making a connection between the figure of the old woman, prayer beads in hand, leaning on a staff who appears at the very centre of the painting, and the image of Vishnu in the top left hand corner, just above the ‘horizon’ to suggest his being far above this earth. If she, the poet and the painter are suggesting, had devoted herself to the gods when she was young and able of body, it would have been one thing, but now that she is old and approaching her end, it is perhaps too late for her to turn to devotion and hope for redemption. Like it is ‘too late to dig a well for water’, as the maxim says, ‘when your house is on fire."

In another painting based on the same text, a different lesson is driven home. Seemingly, there is no connection between the various groups of figures that crowd the page: the five Pandava brothers and Draupadi moving towards wilderness at top left; Rama and Sita going into exile at top right; Ravana biting the dust at bottom right; members of the Vrishni clan killing one another at bottom left; and, close to the centre, Nala and Damayanti wandering about, thrown out of their kingdom and bereft of all belongings.

Skillfully, the painter creates a different space for each group by altering the colour of the ground, and articulates his figures with practiced ease. The point he is making, however, together with the text, is that it is our destiny that controls us: if misfortunes can befall the Pandavas, and Rama, and Ravana, and Nala, and the Vrishnis — clearly the context is taken for granted for these figures were part of everyone’s awareness — what hope can be there for mere mortals like ourselves?

So on it goes in these series of paintings. Some things are said with subtlety, others with wit, still others with brutal directness. But it is compellingly done each time.

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