Research
This series is the earliest surviving illustrated version of the life of Krishna according to the Tenth Book of the Bhagavata Purana.
Series or Manuscript Title
The series has been commonly known as the “Dispersed” Bhagavata Purana (Ehnbom, 1984; Ehnbom 2018 p. 108). Other titles assigned to the series are "Sa Mitharam - Sa Nana" Bhagavata Purana (Ehnbom in Beach, 2011, p. 77), so-called because of the inscriptions on the folios; “Palam” Bhagavata Purana (Ray, 2019) based on the suggestion that it was made in Palam in the Delhi-Agra region; and “Scotch-Tape” Bhagavata Purana (McInerney, 2016, p. 52) because of the tape with which the series was "conserved" sometime in the 1950s.
Date:
ca.1520-30 (Ehnbom, 1984; Ehnbom in Beach, 2011, p. 77)
Other suggested dates: ca.1520-40 (Ray, 2019); ca.1520-25 (Topsfield, 2001, p. 32). It can be dated on grounds of style to c. 1520–30, and it was probably produced in the Delhi–Agra region, perhaps in Mathura (cf. Ehnbom 1984; Ehnbom 2011). (Ehnbom 2018 p. 108)
Text/inscription at the back:
The text at the back is the original form of the Bhagavata Purana — all verses of the 10th book were illustrated at least up to the seventy-fifth adhyaya. The text is relatively accurate Sanskrit written in a clear hand. The number of verses per leaf varies greatly. (Ehnbom, 1984) In the first few chapters, the scribe has added Hindi captions to the texts on the backs of the leaves, but he discontinued this by the sixth adhyaya. Other hands have added various captions, names, and numbers both verso and recto. The backs are margined on the sides with red bands between narrow black lines. (Ehnbom in Beach, 2011, p. 80) The entire Sanskrit text was illustrated; it appears on the reverse of the leaves in a clear hand, and there are vernacular captions on many of the leaves in a variety of hands. (Ehnbom 2018 p. 108)
Place of Production:
Suggestions: Mathura, Delhi-Agra area, Palam (suburb of Delhi)
Mathura origin: (Ehnbom in Beach, 2011, p. 88, endnote 3)
In the introduction to Skelton 1973, Robert Skelton first suggested Mathura as a possible place of production for the Dispersed Bhagavata Purana, and that suggestion has found favor with many scholars. Inscriptional evidence within the CPS group points to the Delhi-Agra region as the area of production. One might wish to single out a particular place within this region as the likeliest center, and there is certainly symbolic and perhaps literal truth in assigning the Dispersed Bhagavata to the city sanctified by so many important events in Krishna’s life.
The Mathura region was also the center of the Vallabha Sampradaya in this period, a cult that places a special emphasis on the story of Krishna as recounted in the Bhagavata Purana, particularly on his childhood and youth. The relative importance of the early life of Krishna in the Dispersed Bhagavata Purana makes identification with the Vallabha cult tempting, but the evidence is hardly conclusive.
At the same time, one can hardly conceive of a work of this subject, scale, importance, size and quality being produced in the early 16th century in north India without some connection, probably an intimate one, to the Vallabha Sampradaya, and one might suggest that its production was the outgrowth of the specific ritual of public reading of the Bhagavata Purana associated then and now with the Vallabhites.
Yet, the most one can say with any certainty is that it is very likely that work of the type exemplified by the Dispersed Bhagavata Purana and the CPS group as a whole was produced in major centers of the Delhi-Agra region, including Mathura. The precise center of production of the Dispersed Bhagavata, and the centers of production of most examples of the CPS group, still await certain identification.
Palam origin:
Palam, now a suburb in south-west Delhi (Ray, 2019)
This manuscript is widely known as the Palam Bhagavata Purana, after a suburb of Delhi, the hometown of one of the individuals named in an owner’s colophon, although the style also can be associated with Agra. Independent manuscript evidence, notably the dated 1540 Palam Mahapurana, established this town as a known center for scribes and painters. (Guy, 2011, p. 38)
A ca.1520-40 Bhagavata Purana from Palam, now a suburb in south-west Delhi, with over hundred extant folios, signals towards the larger artistic cultures that had developed in the mercantile worlds of the sixteenth century Delhi, Mathura, Agra, alongside new Vaishnava devotional and pilgrimage practices that had profoundly transformed the north indian ecumeme in this period. (Ray, 2019, p. 38)
Malwa-Rajput origin:
If the Dispersed Bhagavata Purana is of a generation earlier, or c. 1520-25, then the court of Chitor under Rana Sanga would be a reasonable (but speculative) attribution for it. (Topsfield, 2001, p. 42)
[Gwalior style of 1500, development of Chaurapanchasika style -- artists later went to other courts like Chitor after the fall of Gwalior in 1517] (Discussion in Topsfield, 2001, pp. 35-42)
Patrons:
The series was commissioned by two Vaishnava merchants (Ray, 2019, p. 39) Most illustrations are inscribed with one of four names, Sa Nana, Sa Mitharam, Hira Bai, or Bagha, which probably identify previous owners rather than artists. (Topsfield, 2001, p. 47,87; McInerney, 2016, p. 52)
We know nothing of the circumstance of its production beyond the evidence of the surviving pages, which suggest that it is a workshop production for a devout Vaishnava patron, very probably one with close links to the Vallabha bhakti cult at Vrindavan, near Mathura, the place of Krishna’s childhood. In all probability, such a patron was a wealthy merchant emulating courtly patronage through the commissioning of a work of intense devotion that rivaled Sultanate Muslim productions of the time. The manuscript may have been the joint property of two individuals named in several colophons, Sa. Mitharam and Sa. Nana, perhaps brothers; one appearance of Sa. Mitharam is accompanied by the phrase Palan nagar Madhye (in the city of Palam), suggesting that they were residents of this town, near Delhi. (Guy, 2011, p. 38)
Provenance:
The manuscript was in the possession of a Vaisnava family in Hyderabad until it was dispersed by a Bombay dealer in the mid-to-late 1950s. The manuscript suffered considerable damage from wear and water. Many leaves have been repaired or completely remounted, often obscuring or destroying the texts on the backs. Someone said to be a family member of the dealer who dispersed the set, “strengthened” the borders of the back with a cellophane tape. Where this tape has not been removed, the acidic adhesive is permeating the paper, causing fading and chipping of the pigments and cracking of the paper. (Ehnbom, 1984)
Titled the “Scotch-Tape” Bhagavata Purana after the cellophane tape used by a “benevolent” earlier owner to reinforce the fraying edges of the folios. (McInerney, 2016, p. 52)
Format:
The format is horizontal, and the leaves consist of two sheets of paper glued together with an illustration on one side and the text on the other. Since the leaves have no running text, this Bhagavata Purana is not a manuscript, but a series of pictures with accompanying text. (Ehnbom, 1984)
The number of folios:
The series may have comprised as many as three hundred illustrated folios, but only about two hundred appear to have survived. (Ehnbom, 1984; McInerney, 2016, p. 52)
In addition, there were with the series at its dispersal four battle scenes that do not constitute an original part of the set. (Ehnbom, 1984)
It is the earliest known illustrated manuscript of this text, and it was and remains one of the most ambitious. (Guy, 2011, p. 38)
The only illustrated manuscript to rival this one is the Hamzanama, produced under very different circumstances, namely imperial Mughal patronage and direction. (Khandalavala, 1974)
Originally intended to have some 360 folios (Ehnbom 2018 p. 108)
Style:
The Palam Bhagavata Purana shares an aesthetic sensibility characterised by the use of flat monochromatic bands to delineate the background, angular figures in silhouette profiles and compartmentalised units bordered by solid lines. This new artistic sensibility has been provisionally designated as the “early Rajput School.” (Ray, 2019, p. 39)
The style emphasizes convention rather than invention. (Ehnbom, 1984)
The Palam Bhagavata Purana embodies much that characterizes the Caurapancasika Group style and expresses a single aesthetic, achieved using a shared visual vocabulary. (Guy, 2011, p. 38)
These conventions dictate that flat washes of intense color, most typically red, fill the ground, allowing no possibility for special perspective rendering. Figure types and their expressive gestures follow well-understood conventions, displaying silhouette profiles with large almond-shaped eyes, and a strict dress code, the women wearing choli bodices drawn tightly over full breasts and waistcloths, the men in crossover jackets and jama combined with distinctive kulahdar-style turbans. Palatial architectural settings in a Sultanate manner recur throughout the series, even though these events as described in the text are set in a rural village, a strong indicator of the manuscript’s probable origins in the Delhi area, the home of the Lodi Sultanate until its overthrow by the Mongol Babur in 1526. (Guy, 2011, p. 38)
Artists:
Ten different hands at work. Two major and at least eight junior artists appear to have been involved in the production of the “Palam” Bhagavata Purana. (Ehnbom in Beach, 2011, p. 79)
Ehnbom offers the following structure for the contributions of the artists: (Ehnbom in Beach, 2011, p. 81)
|
Adhyayas |
Painter |
|
01–11 |
A |
|
12–17 |
B |
|
18–21 |
C |
|
22–28 |
D |
|
29–34 |
E (no illustrations from 35) |
|
36–41 |
F |
|
42–49 |
G |
|
50–59.38 |
H |
|
59.39–68 |
I (no illustrations from 69) |
|
70–75 |
J |
Workshop model: (Ehnbom in Beach, 2011, p. 88)
The evidence of hands is significant because it suggests a workshop structure. One or two senior painters (A and probably H) are at the head, each with a distinct group of followers. Ten painters in a single workshop is not excessive. One can imagine, perhaps, a pair of brothers with their sons and apprentices. Such a workshop need not be under any direct patronage, but could easily be supported by commissions from wealthy merchants, nobles, and perhaps princes both major and minor. This is not to say that the patronage of the Dispersed Bhagavata Purana could not have been royal, but rather it is not necessary to assume such patronage, as previous scholars have done. At present it is difficult to suggest if other known paintings are from the same workshop. It is possible that the group of four battle scenes, said to have been dispersed with the Bhagavata and long thought to have been an integral part of it, come from the workshop that made the Bhagavata.
The painters responsible for the series of paintings in this manuscript belonged to a workshop-studio most likely active around Delhi or Agra, where wealth generated by the political stability of the Sultanate rulers of the region attracted Hindu and Jain merchant communities. This undertaking was artistically challenging and expensive and necessitated a well-organized studio in which highly literate scribes (the text is written in a precise and correct Sanskrit) and experienced painters worked together. (Guy, 2011, p. 38)
Online Bhagavata Purana resources [Full text]:
English: http://srimadbhagavatam.org/canto10/c10-1-contents.html