The Citrasutra of the Visnudharmottara Purana.

• Author: Srinivasan, Doris Meth
• Position: Book Review

The Citrasutra of the Visnudharmottara Purana. By PARUL DAVE MUKHERJI. Delhi: INDIRA GANDHI NATIONAL CENTRE FOR THE ARTS, 2001. Pp. xlv + 293. Rs. 750.

For more than seventy-five years, ever since Stella Kramrisch brought out the first printed edition in translation, the Citrasutra of the Visnudhamottara Purana has been recognized as an important treatise for art historians and, to some degree, for historians of religion and literary developments in India. The Citrasutra refers to Khanda III, Adhyayas 35-43, of the Visnudharmottara Purana. In its entirety, Khanda III propounds an early and remarkable view of the interrelationship of the arts (see, for example, III.2.1-9 on the interrelationship between painting, dancing, music, and singing), and it articulates the framework of an aesthetic theory relevant to these arts. The Citrasutra, named after the first line of Adhyaya 35.1a (atah param pravaksyami citrasutram tavanagha), concentrates on the theory of painting, although occasional reference to sculpture is also made throughout the text. Adhyaya 35 considers the mythic origin of painting and the five types of males together with their differing proportions. Adhyaya 36 discusses measurements and proportions of the different parts of the body and the colors and other distinguishing features of the five male types. Adhyaya 37 deals with the measurements of the five types of females, hair and eye types, and the general characteristics of a Cakravartin. Adhyaya 38 gives details on auspicious marks that divine images, both plastic and painting, will possess. Adhyaya 39 treats the different postures (sthanas) for figures. Adhyaya 40 describes how to mix paints, prepare the surface, and apply the paints. Adhyaya 41, of cardinal importance, defines the four types of paintings. Adhyaya 42, equally significant, prescribes the manner in which a large number of beings--royalty, priests, nature and heavenly sprites, demons, wives, courtesans, attendants of vaisnava deities, warriors, merchants, sudras and more--should be depicted. We may infer that all these subjects were, or could be, depicted in art, otherwise prescriptions such as these would not be provided. Adhyaya 43 talks about the nine rasas in painting, strengths and defects in painting, as well as sculpture in different materials. In closing, III.43.37, as if to underscore the unity and interdependence of the arts, states that whatever has been left unsaid about painting can be understood from the section on dance, and what is not given there can be supplied from painting.

An impressive group of Indologists and pioneers in the history of Indian art have analyzed this text. They seem to agree that Kramrisch's 1924 translation of the Citrasutra and her revised version of 1928 (1) have many problems, due to the faulty edition she worked with and her reliance on others; however, her introduction is still worth reading, since such issues as art contemporary to the text (e.g., Ajanta), its date (between the fifth and seventh century A.D.), and the text's general characteristics are perceptively outlined. A. K. Coomaraswamy agreed with Kramrisch on dating and the text's contemporaneity with Ajanta; his annotated translation solely of III.41 in this journal (2) was undertaken, I would think, by a desire to fathom the nature of Indian painting treated in an early text. His analysis is more philologically oriented than Kramrisch's. C...