Sunday 3 February 2013

The Sumpardaya Sun - possible reference trove

 Example of one of the minitures found in the articles on Vedic Art. The Battle between Bahubali (Balarama) and Bharat Painted wooden book cover (Patli) Jain School, Western India, 12th c. On the left, women in chariots? One is shooting a recurve bow the other wielding a sword and round shield.



I have just stumbled upon the Sampardaya Sun. It appears to be a website started by a Hare Krishna group which has evolved into a Vaisnava centric news group. I've found a number of scholarly articles on this site. While I tend to cross reference references out of habit (scientists in my field can be rather biased and it's good practice to present information as neutrally as possible, especially on the interwebs where people with a sad lack of persistence tend to believe anything with an authoritative voice), I've found some good starting articles:

The murals of Kerala Pt 1, 2 and 3.
Murals at Kerala have been dated back to the 8th century, and murals continue to be created today. Part 1 has a good summary history of Kerala, Part 2 discusses techniques used such as wall perparation, Part 3 discusses the history of the art forms found at Kerala.




Vedic Art: Indian Miniature Painting (the original link and reference material)
30 posts each with up to three images. Most of the later posts show images out of period, however they're worth a look simply due to the beautiful detail achieved by the artists. The first post:


The index for later perusal:

http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/features/features.htm


(for those, like me, who had no idea what Vaisnava was, Wikipedia states that Vaishnavism a major branch of Hinduism.)