ng Jain scripture, the _Kalpasutra_, had
been executed at Jaunpur for a wealthy merchant.[71] Its style was
basically Western Indian, yet being executed in an area so far to the
east, it also possessed certain novelties of manner. The heads were more
squarely shaped, the eyes larger in proportion to the face, the ladies'
drapery fanning out in great angular swirls. The bodies' contours were
also delineated with exquisitely sharp precision. The court at the time
was that of Hussain Shah, a member of the marauding Muslim dynasties which
since the twelfth century had enveloped Northern India; and it is possibly
due to persistent Muslim influence that painting revived in the last two
decades of the sixteenth century. Illustrated versions of passionate love
poetry were executed[72] and as part of the same vogue for poetic romance,
the _Gita Govinda_ may once again have been illustrated.[73] Between the
style of these later pictures and that of the Jain text of 1465, there are
such clear affinities that the same local tradition is obviously
responsible. Yet the new group of paintings has a distinctive elegance all
its own. As in the previous group, the detached projecting eye has gone.
Each situation is treated with a slashing boldness. There is no longer a
sense of cramping detail and the flat red backgrounds of Western Indian
painting infuse the settings with hot passion. But it is the treatment of
the feminine form which charges the pictures with sophisticated charm. The
large breasts, the sweeping dip in the back, the proud curve of the
haunches, the agitated jutting-out of the skirts, all these convey an air
of vivid sensual charm. That Radha and Krishna should be portrayed in so
civilized a manner is evidence of the power which the Krishna story had
come to exercise on courtly minds. Krishna is portrayed not as God but as
the most elegant of lovers, Radha and the cowgirls as the very embodiment
of fashionable women.

Jaunpur painting does not seem to have survived the sixteenth century and
for our next illustrations of the theme, we must turn to the school of
painting fostered by the Mughals. During the sixteenth century at least
three Muslim states other than Jaunpur itself had possessed schools of
painting--Malwa in Central India and Bijapur and Ahmadnagar in the Deccan.
Their styles can best be regarded as Indian offshoots of a Persian mode of
painting which was current in the Persian province of Shiraz in about the
y