Before the brush became a camera: the 2,000-year story of Indian painting

Long before cameras, India recorded its gods, kings and love stories in colour, on cave walls lit by oil lamps, on palm-sized paper in royal ateliers, and on the mud walls of village homes. For UPSC, paintings are a favourite hunting ground: the questions are almost always about who patronised which school, what technique was used, and which region a folk form belongs to. This article gives you all three, in one sweep.

Before brushes: the rock art of Bhimbetka

Bhimbetka is the rock-shelter complex in Madhya Pradesh whose painted walls carry India's oldest surviving art, recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. More than 700 shelters stretch across the Vindhyan hills, and their paintings fall into three phases: Upper Palaeolithic scenes of large animals, Mesolithic bands of hunters with bow and arrow, and Chalcolithic images of pottery, carts and riders.

These walls were a Stone Age public gallery. Hunts, battles, group dances and burials were painted in red and white mineral pigments, which is why Bhimbetka matters for the syllabus: it proves image-making in India began tens of thousands of years before the first cave shrine was plastered. For the exam, fix the chain: Bhimbetka, Madhya Pradesh, three chronological phases, UNESCO 2003.

Ajanta: a painted university in the dark

In a horseshoe-shaped ravine in Aurangabad district, Maharashtra, the Waghora river cut a gorge into the Deccan basalt, and into its vertical walls, monks carved 29 caves: 25 viharas (monastic residences) and 4 chaityas (prayer halls). The complex worked as a monastic university and rain-retreat (vassavasa) for monks, sustained by merchants on the western Deccan trade routes.

Patronage came in two waves: the Satavahanas (c. 100 BCE, 220 CE), under whom caves 9, 10, 12 and 13 were excavated with the earliest paintings, and the Vakatakas (c. 250, 500 CE), notably King Harishena (460, 477 CE), under whom the great 5th-century murals were painted. Ajanta is a UNESCO World Heritage Site (1983).

The themes are a window into a cosmopolitan age: the life of the Buddha, Jataka tales of his past lives, royal courts, and scenes of Persian envoys and Mediterranean-dressed figures, proof that these monasteries were funded by global trade. The paintings narrate sequentially, with several episodes of one Jataka compressed into a single frame.

The technique was fresco-secco: colour laid on dry lime plaster, bound with plant gum or glue. Artists began with red-ochre outline drawings, then built up colour in layers. Brushes were twigs, animal hair and squirrel tails; pigments came from the earth itself, red and yellow ochre, lamp-black, lapis blue, green earth.

By the early centuries CE, Indian painting already had a rulebook: the Shadanga, the six limbs, rupabheda (knowing forms), pramana (proportion), bhava (feeling), lavanya-yojana (grace), sadrishya (likeness), varnika-bhanga (colour mixing), named in the Kamasutra of Vatsyayana.

The icons to remember: the Padmapani Bodhisattva in Cave 1 (Avalokiteshvara, the compassionate one holding a lotus, eyes heavy with compassion); the Dying Princess in Cave 16 (Sundari, wife of the Buddha's half-brother Nanda, fainting at his ordination); the Flying Apsara and the Black Princess in Cave 17. Beyond Ajanta, the Bagh caves (Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh, 5th-6th c. CE) carry nine Buddhist caves with murals close to Ajanta's style but with more everyday, worldly scenes.

Ajanta and Ellora: two cave galleries compared

Ellora is Ajanta's great Deccan counterpart: rock-cut caves and temples of Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism whose monastic cells, shrines and ceilings were painted in the Ajanta fashion. Its murals, including work in the Kailasa temple of the Rashtrakuta kings Dantidurga and Krishna I (8th-9th century CE), depict deities such as Vishnu and Lakshmi on Garuda and flying celestial figures.

Miniatures: when courts shrank paintings to palm size

From the 16th century, royal courts across India patronised miniature painting, small, jewel-like works for manuscripts and albums. Four schools dominate the syllabus: Mughal, Rajasthani, Pahari and Deccani.

Mughal school

• Began under Akbar (1560 CE); studio supervised by two Persian masters, Mir Sayyed Ali and Abdul Samad Khan, originally employed by his father Humayun.
• A synthesis of indigenous Indian style with the Safavid Persian school, later absorbing European elements; marked by naturalism, fine delicate drawing; primarily aristocratic and secular.
• First work: an illustrated Tuti-nama (Cleveland Museum of Art).
• Jahangir's reign = golden age: delicate observation of birds, animals and flowers; painters Aqa Riza, Abul Hasan, Mansur, Bishan Das, Manohar. Akbar's atelier included Dasvanth, Basawan, Kesu and Bhim Gujarati.
• Declined under Aurangzeb.

Rajasthani school

• Thrived under Rajput rulers of Rajputana, 1500 CE to mid-19th century; themes from the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Puranas and Ragamala (ragas personified in colour).
• Mewar: evolved by 1571 CE after artists migrated from Mandu; Sahibdin defined its style with Ragamala, Ramayana and Bhagavata Purana themes.
• Kishangarh: under Raja Savant Singh (1748-1757 CE); Nihal Chand painted Krishna as the king and Radha as Bani Thani, elongated eyes, sharp nose, arched lips.
• Bundi: earliest Chunar Ragamala (1561 CE); lush vegetation, dramatic night skies, swirling water, hunting and Krishna themes.

Pahari school

• 17th-19th century, Himachal and Jammu hills; all miniature in format.
• Two groups: Basohli-Kullu (Chaurapanchasika style, bold primary colours) and Guler-Kangra (calm, refined colours).
• Master Nainsukh (mid-18th century); the eternal love of Radha and Krishna is the central theme.

Deccani school

• Centres: Bijapur (Ibrahim Adil Shah I & II), Ahmednagar, Golconda, Bidar, recognised as the fourth major miniature tradition alongside Mughal, Rajasthani and Pahari.
• Fusion of Persian, Mughal and local Hindu styles: rich colours, elongated figures, ornate fantasy-like compositions; early works show Ellora mural and Mewar influences.

The Sultanate prelude: Persian notes before the Mughal synthesis

Before Akbar's atelier, Persian influence entered Indian painting through the Delhi Sultanate. The Nimat Nama, the book of delicacies illustrated for the Malwa sultans, blends Persian refinement with Indian subjects, and the Kalpasutra manuscripts of the Lodi period show figures wearing the peaked khuladar cap, a Central Asian marker on a Jain page.

This matters because it is the first step toward the Mughal synthesis: Persian composition, Indian colour. When the Mughal karkhana (imperial workshop) later paired Persian masters with Indian painters, the fusion the Sultanate had begun became a court style.

The Mughal atelier up close: masters and the Hamzanama

Akbar's karkhana worked like a university of painting. Persian masters Abdus Samad and Mir Sayyid Ali trained Indian painters such as Daswanth and Basawan, and its first great product, the Hamzanama, the illustrated romance of Amir Hamza, ran to around 1,400 large miniatures. Basawan, among the first Indian artists to work with European shading and three-dimensional modelling, shows how quickly the workshop absorbed new techniques.

Under Jahangir the workshop became a connoisseur's studio: portraiture, naturalism and animal studies reached their peak, and the emperor bound his favourites into muraqqa (albums), honouring the painter Abul Hasan with the title Nadir-uz-Zaman, wonder of the age. Under Shah Jahan output thinned toward romance and landscape, and under Aurangzeb the court workshop faded as painters migrated to the Rajput courts, seeding the Rajasthani schools.

Vijayanagara and the Nayakas: murals return to the south

South India had its own mural revival. At Hampi, the Virupaksha temple carries 14th-century Vijayanagara paintings of the Dashavatara and the Girija-Kalyana, the wedding of Shiva and Parvati. Under the Nayakas (17th-18th century), temples at Thiruparankundram, Srirangam and Thanjavur were painted with clearly delineated male and female figures, three-dimensional shading, broad red borders and crowds of deities.

These murals are the bridge to the southern schools this article already describes: the same temple towns that carry Nayaka painting later patronised the Tanjore glass-and-gold tradition. Remember the sequence: Ajanta (ancient), Vijayanagara (medieval), Nayaka (early modern), Tanjore (modern).

Two southern walls complete the mural story. The Lepakshi murals are the vast Vijayanagara ceiling paintings of the Veerabhadra temple in Andhra Pradesh, gods, donors and courtiers spread in flat, textile-like pattern across the mandapa roof. Far older, the Chola frescoes of Thanjavur are mural layers painted on the Brihadisvara temple walls in the 11th century and recovered beneath later Nayaka painting, proof that Chola genius spoke in colour as fluently as in bronze.

The schools at a glance

Folk and tribal walls: art without a king

Parallel to court art, village India painted its own world, on walls, cloth, palm leaves and scrolls, with handmade brushes and organic pigments. Folk paintings share a grammar: natural dyes, bold flat colours, stylised two-dimensional figures, no linear perspective (important figures are simply drawn larger), intricate borders, and continuous narrative panels.

• Madhubani (Bihar): indigo, turmeric, rice powder and red ochre; Hindu epics and nature; hierarchical sizing of figures.
• Warli (Maharashtra): stick figures depicting daily tribal life.
• Pattachitra (Odisha): bold, bright mythological panels.
• Kalamkari (Andhra Pradesh): symbolic, lotus for purity, peacock for prosperity.
• Gond (Madhya Pradesh): nature-centric, tigers, trees, birds in intricate dot patterns.
• Phad (Rajasthan), Cheriyal scrolls (Telangana) and Saura (Odisha mud walls, rice paste): narrative storytelling traditions.

The manuscript schools and the southern glass traditions

The Pala school of manuscript painting (9th-12th centuries, Nalanda and Vikramashila) produced the earliest Indian miniatures: Buddhist palm-leaf manuscripts illustrated with delicate, curved-line figures. The Apabhramsha tradition carried the idiom into Jain manuscripts like the Kalpasutra in western India. They matter because miniature painting did not begin with the Mughals: the manuscript schools are its true origin.

One manuscript stands for the whole school. The Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita is an illustrated palm leaf copy of the Perfection of Wisdom text, its small painted panels set between the lines of script, a format that travelling monks later carried to Nepal and Tibet.

The Tanjore and Mysore schools painted gods on wood and glass with gold foil and gem-like colours, dense, frontal, and jewelled. They matter as the great living folk-classical traditions of the south, still produced in Thanjavur and Mysuru today.

Sittanavasal in Tamil Nadu preserves Jain cave paintings of the 9th century, with dancing figures on the ceiling. Kalamkari is the Andhra art of hand-painted and block-printed textiles, mythological scenes drawn with a bamboo pen (kalam). They matter as the named examples every painting question expects: Sittanavasal for Jain murals, Kalamkari for textile art.

Key Terms

• who patronised which school: This is the UPSC art-and-culture pattern of matching rulers to the schools of art they patronised, such as the Mughals with Mughal painting or the Palas with the Pala school of sculpture. Patronage reveals how courts shaped regional styles and transmitted techniques. It serves GS-1 (Indian art and culture). Example: Akbar's atelier produced the Hamzanama (c. 1562-1577), the landmark illustrated manuscript of early Mughal painting. Akbar's atelier produced the Hamzanama (c. 1562-1577), the landmark illustrated manuscript of early Mughal painting.
• what technique was used: This fragment signals UPSC art-and-culture questions asking which construction technique a monument employs, for instance the corbelled (trabeate) arch versus the true arch built of wedge-shaped voussoirs. The true arch arrived with Turkish builders and became the signature of Sultanate architecture. It serves GS-1 (medieval art and architecture). Example: the tomb of Balban in Delhi contains the earliest surviving true arch in India. The tomb of Balban in Delhi contains the earliest surviving true arch in India.
• which region a folk form belongs to: This is the standard UPSC art-and-culture question pattern: match a folk dance, song, theatre form or craft to its state or region, such as Bihu to Assam or Garba to Gujarat. The examiner tests cultural geography and the living traditions of India's regions. It serves GS-1 (Indian art and culture) and rewards state-wise mapping of folk heritage. Example: Bihu is the folk dance of Assam, performed during the Assamese new year. Bihu is the folk dance of Assam, performed during the Assamese new year.
• 29 caves: '29 caves' is the number of rock-cut caves at Ajanta in Maharashtra, carved into a horseshoe-shaped gorge of the Waghora river in two phases: Satavahana (2nd-1st century BCE) and Vakataka (5th century CE). The caves hold masterpieces of Buddhist painting, including the Bodhisattva Padmapani. For UPSC art and culture, Ajanta is the benchmark for ancient Indian painting. Cave 1's Padmapani Bodhisattva mural, among the most reproduced images of Indian art.
• Satavahanas: The Satavahanas were the dominant Deccan dynasty from about the first century BCE to the second century CE, ruling from Pratishthana (Paithan) in Maharashtra. Gautamiputra Satakarni was their greatest king. They patronised Buddhism, commissioning the Amaravati stupa and rock-cut caves, issued Prakrit inscriptions, and profited from Roman trade. They matter for UPSC as the first great indigenous power of the Deccan after the Mauryas. Gautamiputra Satakarni's Nasik inscription, issued by his mother Gautami Balashri, records his victories over the Shakas.
• Vakatakas: The Vakatakas are the Deccan dynasty that ruled from the mid-3rd to the 5th century CE as the chief successors of the Satavahanas and contemporaries of the Guptas. Founded by Vindhyashakti, the dynasty under rulers like Pravarasena I and Harishena patronised Sanskrit literature and Buddhist art, most famously the later caves of Ajanta. They matter for UPSC because Deccan polities, Gupta contemporaries and Ajanta's patronage are favourite ancient-history questions. Harishena (c. 475-500 CE) patronised the later Ajanta caves
• Jataka tales: The Jataka tales are a collection of stories about the Buddha's previous births, forming part of the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Sutta Pitaka. Written in Pali, they blend moral lessons with vivid glimpses of ancient Indian society, trade, and customs. For UPSC, the Jatakas are a major literary source for Mauryan and pre-Mauryan social and economic life, and their scenes are carved on the railings of the Sanchi and Bharhut stupas. The sculpted panels of the Sanchi and Bharhut stupas narrate Jataka stories in stone, giving art-historical form to the literary tradition.
• fresco-secco: Fresco-secco is a wall-painting technique in which pigments are applied to dry, not wet, plaster, unlike true fresco (buon fresco) executed on wet lime. Most Indian cave paintings, including Ajanta's, were done in secco over a prepared mud-plaster surface coated with lime. It is a standard GS-1 art and culture distinction tested in questions on painting techniques. The narrative murals of the Ajanta caves in Maharashtra, painted in secco on dry plaster rather than in true fresco.
• Shadanga: Shadanga, the 'six limbs', is the classical Indian framework for judging a painting: rupabheda (distinction of forms), pramana (correct proportion), bhava (expression of mood), lavanya (grace), sadrisya (likeness) and varnikabhanga (artistic use of colour). Named in Vatsyayana's Kamasutra and elaborated in the Vishnudharmottara, it is the UPSC shorthand for India's indigenous theory of painting. It matters because prelims asks which limbs the framework contains.
• Padmapani Bodhisattva: Padmapani Bodhisattva is the famous mural of the lotus-bearing bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara in Cave 1 at Ajanta, Maharashtra. Painted in the 5th century CE under the Vakatakas, it shows the bodhisattva with a serene expression, elaborate jewellery and a lotus, epitomising Gupta-age Buddhist art. It is a staple UPSC prelims image-based question on Ajanta paintings and ancient Indian art. the Cave 1 mural at Ajanta, Maharashtra (5th century CE)
• Dying Princess: The 'Dying Princess' is a celebrated mural in Cave 16 at Ajanta, Maharashtra, depicting Sundari, the wife of Nanda, the Buddha's half-brother, dying of grief after Nanda renounces palace life to become a monk. Painted in the Vakataka period around the 5th century CE, it is prized for its emotional depth and naturalism. For UPSC, it is a classic prelims question on ancient Indian painting and Ajanta's Buddhist art. The mural in Cave 16 of the Ajanta Caves, Maharashtra.
• Bagh caves: The Bagh caves are a group of Buddhist rock-cut caves in Dhar district, Madhya Pradesh, excavated during the Gupta period (5th-6th centuries CE) as a monastic complex of viharas and a chaitya. They are best known for the Rang Mahal cave, whose surviving murals of courtly and religious life rank among the finest Gupta paintings. For UPSC, Bagh is the central Indian counterpart to Ajanta in art and culture questions on Buddhist cave architecture. The Rang Mahal cave paintings, depicting processions, dancers, and bodhisattvas in the refined Gupta idiom.
• miniature painting: Miniature painting is the tradition of small, finely detailed paintings on paper, palm leaf, or cloth, flourishing under Mughal, Rajput, and Pahari patronage from the 16th to 19th centuries. Themes include court life, epics, ragas, and nature. It matters for GS-1 art and culture questions on painting schools. The Kangra school of Pahari miniature painting, which reached maturity in the late 18th century with lyrical depictions of Krishna and Radha.
• Akbar (1560 CE: The year 1560 marks the moment the eighteen-year-old Akbar ended the regency of Bairam Khan and began ruling in his own name. Bairam Khan, who had steered the empire since Humayun's death in 1556 and won the Second Battle of Panipat, was dismissed and ordered to retire to Mecca, though court factions then kept Akbar under the influence of Maham Anaga for two more years. For UPSC, 1560 is the standard turning point between Akbar's minority and his personal rule. Bairam Khan's revolt and assassination at Patan in Gujarat after his dismissal, ending the four-year regency that had saved the Mughal throne.
• Mir Sayyed Ali and Abdul Samad Khan: Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd al-Samad are the two Persian master painters whom Humayun brought from Safavid Persia during his exile and who laid the foundations of Mughal miniature painting. Arriving in India around 1555, both served at Akbar's court, with Abd al-Samad later heading the imperial atelier that produced the Hamzanama. For UPSC, they are the standard answer to the origin of the Mughal school in GS-1 art and culture. Hamzanama illustrations commissioned under Akbar
• Tuti-nama: The Tuti-nama is a 14th-century Persian collection of 52 moral tales narrated by a parrot to deter its mistress Khojasta from infidelity, authored by Ziauddin Nakhshabi. Adapted from the Sanskrit Sukasaptati, it became one of the most illustrated manuscripts of the Mughal age, with Akbar commissioning lavish miniature versions. It is a signature prelims fact for Indo-Persian literature and Mughal manuscript painting. Akbar's illustrated Tuti-nama manuscripts of the 1550s-1560s
• Jahangir's reign = golden age: This phrase records the historical judgment that Jahangir's reign, from 1605 to 1627, was a golden age, applied most firmly to Mughal painting, which reached new heights of naturalism, portraiture and natural-history illustration under his personal patronage. The label is contested, since some historians reserve 'golden age' for Akbar's statecraft or Shah Jahan's architecture. It matters for UPSC as a recurring art-and-culture evaluation. Ustad Mansur's celebrated studies of birds and animals painted at Jahangir's court.
• Mewar: Mewar was the Rajput kingdom of the Sisodia clan in present-day southern Rajasthan, with capitals at Chittorgarh and later Udaipur. It famously resisted the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughals, above all under Maharana Pratap, who faced Akbar's forces at Haldighati in 1576, and accepted Mughal overlordship only in 1615. For UPSC it anchors medieval Rajput history, Rajput-Mughal relations, and Rajasthan's fort heritage. Chittorgarh Fort, Mewar's historic capital, is part of the UNESCO-listed Hill Forts of Rajasthan.
• Kishangarh: Kishangarh is the Rajasthani miniature-painting school that flowered in the 18th century under Raja Savant Singh. Its elongated eyes, graceful figures, and romantic Radha-Krishna themes are epitomized by the Bani Thani portrait, often called India's Mona Lisa. Kishangarh is a favourite prelims question distinguishing the Rajput painting schools. the Bani Thani portrait attributed to the court artist Nihal Chand
• Bani Thani: Bani Thani is a celebrated Rajasthani miniature painting of Kishangarh, painted around 1760 by the court artist Nihal Chand. It depicts a court singer and poet, reputedly the lover of King Savant Singh (Nagaridas), idealized as Radha with elongated eyes and an arched brow. Bani Thani is the signature image of the Kishangarh school and a standard GS-1 example of Rajasthani miniature painting. The original Bani Thani portrait (c. 1760) by Nihal Chand shows the Kishangarh style's elegant, stylized faces.
• Bundi: Bundi is a former Rajput princely state in south-eastern Rajasthan, ruled by the Hada Chauhan clan, and the town that served as its capital. It is famed for the Bundi school of miniature painting, noted for lush monsoon landscapes and Ragamala series, and for Taragarh Fort and its ornate stepwells. For UPSC it appears in art-and-culture questions on the Rajasthani schools of painting.
• Basohli-Kullu: Basohli-Kullu refers to the Basohli school of Pahari miniature painting and its Kullu offshoots, among the earliest centres of Pahari art. Basohli developed under Raja Kirpal Pal around 1678-1695 with bold primary colours, expressive faces and beetle-wing emerald effects, and the style spread to Kullu where local variants arose. It is significant as the first Pahari school, preceding the refined Kangra style, and Basohli painting received a GI tag. The Shangri Ramayana series, painted at Kullu around 1680-1688, shows the Basohli style's influence in the Kullu valley.
• Guler-Kangra: Guler-Kangra denotes the Pahari miniature painting tradition centred on Guler and Kangra in present-day Himachal Pradesh, the Guler style being the refined precursor of the Kangra school. Flourishing under Rajput patronage from the mid-eighteenth century, it is celebrated for lyrical depictions of Krishna, the Bhagavata Purana and the heroines of Sanskrit poetry. For UPSC, it is a staple GS-1 art-and-culture topic, contrasting Pahari delicacy with Mughal and Rajasthani styles. The Bhagavata Purana series of Guler paintings illustrating the life of Krishna.
• Nainsukh: Nainsukh, meaning Joy of the Eyes, is the 18th-century Pahari painter, circa 1710 to 1778, celebrated for intimate, realistic court portraiture. Younger son of Pandit Seu and brother of Manaku, he left Guler around 1740 to serve the Jasrota ruler Balwant Singh, painting him in candid everyday scenes with Mughal-influenced precision. His work marks the shift of Pahari painting toward naturalism and individualism, important for art-and-culture prelims. His candid portraits of Raja Balwant Singh of Jasrota in daily life
• Radha and Krishna: Radha and Krishna are the divine couple at the heart of the Vaishnavite Bhakti tradition, symbolising the soul's loving devotion to God. Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu, and Radha, his consort of Vrindavan, are celebrated in the Bhagavata Purana, the Gita Govinda of Jayadeva, and the poetry of Surdas and Mirabai. Their imagery shaped temple art, Rasa Lila dance and regional festivals. They matter for UPSC in GS-1 art-and-culture questions on Bhakti literature, classical dance themes and temple iconography. Jayadeva's Gita Govinda (12th century)
• natural dyes: Natural dyes are colouring agents obtained from plant, animal or mineral sources, such as indigo from plants, used in textiles before synthetic dyes. India was historically a major producer and exporter of such dyes. For UPSC they connect GS-1 art and craft traditions with GS-3 economic history of colonial commercialisation of agriculture. indigo cultivation under the tinkathia system that sparked the Champaran Satyagraha (1917)
• Madhubani: Madhubani, or Mithila painting, is a folk art from the Mithila region of Bihar traditionally practised by women, depicting deities, nature and village life in styles like Bharni, Kachni, Tantrik and Kohbar. It uses natural pigments and is protected by a GI tag. It matters for UPSC because Indian painting traditions, GI-tagged crafts and art-and-culture prelims questions regularly feature Madhubani. the Geographical Indication tag granted to Madhubani painting in 2007
• Warli: Warli is a tribal painting tradition of the Warli community of the North Sahyadri region in Maharashtra and Gujarat. Executed in white rice paste on red-brown mud walls, it uses simple geometric forms, with circles for the sun and moon, triangles for mountains and trees, and stick figures depicting harvests, dances, and rituals. It matters for UPSC art and culture questions on tribal crafts and GI-tagged heritage. The GI tag granted to Warli painting in 2014
• Pattachitra: Pattachitra is the cloth-based scroll painting tradition of Odisha and West Bengal, its name joining patta (cloth) and chitra (picture). Painted in bold outlines and natural mineral colours, it depicts Jagannath, Krishna, episodes from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and temple rituals, and is closely tied to the Jagannath temple at Puri. For UPSC it is a standard art-and-culture topic, asked alongside other regional painting schools. The Jagannath Temple at Puri
• Kalamkari: Kalamkari is a hand-painted or block-printed cotton textile tradition of Andhra Pradesh, practised in the Srikalahasti (freehand, temple narratives) and Machilipatnam (block-print) styles. Artisans draw with a bamboo kalam pen using natural dyes, depicting epics, deities and tree-of-life motifs. For UPSC, it is a model answer for GI-tagged crafts, sustainable textiles and art-culture questions. Srikalahasti kalamkari panels narrating the Ramayana are traditionally used as temple hangings.
• Gond: The Gonds are one of the largest tribal communities of India, concentrated in the Gondwana region across Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, and Odisha. They speak Gondi, a Dravidian language, and historically built powerful kingdoms such as Garha-Katanga. Their painting, music, and festivals like Keslapur Jatra reflect a distinct cultural identity. For UPSC, they are central to tribal welfare, Fifth Schedule areas, and PESA implementation. The Gond kingdom of Garha-Katanga under Rani Durgavati, who resisted Mughal expansion and died in battle in 1564.
• Phad: Phad is the traditional scroll painting of Rajasthan, a long cloth narrative painted by the Chitera or Joshi community of Shahpura in Bhilwara district. Each phad unfolds the epic of a folk deity, most famously Pabuji and Devnarayan, sung by Bhopa priest-singers during all-night performances. The paintings use bold vegetable colours and a flat, crowded composition. UPSC art and culture lists phad among India’s major folk painting traditions. the phad of Pabuji, the Rajasthani folk deity
• Cheriyal: Cheriyal is a traditional scroll-painting art of Telangana practised by the Nakashi community and named after Cheriyal village in Siddipet district. Long narrative scrolls painted in vivid colours depict myths, ballads, and village deities, and were unrolled by storytellers during folk performances. It carries a Geographical Indication tag and matters for UPSC in art and culture as a living example of India's narrative folk-art traditions. Its Geographical Indication tag recognising it as a craft of Telangana.
• Saura: Saura painting is the tribal wall art of Odisha's Saora community: stick-like human figures, often in processions around a central tree of life, painted in natural red, yellow and white on mud walls. It matters as the eastern counterpart to Warli, and as proof that folk painting is a living ritual practice, not decoration.
• The Pala school: The Pala school is the style of Buddhist art that flourished in Bengal and Bihar under the Pala kings from the 8th to the 12th century CE. Known for graceful bronze sculptures and illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts produced at Nalanda and Vikramashila, it carried Mahayana and Vajrayana themes across the Himalayas. It matters for UPSC as the bridge between Indian Buddhist art and the art of Nepal and Tibet, and a standard art-and-culture prelims topic. the illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts of Nalanda and Vikramashila
• Apabhramsha: Apabhramsha is the late stage of Middle Indo-Aryan, the linguistic phase between Prakrit and the early modern Indo-Aryan languages. Literally meaning 'fallen away' or corrupt speech, it was the language of much early medieval literature and Jain religious writing before the rise of languages like Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi. It matters for UPSC's art and culture syllabus as the bridge stage in the evolution of Indian languages, frequently asked in questions on Prakrit and regional literatures. The 12th century grammarian Hemachandra wrote a full grammar of Apabhramsha in his Siddhahemachandra.
• The Tanjore and Mysore schools: The Tanjore and Mysore schools are two classical South Indian painting traditions rooted in Vijayanagara and Nayaka patronage. Tanjore painting, which peaked under the Maratha ruler Serfoji II, is known for rich colours, gold foil and glass inlay on wooden panels depicting deities. Mysore painting, nurtured by the Wodeyars, uses subtler hues and the gesso technique. Both hold GI tags and matter for UPSC art-and-culture questions. Serfoji II's patronage of Tanjore painting (early 19th century)
• Sittanavasal: Sittanavasal is a Jain heritage site in Pudukkottai district, Tamil Nadu, centred on the Arivar Koil rock-cut cave temple with 7th-century frescoes attributed to the Pallava king Mahendravarman I. Seventeen Jain stone beds (Eladipattam) on the hilltop bear Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions of the 2nd century BCE, and the name means 'abode of siddhas'. It matters for UPSC art-and-culture prelims questions on rock-cut architecture and cave painting. Arivar Koil cave temple, Pudukkottai, Tamil Nadu
• Bhimbetka: Bhimbetka is the rock-shelter complex of Madhya Pradesh whose painted walls carry India's oldest surviving art, in three phases: Upper Palaeolithic animal scenes, Mesolithic hunter bands, Chalcolithic pottery and carts. A UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2003, it matters as the starting point of Indian painting: tens of thousands of years before any cave shrine.
• Ellora murals: The Ellora murals are paintings in the rock-cut caves and temples of Ellora, Maharashtra, covering the monastic cells, shrines and ceilings of Buddhist, Hindu and Jain caves in the Ajanta fashion. Work in the Kailasa temple belongs to the Rashtrakuta kings Dantidurga and Krishna I (8th-9th century CE). They matter as Ajanta's great Deccan counterpart and the UPSC's favourite Ajanta-versus-Ellora comparison.
• Nimat Nama: The Nimat Nama, the 'book of delicacies', is a Sultanate-period illustrated manuscript of recipes prepared for the Malwa sultans, blending Persian refinement with Indian subjects. It matters as the landmark of Persian influence entering Indian painting before the Mughal synthesis.
• Khuladar: The khuladar is the peaked Central Asian cap worn by figures in Lodi-period Kalpasutra manuscripts. It matters as a small, datable marker of Sultanate-period Persian influence on Jain manuscript painting.
• Karkhana: A karkhana was the Mughal imperial workshop: a state-run atelier where Persian masters and Indian painters worked side by side under court supervision. It matters because the karkhana system produced the Hamzanama and the Mughal school itself, making patronage visible in style.
• Abdus Samad: Abdus Samad was the Persian master painter Akbar placed over the imperial karkhana, alongside Mir Sayyid Ali. He matters as the bridge figure of the Mughal synthesis: Persian composition taught to Indian hands.
• Daswanth: Daswanth was a master painter of Akbar's karkhana, one of the great Indian artists trained in the new Mughal manner. He matters as proof that the Mughal school was a fusion, not an import: Persian masters supervised, Indian painters created.
• Basawan: Basawan was a master painter of Akbar's karkhana, among the first Indian artists to absorb European shading and three-dimensional modelling. He matters as the face of the Mughal workshop's rapid technical learning.
• Hamzanama: The Hamzanama is the illustrated romance of Amir Hamza, the first great product of Akbar's karkhana, running to around 1,400 large miniatures. It matters as the training ground of a generation: the workshop learned the Mughal style by painting it.
• Muraqqa: A muraqqa is an album in which Jahangir bound his favourite paintings, the connoisseur's format of Mughal art. It matters as the signature of Jahangir's reign: painting collected, ordered and judged like a library.
• Abul Hasan: Abul Hasan was Jahangir's favourite painter, honoured with the title Nadir-uz-Zaman, 'wonder of the age'. He matters as the named master of Mughal painting's golden age of portraiture and naturalism.
• Rasamanjari: The Rasamanjari is a Sanskrit love poem whose 1694 Basohli illustrated series is the earliest known Pahari painting, using beetle-wing cases for emerald shine. It matters as the dated anchor of the Pahari school's beginning.
• Gita Govinda: The Gita Govinda is Jayadeva's 12th-century Sanskrit poem of Radha and Krishna, whose 1730 illustrated series is a landmark of the Kangra style: cool blues and greens, lyrical line, multiple receding planes. It matters as the high point of Pahari lyricism.
• Virupaksha temple: The Virupaksha temple at Hampi carries 14th-century Vijayanagara murals of the Dashavatara and the Girija-Kalyana (Shiva and Parvati's wedding). It matters as the landmark of the medieval south Indian mural revival.
• Nayaka murals: Nayaka murals are the 17th-18th century temple paintings of Tamil Nadu under the Nayakas: clearly delineated male and female figures, three-dimensional shading, broad red borders, crowds of deities at Thiruparankundram, Srirangam and Thanjavur. They matter as the bridge between Vijayanagara murals and the Tanjore glass-and-gold tradition.