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100 posts categorized "Mughal India"

19 February 2023

Akbar and Alexander the Great

With the British Library exhibition Alexander the Great: The making of a Myth drawing to a close, I would like to highlight one of my special favourites: the Emperor Akbar’s personal copy of Nizami’s Khamsah (Quintet) of which the fifth poem, the Iskandarnamah, is a two part account of the life of Alexander the Great or Iskandar as he is called in Persian.

Iskandar and the priestess. Or.2208 f.318rIskandar and the priestess. Or.2208 f.317v
The priestess pleads with Iskandar to spare the sanctuary idol from destruction. Artists La'l and Mukund. Lahore, 1593-5 (Or.12208, ff.317v-318r)
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Commissioned by Akbar (r.1556–1605) in Lahore between 1593 and 1595, this manuscript represents what was without doubt an intensely personal project and combines the work of the best artists at his court. With 37 highly original paintings, luxurious illumination, marginal decorations and binding, this Khamsah  was one of a small group of deluxe Persian manuscripts which also include Jami’s  Baharistan (Bodleian MS. Elliott 254) and the Khamsah  of Amir Khusraw (Walters Ms. W. 624), all produced around the same time in Lahore. In his monumental survey of 1912, the collector and art historian F.R. Martin wrote of it: “Without exception it is the most wonderful Indian manuscript in Europe.” Originally the manuscript contained 44 illustrations, but at some point 39 folios including five illustrated leaves, were extracted and are now in the Walters Art Museum Baltimore Walters Ms. W.613. Two of the original paintings are now lost and an additional portrait of the calligrapher ʻAbd al-Raḥīm ʻAnbarīn Qalam and the artist Dawlat were added at the end in 1610 by order of Jahangir.

With 16 of the 44 illustrations devoted to the Iskandarnamah, it is easy to see Akbar's special affinity with Alexander the Great. Nizami in the early 12th century was the first to qualify Iskandar (Iqbalnamah 29:4) with the adjective Sahib-qiran (Lord of the Conjunction)[1]. Several rulers styled themselves this way, most notably Akbar’s honoured ancestor Timur, founder of the Timurid dynasty in 1370[2]. Like Alexander, Akbar was a successful conqueror, but more particularly Nizami’s portrayal of Alexander as a philosopher-king would have appealed to Akbar who promoted himself as a just and tolerant ruler.

In the opening we used for the exhibition (see above) the double-page illustration has a special significance. Here we see Iskandar at a Buddhist sanctuary at Kandahar receiving an impassioned plea from the priestess who asks for the golden statue, with precious jewels as its eyes, to be left unharmed. Iskandar had ordered it to be dismantled but moved by her passion and beauty, he agreed to spare it. Placed right at at the end of the Khamsah, this painting has a special significance, as pointed out by Barbara Brend (Akbar's Khamsa, p. 61). Iskandar is compared by implication with the Mughal emperor Akbar who had taken Kandahar from the Safavids of Iran without bloodshed in April 1595, while this manuscript was still in the process of completion. Akbar’s interest in other religions apart from Islam, exemplified by the establishment of his own syncretic faith, the Din-i ilahi (Divine Faith) in 1582, parallels here Iskandar’s own role as a tolerant philosopher-king.

Sadly, in the exhibition we could only display one opening from each manuscript, so to give a flavour of the whole volume, I have described some further examples here.

Iskandar and Nushabah  Or 12208  f.244b
Iskandar with Nushabah, queen of the women-only city of Barda, in today’s Azerbaijan. Iskandar had visited the queen in disguise, but she immediately exposed him as an imposter by presenting him with his own portrait which she had had painted earlier. Reprimanding him, she nevertheless forgave him and they feasted together before he went on his way.
Artist, Bhura. Lahore, 1593-5 (Or.12208, f. 244v)
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Iskandar receives the envoy of Kaid of Hind  Or.12208  f.254r
Not wishing to engage in war, King Kayd of Hind offered Iskandar four gifts as tribute: his daughter in marriage, his all-knowing philosopher, his personal physician and his never-emptying goblet. This scene shows his envoy's reception at Iskandar's camp. Iskandar accepted Kayd's gifts and so bloodshed was avoided.
Artist, Dharamdas. Lahore, 1593-5 (Or.12208, f. 254r)
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Mani paints a dead dog. Or.12208  f. 262v
The story of Mani the 3rd-century founder of Manichaeism who was also famous as an artist, is told as an interlude in a contest between the artists of Chin and Rum. Hearing that the prophet Mani was on his way to China, the Chinese, to discourage him, created a false reservoir out of crystal. When the thirsty Mani placed his earthenware drinking vessel on it, it broke. To prevent others from doing the same, Mani, pictured here with his tools, painted the decaying corpse of a dead dog on the surface. Through this action and his wisdom, Nizami tells us, Mani made many converts.
Artist, Sur Gujarati. Lahore, 1593-5 (Or.12208, f.262v)
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Khizr washes his horse in the Water of Life. Or.12208  f.281r
As Iskandar’s power and dominions increased, so too did his preoccupation with dying. Searching for immortality, his journey led him into the Land of Darkness in an unsuccessful search for the Water of Life. Nizami gives three different accounts of the search for the Water of Life, which he refers to as Zoroastrian, Byzantine, and Arab versions. Pictured here is the so-called Zoroastrian version in which Iskandar gave the prophet Khizr his grey horse – a gift from the ruler of Chin – and sent him into the Darkness with a special stone which would light up and reveal the fountain. Khizr located it, drank and washed himself and his horse, but when they had finished, the fountain disappeared.
Artist, Kanak Singh Chela. Lahore, 1593-5 (Or.12208, f.281r)
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Aflatun charms the wild animals to sleep with his music. Or.12208  f.298r
This illustration comes in the Iqbalnamah, the second of the two books of the Iskandarnamah, which describes Iskandar's prophetic mission. In this episode, after solitary reflection in a barrel (echoes of Diogenes), Aflatun (Plato) obtained full comprehension of the music of the spheres and created an instrument whereby he could make all animals sleep and then rouse them again to consciousness. The scene itself is reminiscent of hunting scenes in which Akbar surveys his catch, as for example on the doublure of the binding of this same volume.
Artist, Madhu. Lahore, 1593-5 (Or.12208, f.298r)
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Iskandar and the 7 philosophers
Here Alexander is depicted as a philosopher-king and questions the origin of the universe from his seven philosophers: Valens, Apollonius, Socrates, Porphyry, Hermes and Plato. Having listened to each in turn, he declared that, in view of their contradictory opinions, the only certainty could be that there was no creation without a creator. By resorting to enlightenment rather than reason, Iskandar was acknowledged as supremely wise and thereby achieved prophethood.
Artist, Nanha. Lahore, 1593-5 (Or.12208, f.305r)
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Iskandar rides through the desert of death. Or.12208  f. 312v
Despatched on a prophetic mission by the angel Srosh, Iskandar explored the Western regions and at the edge of the world encountered a shore where there were many coloured stones, blue, red, yellow and black, each weighing about five to ten pounds. If a person looked at one of these stones, he laughed so much that he died. Iskandar ordered the rocks to be covered with cloth and loaded onto 100 camels. Hastening along the shore he used them to build a fortress without doors and covered the exterior with clay to protect passers by. But whoever climbed over to see the interior, would be exposed to the bare rocks and die.
Artist, Bhem Gujarati. Lahore, 1593-5 (Or.12208, f.312v)
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We are indebted to the Kusuma Trust, the Patricia G. and Jonathan S. England – British Library Innovation Fund and Ubisoft for their support towards the exhibition, as well as other trusts and private donors.

Ursula Sims-Wiliams, Lead Curator Persian, British Library
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Other illustrations in Akbar's Iskandarnamah

  • The invention of the mirror in the presence of Alexander the Great. Artists, Nanha and Shivdas (Walters Ms. W.613, f.16b and f.17a)
  • The death of Darius. Artist, Dharamdas (Walters Ms. W613, f.26b)
  • Alexander the Great enthroned at Persepolis. Artist, Bem Gujarati (Walters Ms. W613, f.34a)
  • The women of Qipchak are persuaded to veil themselves on seeing a veiled talisman. Artist, Mukund (Or.12208, f.266v)
  • The Russian champion who tore off an elephant's trunk. Artist, Farrukh Chela (Or.12208, f.273r)
  • Maria, the Copt trained in the art of alchemy consulted by other alchemists. Artist, Sanwala. Lahore, 1593-5 (Or.12208, f.294r)

Further reading

Barbara Brend, The Emperor Akbar’s Khamsa of Niẓāmī. London: British Library, 1995.
J.P. Losty and Malini Roy, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire. London: The British Library, 1912, pp. 48-55.
Haila Manteghi, Alexander the Great in the Persian Tradition: History, Myth and Legend in Medieval Iran. London: I.B. Tauris, 2018.

Related posts

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[1] Owen Cornwall, Alexander and the Persian Cosmopolis, 1000-1500, PhD thesis Columbia Unversity, 2016, pp. 91-9.
[2] Naindeep Singh Chann, “Lord of the Auspicious Conjunction: Origins of the Ṣāḥib-QirānIran and the Caucasus 13 (2009) 93-110

19 December 2022

A Baniya Letter from Surat

Today's blog post looks at a mischaracterized letter shedding light on the relationships between South Asian merchants and European powers in the 17th century.

Text in Arabic script written in black ink on a sheet of dark beige paper with repeated patterns of small and large green plants with three fronds
A full view of the petition included in Thomas Hyde's letters. (Allah-o-Akbar, India, January 1655. Royal MS 16.B.XII)
CC Public Domain Image

The letter forms a part of the papers of the celebrated Thomas Hyde (1636-1703), Professor of Arabic and Hebrew at Oxford, and eastern interpreter at the court. Hyde misstates in his covering note that it is “A Persian Petition to the King of Cambaia”. It is in reality a petition (‘arzdasht) written by three baniya merchants of Surat to the rulers of England in January 1655.

A text in black ink in Latin script written on the top two-thirds of a blue sheet of paper
The contents of Royal MS 16 B, indicating the fifth item as "A Persian Petition to the King of Cambaia". (Royal MS 16.B.XXI)
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The petition is headed Allah-o-Akbar, which is somewhat unusual. It is written on behalf of Cauth, Tulsidas and Benidas, humble merchants of Surat, to the Padshah and other high authorities at the Foot of the Caliphate (pa-yi khilafat) in England. They state that the Padshah must be aware that for some years now, the humble petitioners have been living under the protection of the Company, as this is a fact well-known to everyone. The Padshah of Hindustan (as they term the Mughal emperor) too knows that they are the servants of the English (naukaran-i angrez).

There is a short section referring to some past disputes between the Dutch and the English, in which some people had been killed. There were negotiations, in which it was demanded that several brokers (dallals) be handed over. After much argument, it was agreed that some guarantees (qauls) should be produced by the two brokers, and that normal trading affairs (sauda) should be resumed. In the context of this agreement, the Dutch commander had given over a written document, which was to be transmitted to the Padshah in England.

Text in Arabic script written in black ink on a sheet of dark beige paper with repeated patterns of small and large green plants with three fronds
A detail of the text of the petition. (Allah-o-Akbar, India, January 1655. Royal MS 16.B.XII)
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This brings us to the main question addressed in the petition. An English ship (jahaz-i angrez) had been seized by the Dutch, and they had taken an amount of Rs 115,549 in cash and goods (naqd-o-jins) from it, some of which belonged to Surat merchants including the petitioners. But the Dutch and their commander in Surat were refusing to answer for their role in this. It was pointed out to them that the custom in Hindustan was that looted goods were returned to traders who were third parties in the conflict. But the Dutch were refusing to listen to reason. The Dutch commander had even told the Surat petitioners who had suffered losses that since they were clients of the English, they should weep and wail with their masters in England.

The petitioners had then taken the matter to the local authorities (mutasaddis) of Surat. But they too had refused to intervene in the matter and said that the matter should be taken to the English Padshah. On account of all this, the present ‘arzdasht is being sent, in the hope that the matter will be properly resolved. It is known that the English Padshah is just, and those unfortunate people who appeal to him will find favor.

The document ends with wishes for peace.

A text in both Latin and Gujarati scripts written in black ink on a dark beige piece of paper. The pattern of alternating green large and small plants found on the reverse of the sheet is partially visible.
Detail from the reverse of the petition. (Allah-o-Akbar, India, January 1655. Royal MS 16.B.XII)
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On the reverse, we find three Gujarati signatures with their rough English equivalents:

Thus: Coth Thakur [Gujarati] – Chout Tauker

Thus: Tulsidas Parekh [Gujarati] – Tulcidas Parrack

Thus: Venidas Visangji [Gujarati] – Benidas Bissuingee

Signed by them on Swally Marine

January 26th, 1655.

image from collections.rmg.co.uk
A portrait of a heavily-armed East India vessel painted by Isaac Sailmaker around 1685. (Royal Museums Greenwich BHC1676)
CC-BY-NC-ND provided graciously by the Royal Museums Greenwich.

This document refers to fallout of the Anglo-Dutch conflict in the Persian Gulf in the first half of 1653, in the course of which the Dutch seized several English ships off Bandar ‘Abbas (or Kamaran). References can be found to this episode in both the English and Dutch factory records. The Surat-based ship in question that was seized was the Supply, which the Dutch renamed Cabo de Jask. Unlike the Blessing from Coromandel, the Supply did not offer resistance and negotiated its surrender. Its goods, like those of the other seized ships, were rapidly sold by the Dutch on the Persian Gulf markets and amounted according to the Dutch records to 140,336 florins. The earlier episode of violence referred to may be one of several involving the Dutch at Surat in the late 1640s. The Dutch commander who dismissed the pleas of the Surat merchants was Gerard Pelgrom. All three merchants are known to us from references in the English factory records, which also contain at least one other letter (in English, with a Gujarati signature) written by Tulsidas to the Company. In the published edition of the factory records, the name of the third merchant is usually rendered as Chot or Chota, when it is clearly written as “Cauth” (in Persian) and “Coth” (in Gujarati). Finally, it may be noted that the Surat merchants were possibly unaware that there was no longer a king (or Padshah) in England at the time of the Commonwealth and Cromwell's regime.
 
Dr. Muzaffar Alam (University of Chicago) and Dr. Sanjay Subrahmanyam (UCLA)
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24 October 2022

Alexander the Great in Firdawsi's Book of Kings

The legendary life of Alexander the Great is the subject of the British Library’s new exhibition Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth which opened on Friday 21 October. A visual feast of stories spanning more than 2000 years, it centres on the Alexander Romance originally composed in Greek around the third century AD and shares narratives from East and West side by side in more than twenty languages.  One of the most richly illustrated sources is the Persian Shahnamah (Book of Kings) completed by the poet Firdawsi in 1010 AD. There are no less than fourteen copies of this national epic in the exhibition ranging from the beginning of the fourteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. A selection of these is shown below. While the details sometimes differ from the Alexander Romance, the Shahnamah tells the same stories in a common context.

The history of Alexander in the Shahnamah begins with a peace treaty between King Darab of Persia and Filqus (Philip) of Greece in which Filqus’ daughter Nahid is married to the Persian king. Though she outshone all others in her beauty, she proved to suffer from bad breath and the marriage broke down irretrievably. Nahid was sent home to her father, rejected, but unknowingly pregnant with Alexander (Iskandar or Sikandar in Persian) who was subsequently brought up as Philip’s son and heir. Meanwhile King Darab took another wife who gave birth to Dara (Darius) who would succeed his father before being ultimately defeated in battle by his half-brother Alexander.

1. Iskandar and the dying Dara  Bombay
The death of Dara, one of the most frequently illustrated subjects in the Shahnamah, in a hand-coloured lithograph edition published in Bombay in 1849.  British Library, 14807.h.4
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Three decisive battles took place in the last of which, at Gaugamela in northern Iraq in 331 BC, the Persian army was irrevocably defeated. Dara escaped but was mortally wounded by two of his own men. Iskandar, who had wanted Dara alive, was dismayed when he found him. Cradling Dara’s head on his knees, he promised to fulfil Dara’s dying wishes: to look after his family, to marry his daughter Roshanak (Roxana) and to safeguard the Zoroastrian religion.

Indeed Iskandar married Roshanak with much pomp and ceremony and then moved on to India where he conquered King Kayd of Hind by peaceful means. As part of their agreement he received four gifts: King Kayd’s daughter in marriage, his all-knowing seer to advise him, his physician who could cure any disease and his never-emptying goblet.

2. ISkandar and the daughter of King Kayd
Iskandar marries the daughter of King Kayd of Hind (India). Sultanate India, 1438. British Library, Or.1403, f. 318r
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Moving on, Iskandar challenged another Indian ruler, King Fur (Porus). On this occasion a fierce battle took place. Iskandar had been forewarned about Fur’s invincible army of elephants and to counter them, recruited more than 1200 blacksmiths who forged 1000 iron horses and riders on wheels. These were filled with oil and set alight at the head of the advancing army. The whole army was put to rout leaving Iskandar to kill Fur in single combat.

3. Battle with Fur of Hind
The battle between Iskandar and Fur. Artist: Kamal, Mughal India, about 1616. British Library, Add MS 5600, f. 361v
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From India Iskandar travelled in search of riches and new experiences. He went to Mecca, Egypt and Andalus — in this context most likely a city in western Asia representing  ‘the West’— where he encountered Queen Qaydafah (Candace in the Greek Alexander Romance). Iskandar approached her court disguised as a messenger, but she already had a portrait of him and so immediately recognised him. His deception exposed, Iskandar feared for his life, but instead was admonished and sent safely on his way. A similarly peaceful encounter took place with the Amazons, the virgin warriors of Harum, located in the Caucasus.

4. The women of Harum
Iskandar’s peaceful visit to the woman-only city of Harum. Iran, 1536. British Library Add MS 15531, f. 345r
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Travelling further Iskandar encountered the philosophical Brahmans, people with heads on their chests and without bones, dragons and all manner of mythical creatures. He fought battles in China and against the Russians, and constructed a wall to contain the barbarous peoples of Gog and Magog.

5. ISkandar kills a dragon
Iskandar kills a dragon by feeding it cow-hides stuffed with poison and oil. Isfahan, 1614. British Library, Add MS 16761, f. 190v
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Increasingly, however, Iskandar became pre-occupied with his own mortality. Would he ever see his native land again, when would he die? Seeking, but never finding, the waters of everlasting life he met the angel of death Israfil who told him his time would come. Then at the edge of the world he came to the talking tree which had two trunks, one male and one female. At midday the male trunk spoke, foretelling the end of his fourteen-year rule, and at nightfall its female counterpart announced: ‘Death will come soon.’

6. Iskandar and the talking tree
Iskandar and the talking tree. Shiraz, c. 1420-25. The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford MS Ouseley, Add. 176, f. 311v
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Now at the end of his journey, Iskandar returned to Babylon where he was greeted with more omens of death: a stillborn child with a lion’s head, a human chest and shoulders, and a cow’s tail and hooves.

7. Iskandar receives an omen of his death
Iskandar sees an omen of his imminent death in Babylon. Iran, c. 1300. Chester Beatty, Dublin, Per 104.49.  
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His fate sealed, Iskandar fell ill that very day. He ordered that he should be carried outside and in full view of his soldiers he advised them to live humbly and follow his example. As depicted below, a physician takes his pulse while another is making notes. In the background courtiers and soldiers wipe away their tears.

8. Death of Iskandar
The moment of Iskandar’s death. Qazvin, 1585-6. British Library, Add. MS 27302, f. 414r
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Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth runs until 19 February 2023. It is accompanied by a book of the same title. Edited by Richard Stoneman, it includes nine essays by leading scholars together with images and descriptions of the exhibition items. Tickets are on sale and may be booked on our Events page, and more information can be found on our dedicated exhibition website.

We are indebted to the Kusuma Trust, the Patricia G. and Jonathan S. England – British Library Innovation Fund and Ubisoft for their support towards the exhibition, as well as other trusts and private donors.

Ursula Sims-Williams, Lead Curator Persian, British Library
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Further Reading

Firdawsi, Shahnamah, trans. Dick Davis, Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, rev. edn. New York: Penguin, 2016.
The Sháhnáma of Firdausí, trans. Arthur George and Edmond Warner, vol 6. London: Routledge, 1912.
Manteghi, Haila, Alexander the Great in the Persian Tradition: History, Myth and Legend in Medieval Iran. London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2018.

03 October 2022

Five Centuries of Copying, Illustrating and Reading Amir Khusraw’s Poetry

Today's post is by guest contributor and regular visitor to Asian and African Collections, Sunil Sharma, Professor of Persianate and Comparative Literature at Boston University.

The British Library has one of the largest collections of manuscripts of the Persian works of Amir Khusraw of Delhi (d. 1325). There are around fifty manuscripts, listed in the Ethé, Rieu, and Ross and Brown catalogues, as well as a few in the Delhi Persian Collection, dating from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries, including some early compilations of his collected poetry (kulliyat), selections of ghazals, and long narrative poems (masnavis). An eclectic range of codices from sumptuous royal copies to pedestrian books can be found here, many with seals and inscriptions by owners, and colophons by various calligraphers, and illustrations from different schools of painting. This rich collection highlights, on the one hand, the enormous corpus of the poet’s works in many different forms and literary genres, and on the other hand, the daunting problem of compiling standard and complete editions of his poems.

Shirin visits the sculptor Farhad on Mt Bisitun
Shirin visits the sculptor Farhad on Mt Bisitun. From the masnavi Layla Majnun, 16th century but heavily overpainted in the 18th or 19th century (BL Add. 7751, f. 71v)
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Amir Khusraw, a medieval Persian poet who was much admired and read in Persianate societies, is sometimes written out of the classical canon in our times. A master of every existing poetic form, the poet particularly distinguished himself in his mastery of courtly and devotional panegyric and love lyrics. His output was prolific in these forms, and according to Dawlatshah writing in the late fifteenth-century in his biographical dictionary, Tazkirat al-shu‘ara, bibliophiles at the Timurid court gave up attempting to collect all his verses. This continues to be the fate of modern-day scholars who work on the Amir Khusraw’s poetry.

There are a number of manuscripts of Amir Khusraw’s works dating from the second half of the fifteenth century to the very beginning of the seventeenth in the form of Kulliyat, i.e. his entire corpus of poems that was available at specific places and moments of time. Some of the manuscripts in this group, along with others described below, share several codicological features and many of the copies were produced in Herat. The writing in them is small, metres of individual poems are identified in some cases, and the margins contain poems in order to maximize every bit of space. One of these (IO Islamic 338), which was copied in Delhi ca. 1603, was once part of the library of Tipu Sultan — who incidentally had at least six other copies of works by Amir Khusraw in his collection.

The opening to Baqiya-i naqiya  Amir Khusraw’s fourth Divan
The opening to Baqiyah-i naqiyah, Amir Khusraw’s fourth Divan in this copy of his collected works (BL IO Islamic 338, f. 337v)
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The earliest Kulliyat manuscripts also included his narrative poems, since Amir Khusraw was also celebrated for his quintet (Khamsah) modelled on Nizami’s own set of verse romances of the same title. No slavish imitator of his predecessor, Amir Khusraw modified the plots of well-known romances such as Layla and Majnun, Khusraw and Shirin, and Hasht Bihisht. The aforementioned Dawlatshah also mentions that the Timurd prince Baysunghur (1397 – 1433) used to prefer the Khamsah of Amir Khusraw to Nizami’s. In comparing Khusraw’s Khamsah comprising 18,000 verses to Nizami’s comprising 28,000, Dawlatshah writes, “It is amazing how in some expressions [Khusraw] is long-winded and in some concise; the conciseness, rhetoric, and eloquence are charming.” While Baysunghur's brother, the amir Ulugh Beg, preferred Nizami's Khamsah, the two would argue and compare individual verses in the two works. Dawlatshah adds, “The special meanings and subtleties of Amir Khusraw’s exciting poetry kindles a fire in people’s minds and shakes the foundation of the fortitude of lovers.” In this Timurid milieu, an unillustrated Khamsah (Add. 24983) was copied in Herat by the master calligrapher Muhammad ‘Ali Samarqandi for the library of Sultan Husayn Bahadur Khan Bayqara (d. 1506), which subsequently belonged to the Mughal Imperial Library.

Dedication to Sultan Husayn Bayqara in the centre with a list of the contents round the edge.
Dedication to Sultan Husayn Bayqara in the centre with a list of the contents round the edge. By the time the manuscript was completed in 1511, the Sultan had been dead for six years (BL Add. 24983, f. 2r)
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One of the Kulliyat manuscripts, dated 923/1517 (Add. 21104) is furnished with seventeen illustrations, some of which were added or touched up later. B.W. Robinson tentatively suggested that due to the not so “easily recognizable style” of the paintings, it was one of a group of illustrated quintets probably originating in Transoxiana or Khurasan.[1]

Lovers in a garden  from Amir Khusraw’s Divan Ghurrat al-kamal copy
Lovers in a garden, from Amir Khusraw’s Divan Ghurrat al-kamal (BL Add.21104, f.251r)
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The earliest manuscript of Amir Khusraw’s Khamsah dated 1421 (Or.13802)[2] was actually copied in the margins of Nizami’s quintet, indicating that the texts were often read together. It bears the Gujarati inscription of a later Parsi owner and is only partially preserved.

Khusraw and Shirin enthroned copy
Khusraw and Shirin enthroned. (BL Or. 13802, f. 119v)
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Another such illustrated manuscript (IO Islamic 387) where both quintets appear together is thought to date from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century and is in much better condition. In Amir Khusraw’s version of the Alexander romance, A’inah-ʼi Iskandari, Nizami’s philosopher-king is transformed into an intrepid explorer and scientist.

6. Iskandar crossing the sea in a ship of European type  from Aʼina-yi Iskandari copy
Iskandar crossing the sea in a ship of European type, from Aʼinah-ʼi Iskandari (BL IO Islamic 387, f.466r)
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This work also exists in a stand-alone copy (Add. 24,054) apparently dated 885/1479. Other poems from the quintet were also copied on their own without any paintings, such as two copies of Matla‘ al-anvar and four copies of Hasht Bihisht. Three of Amir Khusraw’s versified romances on contemporary themes, which are not part of his quintet, also had a readership. Along with an eighteenth-century copy of the Nuh Sipihr there are seven copies of the Qiran al-Sa‘dayn, one of which, dated 921/1515 at Herat (Add. 7753), was copied by the famous calligrapher Sultan Muhammad Khandan, while several others are eighteenth or nineteenth-century humbler manuscripts that were clearly read by non-elite readers.

The opening of Qiran al-saʻdayn copied by Muhammad Khandan at Herat in 1515
The opening of Amir Khusraw's Qiran al-saʻdayn, copied at Herat in 1515 by the famous calligrapher Sultan Muhammad Khandan (BL Add. 7753, f. 1v)
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Qiran al-saʻdayn. An unillustrated copy made in Ramnagar in the 18th century
Qiran al-saʻdayn
. An unillustrated copy made in Ramnagar in the 18th century (BL Egerton 1033)
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There are also three copies of the popular Indo-Persian romance, Khizr Khan va Duvalrani, also known as  ‘Ashiqah, one of which (Or.335) has some unusual illustrations, such as the rare depiction of the beheading of the prince at the end of the story.

Prince Khizr Khan murdered on order of the Delhi Sultan Qutb al-Din Mubarak
Prince Khizr Khan murdered on order of the Delhi Sultan Qutb al-Din Mubarak. From Khizr Khan va Duvalrani, dated 982/1574  (BL Or.335, f.142v)
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Attempts to collect and produce large copies of Amir Khusraw’s poetry ceased for the most part in the Safavid and Mughal periods when more copies of selections of his non-narrative poems were made, specifically of the five Divans that marked the different stages of his development as a poet. At this time the ghazal had become the privileged poetic form which only increased the popularity of Amir Khusraw’s love lyrics. Among the most popular of a dozen or so copies of poems from his Divans is the Ghurrat al-Kamal that includes a long partly autobiographical preface followed by copies of his Vasat-i Hayat. A particularly fine Timurid copy of his Divan (IO Islamic 512) also includes the poems of Hasan Sijzi and Jami in the margins.


10. The colophon of the Divan of Amir Khusraw in the centre  and poems of Jami in the margins
The colophon of the Divan of Amir Khusraw in the centre, and poems of Jami in the margins (BL IO Islamic 512, ff. 618v-619r)
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The wide range in this group of manuscripts is due to the fact that some were prepared for Mughal patrons such as Bayram Khan, others circulated among Ottoman Turkish readers. Another belonged to the library of a Qadiriya Sufi order in Bijapur, and at least one (IO Islamic 2470) was prepared for Robert Watherston, a British officer in India.

The final page and colophon of a selection from Amir Khusraw’s divans commissioned by Robert Watherston in 1790
The final page and colophon of a selection from Amir Khusraw’s divans commissioned by Robert Watherston in 1790 (BL IO Islamic 2470, f.91r)
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In addition to his poetry, an example of Amir Khusraw’s prose exists in a single voluminous collection of epistolographic writings, I’jaz-i Khusravi. The manuscript dated 1697-8 (IO Islamic 4714) was calligraphed by Anup Rai and has the seal of one Qutbuddin Bahadur Jang.

In lieu of a complete bibliography or database of the manuscripts of Amir Khusraw, the British Library collection is an excellent sampling that provides a rich history of the copying and readership of the poet’s collected and individual works across five centuries. The manuscripts were produced and circulated in the Persianate world, the inscriptions and seals showing their sojourn in important centres of artistic production such as Herat, Shiraz, Istanbul, and Delhi, as well as provincial Indian towns such as Ramnagar in UP and Rohinkhed in Maharashtra. At times, the archives also reveal an exciting history of use of some of these manuscripts in the early twentieth century by renowned scholars such as M. Wahid Mirza, whose pioneering scholarship on Amir Khusraw which was originally his PhD thesis at the University of London is still the authoritative book on the subject. Based on the borrowing slip pasted into the back of IO Islamic 51, which dates from 866-7/1462, the manuscript was even checked out and sent to Aligarh in 1935!

Borrowing slip pasted into the back of the Kulliyat of Amir Khusraw
Borrowing slip pasted into the back of the Kulliyat of Amir Khusraw recording a distinguished list of external loans (BL IO Islamic 51)
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Several other libraries in the UK have smaller collections of Amir Khusraw manuscripts that are listed in FIHRIST.[3] Some of the poet’s verses are also found in numerous anthologies of poetry by multiple poets that were compiled during the same centuries. It is also noteworthy that there is no evidence of his Hindavi poems in this collection, which belies the situation in contemporary South Asia where he is celebrated for those verses that were probably transmitted in an oral tradition or are apocryphal. With respect to his Persian body of work, the philological problem is not of lines or entire poems being added by later poets, as in the case with Firdawsi’s Shahnamah or Hafiz’s Divan, but it is that Amir Khusraw just composed a great deal of poetry.

 

With thanks to Ursula Sims-Williams and Shiva Mihan for their insights and help with making sense of the treasure trove described in this blog

Sunil Sharma, Boston University
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Further reading

Mohammad Wahid Mirza, The Life and Times of Amir Khusrau (Calcutta, 1935). The thesis was submitted in 1929 (SOAS Library, Thesis 47; online at Proquest).
Barbara Brend,  Perspectives of Persian Painting: Illustrations to Amir Khusrau’s Khamsah. London, 2003.

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[1] B.W. Robinson, “An Amir Khusraw Khamsa of 1581”, Iran 35 (1997), 36.
[2] Norah Titley, “A Khamsah of Nizami Dated Herat 1421”, British Library Journal 4/2 (1978): 161-86.
[3] Other lists of manuscripts of Amir Khusraw’s poetic works are described in: Amir Hasan ‘Abidi, “Amir Khusraw ki nadir tasnifat Turki men”, Ajkal 33/4 (1974): 39-44; Chander Shekhar, “Maghribi mamalik ke kitabkhanon men Amir Khusraw ke nadir qalami nuskhe.” In 1947 ke ba‘d Farsi zaban o adab o Professor Nazir Ahmad, ed. Sayyid Raza Haidar (New Delhi, 2016), pp, 53-78; John Seyller, Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Walters Art Museum Khamsa of Amīr Khusraw of Delhi (Baltimore, 2001), pp. 143-58.

23 September 2022

Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth

Readers may have noticed the new placards and billboards at the British Library announcing Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth which opens exactly four weeks today. Son of Philip II of Macedon and his wife Olympias, the historical Alexander was born in Pella, capital of Macedon in July 356 BC. By July 330 BC he had defeated the Persian army, becoming, at the age of twenty-five, ruler of Asia Minor, pharaoh of Egypt and successor to Darius III, the ‘Great King’ of Persia. During the next seven years, Alexander created an empire that stretched from Greece in the west to beyond the Indus river in the east – before his early death in Babylon aged thirty-two.

Alexander billboard

This exhibition, however, is not about history, but the first of its kind to explore 2,000 years of  storytelling and mythmaking. With objects from 25 countries in 21 languages, it shows how one figure could serve so many purposes, creating shared narratives of universal appeal. The Alexander Romance, composed originally in Greek in the third century AD, was at the heart of this storytelling. But legends also found their way into epic poetry and drama, and more recently into novels, comics, films and video games. You will see examples of all of these in the exhibition.

Out of approximately 140 objects, some eighty-six are from the British Library's collections. To give a taste of what’s in store, I have chosen to highlight a few of the thirty-eight exhibits from our own Asian and African collections.

A Christian Alexander
A Christian Alexander described as ‘enemy of devils’ heads this amulet scroll in the Ethiopian Ge‘ez language. Ethiopia, 18th century? (British Library Or.12859)
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The exhibition is arranged in six sections based around Alexander’s legendary life. After an introduction,  A Conqueror in the Making explores the different versions of Alexander’s origins, his education by the philosopher Aristotle and Bucephalus, his faithful warhorse.

Nahid is presented to Dara
Nahid, daughter of Philip of Macedon, is here married to the Persian emperor as part of a diplomatic alliance. Rejected on account of her bad breath, she was sent home, unknowingly pregnant, to Greece where she gave birth to a son, Alexander. This version of Alexander’s origins saw him, in Persian eyes, as the legitimate heir and successor to the throne. From the Darabnamah (Story of Darab), by Abu Tahir Muhammad Tarsusi, Mughal India, 1580–85 (British Library Or.4615, f. 129r)
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Aristotle instructs a pupil
Aristotle instructs a pupil in the Kitab na‘t al-hayawan (On the Characteristics of Animals). Baghdad?, about 1225 (British Library Or.2784, f. 96r)
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Section three, Building an Empire, describes Alexander’s victory over Darius III of Persia and his expeditions further east to India and China — by the way Alexander did reach India but he never went to China!

Alexander comforts the dying Dara
Alexander comforts the dying Darius and agrees to his final requests in Firdawsi’s Shahnamah (Book of Kings). According to one Persian tradition, Darius was in fact his half-brother. Isfahan?, Iran, 1604 (British Library IO Islamic 966, f. 335r)
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Or_12208_f318r_3000_1500Or_12208_f318r_3000_1500
In Kandahar, Alexander was persuaded by a beautiful priestess not to destroy the sacred statue. This copy of the twelfth-century poet Nizami’s Khamsah (Five Poems) was especially commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Akbar who had conquered Kandahar in 1595 while this manuscript was still being copied. The painting would have deliberately invited comparison between Akbar, famous for his religious tolerance, and Alexander. Artists: Mukund and La‘l, Lahore, 1593–95 (British Library Or.12208, ff. 317v–318r)
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In a section on Alexander’s relationships, we introduce the important people in his life: his wives, the powerful women he encountered, his general Hephaestion and the eunuch slave Bagoas.

Alexander's wedding to Roxana
The wedding of Alexander and Darius’ daughter, Roxana. From Firdawsi's Shahnamah (Book of Kings), Qazvin, Iran, about 1590–95 (British Library Add MS 27257, f. 326v)
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The Mythical Quest is the most fantastical section. Here Alexander travels through strange lands inhabited by people with faces in their chests, sirens, griffins and dragons. His journey leads him to the ends of the earth, into the skies above and to the bottom of the ocean, always seeking new experiences and the key to immortality.

Coptic fragment of Alexander Romance
This Coptic fragment of the Alexander Romance describes Alexander setting off to explore the Land of Darkness. When a mysterious voice predicted his imminent death, he turned back bringing with him some objects he had gathered in the dark. These later turned out to be diamonds. Atripe, Upper Egypt, 14th century (British Library Or.3367/2)
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The final section, Journey’s End, describes Alexander’s return to Babylon and the mystery of his subsequent death. His body was transported on a magnificent carriage to Egypt, where it was eventually placed in a mausoleum at Alexandria. The tomb is now lost, but his final resting place is still a subject of debate.

Iskandar's funeral procession
This popular prose version of Alexander’s life reflects a Persian tradition. In accordance with his final wishes Alexander’s coffin was carried through his dominions with his arm hanging loose to show that he travelled to the grave empty-handed. From the Iskandarnamah (Story of Alexander) by Manuchihr Khan Hakim, Tehran, 1857–58 (British Library 14787.k.8)
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Alexander the Great: The Making of a Myth opens on 21 October. It will be accompanied by a book of the same title. Edited by Richard Stoneman, it includes nine essays by leading scholars together with images and descriptions of the exhibition items. During the next few months we’ll be writing blogs about several of the items in the exhibition, and also some which we were not able to include. Meanwhile tickets are already on sale and may be booked on our Events page.

Ursula Sims-Williams, Lead Curator Persian
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We are indebted to the Kusuma Trust, the Patricia G. and Jonathan S. England – British Library Innovation Fund and Ubisoft for their support towards the exhibition, as well as other trusts and private donors.


22 December 2021

A farewell to Jerry! J. P. Losty (1945-2021).

One of our most active contributors and colleague, J.P. Losty (1945-2021), passed away on the 29th of September. We are heartbroken by the news and will miss Jerry for his unfaltering generosity, sense of humour and his exceptional knowledge on the collections. Our thoughts are with his wife Kate and daughters Cat and Ellie.

Jerry started his career at the British Museum in 1971, joining as the Assistant Keeper of Sanskrit in the Department of Oriental Manuscripts. From 1986, Jerry worked in the Print, Drawings and Photographs section of The British Library; first as Curator and retiring as Head of Prints, Drawings and Photographs in 2005. His exhibition Art of the Book in India (1986) brought together an encyclopedic collection of South Asian manuscripts from across the world and the accompanying catalogue is still a valuable resource for researchers.

Jerry has left us an incredible legacy at the British Library, from shaping the collection with his ambitious programme of acquisitions over a 34-year career, arranging our internal storage of the paintings in such a detailed fashion (by style and then in chronological order), and also leaving copious details in the catalogue records and articles on the breadth of the collection. Since retirement, Jerry’s impressive range of publications – more than 26 books – has opened our eyes to fresh approaches to Indian painting. His ability to write accessible articles, whether for the British Library’s Asia and Africa Blog, or his countless monographs, really demonstrates his dedication to the field and ensures that his information is as helpful to the academic scholar as for a general audience. 

As Jerry's extensive career can be better outlined by one of his many peers, this blog post looks at Jerry's contributions post-retirement. On retiring in May 2005, Jerry spent the initial months devoting time to his other interests such as music, travelling and spending time with his family. This respite was short lived as Jerry was invited back to the Library to guest curate The Ramayana: Love and Valour in India's Great Epic and wrote the accompanying publication which launched in 2008. 

Jerry looking at decorative objects to be displayed at the Ramayana exhibition in 2008. Photo credit: Janet Benoy.
Jerry looking at decorative objects to be displayed at the Ramayana exhibition in 2008. Photo credit: Janet Benoy.

After wrapping up the Ramayana project, Jerry started to focus on his research on later Mughal paintings. From 2008 through 2012, Jerry was exceptionally busy working on a range of projects. He completed his research on Mazhar Ali Khan's Panorama of Delhi and published a monograph titled Delhi 360 (Roli Books, 2012). This detailed publication cross-checked the illustrated monuments with extant buildings that were drawn in 1846 by the artist Mazhar Ali Khan from the viewpoint of the Lahore Gate at the Red Fort. Jerry also supported my first major British Library exhibition, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire, giving me guidance on early Mughal manuscripts and graciously co-authored the book in a record 4 month window. Jerry also supported the South Asia section curators Marina Chellini and Leena Mitford with the ambitious Digital Re-unification of the Mewar Ramayana in 2014. In acknowledgement of his lifetime work on Indian art, Jerry was awarded the Colonel James Tod award at the Maharana of Mewar Annual Function in Udaipur in March 2016.

Jerry and Maharana of Mewar
Maharana Arvind Singh of Mewar and J.P. Losty, March 2016. Photo credit: Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation.

In terms of publications, between 2010-2021, Jerry was regularly invited to contribute to a range of exhibition catalogues including The Indian Portrait (National Portrait Gallery, 2010), Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi (Yale University Press, 2012), Masters of Indian Painting (Artibus Asiae, 2015), and Forgotten Masters (Wallace Collection, 2019). Aside from his many articles, Jerry also published the following books:

  • Sita Ram's Painted Views of India: Lord Hastings's Journey from Calcutta to the Punjab, 1814 - 15 (Roli Books, 2015)
  • Indian Paintings of the British Period in the Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Collection (Museum of Indian Art, Hyderabad, 2016)
  • Mystical Realm of Love: Pahari Paintings from the Eva & Konrad Seitz Collection  (Francesca Galloway, 2017)
  • Indian life and people in the 19th century: Company paintings in the Tapi Collection (Roli Books, 2019)
  • Court and Courtship: Indian Miniatures in the Tapi Collection (Niyogi Books, 2020)

For the followers and readers of the Asian and African Studies Blog, Jerry was one of our key supporters from the launch of the Blog in 2012. Jerry immediately joined in and offered to contribute short articles on parts of the collection that he had continued to research during his retirement. As a fitting tribute, here is a roll call of his contributions since 2012. 

Image: Nawab ‘Abd al-Rahman of Jhajjar in his court in cool weather with his two young sons and various courtiers and attendants. By Ghulam ‘Ali Khan, dated January-February 1852. British Library, Add.Or.4681. The Search for Alexander Hadarli.
The first blog post Jerry authored was on his research on Alexander Hadarli, a European at the court of the Nawab of Jhajjar who featured in this durbar scene in 1852. Jerry's chance discovery of archival information helped him realise that this this figure was in fact the noted Urdu poet Azad who flourished in Delhi during the mid-19th century.
Image: Robert Smith, Aurangzeb’s Mosque at Varanasi, 1814.  Watercolour on paper, 19 by 35 cm.  WD2089 Disentangling the Robert Smiths
Jerry was keen to explore and understand the careers and artistic styles of the two Robert Smiths that flourished in the 19th century. This blog post looks at the works of Colonel Robert Smith (1787-1873), of the Bengal Engineers, who was the controversial architect who repaired the Qutb Minar between 1825-30 after previous damage caused by an earthquake.
Portrait of Raja Shamsher Sen of Mandi Pahari Paintings at The British Library
While the strength of the British Library's South Asian paintings collections are without doubt Mughal paintings and manuscripts, Jerry highlighted the small collection of Pahari paintings that had been acquired by the Library since the early 19th century through the present day.
Portrait of Gervase Pennington by Jivan Ram

A new portrait miniature by Jivan Ram acquired
Jerry was interested to learn more about the artist Raja Jivan Ram that the art historian and British Library (India Office) Curator Mildred Archer had documented in one of her publications. On acquiring a new portrait by Jivan Ram of the British officer Gervase Pennington in 2013, Jerry started to piece together Jivan Ram's career and stylistic use of oil on board and watercolour on ivory for both a short blog post and an article in the eBLJ: Raja Jivan Ram: A Professional Indian Portrait Painter of the Early Nineteenth Century (bl.uk)

Detail of a Mughal painting of flower studies, c. 1635
Mughal flower studies and their European inspiration
Possibly one of Jerry's most popular blog posts; this post looked at the influences for Mughal flower studies produced for Prince Dara Shikoh during the middle of the 17th century and discussed connection to Adriaen Collaert, Florilegium. 
Hanuman is brought bound before Ravana and his tail set on fire.  Ramayana, Sundara Kanda.  Mewar-Deccani style, Udaipur, c. 1650.  British Library, IO San 3621, f.9r Curator's perspective: accessing the Mewar Ramayana
Jerry wrote a candid article on working on the Mewar Ramayana, a 17th century manuscript that consisted of 8 volumes, 6 of which are held by the British Library. The blog post was to complement the Digital Re-unification of the Sanskrit epic with CSMVS in Mumbai.
Nayaka ko prakasa biyoga sringara, Krishna’s ‘open’ love in separation (Rasikapriya 1, 27-28).  301 x 217 mm.  Deccan, perhaps Aurangabad, 1720-30. British Library, Add.21475, f.4

For a particular album of Martha and Deccani paintings, Jerry wrote two blog posts:

 

The Takht Sri Harmandir Patna Sahib.  Inscribed: ‘N2 Gunga Govind Sing’s Temple at the confluence of the Baugrutty and Jalangi Rivers.  Augt 1820.’  WD4404, f.2.  noc Charles D'Oyly's voyage to Patna
Jerry often researched and wrote about amateur artists that worked for the East India Company, such as Charles D'Oyly who was employed by the Bengal Civil Service and was influenced by the English artist George Chinnery.
A model of a lion.   By Gangaram, 1790.  Wax, possibly dhuna, the aromatic gum of the shal tree (Shorea robusta), painted; size of wooden base: 20.5 x 9.75 x 2cm; animal 12.5cm at highest point of mane.  F872  noc

'A very ingenious person': The Maratha artist Gangaram Cintaman Tambat
On joining as Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Library in 1986, Jerry started to work on the artist Gangaram who was employed by Sir Charles Warre Malet of the Bombay Civil Service, including his detailed illustrations of rare animals in Pune. 


A lady meant to be Shaukat Begum, perhaps the great-granddaughter of Akbar II.  By Muhammad ‘Azim, Delhi, c. 1840-50.  Watercolour on ivory.  106 x 85 mm.  British Library, Add.Or.5719

Artistic Visions of the Delhi Zenana
Jerry researched the rise of portrait miniatures on ivory in 19th century Delhi. The acquisition of a set of watercolour paintings on ivory gave him the opportunity to explore a few lesser known Delhi artists and their portraits of women of the Mughal household.

A Khawtee Ghiljie in his Summer dress. By a Delhi artist, 1808-10.  Watercolour; 20.5 by 15.25 cm.  Elphinstone’s Caubul, pl.  IX, opposite p. 443. Add.Or.4675

New evidence for the style of the "Fraser artist" in Delhi: Portraits of Afghans 1808-10
Jerry avidly wrote about 19th century Delhi and the so-called Fraser artist in Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire (British Library, 2012).  

Two oxen fighting.  Deccan, probably Bijapur, early 17th century.  Marbled paper, wash and gold.  100 by 130 mm (page 190 x 295 mm).  British Library J.53, 3 (detail)

Jerry wrote several blog posts on Deccani paintings including:

Detail of the Taj Mahal from Or 16805

The 'Agra Scroll': Agra in the early 19th century
After the British Library acquired s seven-metre long panoramic view of the Agra riverfront, Jerry and the eminent art historian Dr. Ebba Koch (Vienna) started their in-depth research to document the architectural views. Jerry and Ebba's full article can be read via the eBLJ: The Riverside Mansions and Tombs of Agra: New Evidence from a
Panoramic Scroll Recently Acquired by The British Library

 

Bridge of boats across the Ganga at Kanpur and Major Gilbert’s house. By Sita Ram, 1814-15.  BL Add.Or.4747


The Gilbert Artist: A Possible Pupil of Sita Ram
Jerry's last contribution for the Blog in 2019 by no means was his last article or monograph. Continuing on from his extensive research on the artist Sita Ram, Jerry wanted to delve deeper into the collection to document the connections between Sita Ram's picturesque painting style to others in the collection.

Jerry's full list of publications can be found via the British Library's Research Repository or Academia.edu. 

 

Malini Roy, Head of Visual Arts

11 September 2020

eReading Karma in Snakes and Ladders: two South Asian game boards in the British Library collections

This guest blog post is by Souvik Mukherjee, an Assistant Professor and Head of the Department of English at Presidency University in Kolkata. His research looks at the narrative and the literary through the emerging discourse of videogames as storytelling media and at how these games inform and challenge our conceptions of narratives, identity and culture. 

Salman Rushdie, in his novel, Midnight’s Children, writes about the game of Snakes and Ladders that ‘all games have morals; and the game of Snakes and Ladders captures, as no other activity can hope to do, the eternal truth that for every ladder you climb, a snake is waiting just around the corner; and for every snake, a ladder will compensate’ (Rushdie 2016, 160). Whether Rushdie is aware one does not know but Snakes and Ladders indeed has its beginnings as a game of morals, or even more than that – a game about life and karma. When Frederick Henry Ayres, the famous toymaker from Aldgate, London, patented the game in 1892, the squares of the game-board had lost their moral connotations. There were earlier examples in Victorian England and mainland Europe that had a very Christian morality encoded into the boards but the game actually originated in India as Gyan Chaupar (it had other local variations such as Moksha Pat, Paramapada Sopanam and other adaptations such as the Bengali Golok Dham and the Tibetan Sa nam lam sha). Victorian versions of the game include the Kismet boardgame (c.a. 1895) now in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection (fig. 1). There were other similar games such as Virtue Rewarded and Vice Punished (1818) and the New Game of Human Life (1790) although the latter did not contain snakes and ladders on its board.

http://media.vam.ac.uk/collections/img/2006/AU/2006AU4145_2500.jpg
Fig. 1. Kismet, c.1895. Chromolithograph on paper and card. Designed in England, manufactured in Bavaria. Victoria & Albert Museum, MISC.423-1981. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

    In the Indian versions, it was not a racing-game as it became in its Western adaptations. It was a game that did not end in square hundred but one that people could play over and over until they reached Vaikuntha (the sacred domain of Vishnu) after journeying though many rebirths and corresponding human experiences. Every square in the game signified a moral action, a celestial location or a state of being all of which were important in the Karmic journey. Here is the story of two game-boards in the British Library’s archives and how an Indian game designed to teach the workings of Karma and religion became the Snakes and Ladders that children play the world over, today.

    One of the oldest Gyan Chaupar boards that have been traced so far is now in the British Library (Topsfield 1985, 203-226), originally in the collection of the East India Company officer Richard Johnson (1753-1807) (fig. 2). There are claims that the game originated much earlier – in the Kridakaushalya section of his 1871 Sanskrit magnum opus Brihad Jyotish Arnava, Venkatarama Harikrishna of Aurangabad states that the game was invented by the Marathi saint Dnyaneshwar (1275 – 1296). Andrew Topsfield lists around forty-four game-boards in his two articles published two decades apart and these boards belong to multiple religious traditions, Hindu, Jain and Muslim (Sufi). Topsfield mentions older boards that date back to the late 15th century and also ones that have 128 squares, 84 squares or a 100 squares instead of the 72 squares as on the Johnson board. There is, however, another board in the British Library that has probably not been written about yet. Listed as the Paramapada Sopanam Pata (fig. 3), it is described in the catalogue as: ‘Lithograph in Blockwood printing. of the game Paramapada sōpānam, a traditional Indian indoor game: in a chart titled: Paramapada Sopanam, in which the highest ascent indicates reaching Heaven and anywhere else where the pawn lands indicate various worlds according to Hindu mythology. Language note: In Kannada and Devanagari’. These two boards tell the story of the transculturation of a game that started out as a pedagogical tool to teach the ways of karma and ended up as Hasbro Inc.’s Chutes and Ladders.

Snakes and Ladders board game on paper from Lucknow
Designs for a game of snakes and ladders, gyan chaupur, commissioned by Richard Johnson, Lucknow, 1780-82. Johnson Album 5,8.  CC Public Domain Image

Snakes and Ladders board game, printed on paper, from Karnataka, 19th century
Paramapada Sopanam Pata, board game printed in Karnataka, c. 1800-1850. British Library, ORB 40/1046. CC Public Domain Image

    Around 1832, a Captain Henry Dundas Robertson would present what he called the Shastree’s Game of Heaven and Hell to the Royal Asiatic Society in London where the 128-square Vaishnav Gyan Chaupar board can still be seen. Around 1895, when the game was being sold in England as a children’s game, the civil servant Gerald Robert Dampier was sending a detailed report on the game to North Indian Notes and Queries. Around a century before Dampier and fifty years before Robertson, Richard Johnson’s possession of a Gyan Chaupar board around 1780-2 is in itself a curious affair. This board is now part of the British Library’s collection. Johnson, the deputy resident at Lucknow, is among the lesser-known Orientalists despite his prodigious collection of Indian art and his close connection with orientalists of greater repute such as Sir William Jones. Johnson was supposedly a competent official but he made a fortune through corruption and was called ‘Rupee Johnson’; he was also involved in Warren Hastings’s infamous looting of the Begums of Oudh. In his two years in Oudh (1780-82) Johnson was, however, seems to have been popular and was given the title Mumtāz al-Dawlah Mufakhkhar al-Mulk Richārd Jānsan Bahādur Ḥusām Jang, 1194 or ʻRichard Johnson chosen of the dynasty, exalted of the kingdom, sharp blade in war’, 1780 together with a mansab and an insignia by the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam. Johnson was also an eclectic collector and commissioned work by many Indian artists and scholars  of which 64 albums of paintings (over 1,000 individual items) and an estimated 1000 manuscripts in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Urdu, Sanskrit, Bengali, Panjabi, Hindi and Assamese form the ‘backbone of the East India Company library’ (now at the British Library, see Sims-Williams 2014). While other orientalists such as Jones and Hiram Cox wrote on Chess, Johnson seems to have been interested in other games. Besides the Gyan Chaupar board, the Johnson collection contains the Persian game of Ganj (Treasure) and sketches for Ganjifa cards – the round playing cards that were common in India before the advent of European cards (British Library, Johnson Album 5).

    Johnson’s contribution to boardgame studies is no less important than that of the other orientalists although it has taken over two centuries to appreciate this. The Gyan Chaupar board was in his possession a good century before the game was imported to the West and transformed into a race-game. Johnson seems to have been interested in the original game and besides the Devanagari script, each square also contains a farsi transliteration. The words are not Persian but the script is.[i] It is difficult to identify the painter or the source – Malini Roy points out that ‘artists affiliated with Johnson’s studio include Mohan Singh, Ghulam Reza, Gobind Singh, Muhammad Ashiq, Udwat Singh, Sital Das, and Ram Sahai’ (Roy 2010, 181). Whether Johnson read the game-board is a moot question but he certainly cared to get the words transliterated into Persian. Beginning the game on utpatti or ‘origin’, the player can move to maya or ‘illusion’ (square 2), krodh or lobh – ‘anger’ and ‘greed’ respectively (squares 3 and 4) and ascend higher towards salvation via the ladders in the squares that represent daya or mercy (square 13) or Bhakti or devotion (square 54). Bhakti will take the player directly to Vaikuntha and salvation from the cycle of rebirths and the game ends here. For a game purportedly invented by a major figure of the Bhakti Movement, this is no surprise. If the throw of the dice takes the player beyond square 68, then the long snake on square 72 brings the player back to Earth and the cycle of rebirths continues. Johnson’s board is unique among the Gyan Chaupar boards that are known to scholars in that it contains two scorpions in addition to the snakes and the ladders also look somewhat serpentine.

    One more detail is not obvious from the board. None of these boards comes with playing pieces or dice but writing in 1895, Dampier claims that the game was played with cowrie shells as dice and he also adds that the game is ‘very contrary to our Western teachings […] it is not clear why Love of Violence (sq. 72) should lead to Darkness (sq. 51)’. Dampier notes that the game has been ‘lately introduced in England and with ordinary dice for cowries and [with] a somewhere revised set of rules been patented there as a children’s game’ (Dampier 1895, 25-27).

    Dampier’s short but detailed account of Gyan Chaupar provides a clearer entry point into how and why an ‘oriental’ game of karma needed to be Westernised as a children’s game. The transition from the karmic game to the game on Christian morality and then to a race-game for children embodying competition rather than soul-searching is evident from his pithy notes sent to the journal North Indian Notes and Queries. One might assume that the principles working here would have been very different from Johnson’s approach to the game. The story, nevertheless, does not end here. I was fortunate to discover another game-board in the British Library as I mention above. The Paramapada Sopanam or the Ladder to Heaven is similar to the Johnson board in most ways except that there are only snakes on the board. Some snakes help the player ascend and the others are for descent (I purposely eschew terms like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ here). Square 54 or Bhakti, a many-headed serpent leads the player to Vaikuntha (the board is damaged here) and one might assume that it is Ananta, the celestial snake on which Vishnu reclines. There are some differences with the Johnson board although both relate to the Vaishnav sect of Hinduism. While Gyan Chaupar is largely forgotten in Northern India (except in the Jain tradition where it is reportedly played by some during the Jain festival Paryushan), Paramapada Sopanam is regularly played on the festive day of Vaikuntha Ekadasi in the Indian states of Telengana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. In fact, Carl Gustav Jung supposedly obtained a copy of the game when he visited Tamil Nadu in 1938 and took it back to Zurich; Sulagna Sengupta concludes that Jung read the matrix of the game as the play of opposites in the psyche (Sengupta 2017).

    From the karmic game to Jung’s model for the play of psychological opposites, Gyan Chaupar in its many forms is certainly much more than the race game that it has been changed into after its appropriation by the colonial apparatus. Recent research has been able to identify many of these game-boards and these two boards in the British Library are crucial for the ‘recovery research’ into Gyan Chaupar and its variants as well as the cultures in which they were conceived. Recent research on games talks of ‘gamification’ or the application of ludic principles to real-life activities – a closer look at the original Gyan Chaupar will show its merit as a gamified text, an instructional manual on the ways of life and on Indic soteriology.

 

Notes
[i] I am indebted to Ms Azadeh Mazlousaki Isaksen of the University of Tromso, Norway, for the translations. Ms Isaksen initially struggled to translate the words as she found them unfamiliar. The reason was that these were Hindi or Sanskrit words written in the Persian script.

 

Bibliography
Cannon, Garland, and Andrew Grout. “Notes and Communications.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol. 55, no. 2, 1992, pp. 316–318. 

Dampier, Gerald Roberts. “A Primitive Game.” North Indian Notes and Queries V (1895): p. 25-27.

Roy, Malini. “Origins of the Late Mughal Painting Tradition in Awadh.” India’s Fabled City: The Art of Courtly Lucknow. Ed. Stephen Markel and Tushara Bindu Gude. Los Angeles: Prestel, 2010.

Rushdie, Salman. Midnights Children. London: Random House, 2016.

Sengupta, Sulagna. “Parama Pada Sopanam : The Divine Game of Rebirth and Renewal.” Jungian Perspectives on Rebirth and Renewal: Phoenix Rising. Ed. Elizabeth Brodersen and Michael Glock. London ; New York, NY: Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

Sims-Williams, Ursula. “‘White Mughal’ Richard Johnson and Mir Qamar al-Din Minnat.” British Library Asian and African Studies Blog, 1 May 2014.

Topsfield, Andrew. “The Indian Game of Snakes and Ladders.” Artibus Asiae, vol. 46, no. 3, 1985, pp. 203–226. 

 

By Dr. Souvik Mukherjee CCBY Image

31 July 2020

A Mughal Musical Miscellany: the journey of Or. 2361

Scribal notes in a Mughal-period manuscript of fourteen musical texts shed light on its historical context and the process of its creation.

Fig. 1. Equestrian portrait of Aurangzeb
Fig. 1. Equestrian portrait of Aurangzeb, 17th century (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1925: 25.138.1)
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Four years after the accession of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (1618-1707; ruled from 1658) [Fig. 1], a senior courtier entitled Dīyānat Khān commissioned a manuscript compilation of fourteen Arabic and Persian texts on music theory. Now held at the British Library as Oriental manuscript 2361, this manuscript is first and foremost a bilingual handbook of important reference works – some the sole surviving copies – on the scientific analysis of sound, rhythm and harmony, as well as practical instruction on instrument-making.

While the significance of its individual texts to Arabic and Persian musicology has long been recognised, the book has not yet been appreciated as a whole. Furthermore, a remarkable quantity of internal evidence testifies to its specific creation process and its historical context within the peripatetic Mughal court.

Dīyānat Khān: servant of Aurangzeb

Fig. 2. Inscription and seal recording the ownership of Diyanat Khan's grandson.jpg
Fig. 2. Inscription and seal dated 1120/1708-09 recording the ownership of Dīyānat Khān's grandson, Mirzā Muḥammad (British Library Or. 2361, f. 2r)
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Dīyānat Khān (Shāh Qubād ʿAbd al-Jalīl al-Ḥārithī al-Badakhshī, d. 1672) was a scholar, provincial administrator, and progenitor of a family of intellectuals. According to his grandson Mirzā Muḥammad ibn Rustam Mu‘tamad Khān, a historian who later inherited Or. 2361 [Fig. 2], he was born in Qandahar in today’s Afghanistan, but grew up in India. Complementing his interest in Arab-Persian musicological heritage, Dīyānat Khān also commissioned copies of texts on contemporary Indian instrumentation and performance, as well as on other scientific subjects.

Following Aurangzeb’s recovery from a serious illness in 1662, the imperial court travelled to Kashmir from Shāhjahānābād (Delhi) via Lahore, a six-month journey lasting from December 1662 to June 1663. This massive expedition is documented in an account based on contemporary Mughal court sources, the Maʾāsir-i ʿĀlamgīrī by Sāqī Mustaʿidd Khān. A description of the grand procession was also published in the memoirs of one participant, the French traveller François Bernier (1620-88), who was a member of Aurangzeb’s court until 1668 [fig. 3].

Fig. 3. Title page and engraving from Voyages de François Bernier (angevin) contenant la description des Etats du Grand Mogol, de l'Indoustan, du royaume de Kachemire
Fig. 3. Title page and engraving from Voyages de François Bernier (angevin) contenant la description des Etats du Grand Mogol, de l'Indoustan, du royaume de Kachemire (Amsterdam: Maret, 1699)
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Bernier vividly pictures the complexity of the organisation and the throngs of people who joined this long and difficult expedition. These comprised the whole nobility of Delhi each with their own grand tent, the ladies of the court, the army, and all the attendant servants, porters, and aides-de-camp, as well as numerous beasts of burden including camels, mules, and elephants.

While neither Bernier nor Maʾāsir-i ʿĀlamgīrī mention him, the places and dates recorded in the colophons of Or. 2361 inform us that somewhere among all this travelled Dīyānat Khān, his entourage, scribes, and this unfinished musical manuscript.

A mobile manuscript: begun in Delhi…

Almost the whole process of Or. 2361’s creation can be reconstructed from its detailed colophons (short statements found at the end of a text that record when and where the texts were copied, and sometimes later checked, and by whom), which are particularly informative thanks to the large number of texts and the close attention paid to the work by its patron, Dīyānat Khān.

The book was started in Ṣafar 1073/September 1662 during the lead-up to Aurangzeb’s departure from Delhi, with two Persian treatises on the lawfulness of music and singing, copied back-to-back by a Persian-language scribe, Muḥammad Amīn of Akbarābād (today’s Agra).

Shortly thereafter, six Arabic texts were copied during the four weeks from 17 Rabīʿ I/29 November to 13 Jumādá I/24 December 1662. The first was a short musicological treatise– today the only surviving copy – by the great Arab philosopher of the early Islamic period, al-Kindī (d. 873), followed by a work on Arabic modal structures by the Abbasid courtier-scholar Yaḥyá ibn al-Munajjim (d. 912).

Fig. 4. Colophon to al-Farabi’s treatise, copied in Delhi, 3 Jumada I, 1073/14 December 1662
Fig. 4. Colophon to al-Fārābī’s Kitāb al-madkhal fī al-mūsīqī, copied in Delhi, 3 Jumādá I, 1073/14 December 1662 and checked by Dīyānat Khān in Lahore, 22 Rajab 1073/2 March 1663 (British Library Or. 2361, f. 240r)
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The following Arabic texts are the second version of a treatise by Fatḥallāh al-Shirwānī (d. ca 1453), a unique copy of an earlier work by a disciple of Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037), Ibn Zaylah (d. 1048), and the first part (madkhal) of al-Fārābī’s (d. ca 950) Great Book on Music (Kitāb al-mūsīqī al-kabīr) [Fig. 4]. These were followed by an anonymous commentary on al-Urmawi’s (d. 1294) highly influential musicological treatise, the Book of Cycles (Kitāb al-Adwār).

These works were transcribed by the scribe Sayyid Abū Muḥammad ibn Sayyid Fatḥ Muḥammad Samānī (or Samānaʾī), probably from Samana in Punjab. The other colophons in the manuscript, and the consistency of handwriting throughout, indicate that all the texts within Or. 2361 were written by either Samānī or Muḥammad Amīn alone, specialising in Arabic and Persian respectively.

… continued in Ambala and Lahore…

Aurangzeb and his entourage left Delhi on 7 Jumādá I/18 December 1662. By late January 1663, the seventh Arabic text (another extensive commentary on Kitāb al-Adwār) and the third Persian text, entitled Mūsīqī ḥikmat-i ʿAlāʾī (excerpts on music from Ibn Sīnā’s Dānish nāmah-‘i ʿAlā'ī) were simultaneously completed at Anbālah (modern Ambala), a fortified town famous for its pleasure gardens, almost half-way to Lahore [fig. 5].

Fig. 5. Opening of Musiqi hikmat-i ʿAlaʾi by Ibn Sina
Fig. 5. Opening of Mūsīqī ḥikmat-i ʿAlāʾī by Ibn Sīnā (British Library Or. 2361, f. 157r)
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After taking a leisurely route, hunting and managing affairs of state along the way, Aurangzeb and his companions reached Lahore on 10 Rajab/18 February 1663. They then stayed until May, awaiting the melting of snow on the high mountain passes to Kashmir.

It was during the halt in Lahore that Dīyānat Khān’s active involvement in the volume began, with the colophon to al-Shirwānī’s treatise recording that he personally checked the text against the manuscript from which it was copied ‘in the vicinity of Lahore’, completing this task on 9 Rajab/17 February. A couple of weeks later, he also checked the work by al-Fārābī. Meanwhile, Samānī was producing a full copy of the original text of Kitāb al-Adwār, which was completed on 3 Ramaḍān/11 April in Lahore.

Most camp followers did not continue to Kashmir due to the difficulties of traversing the mountain passes and scarcity of supplies, so when Aurangzeb left Lahore in May, Dīyānat Khān took his half-finished manuscript with him to Kashmir, but apparently not the scribes, whose whereabouts are unknown until that December in Delhi, when Amīn copied a Persian song collection for Dīyānat Khān.[1]

Bernier evokes the trials of the journey from Lahore to Kashmir on the imperial Mughal road: the heat of the Punjab, hazardous river crossings by pontoon, and perilous mountain ascents, including a terrible accident which killed several people and elephants and caused Aurangzeb never again to visit Kashmir.

… and reviewed in Kashmir

By early June, the royal party had arrived at Srinagar, called Kashmir Town (Baladat Kashmīr) ‘the heart-pleasing’ (dilpazīr) in the manuscript, and Bernier describes the relief occasioned by the temperate beauty of the landscape [fig. 6].

Fig. 6. Engraving of the Kingdom of Kashmir, from Travels in the Mogul Empire, A.D. 1656-1668
Fig. 6. Engraving of the Kingdom of Kashmir, from Travels in the Mogul Empire, A.D. 1656-1668 (World Digital Library, foldout p. 408a)
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Whilst in Srinagar in August 1663, Dīyānat Khān worked on his manuscript alongside serving the emperor, completing the checking of the two commentaries on the Kitāb al-Adwār and the works by Ibn Zaylah and Ibn al-Munajjim. The Persian-speaking Dīyānat Khān only checked Arabic texts, perhaps indicating a greater written literacy in Arabic than in Persian, the language spoken at court.

Fig. 7. Diagram with a note by Diyanat Khan  the book's owner
Fig. 7. Diagram with a note by Dīyānat Khān, the book's owner, dated 1066/1656 (British Library IO Islamic 4419, f. 18v)
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Dīyānat Khān’s involvement may well have gone beyond checking the texts: seven years earlier he himself added the diagrams to a manuscript written for him in Hyderabad (Deccan), a copy of al-Birjandī’s (d. 1525–6) Treatise on the Construction and Use of Some Observational Devices (al-Risālah fī ṣanʿat baʿḍ al-ālāt al-raṣadiyyah wa-al-ʿamal bihā, British Library IO Islamic 4419) [Fig. 7]. It is also possible that he was responsible for the many diagrams in Or. 2361, a process requiring significant skill and understanding.

Back to Delhi

After nearly three months of business and pleasure, Aurangzeb left Kashmir on 22 Muḥarram 1074/26 August 1663. It was not until 23 Rabīʿ I 1075/14 October 1664, in Delhi, that further texts were added, when Samānī copied a treatise by al-Khujandī (fl. 1303-1316).

Shortly afterwards, Muḥammad Amīn completed the copying of two Persian works, both at the explicit behest of Dīyānat Khān. The first, completed on 19 Rabīʿ II 1075/9 November 1664, was a treatise on fretting by Qāsim ibn Dūst ʿAlī al-Bukhārī, dedicated to the Mughal Emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605). This was followed back-to-back by a copy of Kanz al-tuḥaf, a fourteenth-century Persian treatise of uncertain authorship on music theory and practice, which includes an illustrated section on the form, manufacture and tuning of nine traditional wind- and string-instruments including the lute, qānūn [Fig. 8], reed pipe and harp.

Fig. 8. The qanun from Kanz al-tuhaf
Fig. 8. The qānūn from Kanz al-tuḥaf (British Library Or. 2361, f. 264v)
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The copy of Kanz al-tuḥaf was completed on 12 Rajab/29 January 1665,checked three days later and then again over three years later, against a copy dated 784/1382-83, belonging to a certain Shaykh Badhan [Fig. 9].

Fig. 4. Colophon to al-Farabi’s treatise, copied in Delhi, 3 Jumada I, 1073/14 December 1662
Fig. 9. Colophon to Kanz al-Tuḥaf, recording that it was checked against two different manuscripts over a three-and-a-half-year period (British Library Or. 2361, f. 269v)
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The afterlife of Or. 2361

The codex as it is today poses some conundrums. The present order of the texts does not follow any consistent system, whether by date of composition or copying, language, or subject matter. It was evidently written piecemeal and bound together, but the original order, if different from today’s, is unknown. Finally, the manuscript’s Kashmiri-style illumination and gold-tooled blue leather binding date from a later period, likely connected with the series of rapid transfers of ownership in the nineteenth century documented f. 2r that culminated in its purchase from ‘Syed Ali, of Hyderabad’ in 1881. The manuscript as originally produced would have been an altogether more sober, scholarly affair.

With such a wealth of internal information, Or. 2361’s significance goes well beyond its musical subject-matter, providing a snapshot of the sometimes highly mobile context of manuscript production at the time. The pages of this volume trace the interconnecting lives of the emperor Aurangzeb, his intellectual courtier Dīyānat Khān, and the latter’s two scribes over a few years, against a moving backdrop of cities, mountains, plains, and royal encampments. A scholarly life was evidently not a sedentary one for Dīyānat Khān.

Fully catalogued and digitised copies of Or. 2361 and IO Islamic 4419 are available in the Qatar Digital Library:

Click here to see this blog post presented as a visual, interactive StoryMap.

Jenny Norton-Wright, Arabic Scientific Manuscripts Curator, British Library Qatar Foundation Partnership
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Further reading:

For full details on Or. 2361’s musical texts, with a full bibliography, please consult the full catalogue record (note that to see details of the individual works you will need to follow the tab ‘Browse this collection’).

Bernier, François, ‘Journey to Kashemire’, in Travels in the Mogul Empire, A.D. 1656-1668, translated by Archibald Constable, 2nd edition revised by Vincent A. Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1916).

Saqi Mustaʻidd Khan, Maāsir-i-ʿĀlamgiri: A history of the Emperor Aurangzib-ʿĀlamgir (reign 1658-1707 A.D.), translated into English and annotated by Sir Jadunath Sarkar (Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1947).

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[1] Lahore University Library PPh III.16, 163.6.










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