ગુજરાતી
English
2025
The Archaeological Department has 18 museums, which is less than the city museum.
There are 50 private and semi-government museums in Gujarat.
After Modi’s announcement, 6 museums were built in Gujarat.
After Modi’s decision, not a single city museum was built.
Chhotaudepur Museum 2003, which was for tribal Warli painting.
In 2010, Patan Museum was built for North Gujarat art.
In 2010, Gujarat Museum was built for Gujarat Assembly.
Patan District and North Gujarat Art Museum are being constructed.
A museum is being built for the historical importance of Dwarka.
Sardar Patel Museum was to be built in Kevadia, but it was not built.
Gujarat ranks second in the country in terms of number of museums.
Ahmedabad City Museum is the only city museum.
L.D. Museums
Gujarat Museum Society, Sanskar-Kendra, Ahmedabad
Gandhi Smarak Residential Museum, Porbandar
Gandhi Smarak Museum, Ahmedabad, Sabarmati Ashram
Gandhi Smriti Museum, In memory of Mahatma Gandhi. Bhavnagar
Girdharbhai Bal Sangrahalaya, Children’s Museum, Amreli
Gujarat Coin Council, State Level Numismatic Institute, Vadodara
Drama Museum, Theatre Documents, Morbi
Natural History Museum, Kankaria, Ahmedabad
Rubin David Natural History Museum
B. J. Medical College Museum, Civil Hospital, Ahmedabad
Bholabhai Jasingbhai Research and Development Vidya Bhavan Museum, Ahmedabad
Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Museum, Ahmedabad
Madansinhji Museum, Bhuj: ‘Ayana Mahal’
Maharaja Fatehsinhrao Museum, Vadodara
Antiquities Museum, Jamnagar
Lakhota Archaeological Museum: Jamnagar
Rajni Parekh Kala Mahavidyalaya Museum, Khambhat
Lothal Museum, Lothal in Ahmedabad District
Lothal Maritime Heritage Complex
Vallabhbhai Patel Museum, Surat
S. K. Shah and Srikrishna O. M. Arts College, Modasa
Sardar Patel University Museum, Vallabh Vidyanagar
Samrat Samprati Museum, Manuscripts, Koba, Ahmedabad
Calico Textile Museum, Textile Museum, Ahmedabad
Dandi Kutir, Gandhinagar
Shyamji Krishna Verma Memorial, Kutch
Museum of Royal Kingdoms of India, Ektanagar
Gujarat Vandana Museum, Ektanagar
National Tribal Museum, Ektanagar
Veer Baloch Garden, Ektanagar
Tana Riri Music Museum, Vadnagar
Vadnagar- Archaeological Experiential Museum’
Shri Zevarchand Meghani Museum, Chotila
Tribal Museum, Gujarat Vidyapeeth, Ahmedabad
Dahi Laxmi – Nadiad
Natural History – Gandhinagar
Rajkot- Museum i.e. Gudiya Sangrahalaya
World Vintage Car Museum Ahmedabad
Kite Museum Ahmedabad
Gujarat Museum Society, Sanskar-Kendra, Ahmedabad: A museum in Ahmedabad which permanently exhibits the world famous ‘Nanalal Chamanlal Mehta Collection’ which includes Pahari, Mughal, Sultanate, Rajasthani and Gujarati miniatures of medieval India This museum was inaugurated in 1963 by the first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, at the ‘Sanskar-Kendra’ in Paldi area of Ahmedabad. In 1993, this museum was shifted to L.D. Museum in Navrangpura area of Ahmedabad and today thousands of people visit this museum every year.
‘N.C. Mehta Chitrasangraha’ is a collection of rare miniatures collected by Nanalal Chimanlal Mehta. He was born in 1894 in a village called Jarmatha (Gujarat). After his early education at Wilson College, Rajkot and Mumbai, he joined Cambridge and obtained a ‘Triposo’ degree in Economics from there.
In 1915, he joined the Indian Civil Service and retired in 1944. During his tenure in Uttaranchal and the Himalayas, he collected about 800 rare paintings, out of which ‘N.C. Mehta Chitrasangraha’ was composed.
He was himself an astute art historian. His books have made an invaluable contribution to spreading the understanding of the history of Indian miniature painting. His English book ‘Studies in Indian Paintings’ was published by Taraporewala Prakash in 1926, followed by his second English book ‘Gujarati Paintings in the Fifteenth Century’ published by the Indian Society in 1931.
In 1945, one of his articles, ‘A New Document of Gujarati Chitrakala – Gujarati Version of Gitagovind’, was published by the ‘Journal of Gujarat Research Society’. He died of a heart attack in 1958 at the age of 66 while on a holiday in Kashmir. After his death, his collection of paintings was donated by his wife Shanta Mehta to the Gujarati Museum Society and this museum was formed from it.
The miniature paintings in this collection are called ‘miniatures’ in English because they are extremely small in size. These are not wall mounted and visible from a distance, but from a distance of one to one and a half feet. Originally these were notebook paintings. These paintings were attached in the middle of handwritten notebooks. The paintings in this collection depict ancient and medieval poems and epics, religious events, people and seasons.
After the thirteenth century, the Muslim community started importing paper to India. All these paintings are painted on this type of paper. (Earlier, paintings in India were made on tarpaulin or walls.) Only mineral colours found in the ground were used. The widespread belief that vegetable colours were used is wrong.
Sultanate style Islamic paintings before the establishment of Mughal rule in Delhi
is placed at the forefront of the museum. These paintings depict the Iranian epics ‘Hamzanama’ and ‘Sikandernama’. Hamzanama is the biography of Hamza, the brave uncle of Prophet Muhammad.
The story is that Hamza conquered foreign lands and married foreign princesses.
Ruled over foreign lands. Sikandarnama is the biography of Greek emperor Alexander the Great. Both these poems were very dear to the Muslim sultans of India, as they saw their own reflection in their heroes.
Surprisingly, the story of ‘Hamzanama’ was never painted in Arabia or Iran, but has been repeatedly depicted in India. The influence of the pictorial style of Iran and Uzbekistan can be seen on these paintings of Hamzanama and Sikandarnama.
Next is the series of paintings ‘Chaur Panchashika’. Originally in the eleventh century, a Kashmiri poet named Bilhana composed a Sanskrit poem ‘Chaur Panchashika’ of fifty stanzas. This poem is the story of how he composed it.
Bilhana was the teacher of a princess named Champavati. During their exchange of lessons, the two fell in love with each other. When Champavati’s father found out about this, he ordered Bilhana to be hanged.
On his way to the gallows, Bilhana recited fifty poetic verses to the king to fulfill his last wish; these verses described his undying love for Champavati. These fifty verses became famous as ‘Chaur Panchashika’, i.e. fifty verses of the thief of heart. The king not only forgave Bilhana, but also married his daughter Champavati to him.
Though the poem was composed in Kashmir in the eleventh century, these fifty paintings based on the poem were painted in the sixteenth century around Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh. Out of the original fifty paintings, only twenty-one were found by Mehta; One of these paintings was gifted by Nanalal Mehta to Bharat Kala Bhavan, Banaras and one to the National Museum, Delhi, and the rest were preserved in his own museum.
This ‘Chaur Panchashika’ series of paintings occupies a special place in Indian painting and the Gujarat Museum Committee is also famous worldwide for its ownership. This series of paintings is imbued with a childlike and primitive spirit due to the flat primary colours, identical human faces seen from the side and angular lines. The fashion of Islamic dress prevalent among men of Uttar Pradesh in the sixteenth century is clearly visible here. The men are seen wearing pyjamas covering half the body and a cloak with pointed corners.
This museum has a huge collection of paintings called ‘Pahari’ from Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. It includes sub-styles like Kullu, Mandi, Basholi, Kangra, Nurpur, Chamba, Guler, Garhwal and Bilaspur.
The bold colours, robust human bodies and staring lemon-shaped eyes of the Basholi style, in contrast to the soft and cool colours, delicate slender human bodies and small eyes of the Kangra style, attract attention instantly. The themes of Pahari paintings include select scenes from the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, the Shiva family and the Gita Govinda. There are also paintings of Pahari kings.
In Rajasthani painting, there are paintings of the Mewar, Bundi, Kota, Malwa, Bikaner, Jodhpur and Jaipur sub-styles. These include paintings of different types of heroines called ‘Nayikabhed’, ‘Barmas’ paintings depicting the twelve seasons, and ‘Ragmala’ paintings depicting different ragas. Rajasthani paintings also include ‘Rasikpriya’ and the ‘Sursagar’ poem by Surdas.
Gujarati paintings include paintings depicting the sixteenth century poem ‘Gitagovind’ by Jayadeva. These paintings, overflowing with sensuality, have a charming innocence.
Mughal paintings from the time of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb are also here. Mughal paintings, influenced by European and Iranian painting, are quite different from other Indian miniatures. There is an excellent portrait of Shah Jahan. A painting depicting Mughal prince Farrukhsiyar shows a lion and a cow drinking water from a pond, which seems to declare that both the rich and the poor had equal status in the Mughal empire. A Mughal painting shows a man worshipping a linga, which is proof that Mughal painting was not Islam-centric.
The museum also has some Tantric paintings. These paintings, made in Himachal Pradesh in the eighteenth century, show Parvati in Rudra forms like Durga, Kali and Chamunda, standing on the naked corpse of Shiva, holding an erect linga, performing tandava dances, committing massacres, drinking human blood and eating human flesh.
Another Rudra incarnation of Parvati, ‘Chhinnamasta’, is seen standing during Radha Krishna’s ongoing sexual intercourse, cutting off her head and making her maids Varnini and Dakini drink the blood flowing from her throat. In other paintings, Chhinnamasta is seen inserting the erect penis of Shiva’s corpse into her vagina and cutting off her head.
There are also some 18th century miniature paintings from Iran. The choice of colours is very beautiful. These paintings depict the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.
There is also an Arabic Quran from Arabia, which dates back to the 11th century and is a thousand years old. This Quran, written in Kufic script, is written on parchment, i.e. a piece of cow’s intestine.
Gujarat is proud of its collection of such paintings. (Google translation from Gujarati)
