Kalaha Preaches to King Sahr by Anonymous

Kalaha Preaches to King Sahr c. 1500

aged paper

toned paper

water colours

handmade artwork painting

coloured pencil

watercolour bleed

watercolour illustration

mixed medium

mixed media

watercolor

"Kalaha Preaches to King Sahr" is a miniature painting from a manuscript created in India around 1500. The painting depicts the Hindu deity Kalaha, who is shown with multiple arms and snakes, preaching to King Sahr. The composition, featuring a figure speaking to a seated king, is typical of Indian miniature painting. The work is an excellent example of a devotional artwork, designed to inspire piety among those who saw it. The use of vivid colors and detailed imagery would have captured the attention of the viewer and helped them to connect with the story and the divine figure.

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minneapolisinstituteofart about 1 year ago

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The Kalpasutra (Book of Ritual) is a major canonical text that provides an extended biography of Mahavira, the founder of Jainism. It is the principal text of the Svetambara Jains, rulers of the Gujarat state in western India and committed art patrons. Because the commissioning of a Jain text for a temple library was deemed an act of religious merit, probably the more closely a copy resembled previous versions, the more ritually "correct" it was thought to be. This accounts for the stylistic unity found in several fifteenth-century Jain manuscripts displayed here.