Asian and African studies blog

Stories of the hero Rustam and his trusty steed Rakhsh, immortalized by the tenth century poet Firdawsi in his epic poem the Shahnamah (ʻBook of kingsʼ), are among the best loved in the whole of Persian literature. Not so well-known, however, are unique versions of the same story dating from the eighth and ninth centuries which are currently on display in the international exhibition The Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism in History and Imagination at the National Museum, Delhi (More on this exhibition in my recent post Celebrating Noruz in Delhi with new 'Everlasting Flame').

Introducing the Rustam story in the eighth century Panjikent wall paintings to Dr. Najma Heptulla, Minister of Minority Affairs, at the exhibition opening in Delhi. Photo: National Museum

Rustam's Rakhsh in Firdawsi’s Shahnamah
Rakhsh was no ordinary horse. The Shahnamah tells us how Rustam inspected the horses of Zabulistan and Kabul and finally selected a colt with the chest and shoulders of a lion, as strong as an elephant, and the colour of rose leaves scattered on a saffron background. This colt, already known as ‘Rustam’s Rakhsh’, was, it seems, pre-destined to carry the defender of the land of Iran.

Rakhsh was not only fast and strong, he was intelligent and an active protagonist. Perhaps his best-known exploit was the first of the seven ‘trials’ which Rustam underwent on the quest to liberate king Kavus from the demons of Mazandaran. Exhausted by his long journey, Rustam fell asleep. Nearby, however, hidden in the reeds was a fierce and hungry lion. The lion attacked but Rakhsh pounded the lion’s head with his hooves, bit his neck and tore the lion into pieces. When Rustam woke, the lion was dead.

Rakhsh kills a lion. From Firdawsi’s Shahnamah. Copied in 891/1486, Turkman/Timurid style (British Library Add.18188, f. 90v)

In future, Rustam ordered, Rakhsh was to wake him if an enemy drew near. However, during the third ‘trial’, Rustam, while asleep, was approached again, this time by a monstrous dragon. Twice woken by his horse Rakhsh, in the darkness of the night he failed to see any danger and went back to sleep. Woken a third time, however, Rustam finally saw the dragon and with Rakhsh’s help succeeded in killing him.

Rustam and Rakhsh in the third ‘trial’ when together they defeat a dragon, Rakhsh biting the dragon while Rustam cuts off his head. Copied in 891/1486, Turkman/Timurid style (British Library Add.18188, f 91v)

The Sogdian Rustam fragment
The Middle Persian Xwaday-namag ‘Book of kings’ (de Blois, “Epics”), one of the sources on which Firdawsi drew, was probably not a poem, but rather a prose compendium of legendary and historical traditions put together toward the end of the Sasanian empire. Although it is referred to frequently in Arabic sources, no extant copy survives as such. The name Rustam, however, began to be common at the very end of the Sasanian period, in the seventh century, no doubt reflecting the fact that by this time the Rustam legend had become widely popular in the Western Iranian lands, especially in Sogdiana (modern day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) the homeland of the Sogdians (Sims-Williams, 2015).

The British Library is fortunate in having in its collections part of a fragment of the story written in Sogdian (an eastern Iranian language spoken by the Sogdians), which probably dates from the ninth century. It was discovered in 1907 in cave 17 at Dunhuang, China, during Stein’s second expedition to Central Asia. The upper part of the same manuscript was subsequently acquired by Paul Pelliot the following year and is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Together these two fragments form the only surviving textual evidence for an early Rustam cycle, copied some 200 years before Firdawsi completed his epic poem.

Reconstruction of the two fragments of the Sogdian story of Rustam and the demons, ninth century, from Dunhuang, China. Top: Pelliot Sogdien 13, and bottom: Stein Ch. 00349 (British Library Or.8212/81)

The story described in our Sogdian fragment does not correspond with any of the episodes known from Firdawsi’s Shahnamah. It relates how Rustam and his horse Rakhsh destroyed a band of demons by pretending to flee and then attacking them while they were unprepared. The fragment begins and ends tantalisingly mid-sentence so we’ll never know exactly what happened!

[Paris fragment] ... [The demons] immediately fled towards [the city]. Rustam went in pursuit right up to the city gates. Many demons died from being trampled; only a thousand managed to enter the city. They shut the gates. Rustam returned with great renown. He went to a good pasture, stopped, took off the saddle and let his horse loose on the grass. He himself rested, ate a meal, was satisfied, spread a rug, lay down and began to sleep.

The demons stood in malevolent consultation. They said to one another: It was a great evil, a great shame on us, that we should have taken refuge in the city from a single horseman. Why should we not go out? Either let us all die and be annihilated or let us exact vengeance for our lords! The demons, who were left a meagre remnant of their former strength, began to prepare great heavy equipment with strong armour and with great ...

They opened the city gates. Many archers, many charioteers, many riding elephants, many riding monsters, many riding pigs, many riding foxes, many riding dogs, many riding on snakes and on lizards, many on foot, many who went flying like vultures and ..., many upside-down, the head downwards and the feet upwards: they all bellowed out a roar, they raised a mighty storm, rain, snow, hail, [lightning] and thunder, they opened their evil mouths and spouted fire, flame and smoke. They departed in search of the valiant Rustam.

Then the observant Rakhsh came and woke Rustam. Rustam arose from his sleep, quickly donned his leopard-skin garment, tied on his bow-case, mounted Rakhsh and hastened towards the demons. When Rustam saw from afar the army of the demons, he said to Rakhsh [beginning of the London fragment]: Come, sir, run away little [by little]; let us perform [a trick] so that the demons [pursue us] to the flat [plain ...]. Rakhsh agreed. Immediately Rustam turned back. When the demons saw, at once both the cavalry and the infantry quickly hurled themselves forward. They said to one another: Now the chief’s hope has been crushed; no longer is he prepared to do battle with us. By no means let him escape! Do not kill him either, but take him alive so that we may show him evil punishment and harsh torture! The demons encouraged one another greatly; they all howled and departed in pursuit of Rustam. Then Rustam turned round and attacked the demons like a fierce lion attacking a deer or a hyena attacking a flock or herd, like a falcon attacking a [hare or] a porcupine attacking a snake, and he began [to destroy] them ...

(translation N. Sims-Williams)

The murals of Panjikent
Additional archaeological evidence for an early Rustam cycle is to be found in wall-paintings discovered by the archaeologist B. Stavisky in 1956-7 in a two storeyed house in the south east of medieval Panjikent, Tajikistan.

The Rustam frieze from Panjikent, Room 41/VI now on display in the State Hermitage Museum St Petersburg. Photo: Ursula Sims-Williams

Reconstruction of the Rustam frieze, made at the time of excavation by artists Gremyachinskaya and Nikitin, now in the Museum of History of Culture of Panjikent, Tajikistan. Photo: Ursula Sims-Williams

The friezes are attributed to the first half of the eighth century and depict a series of episodes in which Rustam and Rakhsh are engaged in battle with demons. While identifications with known episodes in the Shahnamah are difficult it is tempting to think that one of the scenes may correspond to that described in the Sogdian fragment discovered at Dunhuang.

Currently on display in the National Museum Delhi: Rustam, mounted on Rakhsh, fights an adversary. Wall-painting on dry loess plaster from Panjikent, Tajikistan, c. 740 AD (The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, SA-16223). Photo: Ursula Sims-Williams

Further reading
Firdawsi, Shahnameh: the Persian book of kings; tr. Dick Davis. New York: Penguin Books, 2007.
Nicholas Sims-Williams, “The Sogdian Fragments of the British Library,” Indo-Iranian Journal 18, 1976, pp. 43-82. Transcription and edition of Paris and BL fragments on pp. 54-61.
Nicholas and Ursula Sims-Williams, “Rustam and his zīn-i palang.” In: From Aṣl to Zāʼid: Essays in Honour of Éva M. Jeremiaś, ed. I. Szánto. Piliscsaba: Avicenna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, 2015, pp. 249-58.
Guitty Azarpay and others, Sogdian Painting: The Pictorial Epic in Oriental Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.
Boris I. Marshak, and V. A. Livshits, Legends, Tales, and Fables in the Art of Sogdiana. New York: Bibliotheca Persica Press, 2002, especially pp. 25-54.
Boris I. Marshak, “Panjikant”, Encyclopaedia Iranica online.

Ursula Sims-Williams, Asian and African Studies

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The Jain manuscripts currently in the British Library collections have a long history and were formerly held by two distinct institutions, the British Museum and the India Office Library.

Built over a period of more than two and half centuries, from the earliest acquisitions of 1753 (in the British Museum’s Sloane and Harley collections), to the latest in 2005, the collection includes works in Sanskrit, Prakrit, Hindi, Gujarati and Rajasthani and in view of its size (over 1000 items), range of material and state of preservation, it is one of the most important outside India.

Aḍhāī-dvīpa, ‘Two and a half continents’. Painting on cloth, 18th century (British Library Or 13937) 

Most of the Jain manuscripts originally belonged in several individual collections acquired in India during the 19^th century by Indologists and employees in the service of the East India Company (among them H.T. Colebrooke, G. Bühler, W. Erskine, H. Jacobi, C. Mackenzie, A.C. Burnell). The subject areas and literary traditions represented are numerous and diverse: canonical, ethics, ritualistic, narrative, astronomy, astrology, mathematics and music. 33 Jain manuscripts are now available online in Digitised Manuscripts.

Miniature of Gautamasvāmin seated, in the typical Śvetāmbara monastic dress and holding a rosary, 15th century (British Library Or 2126A) 

The selection includes rare and valuable palm leaf manuscripts such as Or 1385B, the oldest Jain manuscript in the British Library dated 1201 CE, several Kalpasūtra versions, some of them illuminated (i.e. Or 11921, Or 14262 and Or 13959),  and a 15^th century manuscript of the Śrīpāla-kathā (Or 2126A) and IO San 3177, which contains the manuscript used by Hermann Jacobi for his edition, translation and glossary of the Kālakācārya-Kathānakam of 1880 (at that time the only known written version of the legend). Finely illustrated, it is also an amazing example of Jain calligraphy.

Folio from the Saṁgrahaṇīratna by Śrīcandra in Prakrit with interlinear Gujarati commentary. The miniature depicts the Pancaparameṣṭhins on Siddhaśilā, 17th century (British Library Or 2116C) 

Beside poetical compositions like the Ādityavāra-kathā (Or 14290),  there are cosmological treatises such as Śrīcandra’s Saṁgrahaṇīratna (Or 2116C) and three Aḍhāī-dvīpa (‘Two and a half continents’), illuminated diagrams representing the world inhabited by human beings according to Jain cosmology (Add Or 1812, Add Or 1814 and Or 13937).

More digitised Jain manuscripts from the British Library and other collections in the UK are available at Jainpedia: the Jain universe online.

Further reading

Nalini Balbir ... [et al.], Catalogue of the Jain manuscripts of the British Library: including the holdings of the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum. London: British Library & Institute of Jainology, 2006.

Hermann Jacobi, "Das Kālakācāryakathānakam", Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 34 (1880), pp.247-318. 

Pasquale Manzo, Asian and African Studies

A recently acquired group of miniatures painted on ivory and laid down on paper supports with identifying inscriptions,  still mostly with their original glass, is of considerable interest. Such items were increasingly the stock products of the tourist trade in Delhi in the later nineteenth century, but the inscriptions of this particular group suggested that they must have been made before 1850 and in Lahore or Amritsar rather than Delhi, the usual production centre for such items. The portraits include various Maharajas of the Punjab from 1839-49 with other rulers. They were presumably bought and pasted down onto sheets of paper in order to be sent off to Britain for the enlightenment of friends or relations at home, so that they could put a face to the names that occupied so much of the British press in the 1840s with the doings of the Lahore court and the two Sikh Wars, which ended in the annexation of the Punjab in 1849. Several of the inscriptions are unfortunately in error.

    
Inscribed: Now Nihal Sing successor to Rangeet Sing [i.e. Kharak Singh]; Maharajah of Lahore Ranjeet Sing; Bahadoor Shaw present King of Delhi [i.e. Akbar II]  (British Library, Add.Or.5680-82) 

The miniatures are arranged in four groups. Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Lahore (r. 1799-1839) is given primacy of place in the first group with the Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar (r. 1838-58) to his right and Ranjit Singh’s son Kharak Singh (r. 1839-40) to his left. The inscriber has wrongly identified the latter as Nau Nihal Singh (r. 1840), who was the son and successor of Maharaja Kharak Singh (see next). He was still only aged nineteen when he was killed on returning from his father’s obsequies by masonry falling from an arch, and the portrait is of his father Kharak Singh. For his portrait around 1840 showing him with just a chin beard, see Archer 1966, pl. 35. The inscribed ‘present King of Delhi’ (as the British called the Emperor) dates paintings and inscriptions to at least before 1858. The inscriber seems mistaken here also, since the portrait is surely of Bahadur Shah’s father Akbar II (r. 1806-37) (see Dalrymple and Sharma 2012, nos. 30, 32-36). 

Inscribed: Dhuleep Sing present Ruler of Lahore; Kurruck Sing successor to Now Nihal Sing of Lahore; Kurrum Sing Rajah of Putteala [i.e. Kharak Singh] (British Library, Add.Or.5683-85) 

The second group has again a central portrait, that of Maharaja Kharak Singh (r. 1839-40), son and successor of Ranjit Singh, who died, it was rumoured, of poison. He has a very distinctive long pointed black beard. The inscriber has muddled Kharak Singh and his son Nau Nihal Singh. The latter was succeeded by Maharaja Sher Singh (r. 1840-43), another son of Ranjit Singh, who is represented later in the portraits, see below. Kharak Singh’s successor was Maharaja Dalip Singh (r. 1843-49), the youngest son of Ranjit Singh, identified with an inscription ‘the present Ruler of Lahore’ which firmly dates the whole group to before 1849. The other portrait in this group purports to be Maharaja Karam Singh of Patiala (r. 1813-45), ruler of one of the Cis-Sutlej states outside Ranjit Singh’s empire and allied to British India, but this portrait does not resemble him (for his portrait, see Stronge 1999, no. 188 and Falk and Archer 1981, no. 553). Again the long pointed black beard suggests Kharak Singh as in Add.Or.5680 above.


Inscribed: Rajah of Nepaul; Sumroo Begum; Mirza Zanghir 3 son King of Delhi [i.e. Maharaja Sher Singh]; Dost Mahomet (British Library, Add.Or.5686-89) 

Four of the remaining ivories are meant to be of local notables. These are the Maharaja of Nepal, who would seem to be the teenage Maharaja Surendra Bir Bikram Shah (b. 1829, r. 1847-81). Next is the Begum Samru of Sardhana (d. 1836) who ruled her own jagir near Meerut east of Delhi, one of the most redoubtable characters of early 19^th century India. Next, a portrait labelled as Mirza Jahangir, the third and favourite son of the Emperor Akbar II, who died in confinement in Allahabad in 1821, cannot be him since this figure is wearing a Sikh type of turban. In fact he is almost certainly the missing Maharaja Sher Singh of Lahore (r. 1841-43), identified by comparison with other portraits by Sikh artists as well as his well-known portraits by both Emily Eden and the Austrian artist T.A. Schoefft (for his portraits by Indian artists, see Archer 1966, pls. 92, 104). Finally in this group is Dost Muhammad, the Amir of Afghanistan (r. 1825-39, and again 1845-63). Dost Muhammad repeatedly fought with the Sikhs in his first reign over the disputed border territory of Peshawar, but then allied himself with them in the second period of his reign before the final annexation. He is often depicted in other groupings of Sikh notables.

The various dates of rulers presented above suggest that the grouping of the portraits was done some time between 1847 and 1849. After the final annexation of the Punjab in 1849, artists in both Lahore and Amritsar produced many sets of portraits on ivory of Sikh rulers and notables in the period of their greatness. The British Library already has five such sets (Archer 1969, nos. 190-194), including one set from the 1850s that is almost certainly among the earliest known (Stronge 1999, no. 20), but this new set is definitely from the late 1840s. It must have been put together put together by a British officer probably in the British Residency in Lahore that was established by the Treaty of Bhairowal in 1846, and sent back home as suggested above for the enlightenment of his friends.

While the arrangement of the first two groups of three portraits is perhaps arbitrary, nonetheless the central large portrait flanked by two smaller ones closely resembles that of the jewels of bazubands, the jewelled armbands worn by the elite as can be seen in the larger portrait of Kharak Singh above (Add.Or.5684). Whereas portraits on ivory by Delhi artists were normally individual commissions, and even when in sets such as of the Mughal emperors were individually framed, the idea behind these groupings of Sikh notables seems to have been to have them mounted up in a frame, as are indeed all those in the British Library which are enclosed in 19^th century frames (see Stronge 1999, no. 20).

Inscribed: [Ko]otub Minar Church at Delhi [Bui]ldings… at Delhi (British Library Add.Or.5691-94) 

The set ends (apart from one unidentified ruler, Add.Or.5690) rather oddly perhaps with three pictures on ivory of monuments of Delhi, all of them mounted up on the same sort of paper and with inscriptions in the same handwriting. In the middle is what is meant to be the church at Delhi, the church of St. James, built by Col. James Skinner near the Kashmir Gate and consecrated in 1836. It does however look rather more like a Mughal tomb such as that of Salim Chishti at Fatehpur Sikri and clearly the artist did not have a very good model for his depiction, although the dome and the parapet are passable. The heavy eave and the Mughal jalis or screens should not be there, but the tomb of William Fraser of 1836 seems to be present in front of the church.

Pictures on ivory of monuments had a different purpose from portraits, since often at this period they were mounted as brooches. Indeed one of the earliest such examples is a picture of the gateway of the Taj Mahal mounted up in a gold brooch with an inscription saying that it was sent from India by Lady Sale in 1840 (private collection). Later such pictures were mounted up into ivory boxes or else, as small circles or ovals, into cufflinks or shirt studs. Apart from brooches, they could also, we now learn from this set, be turned into earrings, since it has two pictures of the Qutb Minar, the famous 12/13^th century tower in old Delhi, painted on shapes that are surely destined to be long drop earrings, when encased in gold. Below the tower are painted little round pictures of the Taj Mahal in Agra on one and what appears to be the tomb of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq on the other. An additional small circular painting of the Quwwat al-Islam mosque and the Qutb Minar may indeed have been for one of the roundels covering the ear lobe from which such drop earrings normally hung in the Victorian era. The roundel is actually loose but is positioned in the above image as if this was indeed the case.

The earring paintings can be dated by the presence of the cupola in Mughal style added to the top of the Qutb Minar during a restoration in 1828 by Major Robert Smith of the Bengal Engineers, which was removed in 1848. Although artists in Lahore or Amritsar might not necessarily have known this, they liked to be up to date with their depictions, so this is yet another reason to date the set to the late 1840s.

Although there is no direct evidence that this group of miniatures in ivory was painted in the Punjab, their subjects of local interest to the Punjab and their somewhat unsophisticated technique would certainly suggest that this was so. Sikh artists do not seem to have attempted to paint on ivory any earlier. Such work when done by Delhi artists is more refined and polished, and this will be the subject of a second blog.

References:

Archer, M., Company Drawings in the India Office Library, HMSO, London, 1972
Archer, W.G., Painting of the Sikhs, HMSO, London, 1966
Dalrymple, W., and Sharma, Y., Princes and Painters in Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857, Asia Society, New York, 2012
Falk, T., and Archer, M., Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 1981
Stronge, S., ed., The Arts of the Sikh Kingdoms, V & A, London, 1999

J.P. Losty, Curator of Visual Arts (Emeritus)

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James Low was one of the first Europeans to visit the Andaman sea coast of Thailand, stretching from Phuket to the Malaysian border, which is nowadays one of the great tourist destinations of the world. Low’s mission took place in his line of duty as an officer of the English East India Company based at Penang.

Detail from a drawing depicting the reception of James Low by the son of the Raja of Ligor (Nakhon Si Thammarat) in 1824. Drawing attributed to “Boon Khon”. The use of a Western perspective as in the depiction of the chairs was unusual in Thai art of the early 19th century. British Library, Add. 27370, f.18 

Born on 4 April 1791 at Causland in Scotland to Alexander Low and his wife Anne Thompson, Low graduated from Edinburgh College and was then nominated for a cadetship in the East India Company’s Madras Army in 1812. He was accepted and embarked from Portsmouth on the East Indiaman Astell, which reached Madras in July 1812. During the first five years, Low acquired military competencies and language skills. The Company’s policy was that their officers had to be capable of basic communication with the Indian soldiers under their command. In May 1817 Low was appointed Adjudant, and then promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in August of the same year. In January 1819 Low moved to the East India Company’s settlement in Penang and spent the rest of his career in and around the Straits of Malacca. In 1820 he was given command of the Penang Local Corps until the corps was disbanded in 1827.

Since Low had received a mathematical and philosophical education at Edinburgh College, he nurtured an interest in the study of languages. The posting to Penang offered the opportunity to acquire language skills in both Malay and Thai. The knowledge of Thai was particularly important in the light of events on the Malay peninsula, to which the Burmese had sent their last military expedition against Siam, directed at its west coast territories. Subsequently, the British at Penang found themselves in the middle of a conflict between the Siamese Governor, known as the Raja of Ligor (Nakhon Si Thammarat), and the Sultan of Kedah, who had fled to Penang instead of providing the support which had been requested from him by the Raja of Ligor.

Drawing by James Low of a village with pagodas in Martaban (Mottama in Mon State, Burma) 1825. RAS 027.012. Photograph courtesy of Nancy Charley, Royal Asiatic Society

Low’s was the second mission to Siam, following John Crawfurd’s first mission that was mainly concerned with resolving the legal status of Penang. The second mission of 1824 under Low’s command was prompted by the British declaration of war on Burma. Its aim was to enlist the support of the Raja of Ligor, who was in command of most of the Siamese territories on the west coast of the peninsula including Kedah, for the planned British move up the Irrawaddy river. Low described the events of the mission in a report on his Public Mission to His Highness the Rajah of Ligor, and in more detail in his Journal of a Public Mission to the Rajah of Ligor. Low also produced a map of Siam, Cambodia and Laos. After his mission to Ligor, he was posted to Tenasserim where he produced more maps and landscape drawings. In 1826, Low was promoted to Captain and was sent on other missions to the Malay state of Perak. Shortly after, he was appointed Superintendent of Lands in Province Wellesley in Penang, a post he held until 1840 when he was made Assistant Resident of Singapore. He finally retired in 1845 but returned to Edinburgh only in 1850, where he died just two years later.

Although Low's main responsibility as an officer of the East India Company was to settle disputes with local chiefs in the interests of the British – a task he did not always succeed in fulfilling – he was also a pioneer in the study of Thai language, literature and art by Westerners. The lack of textbooks inspired him to produce a Grammar of the Thai or Siamese language (1828), and he published a collection of works On the government, the literature, and the mythology of the Siamese (1831-36) as well as articles on Thai Buddhist art, Buddhist law, local histories and ethnic minorities of the Malay peninsula. He also studied inscriptions and translated parts of Thai Buddhist scriptures, and the Malay historical text from Kedah, Merong Mahawangsa. Low’s ability to observe and then describe in detail a variety of aspects of Thai art and culture helped to make his mission journal an interesting source for the study of everyday life and cultural practices in 19th century Siam.

Copy of a Thai zodiac in Thai manuscript painting style of the 19th century. Artist unknown. British Library, Add. 27370, f.14 


Another version of the Thai zodiac shown above this one, with added background landscapes in Chinese watercolour technique. Probably by the artist “Boon Khon”. British Library, Add. 27370, f.15
 
Low clearly had a strong interest in Thai art, and amassed an impressive collection of fine paintings and drawings from southern Thailand. These included rare copies from a Thai Buddhist cosmology associated with a Thai text, Traiphum, which is thought to date back to the 14th century. Other subjects of these artworks are the Ten Birth Tales of the Buddha, illustrations from Thai divination manuals and zodiacs, as well as depictions of Low’s reception in Ligor, genre scenes, and of religious artefacts. Several of the drawings contain a note in English in Low’s handwriting that they are copies by a Siamese artist from original manuscripts, and to one pencil sketch of three Chinese gods Low had added in ink the note “Boon Khon delint” (copied by Boon Khon). On another pencil drawing of a vase, the artist is named as Sayid Nuh, his title indicating a person of Arabic origin, a descendant of the Prophet.

Impression of a Rajamukha wheel, which is used in Thai and Malay divination. Attributed to “Boon Khon”. British Library, Or.14179

Unfortunately, not all of the artworks bear the name of an artist, but it is believed that most of these are copies from Thai manuscripts by the artist “Boon Khon”, who Low said was “a Siamese”. However, the fact that chairs, musical instruments and round objects are shown in Western perspective – something unusual in Thai art of the first half of the 19th century – and that certain features of plants, landscapes, architectural ornaments and faces of the figures appear rather Chinese in style than Thai, suggest that the artist mentioned as “Boon Khon” was probably a Chinese painter who may have acquired some drawing skills from Low himself. A comparison of pencil drawings by Low, now held at the Royal Asiatic Society in London, and works attributed to “Boon Khon” show some striking similarities, especially when it comes to details like plant features. Some of the coloured drawings showing the same motif were made in different styles and techniques, suggesting that artists copied from each other. There may actually have been a third artist - one who was skilled in Thai painting techniques - who worked for Low or who trained “Boon Khon” to copy paintings from Thai manuscripts.

Part of a painting of Buddha’s Last Ten Birth Tales, probably by the artist “Boon Khon”, depicts scenes from the Candakumara Jataka and Bhuridatta Jataka. The faces and breasts of the Naga princesses at the bottom, but also the gable and roof of the building at the top, are untypical for Thai manuscript painting. Some trees and tufts of grass have similarities with plants in pencil drawings made by Low. The lotus plants at the bottom are similar to lotuses drawn by “Boon Khon” as part of a Buddha footprint, reprinted in Low’s article “On Buddha and the Prabat” (1835). British Library, Add. 27370, f.12 

Part of Low’s collection of Thai drawings and paintings was acquired by the British Museum in 1866 from Alan White Esquire, and is now held in the British Library. Most of the artworks have been digitised and are available on the Library’s Digitised Manuscripts viewer (Add MS 27370). Another part of Low’s art collection, including several of his own drawings, is held in the Royal Asiatic Society in London. Although not much research has been done on Low’s art collection, it is a popular source of inspiration for Thai designers.


Some designs for children’s shirts marketed in the early 2000s by Ayodhya, a Bangkok-based home decorative brand, used paintings from Low’s collection for inspiration. British Library, ORB.Misc/171

Further reading

Charley, Nancy. James Low in Thailand and Burma.
Farouk Yahya. Magic and divination in Malay illustrated manuscripts. Leiden, 2015 (see pp. 128/9 on the Rajamukha wheel)
Farrington, Anthony (ed.). Low’s mission to Southern Siam 1824. Bangkok, 2007
Ginsburg, Henry. Low in Thailand. The James Low album of paintings. FMR (Franco Maria Ricci) No. 13, 1985, pp. 125-140
Ginsburg, Henry. Thai manuscript painting. London, 1989 (see pp. 15 and 25 on Low’s collection)
Low, James. Extracts from the Journal of a Political Mission to the Raja of Ligor in Siam. Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal No. 79, July 1838.
Low, James. On Buddha and the Prabat. Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society No. 3, London 1835, pp. 57-124

Jana Igunma, Henry Ginsburg Curator for Thai, Lao and Cambodian

My thanks to Nancy Charley for providing photographs of artworks in the Low collection at the Royal Asiatic Society, and to Annabel Gallop and Farouk Yahya for their advice on Malay manuscript painting.

Around two thirds of the way through the British Library's exhibition, West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song, visitors turn a corner to be greeted with a six foot burst of yellow: a spectacular artwork entitled ‘Feminine Power’, made up of dozens of intricate drawings depicting proverbs, symbols and meanings from West African culture.  

The artwork was created by two artists, Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye and Tola Wewe. Last month Chief Nike was in the UK for the opening of her new London show, and was kind enough to visit the Library and give us a short interview about the inspiration behind the artwork.

Chief Nike Davies-Okundaye standing next to her artwork Feminine Power (photo by Tony Antoniou)

Tell us about the symbols in your artwork – what do they mean?

A lot of the faces in the piece represent the feminine which is why the piece is called ‘Feminine Power’. When you go to Nigeria the power of the woman is stronger, and every man who comes to the world comes through woman.

The wall gecko is a symbol of peace. If you have a lizard in your home, it means you have a peaceful home since at the slightest vibration they will run away. Many people are scared of them but you need to find space in your heart for a lizard too, because there is always love and peace in your home if a lizard is there.

The sunshine symbol is one I made up myself, it means ‘don’t let someone block out your sunshine’. 
Close up cropped image of faces in 'Feminine Power'

What does the subtitle of our exhibition, ‘Word, Symbol, Song’ mean to you in terms of your own work?

It means so much to me because this is like a memory come true. We are losing these symbols and you [the British Library] are bringing them back to life for us. These symbols represent our heritage, our roots, and our everyday culture.

What was your experience of walking through the exhibition?

I just feel like this is my roots. The first item that spoke to me was àrokò [messages made of symbolic objects such as cowrie shells and seeds which were sent between kings]. My father always said ‘send àrokò to the King’. It is always wrapped in a special bag and then they would send it, but they never opened it in the presence of people, and I never really knew what àrokò was. Today is my first day seeing àrokò and this is a good memory for me. And seeing our work here put here at the Library, I am very happy and honoured.

I will be telling people who are coming from Nigeria to come and see your roots, come to the British Library.

An àrokò message of peace sent by the King of Ìjẹbú to the King of Lagos on the occasion of his restoration in 1851, on display in the West Africa exhibition. Each element in this string of cowries and seeds has meaning, for example the kernel in the middle indicates ‘what is good for me is good for you’. (On loan from Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford)

You can see more of Chief Nike Okundaye-Davies' work in a new exhibition,‘The Power of One Woman’ at the Gallery of African Art until 6 February. http://www.gafraart.com/

'Feminine Power' is on display in West Africa: Word, Symbol, Song at the British Library until 16 February.

Interview by Sophie McIvor.

In 1974 the auction house Sotheby’s in London sold two albums of drawings by an otherwise unknown artist called Sita Ram. These albums were respectively entitled Views by Seeta Ram from Moorsheedabad to Patna. Vol. I and Views by Seeta Ram from Secundra to Agra. Vol. IX. Each album contained 23 large watercolours of topographical views of the scenery and monuments of the relevant part of India. Both were soon dispersed to collectors all over the world. Apart from the clear inference that the albums were part of a much larger set commissioned by a wealthy British traveller, there was no clue to their provenance, patronage or date.


The famous cannon known as the Great Gun at Agra. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1814-15 (British Library, Add.Or.4311)

One painting from the dispersed vol. IX, 'the Great Gun of Agra', was acquired for the British Library in 1986 and I subsequently published it without knowing the real provenance (Losty 1989). Other drawings from these albums were acquired by many prominent collectors of Indian paintings, including Ed Binney III , S.C. Welch, Krishna Riboud and Paul Walter. Many have been published over the years in various exhibition catalogues.

These are large watercolours (averaging 40 by 60 cm) by an Indian artist trained in the contemporary Murshidabad school, but no doubt working in Calcutta round about 1810-15. Sita Ram has clearly absorbed considerable influence from the English watercolourists and engravers in aquatints such as William Hodges and Thomas and William Daniell, as well as somewhat later artists in India such as George Chinnery. Despite the influences, this artist is able to compose picturesque and beautiful compositions in his own right as in this case, concentrating rather like Chinnery on a minor antiquity and relegating the Taj Mahal to the distance along the River Jumna where it shimmers through the heat haze. Many of these paintings also promised to be of great interest in the discovery of India’s past before the advent of photography and the Archaeological Survey. In the case of the painting above, for instance, the area was totally destroyed by the blowing up of the cannon in 1833 and the later building of the railway bridge across the Jumna past the north wall of the Agra Fort.

Admirers of later Indian painting could only hope that the missing volumes would one day turn up. This duly happened in 1995, when the British Library was offered and was able to acquire the remaining albums by Sita Ram (numbered II-VIII and X). They formed part of the collection of albums of drawings formed in India by the Marquess of Hastings, the Governor-General of Bengal 1813-23. The ten albums by Sita Ram illustrate Lord and Lady Hastings’ journey from Calcutta to Delhi and back in 1814-15. There were in all 25 albums of drawings in the collection, by Indian, Chinese and British artists. They had been for the last 150 years in the collection of the Marquis of Bute in Scotland, and indeed hitherto unknown and unsuspected. Hastings then turned out to be Sita Ram’s patron and the artist’s paintings of the voyage could be firmly dated 1814-15. This journey had been long known of through the publication in 1858 of Lord Hastings’ journal, edited by his daughter the Marchioness of Bute, who as a child had accompanied her parents on this grand voyage (Hastings 1858) and who had inherited all her father’s papers and albums.

The 10 albums each with 23 drawings form a grand diorama of north India, as if Hastings had set out to surpass the 144 aquatints of the Daniells’ Oriental Scenery. It is 20 years since the Library acquired these albums and finally it has been possible to publish them in a fitting manner with the enthusiastic cooperation of Pramod Kapoor of Roli Books in Delhi (Losty 2015). An introduction deals with the patron Lord Hastings and Sita Ram as an artist, but the meat of the book is the publication of 160 of the drawings taken on the voyage and of an abbreviated version of Hastings’ journal, which sheds so much light on the paintings. The two obviously go hand in hand, though Hastings refers only occasionally to the ‘Bengal draftsman’ who accompanied them.

In order to inspect the British possessions in India and to meet Indian rulers and notables, and in his capacity as Commander-in-Chief to keep a closer eye on the current war with Nepal, Hastings made a journey upcountry from Calcutta to the Punjab and back. The party embarked on 28 June 1814 at Barrackpore in a flotilla of no less than 220 boats. Hastings was accompanied by his wife and small children, by his secretaries and A.D.C.s, and no doubt by their wives and children, by 150 sepoys of the Governor-General’s Bodyguard, and by a battalion from the Bengal Army. They all would have needed boats for their luggage and equipment, for their horses, for their food and stores and floating kitchens. They needed to set off in the adverse conditions at the height of the monsoon, as only then was the water debouching from the Ganges into the Hooghly high enough for the boats to pass over the bar at Suti.


The flotilla on the River Ganges. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1814-15 (British Library, Add.Or.4711)     

The flotilla conveyed them up the river Hooghly and into the main stream of the Ganges, past Patna, Benares and Allahabad as far as Cawnpore. Hastings provides graphic descriptions of the difficulties encountered on the river of fighting the adverse winds and the current, of the incessant necessity for ‘tracking’, i.e. the boatmen landing and pulling the boats upriver, and of the tedium when they had to wait for changes in the wind to get round promontories.


Temples at Rajghat, Benares. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1814-15 (British Library, Add.Or.4718)

Some of the paintings illustrating the river journey are among the most tranquil and beautiful creations in Indian painting.


Lord Hastings and Nawab Ghazi al-Din enter Lucknow in state. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1814-15 (British Library, Add.Or.4749)

At Cawnpore they disembarked from their boats and travelled overland to Lucknow. One of the principals purposes of the journey was for Hastings to meet the new Nawab Vizier Ghazi al-Din Haidar. Hastings tells us later that no less than 10,000 people were in the party at this time. The principal members of the party travelled by elephant, camel, horseback, palanquin and all the other means of transport employed in early nineteenth century India, whereas everyone else simply had to march. They moved at the rate of about ten miles a day (it took five days to cover the 50 miles between Cawnpore and Lucknow!), starting off before daybreak and reaching their next encampment before it became too hot. By having two complete sets of tents the second set was always available for the principal travellers when they arrived at the next encampment for breakfast. There they rested during the hear of the day, met the local people both British and Indian, and Hastings also could get on with the day-to-day tasks of governing India.


The travellers marching past the mountains at Kashipur. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1814-15. British Library (Add.Or.4775)

From Lucknow, the party then marched north-westwards parallel to the Himalayas, passing to the north of Delhi up to Haridwar where the Ganges debouches onto the plains.


The ghats at Haridwar. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1814-15 (British Library, Add.Or.4783)

They then turned south into the Punjab and approached Delhi from the west through Haryana. In the event, questions of protocol prevented Hastings from meeting the Mughal emperor Akbar II, or King of Delhi as the British referred to him at this time, although Lady Hastings went to Delhi as a sightseer, taking Sita Ram with her.


Lady Hastings visiting the Kalan Masjid in Delhi. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1815 (British Library, Add.Or.4817)

Lord Hastings busied himself inspecting the garrison at Meerut before meeting up with his wife’s party again south of Delhi. The travellers turned south towards Agra, admiring the great Mughal monuments there and at Sikandra and Fatehpur Sikri, then marched to the British military station of Fatehgarh near Farrukhabad on the Ganges. There they passed the hot weather of 1815 waiting for the monsoon rains to swell the river so that they could pass over the bar at Suti and down the Hooghly to Calcutta. Sita Ram must have passed these months finishing off his watercolours and preparing them for pasting into the albums. The Hastings’ children became ill at this time and when the rains had swelled the river but the monsoon gales had abated, they embarked on their boats and sailed rapidly downstream to Calcutta where they arrived on 9 October 1815. The whole journey took seventeen months. Lady Hastings took the children home to England but later returned to be with her husband.


The Firoz Shah Minar at Gaur and a Palash tree. Watercolour by Sita Ram, 1817 (British Library, Add.Or.4888)

Sita Ram continued to work for Hastings.   Another two albums of drawings also by Sita Ram contain views in Bengal taken on subsequent tours, one during a sporting expedition to northern Bengal in 1817, and the other during a convalescent tour in the Rajmahal Hills in 1820-21. Sita Ram has matured even more as an artist by then and they contain some of his most beautiful works. With Hastings’ departure from India in 1823, however, Sita Ram disappears from the record and no further work is known from his hand.

Further reading:

Hastings, 1st Marquess of, The Private Journal of the Marquess of Hastings, K.G., ed. by the Marchioness of Bute, London, 1858
Losty, J.P., ‘The Great Gun at Agra’, British Library Journal, v.15, 1989, pp. 35-58
Losty, J.P., Sita Ram: Picturesque Views of India – Lord Hastings’s Journey from Calcutta to the Punjab, 1814-15, Roli Books, New Delhi, 2015 (also Sita Ram’s Painted Views of India, Thames & Hudson, London, 2015)

J.P. Losty, Curator of Visual Arts (Emeritus)

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Among the recently digitised Burmese manuscripts from the British Library collections are six illustrated manuscripts of the Life of the Buddha.  Two of these manuscripts are in fact single parts from  separate multi-volumed accounts of the Buddha's life. Or.14405 comprises the fourth part of one such account, and starts with the story of the Buddha's physician Jivaka, followed by depictions of the Buddha’s defeat of the heretics and his performance of the twin miracles, and ends with scenes from various rainy seasons spent by the Buddha. Or.14553 constitutes part nine of another mulitpart manuscript on the life of the Buddha, and contains 12 openings with scenes of Yasa joining the monkhood, the defeat of the heretics, and the serpent king. Two other manuscripts (Or.14297 and Or.14298) contain scenes from the Buddha’s early life, his enlightenment and his later life. Also digitised are a manuscript containing scenes from the lives of previous Buddhas as well as of Gotama Buddha (Or.14823), and a Jataka manuscript (Or.14220) on the previous lives of the Buddha.

The First Sermon at the Deer Park. British Library, Or. 14823, f.38.

The Buddha gave the first sermon called the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta to his five disciples (Panca Vaggi) – Kondanna, Vappa, Bhaddiya, Mahanam and Assaji – at the Deer Park near Benares (Varanasi) on the eve of Saturday, the full moon day of July (Waso). A deva (deity) is depicted next to the disciples paying respects to the Buddha. This sermon contains the essential teachings of the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. The Four Noble Truths are: the truth of suffering (Dukkha Sacca), the truth of the cause of suffering (Samudaya Sacca), the truth of the cessation of suffering (Nirodha Sacca), and the truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering (Megga Sacca).

The Fire Sermon at Varanasi. British Library, Or. 14297, f.36.

The Buddha addressed the Third Sermon, the Fire Sermon (Adittapariyaya Sutta) to a thousand previously fire-worshipping bhikkhus (ascetics) at Varanasi in Gaya several months after his Enlightenment. In this discourse the Buddha preached about achieving liberation from suffering. Pleasure or pain, or the non-existence of pleasure or pain, are all flames from the fire of lust (raga), the fire of hate (dosa) and the fire of delusion (moha). Upon hearing this Fire Sermon all hundred bhikkhus attained arahantship (perfect sanctity). This third discourse can be found in the Samyutta Nikaya in the Pali Canon.

Yasa joins the monkhood. British Library, Or. 14553, f.3.

Yasa was a son of a rich man, but he left his home as he was distressed with his life. He went to the Deer Park to become bhikkhu (ascetic). He was the sixth bhikkhu to achieve the first stage of arahanthood when he heard the teachings of the Buddha (dhamma). After the Buddha ordained Yasa, his closest friends, Vimala, Subahu, Punnaji and Gavumpati followed him into the sangha (monkhood) and they too became arahants (perfected persons). After two months, a further fifty of Yasa’s friends joined the sangha and attained arahantship.

The Buddha and King Bimbisara. British Library, Or. 14405, ff.28-29.

King Bimbisara, ruler of the kingdom of Magadha, offered his Bamboo Grove (Veluvana) to the Buddha and his disciples when the Buddha visited him at Rajagaha, the capital of Magadha, in accordance with a promise made by him before his Enlightenment. This was the first monastery (arama) accepted by the Buddha, and a rule was passed allowing monks to accept such an arama. After the Great Donation of Veluvana monastery, King Bimbisara became a lay-disciple (Upasaka) of the Buddha. The Buddha spent three rainy seasons - the second, third and fourth Lents (vassas) - in this first Buddhist monastery, and numerous Jatakas were recited there. The two most distinguished of the Buddha's disciples, Sariputta and Moggallana, joined the Order. The Buddha had spent the first vassa in the Deer Park at Isipatana, near Benares, where there was no building where he could reside.  

The Buddha in Parileyya Forest, British Library, Or. 14823, f. 30.  

While the Buddha was spending the tenth rainy season (vassa) at Kosambhi, a dispute arose between his followers. When they could not be reconciled he spent the rainy season at the foot of a Sal-tree in Parileyyaka Forest. During his stay in this forest an elephant and a monkey ministered to his needs. The monks came to Savatthi and begged pardon of the Buddha at the end of the vassa.

Jivaka, the Buddha’s physician. British Library, Or. 14405, ff. 22-23.

Jivaka, the most renowned physician, was the son of Salavati, of Rajagaha. He was adopted by Prince Abhaya, a son of King Bimbisara and brought up with the greatest care. He studied medicine and became eminent through his extreme proficiency in the profession. Although he was the royal physician he provided free medical care to the Buddha and other monks during the Buddha’s time. He also built a monastery in his mango garden and donated it to the Buddha and his monks. In this scene the Buddha’s physician is being summoned from his home by the Buddha’s disciple and steward, the monk Ananda, to treat the Buddha at a monastery.      
 

Dhatu ceti at Jetavana, British Library, Or. 14298, f.5.

After the Buddha’s passing (Parinirvana) his relics were enshrined in a stupa, so that people could pay respects to him and reflect upon his virtues. A ceti or stupa is a symbol of Buddhist culture; they were built of stone or brick, and contain a relic chamber beneath. After Sariputta and Moggallana, two chief disciples of the Buddha, attained Parinirvana, their relics were gathered and enshrined in Dhatu ceti in memory of them.
 

Mittavindaka Jataka, British Library, Or 14220, ff.9-10.

Mittavindaka, the son of a rich man, agreed to keep eight precepts (uposatha sila) when his mother bribed him. He went to the monastery and slept all night. His mother asked him not to go on a voyage but he did not listen to her. When the ship refused to move in the middle of the ocean, lots were cast to identify the likely culprit. Three times the lot fell to Mittavindaka, who was then fastened to a raft and cast adrift. He arrived at an island which appeared to him to be a most beautiful place. When he saw a man with a lotus bloom on his head on the island, he asked the man to give it to him. As soon as he put it on his head he suffered the torments of hell as the wheel was as sharp as a razor. He was told by the Bodhisatta, born as a deva, that it was the result of his wickedness to his mother.

These manuscripts are painted in strong colours and an accomplished style. Some of the scenes in the Burmese Life of the Buddha manuscripts portray the gilded splendour of a monastery setting and the elaborate wooden architecture.

Further reading:
Patricia M. Herbert, The life of the Buddha. London: British Library, 1993.

San San May, Curator for Burmese

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We know almost nothing of the artists responsible for the exquisite illuminated frames which adorn the opening pages of Islamic manuscripts from Southeast Asia, for Malay decorum generally required self-effacing anonymity from artisans. But as will be shown below, to some extent our lack of knowledge may also stem from an imperfect understanding of the language world of traditional Malay manuscripts, for sometimes the very words in front of our eyes may have meanings which escape contemporary mindsets.

The British Library holds a fine illuminated manuscript of the Hikayat Nabi Yusuf, ‘The Story of the Prophet Joseph’ (MSS Malay D.4), copied by Lebai Muhammad on 9 January 1802. The manuscript came from the collection of John Leyden and was probably acquired in Penang in 1805 or 1806. The first two pages are adorned with a dense composition of scrolling floral and foliate motifs in red, green, black and yellow, lightened with the ‘reserved white’ of the paper itself.

Hikayat Nabi Yusuf, dated 5 Ramadan 1216 (9 January 1802). British Library, MSS Malay D.4, ff. 3v-4r.

The manuscript’s original owner was one Cik Candra, who is named in a note on a flyleaf begging borrowers to take good care of the manuscript and stipulating a fine of three rials if the book is damaged. The writer justifies his concern by stressing that it has cost him dearly to ‘menulih kepalanya’. Menulih is the local dialect form for menulis, for in Kedah-Penang Malay the ending –s is replaced by –ih. The Malay verb menulis, from the root tulis, nowadays simply means ‘to write’, but a study of Malay manuscripts reveals that the more usual meaning of tulis/menulis was ‘to draw’. In his autobiography Hikayat Abdullah, the famous 19th-century writer Munsyi Abdullah describes how he learned to draw through decorating kites as a child (adapun daripada layang2 itulah asalnya aku tahu menulis bunga2 dan gambar2), while in the Hikayat Hang Tuah, the Malay envoy Hang Nadim greatly impresses the artists and textile designers (penulis, pandai menulis) of Kalinga (south India) by sketching beautifully the pattern he desires on his cloth (ditulisnyalah pada kertas bunga yang seperti kehendak hatinya itu). In traditional Malay texts, the verb ‘to write’ was more usually conveyed by menyurat, and this is indeed the term used by the scribe Lebai Muhammad in the colophon of this book (yang menyurat hikayat nabi Allah Yusuf ini dari pada permulaan datang ke sudahannya Lebai Muhammad).  We can therefore understand the writer's concerns for the wellbeing of the book, because it had cost him so much to draw the illuminated headings (kepala) at the beginning of the book.

Statement at the beginning of the manuscript by the artist, naming the owner as Cik Candra (Inilah hikayat nabi Allah Yusuf anak nabi Allah Yakob terlalu baik pengajarannya dan terlaluh banyak2 beroleh pahalanya karena surat nabi2 itulah maka tuannya sangat sayang maka sangat diberatinya akan surat nabi Yusuf ini barang siapa pinjam surat ini hendaklah pabila baik2 jika binasa surat ini kanalah harganya tiga rial jangan jadi taksir kepada senda kerana sudah senda nyatakan kepada tuan2 yang meminjam surat ini kerana sudah dinyatakan oleh tuannya Cik Candra kerana banyak senda rugi menulih kepalanya tamat.) British Library, MSS Malay D.4, f. 2v (detail).

In the light of this interpretation, we can now reevaluate two small inscriptions found at the top of the illuminated pages, which had been previously understood to refer to writing, but in fact relate to the decoration itself. At the top of the left-hand page (f. 4r) is inscribed: Inilah tulihsan Cik Mat Tuk Muda anak Raja Indera Wangsa di Perlis, ‘This is the drawing of Cik Mat Tuk Muda, the son of Raja Indera Wangsa in Perlis’. These few words are of enormous significance for the study of Malay manuscript art: this is the first known instance of the artist of an illuminated Malay manuscript explicitly 'signing' his work. Moreover, not only do we have his name, Cik (‘Mister’) Mat (‘Mat’ being the Malay short form for ‘Muhammad’), but also his title of Tuk (short for Datuk) Muda, his father’s title of Raja Indera Wangsa, and his place of origin, Perlis.

‘This drawing is by Cik Mat Tuk Muda, son of Raja Indera Wangsa, of Perlis’ (Inilah tulihsan Cik Mat Tuk Muda anak Raja Indera Wangsa di Perlis). British Library, MSS Malay D.4, f. 4r (detail).

At the top of the right-hand page (f. 3v) is written: Inilah bekas tangan Cik Mat orang Kayangan dipinjam oleh Cik Candra, ‘This is the handiwork of Cik Mat, from Kayangan, made use of by Cik Candra’. Again, it identifies the illumination as the work of Cik Mat, from Kayangan, the capital of Perlis. Today Perlis is a small independent state at the northern end of the Malay peninsula, but around 1800 Perlis was still part of Kedah, and was ruled by a Kedah prince whose abode was at Kota Indera Kayangan.

‘This is the handiwork of Cik Mat, from Kayangan, made use of by Cik Candra’ (Inilah bekas tangan Cik Mat orang Kayangan dipinjam oleh Cik Candra). British Library, MSS Malay D.4, f. 3v (detail).

We turn now to a second manuscript, held in the Royal Asiatic Society, Hikayat Syah Mardan (Raffles Malay 66), copied by Lebai Alang, which bears a date of sale of 1790. At first glance there is not much to connect the manuscripts: held in two different libraries, they derive from different collectors, are copied by different scribes, and contain dates some 12 years apart. Moreover while Hikayat Nabi Yusuf is filled with swirling foliate and floral scrolls, the Hikayat Syah Mardan is decorated with preponderantly geometric designs of concentric circles and mihrab-shaped cartouches. The main artistic linkages between the manuscripts are, rather, an identical and distinctive palette of red, green, black and reserved white, and a hard-to-define but impressionistic sense of compositional unity, for both manuscripts have densely illuminated frames extending right to the edges of the paper, set within a thin red outer border outlined in black ink.

Hikayat Syah Mardan, ca. 1790. Royal Asiatic Society, Raffles Malay 66, pp. [1-2].

Closer examination confirms the relationship between the two manuscripts, for just as in Hikayat Nabi Yusuf, there is a lengthy note on an initial flyleaf naming the same Cik Candra as the owner of the manuscript, urging borrowers to treat the book carefully, and intriguingly, ending with the name of the design itself, ‘As for the initial illuminated frames of this book, the name of the design is the Thinking Cat’ (maka yang menulihnya di kepala surat ini nama tulihnya kucin bertenung). Here too we find influence of the local Kedah-Penang dialect, where final –ng is pronounced –n, and so kucin can be understood as kucing, ‘cat’, while bertenung refers to the act of divining, or thinking deeply to aid divination.

In the final line, the illuminated pattern is called the ‘Thinking Cat’ (maka yang menulihnya di kepala surat ini nama tulihnya Kucin Bertenung). Royal Asiatic Society, Raffles Malay 66, f. [ii]r.

The manuscript Hikayat Syah Mardan also contains a further long autograph note from the artist himself, who uses here the long form of his name: ‘Cik Muhammad is the one who drew the illumination at the start of this book, which has been entrusted to the [book’s] owner Cik Candra; this what my drawing is like, because I am not very skillful, and moreover I am in a melancholic state, and so that is why it is not very beautiful’ (Cik Muhammadlah yang empunya tulisan di kepalanya surat ini dipinjam oleh tuannya Cik Candra itulah janis rupa tulisnya karana senda pun tiada berapa pandainya lagi pun senda duduk di dalam hal gunda gulana jadi tiadalah berapa moleknya tamat). Cik Muhammad’s self-deprecatory plaint is entirely in keeping with the cult of modesty and humility demanded by the mores of Malay literary culture, whereby writers, scribes and even book owners would vie to outdo each other in self-abasement, appositely termed by the writer Muhammad Haji Salleh as ‘Malay one-downmanship’.

The artist Cik Muhammad’s apology for the poor quality of his drawing. Royal Asiatic Society, Raffles Malay 66, f. [iii]v.

From this treasure trove of notes or 'paratexts' in these two manuscripts, one of the most intriguing nuggets is the use of the Malay term dipinjam oleh, found in both manuscripts to refer to the use of the artwork created by the artist, by the owner of the book. Although the standard meaning of dipinjam oleh would be ‘lent to’ or ‘borrowed by’, in the present context the phrase is probably better translated as ‘entrusted to’ or ‘made use of by’. This is a very interesting intimation of how the transaction of an artist illuminating a manuscript for its owner might have been viewed in the Malay book world at that time, and implies an acknowledgement of the continuing intellectual property rights of the artist. And it was precisely a concern to confirm in writing this 'copyright' (perhaps following a disagreement or misunderstanding) that has bequeathed to us the full name of a Malay manuscript artist of the late 18th century: Datuk Muda Muhammad, son of Raja Indera Wangsa, of Kayangan in Perlis.

All images of Raffles Malay 66 are reproduced courtesy of the Royal Asiatic Society.

This is an edited version published on 14 April 2016 of the original blog post, incorporating corrections thanks to Jan van der Putten and Abdur-Rahman Mohd. Amin.

Further reading:

A.T. Gallop, The language of Malay manuscript art: a tribute to Ian Proudfoot and the Malay Concordance Project.  Iman, 2013, 1(3):11-27.

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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