English: Indian and Himalayan Art

Aspects of Violence (Himsa) Page from a manuscript of the Sangrahanisutra Made in Gujarat, India or Rajasthan, India

1663-64

Artist/maker unknown, India

Opaque watercolor on paper 4 3/8 x 10 inches (11.1 x 25.4 cm)

Currently not on view

1935-34-11(51,a) Purchased with the Francis T. S. Darley Fund, 1935

Label

According to the philosophy of the Jain religion, animals that are violent to one another are reborn in hell as surely as men who practice cruelty. Each hell has a matching image. The upper left is the first hell for "unreasoning tigers," and the illustration shows a tiger attacking a black buck antelope. The adjacent scenes show a domesticated cheetah carrying a rodent, a bird of prey (perhaps a Eurasian sparrow hawk) with a smaller bird in its beak, and a Gaja-Simha (mythical elephant-lion) with its elephant prey. On the far left of the lower row, a mongoose kills a snake. At the far right, a big fish eats a little one, a scene described as "fish doing bloody deeds." Just to its left, a man shoots rabbits, a scene described as "human beings doing bloody deeds." The sixth hell (second from the left) shows a seated couple and implies the violence of lovemaking.