Re-evaluating the Role of Text in Indian Art

Abstract

This article seeks to rediscover and contemporise the importance of using the shastras, Sanskrit technical treatises, as a standard of critique to analyse Indian art. The applicability and interpretative value of this approach for the study of Indian art history is exemplified by a case study of the miniature paintings representing the image of Shri Nathji in Nathdvara. Analysing the image of Shri Nathji as it appears in Nathdvara miniature paintings from different shastric points of views, including the theories of measurement and proportion, postures, mudras and rasa theory, the article proposes to include in the definition of shastra not only canonical textual sources but also practical/visual and oral/verbal transmitted knowledge. While textual concepts are used as a methodology for the reading of the image of Shri Nathji, the canonical shastric theories are considered side by side with such oral and practical knowledge in an attempt to redefine the concept of ‘text’ for Indian tradition, and especially to further our knowledge on the relationship between text and image in Indian art.