Guler State गुलेर | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Princely State | |||||||||
1415–1813 | |||||||||
Capital | Haripur Guler | ||||||||
Area | |||||||||
• | 65 km2 (25 sq mi) | ||||||||
History | |||||||||
• Foundation of the state | 1415 | ||||||||
• Annexation by the Sikh Empire | 1813 | ||||||||
| |||||||||
Today part of | Himachal Pradesh, India |
Guler was a small precolonial Indian hill state in the Lower Himalayas. Its capital was the town of Haripur Guler, in modern-day Himachal Pradesh. The kingdom was founded in 1415 by Raja Hari Chand, a scion of the ancient royal family of Kangra. [1] The etymology of the word Guler can be traced to the word Gwalior, meaning the abode of cowherds. One of the foremost schools of Pahari miniatures is named after this small principality. [1]
Guler State is famous as the birthplace of Kangra painting in the first half of the 18th century when a family of Kashmiri painters trained in Mughal painting sought shelter at the court of Raja Dalip Singh (r. 1695–1741) of Guler. The rise of Guler Paintings or Guler style started in what is known as the early phase of Kangra art. [2]
According to legends, the Guler state was founded at an uncertain date between 1405 and 1450 by Raja Hari Chand. One fateful day, he fell into a dry well while hunting. Since no one could find him, the Raja was presumed dead and his brother was then named the Raja of Kangra State. When Raja Hari Chand was eventually brought back alive from the well, instead of fighting for his rights to the throne, he founded the town of Haripur on the valley below the fort by the Banganga River. [3]
In 1813, Guler state was annexed by the Sikh Empire under Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Bhup Singh (1765 - 1826) was the last ruling king. He was given a Jagir in Nandpur by Ranjit Singh in 1826. The Jagir was recognized by the British government in 1853. In 1877, his son Shamsher Singh died without male heirs and the state lapsed.[ citation needed ]
A list of rulers of the Guler state who formerly bore the title Mian and later 'Raja'. [4]
The Mughals had a considerable impact on the socio-cultural and political sphere of the hilly areas. The Mughal influence provided an important impetus to the development of the Guler School, as the rulers started to take an active interest in promoting and patronizing art as the Mughals did. [1] According to recent research works, the tradition of painting was already present in the second half of the 17th Century in the Pahari areas of Basohli, Chamba, and Nurpur. This period saw monochrome drawings and the prevalence of warm primary colours used by the painters. These paintings however lacked the fine, intricate details seen in Mughal miniatures. [1] [6]
In Dilparanjani, one of the verses mentions the name of Rajguru Dinamani Raina, one of the painters of Guler, along with Chaturbhuj Purohit, one of the royal preceptors famous for his knowledge of mythological texts. Contemporary portraits of both these figures are known and have been catalogued. [1] The Kashmiri painters, who earlier enjoyed prestigious positions under the Mughals, were dispossessed after the ascendancy of Aurangzeb and were forced to migrate in search of patronage from the Rajput rulers. [7] Accordingly, a family of Kashmiri painters, Hasnu and his sons Seu, Billu (Billand) and Raghu, settled at Guler towards the last phase of the 17th Century and introduced a new style of painting that was characterised by a high degree of naturalism in addition to the Mughal conventions which these painters brought with them. [1] This family having set up a workshop at Guler, began working in the court. An inscription in Guler bahi at Haridwar mentions this lineage as 'vamsa h ka', and even later Pandit Seu's son Nainsukh had identified Hasnu as his grandfather in a detailed bahi-entry written by him, at Haridwar in 1763. [8] Bahis are records maintained by priests at Hindu worship sites of the pilgrims visiting these places for ceremonies, etc. While Manaku is said to have noted the earliest inscription of this painter-family at a bahi in Haridwar, where in 1736, he along with his cousins wrote the entry in the Takri script identifying the group as 'vasi Guler ke'. Manaku was Seu's eldest son. [9] Later, while Manaku worked at Guler, Nainsukh migrated to Jasrota court, and in his oeuvre that flourished under the patronage of Raja Balwant Singh, the Guler paintings reached their state of maturity and creative finessee. [10]
The portraits of the Guler school show close proximity with those of the Mughal school, suggesting that Seu, and his songs Nainsukh and Manaku, had borrowed extensively from the traditions of Mughal miniatures. Apart from portraits, the rulers, particularly Raja Govardhan Chand, under whose patronage Manaku worked, commissioned paintings on a variety of subjects such as the Bhagavata Purana and the Gita Govinda. [1] Youthful female faces, well-rounded, and definite in shape - as seen in the painting Lady Smoking a Huqqa at the Terrace, became a prototype for the depiction of female figures in the Bhagavata Purana, and Gita Govinda series. Developed by the two brothers Manaku and Nainsakh, these features exhibited a fine perfection of the Guler school and were also adopted by the later-generation painters. [1] These next-generation painters transformed the style, and more subtle pictorial landscapes, and stylized bodily features, especially the depictions of female bodies, colour choices, etc, underwent considerable changes. For Khandalavala, the roundish female faces of the first half of the 18th Century were typical of what he called the Bhagvata face. [11] Manaku-Nainsukh's slender female forms clad in ghagra choli , are replaced by fuller forms wearing peshwaz by the later artists. While the Guler paintings depicting Baramasa and Bihari Satasi, composed in oval formats, capture the subtle sentiments of love and human emotions. However, by the end of the 19th Century, the splendour of the Guler school had declined as artists began to produce cheap copies, and laborious processes of making colours and pigments were discarded as chemical paints became available in the market. The artists next started to paint under Sikh chieftains, as the Janamsakhi paintings reveal. This was facilitated by the consolidation of Sikh power at the same time. [1] [6]
Kangra-Lambagraon was a historical princely estate (jagir) of British India located in the present-day state of Himachal Pradesh.
Rajput painting, painting of the regional Hindu courts during the Mughal era, roughly from the end of the 16th century to the middle of the 19th century. Traditionally, Rajput painting is further divided into Rajasthan and Pahari painting which flourished in two different areas "far apart from each other in terms of distance but all under the rule of Rajput chiefs, and bound together by a common culture".
Pahari painting is an umbrella term used for a form of Indian painting, done mostly in miniature forms, originating from the lower Himalayan hill kingdoms of North India and plains of Punjab, during the early 17th to mid 19th century, notably Basohli, Mankot, Nurpur, Chamba, Kangra, Guler, Mandi and Garhwal. Nainsukh was a famous master of the mid-18th century, followed by his family workshop for another two generations. The central theme of Pahari painting is depiction of eternal love of Hindu deities Radha and Krishna. A distinct lyricism, spontaneous rhythm, softness, minute intricate details of composition, and intense perception and portrayal of human emotions and physical features distinguish the Pahari miniatures from the other miniature schools like Deccan, Mughal and Rajasthani-Rajput.
Sansar Chand was a Rajput ruler of the erstwhile Kangra State in what is now the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh.
The Kangra fort is a historic fort located in the Kangra district of the Himachal Pradesh state, India. This fort is also known as 'Nagarkot' and 'Kot Kangra'. This fort stands on a hillock between two rivers, among the foothills of the Dhauladhar range. This fort is the largest in the Indian Himalayas, and is under the protection of the Archeological Survey of India.
Basohli is a town near Kathua in Kathua district in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It is situated on the right bank of River Ravi at an altitude of 1876 ft. It was founded by Raja Bhupat Pal sometime in 1635. It was known for the palaces which are now in ruins and miniatures paintings. The Battle of Basoli was fought in this region.
Tira Sujanpur, also known as Sujanpur Tira or Sujanpur Tihra, is a town and municipal council in the Hamirpur district of Himachal Pradesh. Founded in the 18th century by the Katoch dynasty, the town is located midst the Himalayan foothills on the southern bank of the Beas River. It was one of the centers of Kangra-style miniature paintings and Hindu temples built in an unusual blend of conventional Nagara architecture shrines with Mughal architecture palace, the latter decorated with floral murals of legends from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.
Prior to the arrival of the Mughals in the Indian subcontinent, the first instance of Islamic conquest of the region was during the 10th century when Mahmud Ghaznavi conquered Kangra. After the entry of the Mughals into the subcontinent, the region fell to Mughal authority as well. Later, due to internal conflicts within the Mughal dynasty the rulers of the hill provinces took complete advantage. Kangra regained its independence under Maharaja Sansar Chand who ruled for nearly 50 years. He was one of the most powerful administrators of the region. After he took the formal possession of Kangra fort, Maharaja Sansar Chand began to expand his territory. The states of Chamba, Suket, Mandi, and, Guler, Jaswan, Siba and Datarpur came under the direct control of Maharaja Sansar Chand.
Sirmur was an independent kingdom in India, founded in 1616, located in the region that is now the Sirmaur district of Himachal Pradesh. The state was also known as Nahan, after its main city, Nahan. The state ranked predominant amongst the Punjab hill States. It had an area of 4,039 km2 and a revenue of 300,000 rupees in 1891.
Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh, is a public museum of North India having collections of Gandharan sculptures, sculptures from ancient and medieval India, Pahari and Rajasthani miniature paintings. It owes its existence to the partition of India. Prior to the partition, much of the collections of art objects, paintings and sculptures present here were housed in the Central Museum, Lahore, the then capital of Punjab. The museum has one of the largest collection of Gandharan artefacts in the world.
Kangra painting is the pictorial art of Kangra, named after the Kangra State, a former princely state of Himachal Pradesh, which patronized the art. It became prevalent with the fading of Basohli school of painting in mid-18th century, and soon produced such a magnitude in paintings both in content as well as volume, that the Pahari painting school, came to be known as Kangra paintings.
Nainsukh was an Indian painter. He was the younger son of the painter Pandit Seu and, like his older brother Manaku of Guler, was an important practitioner of Pahari painting, and has been called "one of the most original and brilliant of Indian painters".
Brijinder Nath Goswamy was an Indian art critic and historian, and a vice chairman of the Sarabhai Foundation of Ahmedabad, which runs the Calico Museum of Textiles. Goswamy was best known for his scholarship on Pahari painting and Indian miniature paintings. He was the author of over 20 books on arts and culture, including Sakti Burman: A Private Universe, a monograph on the life and works of Sakti Burman, renowned Bengali painter and Masters of Indian Painting 1100-1900, a treatise on Indian miniature art. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian award of the Padma Shri in 1998 and followed it up with the third highest honour of the Padma Bhushan in 2008.
The Nepal–Sikh war was a small conflict in 1809 between the forces of the Kingdom of Nepal under Bahadur Shah of Nepal and the Sikh Empire under Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
The Battle of Guler was fought between forces led by Sikh Guru Gobind Singh and Mughal forces, aided by the Rajas of the Sivalik Hills.
Manaku of Guler or Manaku was an Indian painter from the Guler State, in modern-day Himachal Pradesh. After his death he was mostly forgotten and overshadowed by his much-celebrated younger brother Nainsukh. But today he is recognised as an exponent of Pahari style of painting, much like his brother. The rediscovery of Manaku has been a result of research efforts by art historians like B. N. Goswamy. Like Nainsukh, Manaku almost never signed his works, and only four extant works carry his signature.
The Hill States–Sikh wars, also known as the Sikh–Pahari Raja wars, was a set of battles and conflicts fought by the Sikhs and the rajas (kings) of the Hill States located in the Sivalik Hills.
Sikh painting is a form of Sikh art style spread from Punjab Hills to the Punjab Plains which flourished between the 18th to 19th centuries. Major centres for the art school was Lahore, Amritsar, Patiala, Nabha, Kapurthala and Jind. Artists from surrounding regions migrated to Punjab seeking patronage for varying reasons. Most depicted scenes in Sikh painting are of Sikh gurus, portrait of chiefs of the states and court scenes. In the later period the artists painted popular traders of bazaar, such as cobbler carpenter, blacksmith etc. Considering the geographic boundaries were changing frequently in that period and the artists were generally migrants, there is always an overlap between Pahari styles such as Kangra and Guler with the Sikh style.
Indian miniature paintings are a class of paintings originating from India. Made on canvases a few inches in length and width, the Indian miniatures are noted for the amount of details that the artist encapsulates within the minute canvas frame; and the characteristic sensitivity with which the human, divine and natural forms are portrayed.