Baramasa: The Month of Pausha

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This Baramasa folio rendered in the late eighteenth century Uniara art style of Rajasthani miniature painting sharing some of the elements of Kishangarh art style, especially the character of eyes, textile-prints and diffusion of colours, represents the month of Pausha, tenth in the monthly cycle of Indian calendar which occurs around the period from mid-December to mid-January of the Common Era. As if chased by shivering cold winds which the month of Pausha generates, the fire emitting vain sun of the month of Vaishakha threatening the earth to burn it by its heat is seen making a timid departure. Fear and a feeling of haste reflect on its face as well as in the pace of the horses driving its chariot, and the brilliance that it usually has is largely missing. Not the fiery rubies, the cool pearls, dyed in moonlight hue of a winter night, adorn its neck.

Shivering cold is the central feature of the month of Pausha. A short day sending forth cold waves and a long dark freezing night with mercury dipping to any point below or around the zero is what defines the month of Pausha. Water, food, home, all articles of day-today use and even the garments that one wears all compete with ice as to which of them is colder. Cold winds pierce all things, live or dead, body or soul, rocks or waters, the earth or the sky, or whatever. Rich or poor, sunshine is everyone’s needs; so are sesame seeds, oils, cotton and woolens, betel leaves, fire and much more the company of young women who make it easy to pass a dark, long and cold winter night. Hence, poets in the Baramasa convention, advise not to resort to quarreling and disagreement with one’s lover, or even think of going away from her, for the month of Pausha is instead, the month of meeting and union.

Not merely the ‘astachala’ inclining sun, the entire ambience is suggestive of a cold winter day characteristic to the month of Pausha. Colourless sky and trees without lustre and a kind of monotonous quiescence sans much of movement reigning everywhere define the overall mood of the painting and correspondingly of the month of Pausha. The blue-complexioned prince and his beloved consort, both clad in inner as well as upper garments, sewn and full sleeved and covering the bodies down to the feet, so unusual for Rajput princes preferring to attire in ‘Pitambara’ – yellow unstitched textiles, like Lord Krishna, are warming themselves over an oven. In the apartment, opposite the main pavilion where sit the prince and his consort, two inmates are engaged in cooking and cleaning utensils and simultaneously warming themselves. Towards the bottom there sit in a hut around a small hearth a rural couple wrapped in full and thus guarding themselves against cold. By portraying three sets of people representing three different layers of society the painter, and the poet before him, seems to suggest that the thorns of the cold Pausha prick all alike, whether the rich or the poor.

This description by Prof. P.C. Jain and Dr. Daljeet. Prof. Jain specializes on the aesthetics of literature and is the author of numerous books on Indian art and culture. Dr. Daljeet is the curator of the Miniature Painting Gallery, National Museum, New Delhi. They have both collaborated together on a number of books.

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