Nathdwara Paintings from the Anil Relia Collection Nathdwara Paintings from the Anil Relia Collection The Portal to Shrinathji Kalyan Krishna & Kay Talwar Note to Readers We have uniformly subtracted fifty-seven years from the Vikram Samvat year to arrive at its Common Era equivalent. We have eliminated the short ‘a’ at the end of words except in the cases of commonly accepted spellings. Also, some short ‘a’s in compound words often remain for the sake of pronunciation. It is not a perfect solution but an attempt to replicate the way the words are pronounced. Please forgive us for what appears to be inconsistency. We have also decided to transliterate as d and as r in order to come closer to the actual way these consonants are pronounced. Published by Block D, Building No. 77, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-I, New Delhi-110 020, INDIA Tel: 91-11-26816301, 26818960 Email: [email protected] Website: www.niyogibooksindia.com Text ©: Kalyan Krishna and Kay Talwar Images ©: Anil Relia Editor: Sucharita Ghosh Design: Nabanita Das ISBN: 978-93-89136-72-2 Publication: 2021 All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission and consent of the publisher. Printed at Niyogi Offset Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, India 5 Contents Foreword by Tryna Lyons 07 Authors’ Note 09 Introduction 11 The Ritual Cycle 21 Catalogue of Nathdwara Paintings 27 Plans of the Shrinathji Temple 28 The Prakatya: The Emergence of Shrinathji 32 Spring (Vasant): The Season of Colour 41 Summer (Grishma) 59 Monsoon (Varsha) 71 Autumn (Sharad) 93 Winter (Hemant/Shishir) 125 The Eventful Years: 1907–1909 135 Images of Shrinathji 147 Darshan Paintings 152 Krishna’s Lilas 170 Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Manoraths 174 Nathdwara and Its Neighbours 181 The Artist’s Hand Revealed 195 The Influence of Popular Prints 215 Technique 231 Appendices 241 Svarups 242 Svarup Chart 248 Ashtasakha 250 The Goswamis of Mathura 253 Genealogical Tree 256 Glossary 258 Bibliography 260 Acknowledgements 263 Foreword nil Relia’s collection of Nathdwara paintings collection of paintings we see here, organized around Ahad its origin in 1996, when his interest was the seven to eight viewings (darshan) that take place piqued by an unusual sketch. The drawing turned every day, the colourful festivals strewn across the out to be the work of renowned artist Ghasiram seasons, and the special paintings commissioned by (1869–1931), and its acquisition sent Ahmedabad- priestly aristocrats and wealthy patrons, affords us a based Relia off on a journey of exploration and glimpse of a community preoccupied with the life growing connoisseurship. He proceeded to assemble and loves of Krishna. a well-rounded, meticulously authenticated collection This inward-looking world was not, however, comprising examples of the several genres for which immune to artistic and political developments outside this Rajasthani school of art is known. A pair of its boundaries. Chapters on the fertile cross-influences distinguished experts in the field, Kalyan Krishna and among various schools of painting in the region and on Kay Talwar, agreed to prepare a catalogue after taking the role of popular prints in modernizing Nathdwara’s a look at the significant paintings it would cover. The aesthetic preferences reveal a group of artisans willing two scholars have collaborated before, producing to consider new ways of seeing and depicting. Further catalogues for the Calico Museum (1979) and Tapi sections on painting technique help us understand Collection (2007). the complex process of getting pigment onto a As the authors detail in their introduction, support, from making the paintbrush and preparing Nathdwara was until recently a place where time the pigments to the final burnishing of the surface. seemed to have been arrested. Eighteenth-century Even though some of these procedures have been temple traditions and nineteenth-century workshop lost, curtailed or abandoned in recent years, they practice prevailed, and artists seeking to portray the constitute a determinant of the classic Nathdwara playful activities of the child-god Shrinathji had only school of painting. A group of sketches takes us even to look down their own narrow lanes to see plump closer to the creative process, as we look over the cows, mischievous children and marauding monkeys artist’s shoulder while he gets his initial idea down on just like those that romped through the narratives they paper. In this chapter, ‘The Artist’s Hand Revealed’, were painting in their studios. The temple doors were we find the drawing that first sent Anil Relia on his (and still are) thrown open at set times, permitting voyage of discovery (CAT 80). devotees and pilgrims to take a few moments out of Taking a cue from Amit Ambalal (Krishna as their day to visit the deity who dwells at the centre Shrinathji, 1987), Krishna and Talwar have analyzed of their town, and who commands their hearts. The the paintings as historical documents. Through an examination of contemporary written accounts describing particular ceremonies, and careful study of priestly genealogies, the two investigators have been able to single out a number of the participants shown in these painted records of temple ritual. They have also revisited seventeenth-century sectarian annals with a view to preparing fresh accounts of the discovery and wanderings of Pushtimargi images, and biographies of the eight principal poets responsible for its devotional literature. These reconfigurations, although relegated to the appendices, will surely be of great use to future researchers. This authoritative and engaging catalogue will reward the reader with its appealing works of art and scholarly insights. Tryna Lyons Author of The Artists of Nathadwara: The Practice of Painting in Rajasthan Authors’ Note nil Relia, art collector and entrepreneur, is known legendary artist of Nathdwara. With encouragement Afor his passionate pursuit of the arts. Throughout from artist/author and friend, Amit Ambalal, Relia his life from the founding of the Archer Graphic Studio began collecting paintings and drawings from the and Gallery to the amassing of an extensive collection famous pilgrimage site in Rajasthan. He currently has of Indian portraiture and the cataloguing of his own about 250 pieces that range from icon paintings made collection, Mr Relia has been drawn to the world for the pilgrimage trade to representations of historical of the artist and the painted image. It is extremely celebrations in the temple. gratifying that the Relia family would entrust the cataloguing of his Nathdwara collection to us. It is our Kalyan Krishna hope that our presentation matches both Anil Relia’s Kay Talwar level of knowledge and passion for the arts. In his The Indian Portrait - II: Sacred Journey of Tilkayat Govardhanlalji (1862–1934), Nathdwara Mr Relia relates that he became interested in Nathdwara painting when he found a beautiful drawing of the wedding procession of Damodarlal, the son of Tilakayat Govardhanlalji (see CAT 80). It was a fortuitous beginning since the drawing was later identified by scholar Tryna Lyons as the work of Ghasiram, the Nathdwara on the Banas river with Shrinathji Temple (1973). Photograph courtesy of Kalyan Krishna Introduction Nathdwara and the History of the Vallabhacharya Sampraday ucked into the folds of the Aravalli Hills, about Over the last forty years Nathdwara’s uniqueness Tthirty miles north-east of Udaipur, is the bustling has garnered the attention of scholars and produced pilgrimage centre of Nathdwara, home to Shrinathji, an explosion of research on the pilgrimage centre. the living image (svarup) of Krishna raising Mount When we first worked on the Calico Collection of Govardhan. The establishment of the deity’s haveli Nathdwara pichhavais (Indian Pigment Paintings (mansion/temple), in Mewar in the seventeenth on Cloth) in the early seventies there were very century, gave rise to a town that completely revolved few publications about Nathdwara. Most notable around Shrinathji and the activities at his palatial shrine. were Robert Skelton’s Rajasthani Temple Hangings The haveli brought together a myriad of diverse social of the Krishna Cult (1973), Renaldo Maduro’s groups such as masons, potters, tailors, silversmiths, Artistic Creativity in a Brahmin Painter Community embroiderers, brocade weavers, enamel (meenakari) (1976) and Rajendra Jindel’s Culture of a Sacred workers, cooks and carpenters, all performing divine Town (1976). Since then outstanding art historians service (seva) for the child-god Krishna. Most importantly such as Tryna Lyons, B.N. Goswamy, Amit Ambalal it fostered the growth of a painting community, drawn and Madhuvanti Ghose have made significant from various towns in Rajasthan, that came to serve the contributions to the understanding and preservation needs of the haveli and the pilgrims. of the history of Nathdwara’s artistic community. Nathdwara became a unique centre, its rituals In addition to the art historical aspect of the sacred and traditions remaining virtually unchanged for over town, there has been an avalanche of material 300 years. Until recently it was in a time capsule, published on the literary, political, socio-economic maintaining artistic traditions that had vanished from and anthropological facets of Nathdwara. The the Rajput courts. It was the archive for the styles plethora of online texts and translations as well as the and techniques of the courtly painting studios of new publications bowing the library shelves attest to Rajasthan as well as the home to its own unbroken Nathdwara’s continuing appeal as a research subject. artistic tradition for over three centuries. There were hundreds of artists from the Jangir and Adi Gaur Nathdwara castes dedicated to serving the temple and providing Until the seventeenth century Nathdwara (Door painted icons for the pilgrimage trade.