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- 245 - compares the charm of Parvati to a picture infused with life. Thus the art of painting in India, judging from the literary 7 references, must have flourished from very early times.
The art of painting was made use of in the earliest
Buddhist period for diffusion of religion. The Buddhist
missionaries were using the art of painting as the vehicle of
their teaching. The series of pictures enumerating the
doctrines of the great Gautama Buddha were used by his disciples
in other countries like Nepal, Tibet and China. Dr. Stella
Kramrisch has mentioned the great Hall built by the Bodhisatva
according to the Maha-Ummaga - Jataka, painted with beautiful
pictures, and the subterranean palace of the same Jataka with
the stucco-coated walls, bearing paintings. From the Vinaya
Pitaka (3rd Cen.B.C.) we know that king Prasenjit, as Dr.
Kranrisch observes, could boast of a picture gallary where the
Bhikkhunis were forbidden to go.
8 Besides this literary evidence, we find the remains
of artistic specimens of painting dating back to very remote
times. The prehistoric cave paintings in India give us a
picture of the life of the primitive man. These few remains
are interesting. When man was living in rocky cave-shelters
he painted drawings on the walls of the caves which are known
as rock-paintings. These drawings are in a red pigment which
represents man and wild animals. Dr. V.S.Agrawala has given a
clear exposition of these rock-paintings. There are four
centres where such paintings have been discovered namely,
9