The Jagat Singh Ramayana was commissioned in 1649 for the Royal Library in Udaipur, the capital city of Mewar, during the reign of Rana Jagat Singh (r. 1628-52) and was completed in 1653. With six out of seven books of the epic completed, the Jagat Singh Ramayana is widely considered one of the most ambitious projects of all Mewar painting. Sahibdin, the leading artist in Jagat Singh's workshop, was responsible for Book II, the Ayodhyakanda, and Book VI.
This thesis identifies for the first time the subject of all illustrations in the Ayodhyakanda of the Jagat Singh Ramayana and treats the relationship between narrative and composition within the paintings of the Ayodhyakanda. Sahibdin uses a variety of specific compositional approaches to convey the more intangible elements of the narrative, such as mood, that might otherwise be lost in his literal visualization of the story built up through sequences of specific action and event. Through compositional means, he establishes a discernible contrast between the two settings of the Ayodhyakanda--city and forest--and distinguishes between the space and time in which the characters exist before Rama's exile from that in which the characters exist following the exile. These compositional differences reflect the different stages and moments of the narrative and the compositional choices made and maintained in these paintings enable the richness of the
text to be made visible to the reader. The narrative here is, in fact, carried by the illustrations, with the accompanying text playing a secondary role.
In order to fully understand and contextualize these assertions I discuss the development of Sahibdin's style, the production of the Jagat Singh Ramayana manuscript as a whole, and the historical context of the Ayodhyakanda. It is shown that Sahibdin's painting style resulted from a combination of factors. Based on the early, indigenous Western Indian painting tradition, Sahibdin was also influenced by Mughal and Popular Mughal painting in ways that make his work unique from that of other Mewari artists. Under a patron who seems to have actively supported the illustrated manuscript tradition, Sahibdin was allowed important opportunities to develop his style and explore a wide range of expressive techniques. During Jagat Singh's reign, Sahibdin's style thus became established as the illustrative style of Mewar painting, maintained with little modification under Jagat Singh's immediate successors.