Palm-Leaf Miniatures is a study of and a tribute to Raghunath Prusti, an artist who lived about a hundred years ago. He wrote and illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts in Mundamarai, a small village in Ganjam District of southern Orissa late in the nineteenth century. He must have produced a large number of works, but only thirteen have so far been found in private and museum collections. Some of his works are still in his village, but other woks of his have made their way to the New York Public Library, Museum Rietberg in Zurich, and to Museums in Bhubaneswar, Benares and New Delhi.

These thirteen known works reveal a distinctive style that combines the traditions of the area with contemporary details. Himself from a family of oil-men, Prusti produced illustrated books for patrons who were often the merchants of the locality. He grew from the position of an apprentice to an independent artist who also functioned as a story-teller, deciding what to illustrate and how to treat his subjects. His works ranged from the Gita Govinda to Oriya romances to a fortune-teller's cards. Some memories of this humble, maverick artist survive in his village even a century after his death.

Many other scribes produced illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts in the eighteenth through early twentieth centuries. While many of these works are of indifferent quality, Prusti's illustrations stand out as some of the most beautiful and imaginative.

The importance of the present study lies in the first place in showing the high quality of Raghunath Prusti's work. In the second place, comparison between his and other's illustrations clarifies the entire development of illustrated palm-leaf manuscripts in Orissa. Thirdly, his pictures give an unusual glimpse of actual material culture in the 1880's, including details of both village and court life. Finally, the career of Prusti brings alive a historical Indian artist as a real human being and individual, rather than as a stereotyped anonymous artisan.

This book is the first detailed study which deals with a single artist and his development within a traditional Indian context.

Dr. J.P. Das, the well-known Oriya poet, is the author of Puri Paintings as well as Chitra-Pothi: Illustrated Palm-Leaf Manuscripts from Orissa. Professor Joanna Williams teaches the History of Indian Art at the University of California in Berkeley and has written The Art of Gupta India.