I was just walking through some documents I had saved over the years, when it struck me that there has been very little new research work or relook into the history of the hill states. One particular format has been the examination of oral ballads, very few of which seem to be available in popular culture today. However, that was certainly not the case in the British era, when much field work seems to have been done by scholars of Europe on the subject, as they panned across the state of the Lahore kingdom and their adjunct territories. Sirmour was a Small Princely state along the Yamuna river's course While their purpose may have been malevolent in nature, many interesting insights got captured over the course of their work, and replication or improvement on the same seems to be rather scarce, especially in the context of what the European scholars used to call the "Punjab Hill States". One such case was on Sirmour, where very little information can be found in the publi...
Recently, it came to my notice that Nurpur shaili of Pahari paintings too had a series of masters that have been feted well. Of course, most of them are confined to the Rasamanjari collection in terms of fame, what was interesting to note of this school was the presence of a family tradition. Portrait of Golu - Courtesy Met Museum In their catalogue of a selection of Indian paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of New York, John Guy and Jorrit Britschgi have pointed out that unlike say Basohli, where no documentation of the existence of painter families, there are inventory lists ( bahis ) for the painter Devidasa from Nurpur. Despite the proximity of the schools, this claim of divergence seems an oddity. It is well known how the Jasrota clan who were the original patrons of the Basohli school had also patronized Pandit Seu and his son Nainsukh of Guler, who were rather famous master artisans of the Guler school of paintings. Such a claim does not make sense therefore and sh...