Jain Ascetic Walking Along a Riverbank (c. 1600): Art, History and Details

Jain Ascetic Walking Along a Riverbank (c. 1600) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Basavana (Indian, active c. 1560–1600).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Alluding to his wisdom, this white-clad Jain monk carries a manuscript under his left arm, bound with a red cover. Otherwise he carries a Jain monk’s basic accouterments: whisk broom, staff, and pot. This sensitively painted portrait was made for the collection of the Mughal emperor Akbar who was curious about the tenets of Jainism. He admired the explanations of the Jain monks who regularly attended the emperor’s weekly discussion sessions among members of different religious groups.

Object facts

• Title: Jain Ascetic Walking Along a Riverbank
• Date: c. 1600
• Creator attribution: Basavana (Indian, active c. 1560–1600)
• Culture: Mughal India, court of Akbar (reigned 1556–1605)
• Type: Painting
• Technique: gum tempera, ink, and gold on paper
• Dimensions: Painting: 14.7 x 9.8 cm (5 13/16 x 3 7/8 in.); Overall: 38.8 x 26.3 cm (15 1/4 x 10 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1967.244

A detail from the museum

He carries a book and a fly whisk tucked under his left arm.

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Pal, Pratapaditya, with contributions by Shridhar Andhare and others. The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art from India. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1994.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.