Indian Miniature Paintings: A History

The earliest extant miniature paintings from the Indian Subcontinent date from the 9th-10th Centuries A.D. These paintings are wooden covers of different Buddhist texts now lost to us. 

The wooden covers of a Buddhist manuscript from Gilgit, Kashmir (9th century A.D.) or a superb 10th century Nepalese cover now in the National Museum, New Delhi...

...which depicts the story of Prince Vessantara ‘s demonstration of exemplary charity - the giving away of his children - are two rare early examples of what has been termed as the Pala style painting, associated with Eastern regions of Indian Subcontinent under the Pala rulers in the 8th to 12th  centuries.

Other early survivors date from the 10th-11th centuries and these are almost exclusively devoted to the illustration of Buddhist and Jain manuscripts, the Buddhist manuscripts almost exclusively in the Pala style with the Jain ones largely associated with the Western Indian miniature style. 

The two religions, however did not have a monopoly of the styles as a couple of Hindu religious manuscripts have survived in both Pala and Western Indian Miniature painting styles.

In early history, sacred books acquired the status of objects of veneration; these illustrated manuscripts became parts of rituals where they were deposited as relics in the foundations of Buddhist Stupas, and worshipped as embodiments of divine wisdom (Jnanapuja). 

During the annual Jain Paryushana festival, celebrated during the rainy season, worshippers seek to gain merit from momentarily holding the Kalpasutra, the Jain holy book, while wealthier members of the community bid for the privilege of the sacred text being worshipped in their houses. On the last day of the festival, the illustrated pages of the manuscript are held darshan, a holy viewing.

Buddhist illustrated manuscripts survive in pitifully few numbers as vast resources of Buddhist knowledge were destroyed by Muslim iconoclasts in the early 13th century AD, who wiped out the monasteries of Bihar (Nalanda, Vikramshila, Odantapuri), and Bengal, (Somapur, Salban and Tamralipti). 

All the surviving works from the Pala period, whether cloth paintings or palm leaf manuscripts, are known to us by the safe refuge provided to them in the Buddhist monasteries in Nepal and Tibet.

 By the 13th century, the Pala style of painting completely disappeared from the Indian landscape, its stylistic remnants survived in visual vocabularies of Nepal and Tibet, and these flourishing centres of Buddhist monastic learning came to be engaged in a vibrant dialogue with each other.

Diverse and selective mixings of styles were undertaken in the many regional courts. A copy of Nizami’s Iskandarnama produced at the Gaur court at Bengal for Sultan Nusrat Shah (1531) now in the British Library, depicts figures painted with the Persianate three-quarter view. 

These however are depicted against a backdrop of bright mosaic like architecture, made in the style of Bengal, the clouds are multi-coloured and the skies flash in a brilliant gold.

This image is from Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

The same text could be rendered in diverse styles - a case in point is the Candayana, a romance written in Awadhi, or eastern dialect of Hindi by Maulana Daud in 1389. 

One extant copy of the text now in the Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), Mumbai, is illustrated in a Persiante manner similar to the Nimatnama, with figures in profile standing in front a decorative background of sprinkling flowers with curving horizon or set against a schematic architecture. 

Seen here is a Persianate style Candayana folio from Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery.


Another illustrated rendition of the Candayana is in the Early Rajput style, its folios now divided among the Lahore and Chandigarh Museums, is derived from the Western Indian Miniature painting style but also show influence of the Sultanate style. The faces remain in strict profile, but the further eye of Western Indian Miniature style has been dropped, the torso rotates towards the viewer, and the lower body follows the profile view of the face, in the same direction. the eyes are larger and expressive, the backdrops stylistically rendered without any depth include schematic architecture, rendered in flat and bright colours. 

In the manner of the traditional Indian format, however, the composition remains wider rather than higher, unlike the preferred format of the Sultanate styles where the folios are higher rather than wider.

In the mid 16th century in the Deccan, miniature painting flourished under the Sultanate kingdoms of Golconda, Bijapur and Ahmadnagar. The court of Golconda patronised paintings with close affinities to the Persian styles at Shiraz, Tabriz, Herat and Bukhara. 

The neighbouring states of Ahmadnagar and Bijapur, were also influenced by Persian styles, but the art forms produced in their ateliers showed a greater blending of the Persian styles with Indigenous styles. The Ahmednagar court painting stylistically borrowed from the erstwhile Vijaynagar Empire which it had defeated, as well as elements of the Early Rajput style of the North.

The task to establish and give direction to the painting studio was left to his worthy son Akbar who undertook the task with gusto. One of the earliest manuscripts whose folios have been painted in his studio, is a copy of a fable, the Tutinama (1565-70), with most of its folios now preserved at the Cleveland Museum. 

Believed to have procured from the sack of Mandu, the capital of the kingdom of Malwa, around half of its folios originally painted in the Mandu style of the Mumbai CSMVS Candayana had been overpainted by Akbari artists. Clearly, Akbar demanded a new stylistic vision, and his atelier complied, forging a distinct and unique style that amalgamated Persian, Central Asian, Indian, and later, European elements.

Paintings from his reign are characterized by a certain cold formal and static tendency but are nonetheless exquisitely rendered. Unlike the freely drawn landscapes and floral studies of Jahangir’s reign, portraits, courtly scenes, and flower studies commissioned by Shah Jahan are stiffer, mannered and have formally balanced compositions. 

The major commission of his reign was the historical chronicle about his reign, the Padshahnama. Illustrated through the 1640s, a magnificent copy now in Windsor Castle, London.

The emperors who followed Aurangzeb had to deal with the depleting authority and power of the state and became unfortunate puppets of wily intrigues at court. The quick succession in which they were replaced left them no time to support the production of sumptuous paintings and books as done by their predecessors. 

Under the emperors Bahadur Shah (r. 1707–12)...

...and Muhammad Shah (r. 1719–48), there was a slight resurgence in the arts, but the Mughal capital at Delhi was decimated in the raid by the Persian adventurer Nadir Shah, in 1739 and caused much of the city’s population to flee and the artistic community thereafter permanently dispersed to find patronage in many regional courts of the Subcontinent.

Painting at the Rajput courts such as Bikaner, Bundi, Kota and Kishangarh, and at the provincial Muslim courts of, Murshidabad, Faizabad, Farrukhabad and Lucknow, blossomed...

...as Mughal artists provided fresh inspiration. By the 1800s, the Mughals were only nominally the emperors of India, with the British East India Company in actual political control.

Painting at Delhi in the 1800s, however, lingered on, incorporating stylistic influences by European art, dictated by the tastes of Europeans, largely the East India Company officials who patronised a few artists; these artists worked for the fading Mughal court as well, and influence of European painting can be seen in the works commissioned by the Mughal emperors. 

The art of the 19th century, at Delhi and other regional courts across the Indian Subcontinent came to increasingly assimilate the type of realism approved of by European art of the nineteenth century, it was however interpreted by Indian artists trained in diverse artistic traditions.

The Mughal empire dominated both the political and cultural landscape of much of the subcontinent for almost two centuries 16th to the 18th. The many small regional kingdoms adopted or responded to the art of the Mughals to carve out their own unique and distinct artistic identities.

Contacts and alliance with the Mughal court inspired many Rajput states at Bundi, Kota, Amber (later Jaipur), Bikaner, Jaisalmer to retain their own workshops. 

The earliest paintings produced at these regional centres date to the last years of the sixteenth to the early years of the seventeenth centuries, and they adopted some conventions of the Mughal painting but retained much of the flavour of their indigenous styles.

During the first half of the seventeenth century, the rulers at Amber and Bikaner, too, keenly took to patronising Mughal style paintings. 

The court of Mewar, however, after briefly flirting with Mughal elements, found in an early Ragamala by Sahibdin (1628), shrugged off the Mughal style, and a reassertion of local taste prevailed, with the use of bright colour and schematic compositions.

By the 1700’s distinct stylistic idioms had emerged in the major regional courts of Rajasthan...

...in what are now termed as the Mewar, Bikaner, Bundi, Kota, Jodhpur and Jaipur styles.

The Rajput states in the Punjab Hills also followed a similar artistic trajectory. Mughal style paintings were patronised by some courts such as Mandi and Bilaspur, for a very brief period in the later half of the 17th century.

Local traditions however prevailed, and a distinct flowering of regional styles flourished in the various hill states of Basohli, Nurpur, Mandi, Bahu, Mankot, and Chamba in the second half of the 17th century.

From the early 18th century, Mughal conventions again seemed to have seeped in the Court of Guler in the painting styles of the artist Pandit Seu and his two sons Manaku and Nainsukh. 

Succeeding generations of the family produced artists who although carried the style of the family to different hill states, infused it with individual traits.

The style that emerged from Pandit Seu and his two sons flourished in Guler and Kangra, with its stylistic variations at regional courts such as Chamba, Garhwal, Mandi, Basholi, Nalagarh, Lambagraon and elsewhere, and...

...influenced the art under the Sikhs in the 19th century.