- Kalpasutra (Jainism)
Kalpasutra (कल्पसूत्र) is a
Jain ancient text containing the biographies of the last twoJain Tirthankara s,Parshvanath andMahavira . It contains detailed life histories with illustrations.Adinath (or RishabhDev) andNeminath are two other Tirthankaras briefly mentioned in the text, with Adinath depicted in some of the illustrations.The book is considered to be written by
Bhadrabahu I, and it is considered written about 150 years after Nirvana of Mahavira.Importance of the text
The book is read and illustrated in an eight day long festival of
Paryushan by Jain monks for general people.Origin of Illustrations
The Kalpasutra art has its origin acclaimedly in the 5th century. It is claimed that the Kalpasutras, though on a different medium, were part of the same sectarian art tradition as the ancient murals of
Ajanta , Bagh and other monasteries. However, the earliest known Kalpasutras do not go beyond the 10th century and the number from the period from the 10th to 13th centuries is very small. The greater bulk of Kalpasutra paintings emerges from 14th to mid-16th centuries. These Kalpasutras are mostly from Western India, Gujarat,Rajasthan and the western region of Malwa. TheMandu (Malwa , now inMadhya Pradesh ) Kalpasutras of 1439 and some of their contemporary renderings fromGujarat and western Rajasthan,Mewar andMarwar , are all masterpieces of Indian miniature art.References
"The Kalpa Sûtra" translated in English by Hermann Jacobi is published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishers in Delhi in " The Sacred books of the East" (Vol 22) (1989) ISBN 81-208-0123-7
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