Pigments used in Jaina Miniatures

Summary

Moti Chandra catalogues the colour technologies behind Western Indian Jain miniatures, bridging Sanskrit technical texts and workshop practice. Whites likely derive not from lead but from burnt conch shell, kaolin or chalk; a hard, glossy kashī-zinc is obtained by repeated grinding, levigation and washing to leave a fine, stable pigment. Reds include cinnabar (vermilion) and red lead (sindūra), sometimes roasted to deepen tone. Yellows come primarily from orpiment (haritāla), used for both correction and colour, with varieties (rāgī/vargī) distinguished by fineness and sheen. Blues rely on indigo and imported lapis derivatives for paper miniatures, though ultramarine is rarer in palm-leaf sets; greens appear as indigo-orpiment mixtures. Binders and vehicles include gum arabic and animal glues; gold is applied in shell-gold or as leaf, with extensive tooling in the later paper period. The article records dye-stuffs (e.g., kermes, lac) for textiles depicted in scenes as well as symbolic colour values in Jain literature. Recipes quote the Mānasollāsa and Śilparatna, with practical proportions for mixed hues and flesh tints, and guidance on preparing supports: polishing paper or palm-leaf, priming with chalk-gesso grounds, and creating red fields for inscriptions. By aligning textual prescriptions with extant folios’ optical effects—brick-red grounds, white reserve, incisive contour—Chandra shows how materials shaped style: saturation, sparkle and the characteristic contrast of cool blue with hot vermilion. This technical dossier complements stylistic histories by explaining the craft disciplines that made the pictures’ austerity and brilliance possible.