Wall Painting of South Asia and Allied Textile Traditions

The diverse traditions of wall painting in South Asia span the full extent of the region’s geography, all periods of historical inquiry, and numerous media and artistic styles. South Asia is here understood to include Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. While the western Tibetan plateau within India is included, other Himalayan countries and Tibet are not. Perhaps the most famous—and the most well documented—wall paintings are the murals that decorate the Buddhist monasteries and shrines in the rock-cut caves of Ajanta, the earliest of which may date to the 1st century bce, but most of which date to the 5th century ce. The luminous 5th-century figures at Sigiriya, Sri Lanka, have also generated significant interest among both scholars and the public. Other sites have come to attention because of greater access or publicity. The recent 1,000th anniversary of the dedication of the great temple at Thanjavur elicited new studies of its murals; similarly, increasing access and restoration to sites such as the 11th- to 12th-century Buddhist monastic complex at Alchi and the 17th-century Mughal palace in Lahore have generated research and publications about their murals. Few examples in the total corpus of mural sites, however, stand out as truly well known or well studied. Generally, paintings produced for vernacular consumption, or by and for those traditionally on the social margins, remain relatively unknown; they have been grouped together here under the heading On the Margins: “Tribal,” “Women’s,” and “Folk” Painting. An attempt is made here to present a broad survey of mural painting traditions in South Asia, while representing the field in a way that accurately reflects its body of scholarship. Thus, sites that have attracted a significant amount of scholarship receive individual treatment here, while places or traditions that remain understudied are, regrettably, excluded entirely. It is hoped that these subjects may be added in the future. Most studies of murals document and analyze the context, content, and style of wall paintings. Beyond these concerns, a comparatively smaller body of scholarly literature investigates related areas of research. The first of these areas is the study of literature that prescribes art making and its appreciation, a genre known generally as śāstra, śilpaśāstra, or citrasutra. Another minor area of research is devoted to analysis of the technique and chemical compositions of the murals. Increasing awareness of the importance of the murals, especially in view of their accelerated decay and disappearance due to pollution, vandalism, and renovation, has generated studies devoted to the care and conservation of wall paintings. The third closely related topic is the tradition of large, painted, wall-hung textiles. The textiles included in this study are those considered to closely mirror the scale, style, and function of mural paintings. While an argument could be made for including many types of painted textiles in the myriad traditions of South Asia, only pichhvai and kalamkari are here considered to correspond most closely to the mural tradition.