Asian and African studies blog

The Mewar Ramayana is one of the most beautiful manuscripts in the world and has been digitally reunited after being split between organisations in the UK and India for over 150 years. The Indian epic Ramayana is one of the world's greatest and most enduring stories, telling the stirring tale of Prince Rama who was exiled for fourteen years through the plotting of his stepmother. In exile, his wife Sita is abducted by the ten-headed demon king Ravana; with the assistance of an army of monkeys and bears, Rama searches and rescues Sita.

Sahib Din, Rama is driven into exile as Dasaratha and the queens bid farewell, c. 1650. British Library, Add.15296(1), f. 56r

Through a major partnership between the British Library and CSMVS Museum in Mumbai, hundreds of folios, including 377 vividly illustrated paintings, of the Mewar Ramayana can now be viewed online. You can see the manuscript at www.bl.uk/ramayana.

For the first time, people around the world will be able to digitally explore the pages of the Mewar Ramayana manuscript, which was commissioned by Rana Jagat Singh I of Mewar in 1649 and produced in his court studio at Udaipur. The project, which has been three years in the making, is sponsored by the Jamsetji Tata Trust, the World Collections Programme, and the Friends of the British Library.

The Ramayana – “Rama’s journey” is attributed to the sage Valmiki and was composed some two and a half thousand years ago. Through oral tradition 20,000 verses continued to circulate from generation to generation, in the various languages of India and beyond. The story embodies the Hindu idea of dharma – duty, behaving correctly according to one’s position and role in society.

The Mewar Ramayana manuscript is divided into seven books, the text prepared by a Jain scribe Mahatma Hirananda and the paintings by various artists including studio master Sahib Din. Production of the manuscript started in 1649 and was completed after Rana Jagat Singh's death in October 1652. This lavish manuscript features intricate paintings of Hindu gods and their battles and the paintings in the Mewar Ramayana are among the finest examples of Indian art.

Hanuman observes Ravana's interview with Sita, c. 1653. British Library, IO San 3621, f.3

After more than 150 years after production, four volumes from this series were presented by Jagat Singh's descendant Maharana Bhim Singh of Mewar (1778-1828) to Lt. Col. James Tod (1782-1835), the first British Political Agent to the Western Rajput Courts in the early 19th century. In 1823, following his return to Britain, Tod presented the volumes to the royal bibliophile the Duke of Sussex (1773-1843) in 1823. Following the Duke's death, the content of his library went on sale in 1844, the four volumes were purchased by the British Museum, now the British Library. The remaining volumes became dispersed over time.

The digital Mewar Ramayana will enable users to ‘turn the pages' online in the unbound style reflecting the traditional Indian loose-leaf format, and interpretive text and audio will allow the broadest possible audience to study and enjoy this text in a whole new way. It will also transform access to the manuscript for researchers, who will have the text and paintings side by side in one place for the first time. The project has been led by British Library curator Marina Chellini with assistance from Leena Mitford, J.P. Losty and Pasquale Manzo.

Technical note:

This new version of 'Turning the Pages' is built in HTML5. It is not reliant on 'plugins' you need to install first, as with previous versions. It will work with the following browsers:

Internet Explorer 9 +
Google Chrome 14+
Firefox 11+
Safari 

As it is a very large file, it may take a few minutes to download (depending on your broadband speed).

For the press release and additional images, please visit the British Library's Press and Policy page.

The Dara Shikoh Album (Add.Or.3129) is one of the most famous and important Mughal artefacts in the British Library’s collections.  Dara Shikoh (1615-58) was the eldest son and favourite of the Emperor Shah Jahan (reg. 1627-58).  He was married in 1633 to his cousin Nadira Banu Begum and in 1641 gave her the album which, it was argued recently (Losty and Roy 2012, pp. 124-37), the prince had assembled between 1631 and 1633 and not as normally assumed between his marriage in 1633 and the gift in 1641.  When I was researching the album, which is famous above all for its flower studies, I recognised a new European source of inspiration that had not previously been noticed.  Scholars of Mughal painting, following Robert Skelton’s seminal paper of 1972, have become increasingly aware of how Mughal artists used European prints to help both in their individual paintings of flowers and in the floral borders of the imperial albums of Jahangir (reg. 1605-27) and Shah Jahan.  Since it was possible to publish only the British Library’s Mughal paintings in our 2012 book, this note expands on some of the references made therein. 

The only signed and dated painting in the album is by the otherwise mysterious artist Muhammad Khan, who was possibly from the Deccan and engaged by Dara Shikoh when the Emperor’s court was in Burhanpur 1630-32.  My attention focussed on the vase which is filled with a bouquet of many different sorts of flowers and is very unlike contemporary Mughal depictions of vases of flowers in paintings.  

A prince in Persian costume pouring wine.  Inscribed on the bowl in Persian: ‘amal-i Muhammad Khan musavvir sanna 1043 (‘work of Muhammad Khan the artist, the year 1043/1633–4’).  Add.Or.3129, f. 21v.

While vases of flowers are occasionally seen in contemporary Mughal party scenes, they are normally slender and filled with a single type of flower arranged in two dimensions.  This extravagant bouquet in Muhammad Khan’s painting seems instead derived from a European exemplar, such as occur in several engraved florilegia of the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries.  In one of them, the Florilegium series of prints made by Adriaen Collaert and published by Philips Galle in Antwerp, first in 1587 and again in 1590, the third plate is an elaborate bouquet of various flowers arranged in a vase much as in Muhammad Khan’s version. 

 
Adriaen Collaert, Florilegium, published by Philips Galle, Antwerp, 1590.  555.d.23.(3.), pl. 3

So far as I am aware this Florilegium has not been identified before as a source for Mughal flowers studies, yet it can be shown as we shall see in a moment to have been a comparatively early arrival at the Mughal court.  Muhammad Khan has modified the decoration on his vase:  the image of a lion bringing down a large deer, perhaps a nilgai, is obviously of Indian inspiration despite its blue and white colouring, but the shape is not Chinese but derived from the sort of classical vase with wide shoulders and comparatively narrow base seen in Collaert’s engraving, although in the Mughal version without a foot. 

 
Vase of narcissi with covered cups, intarsia detail from the tomb of Itimad al-Daula, Agra, begun 1622. Photo by William Dalrymple, 2013, and reproduced with his kind permission

The aparently haphazard arrangement of flowers in a vase in the European manner would not have been thought suitable for execution in stone in a Mughal monument, so when bulbous vases containing a single variety of flowers make their appearance in Mughal art in the intarsia and painted decoration of the tomb of Itimad al-Daula in Agra begun in 1622, the floral arrangement has been beautifully regularized and flattened rather as in Mughal party scenes.

 
Vase of flowers in marble relief on the dado of the Taj Mahal tomb chamber, begun 1631..  Agra artist, c. 1810-15.  Add.Or.1771.

They appear most famously carved in marble in the dado of the tomb chamber of the Taj Mahal in the 1630s, where the vase again is clearly of European classical inspiration and with its swags and foot is almost certainly derived from Collaert’s vase.  Here, although the flowers are varied as in the exemplar, they form flattened sprays in mirror symmetry aroud the central iris.  Ebba Koch in her book on the Taj Mahal suggests C.J. Vischer’s engraving of a vase of flowers of 1635 as a possible source (Koch 2006, figs. 338 and 339), but Collaert’s vase of 1587-90 is much closer.

The Dara Shikoh album is celebrated for its exquisite and innovative flower paintings which, like the portraits, are arranged in matching pairs.  Some seem almost naturalistic, as if done directly from nature, although certain characteristics such as the hovering butterflies suggest that this is not the case but rather that European herbals served as the ultimate inspiration.

   
Flower studies.  Attributed to Muhammad Khan, 1630-33. Add.Or.3129, f.67v

One of the most beautiful studies of naturalistic flowers in the album is found in another page attributed to Muhammad Khan, where six different species of flowers are laid out as specimens on the page.  Such an arrangement seems to be derived from earlier paintings by Mansur, the foremost of Jahangir’s natural history painters, whose vanished album of the spring flowers of Kashmir painted in 1621 is one of the chief of our losses of Mughal paintings. 

Left: Lilies, signed by Mansur Jahangirshahi, c. 1605-12. From the Gulshan Album, Golestan Palace Library, Tehran, Ms 1663, p. 103. With kind permission of the Golestan Palace Library.  Right: Lilies, from Adriaen Collaert’s Florilegium, Antwerp, 1590, 555.d.23.(3.), pl. 6.       

One of Mansur’s rare surviving flower studies is included in Jahangir’s great album in Tehran now known as the Gulshan Album.  Previous scholarship concurred that Mansur’s flower studies all date from 1620 or thereabouts, but Susan Stronge has pointed out that Mansur must have done this study before he was given the title of Nadir al-‘Asr, Wonder of Time, which he is how he signs himself on paintings that can be dated to 1612 and later (2008, pp. 95-96).  On the other hand, since he uses the soubriquet Jahangirshahi, this suggests that he was already regarded as a master artist.  Stronge proposed that in this study Mansur was influenced by two of the individual plants published in John Gerard’s The Herball or Generall Historie of Plants, 1597, reversing the engravings, but suggesting that the ultimate source was a still undiscovered Florilegium.  The subjects of engraved florilegia were much copied from one publication to another.  Turning again to Collaert’s Florilegium of 1590, it can be seen that she was right.

Mansur’s painting of lilies has always struck me as a somewhat clumsy arrangement of flowers compared with the elegance of the Dara Shikoh page.  However, the arrangement of different kinds of flowers all from the same species, in this instance lilies, is of course derived from European florilegia, which are concerned with botany, not with aesthetics.  It can readily be seen that in this case Mansur reproduces the entirety of plate 6 from Collaert’s Florilegium the right way round and in an exact correspondence.  Clearly he was not familiar with lilies in nature since he has mistaken the trumpet part of the flower for green sepals.  So far from this being a masterpiece of Mansur’s maturity as is often proclaimed, it is in fact an immature study from early in Jahangir’s reign.  Just as Abu’l Hasan and other artists of the period painted over or copied European engravings of Christian religious imagery to help them develop a more naturalistic approach to the rendering of volume and space, so Mansur is using a European print to help him find his way into the naturalistic depiction of flowers.

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

Bibliography:

Koch, E., The Complete Taj Mahal, London, 2006

Losty, J.P., and Roy, M., Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire – Manuscripts and Paintings in the British Library, London, 2012

Semsar, M.H., and Ernami, K., Golestan Palace Library: a Portfolio of Miniature Paintings and Calligraphy, Tehran, 2000

Skelton, R., ‘A Decorative Motif in Mughal Art’ in Aspects of Indian Art, ed. P. Pal, Leiden, 1972, pp. 147-52

Stronge, S., ‘The Minto Album and its Decoration’ in Wright, Elaine, ed., Muraqqa':  Imperial Mughal Albums from the Chester Beatty Library Dublin, Alexandria VA, 2008, pp. 82-105

Regular visitors to the Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library, may have encountered our recent display of Natural History drawings from India next to the entrance to the Magna Carta. From 8 March 2014, a new display of Indian paintings from the Visual Arts collection will be on view.

The British Library’s collection of Indian paintings date mainly from the 16 -19^th centuries. The works include portraits and paintings from provinces such as Lucknow, Hyderabad,  Murshidabad, the Deccan, Central India, Rajasthan, the Punjab Hills and Plains. The core collection was formed by Richard Johnson, who was in the service of the East India Company from 1770-90. Johnson’s collection was later acquired by the East India Company for its Library in 1807 and afterwards incorporated into the British Library.

In this period Mughal emperors, kings of Rajasthan and even British officers were great patrons of art, establishing workshops and commissioning countless paintings. Popular topics for artists included lavish depictions of court life, portraiture and visualisations of romantic poetry. As works of art on paper, these illustrations were intended to be viewed by the patron alone or shared with a privileged audience. Rather than being displayed on walls, the works were either bound in a muraqqa (album) or stacked as sets of folios so that the viewer had every opportunity to marvel at the intricate details.

Highlights include one of our most recent acquisitions, a portrait of Rao Arjun Singh worshipping Sri Brijnathji in a rose garden, as well as a selection of Indian paintings that have been added to the collection in the last few decades. To understand the reference to the distinctive leg-of-mutton legs, you may need to get up close to our new display of paintings!

 
Rao Arjun Singh worshipping Sri Brijnathji in a rose garden, Kotah (India), 1720-25. British Library, Add.Or.5722.

Maharana Bhim Singh of Mewar out hunting, Mewar (Rajasthan, India), c. 1800-10. British Library, Add.Or.4662.

Maharana Fateh Singh of Udaipur atop an elephant, attributed to Shivalal, Udaipur (Rajasthan, India), c. 1888-89. British Library, Add.Or.5603

The Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library hosts a permanent free display of the library's greatest treasures. It is usually open 7 days a week.

Additional material held in the Visual Arts department at the British Library can be viewed by appointment in the Print Room (Asian & African Studies Reading Room). Please email [email protected] for an appointment. The Print Room is generally open Monday-Friday, from 2-5pm.

Malini Roy, Visual Arts Curator

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Recent acquisition - Rao Arjun Singh worshipping Sri Brijnathji

One of the manuscripts we have recently digitised is the Dārābnāmah, an illustrated prose romance describing the adventures of the Persian King Darab, son of Bahman, and Alexander the Great, originally composed in the 12th century by Muhammad ibn Hasan Abu Tahir Tarsusi. Our copy unfortunately only contains the first part of the epic, ending with the story of the Macedonian princess Nahid, Darab’s newly-wedded bride and the future mother of Alexander the Great, being returned unwanted (she had bad breath) but pregnant to her father Faylaqus (Philip of Macedon).

Nahid, daughter of Faylaqus (Philip of Macedon), is presented to Darab (Or. 4615, f 129r)

Drawing on Iranian folk literature, this collection of tales reflects a tradition of storytelling which has parallels with Firdawsi’s Shāhnāmah, written at the beginning of the 11th century. At the same time it has developed quite independently, linking pre-Islamic Iranian traditions with those of Islam and the west. The second part of the work, missing from this copy, is devoted to Iskandar/Alexander the Great and forms part of the Alexander romance, well known in both Persian and European literature. The first part of the work, however, has been comparatively understudied, so our digital version will hopefully facilitate some profitable research into this neglected area.

Our copy was probably completed between 1580 and 1585 for the Mughal Emperor Akbar. Classed as ‘Grade Two’ in the Mughal imperial library, it originally contained at least 200 paintings, and presumably there was also a second volume. By 1828, probably looted or sold, it belonged to the Nawabs of Awadh whose seals are stamped on the final leaf. When the British Museum purchased it from Quaritch in 1893, there were only 157 paintings and many leaves, including the colophon, were missing.

Tamrusiyah, temporarily separated from Darab,  and her brother Mihrasb under the Waqwaq Tree (a mythical tree which grew human heads as fruit). Artist: Mukhlis  (Or.4615, f 44r)

The paintings, created at a time when Mughal art was subject to Iranian, Indian and European influences, are what really distinguish this manuscript. Nearly all of them are ascribed altogether to  43 individual artists, several of whom were singled out by Abu’-Fazl in his chapter on the art of painting in the Āʼīn-i Akbarī. They include some of the most famous artists of Akbar’s reign. Details of their work and four separate paintings are described in the catalogue to the British Library’s recent exhibition ‘Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire (Losty and Roy, 2012).

The plot of the Dārābnāmah is extremely complicated. The basic story tells of a prince, abandoned at birth and his subsequent adventures before he returns to Iran and claims the throne. His travels take him to kingdoms ruled by apes, one-eyed people, and others where he encounters all kinds of magical creatures including watermaidens, human-headed serpents and dragons.  In his article in Encyclopædia Iranica, William Hannaway gives a resumé, but unless some reader rises to the challenge, we’ll have to wait for a full translation! Particulars of the manuscript and a list of all the miniatures with links to the images can be seen here and on our Digital Persian Project page.

Here are a few more paintings to illustrate the story:


Near the beginning of the book, Bahman, son of the hero Isfandiyar, and his horse are swallowed by a dragon, and Humay (who is actually his daughter, but is pregnant with his child) becomes queen  (Or.4615, f 3v)

Abandoned at birth and rescued from the river by a washerman, Darab eventually meets his mother, Humay. Artist: Mithra (Or.4615, f 7v)



Humay playing polo with her slaves. Artist: Sanvalah (Or.4615, f 11v)

Darab continues on his travels. Here he is shown fighting the dīv, Samandun (Or.4615, f 17v)

Darab meets and falls in love with the widowed queen Tamrusiyah who later becomes the mother of his son Darab/Dara. Together they continue travelling. In this scene Darab draws the mighty bow of Isfandiyar before Sangarun. The severed head of the son of the ruler of the Island of Katrun, beheaded because he failed to draw the bow, is fixed to the wall above. Artist: Bhagvan (Or.4615, f 25v)

Darab goes to the rescue of his mother Queen Humay who has been captured by the Caesar of Rum (ie. the king of Macedonia). Here they hurl rocks at the king's army. Artist: Ibrahim Qahhar (Or.4615, f 102r)

Humay watched by Darab as she dictates letters announcing Darab’s accession. Artist: Dharmdas (Or.4615, f 114r)

Further reading

Charles Rieu, Supplement to the Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum (London, 1895), no 385.
Norah M Titley, Miniatures from Persian Manuscripts: a Catalogue and Subject Index of Paintings from Persia, India and Turkey in the British Library and the British Museum (London, 1977), pp 8-11.
William L. Hanaway, “DĀRĀB-NĀMA”, in Encyclopædia Iranica.
J P Losty and Malini Roy, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire (London, 2012), pp 32-7.
Zabīḥ Allāh Ṣafā (ed), Dārābʹnāmah-i Ṭarsūsī: rivāyat-i Abū Ṭāhir Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan Ibn ʻAlī ibn Mūsā al-Ṭarsūsī, 2 vols (Tihrān, 1965).
Marina Gaillard, Alexandre le Grand en Iran = le Dârâb Nâmeh (Paris, 2005).

Ursula Sims-Williams, Asian and African Studies

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The British Library is loaning several key items to a new exhibition, ‘Court and Craft: a masterpiece from Northern Iraq’, which opens at the Courtauld Gallery on 20 February 2014.  The exhibition has at its centrepiece an exquisite bag probably manufactured at Mosul and dating from between 1300 and 1330. Made of brass and inlaid with gold, silver and a black material, it is decorated with intricate geometric patterns and scenes depicting musicians, hunters and revelers. Despite being metal, the bag is light and plaques with integral loops at each side suggest that it was probably worn as a handbag over the shoulders. Developing the themes illustrated on the bag, the exhibition includes metal-work, glass, jewellery and paintings from Northern Iraq, dating from the 14th century.

The Courtauld bag. Mosul, 1300-30 (possibly during the reign of the Il-Khanid Sultan Uljaytu, 1304-16). © The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

Unfortunately manuscripts from this early period are comparatively rare, but the British Library is fortunate in having some of the best examples which will be exhibited alongside the Courtauld bag. One of the most beautiful is the Khamsah (‘five poems’) by the Persian poet Khvaju Kirmani (1290-1349?) about which I wrote in an earlier post (‘An illustrated 14th century Khamsah by Khvaju Kirmani’). Copied by the calligrapher Mir ʻAli ibn Ilyas al-Tabrizi in 798 (1396) at the Jalayirid capital Baghdad, one of the paintings is ascribed to the artist Junayd, a pupil of Shams al-Din who worked under the Jalayirid Sultan Uways I (ruled 1356-74).

Humayun, daughter of the Emperor of China, and prince Humay feasting in a garden (Add 18113, f 40v)

In the scene above, Humay and Humayun are seated in a garden surrounded by courtiers and attendants and being entertained by musicians. On the left, one of Humayun’s personal attendants is shown carrying a bag which closely resembles the Courtauld bag. Two others carry a mirror and a bottle of perfume. Below the couple is an array of flasks, trays, gold candlesticks and incense burners, examples of which are included in the exhibition.


Details of folio 40v

The decoration of the Courtauld bag includes roundels and a panel on the lid showing hunting scenes and convivial celebrations.

Court scene in the centre of the lid showing a man and woman sourrounded by figures and courtly paraphanalia. © The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London

These are also depicted in three leaves from the British Library's copy (Or.14140) of the Arabic treatise ʻAjāʼib al-makhlūqāt (‘the Wonders of Creation’) by al-Qazwini (c. 1203-83). Although our profusely illustrated copy contains no colophon, Stefano Carboni (see below) has attributed it to Mosul and dates it to the turn of the 14th century, most probably  between 1295 and 1302.

Musicians and a dancer perform during a drought at a dried-up spring to make the water flow again.  (Or.14140. f. 63v)

Writing about the first month of the year, Farvardin, Qazwini describes how a horse and falcon are presented to the king when he wakes on New Year's Day. Unfortunately the painting is damaged and only the king's bolster is visible on the left. (Or.14140, f. 20v)

The geometric designs which form such an integral part of the decoration of the Courtauld bag are also evident in the magnificent thirty-volume Qur’an commissioned by Sultan Uljaytu. This Qurʼan was completed, according to its colophon, in Mosul in the year 710 (1310) and was copied by ʻAli ibn Muhammad al-Husayni. It includes a commissioning certificate in the names of Uljaytu's viziers Saʻd al-Din and the famous historian Rashid al-Din (c. 1247-1318) whose history Jāmiʻ al-tavārīkh (‘Compendium of Chronicles’) is also illustrated in the exhibition by four early 14th century drawings. 

Carpet page decorations forming the opening of volume 25 of Uljaytu's Qurʼan. Copied at Mosul in 710/1310. (Or.4945, ff. 1v-2r)

The exhibition, curated by Rachel Ward, runs from 20th February until 18th May 2014 at the Courtauld Gallery, Somerset House, Strand, WCR ORN. It is  accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue (see below). I have just come back from installing the British Library loans, and was lucky enough to see almost everything in place! Although it is comparatively small (36 items altogether), the themed approach makes it a very exciting and successful exhibition.

Further reading

Rachel Ward, Court and Craft: A Masterpiece from Northern Iraq. London, 2014.

Teresa Fitzherbert, “Khwājū Kirmānī (689-753/1290-1352): An Éminence Grise of Fourteenth Century Persian Painting”, Iran 29 (1991): pp. 137-51.

Stefano Carboni, “The London Qazwini: An Early 14th Century Copy of the ʿAjāʾib al-makhlūqāt,” Islamic Art: An Annual Dedicated to the Art and Culture of the Muslim World 3, 1988-89, pp. 15-31.

Stefano Carboni, “The Wonders of Creation and the Singularities of Ilkhanid Painting: A Study of the London Qazwini British Library Ms. Or. 14140,” Ph.D. diss., School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1992. Download free from British Library Electronic Theses Online Services (ETHoS).

Colin F Baker, Qurʼan manuscripts: calligraphy, illumination, design, London, 2007, pp. 56-65.

Ursula Sims-Williams, Asian and African Studies

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An illustrated 14th century Khamsah by Khvaju Kirmani

Regular users of the Asian and African Studies reading room in the British Library will certainly be aware of the display cases on the landing in front of the reading room. The two large cases by the lifts contain gilded manuscript chests from Thailand and Burma, while the exhibits in the smaller case are changed at least once a year. In the past we have covered themes like Thai illustrated manuscripts, rare printed material from Thailand, and Thai palm leaf manuscripts.

The latest display – by coincidence, installed just before Valentine’s Day – depicts love stories and relationships in Southeast Asian manuscript traditions. For the first time, we are presenting three manuscripts from different Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Thailand, and Burma.  

The Javanese story of Sela Rasa
This beautiful Javanese manuscript tells the story of Prince Sela Rasa, who with his two older brothers has been forced to leave their kingdom of Champa.  In the illustration shown in the display, the brothers pay their respects to a holy man.  The sage’s daughter, Ni Rumsari, had dreamt that three handsome men would come to visit.  The characters are drawn according to the stylised conventions of the Javanese shadow puppet theatre, wayang kulit.  The Serat Selarasa is perhaps the earliest finely-illustrated Javanese manuscript known. The manuscript is dated 1804, and according to a note in the text was once owned by the wife of a Dutch East India Company official in Surabaya, before it was presented to Col. Colin Mackenzie in 1812.


Serat Selarasa.  British Library, MSS Jav. 28, ff. 13v-14r.

A Thai divination manual
This divination manual (phrommachat) from central Thailand is on public display for the first time. It contains horoscopes based on the Chinese zodiac, relating each lunar month to the animals of the 12-year-cycle and their reputed attributes (earth, wood, fire, iron, water) as well as a male or female avatar (representing the Chinese concepts of yin and yang). This manuscript from the 19th century also includes beautifully illustrated descriptions of lucky and unlucky matches of couples. The paintings on the left side depict the female avatar of the year of the pig riding on a blue hog, and illustrations of possible fates for people born in the year of the pig. On the right side we see a couple of ogres (phi suea) who will stay happily married until old age, whereas the relationship between a male ogre and a female angel (deva) is an unlucky one.


Thai divination manual.  British Library, Or. 4830, ff. 25-26.

Scenes from the Burmese Ramayana
The highlight of the display is a manuscript book from Burma with large paintings stretching over several folios, illustrating the great epic of love and war Ramayana. It was created at the royal court, where a team of painters served.  The paper of this 19th century Burmese folding book of the Ramayana was handmade from mulberry bark. Shown here is the famous scene where Rama is lured away to shoot the golden deer.  Meanwhile, his wife Sita is captured by Ravana in the guise of an old hermit, after which he returns to his original form of a fearful ten-headed giant.
Dramatic performances of the Ramayana emerged in the Konbaung Period (1752-1885). The king’s minister Myawaddy Mingyi U Sa converted the Ramayana Jataka into a Burmese classical drama and he also composed accompanying music and songs. Ever since, Ramayana performances have been very popular in Burmese culture.  


Ramayana.  British Library, Or.14178, ff. 8-9.

All three manuscripts in this new display have been fully digitised and can be viewed freely online through the British Library’s Digitised Manuscripts website.  Clicking on the highlighted links beneath each image will take you directly to the digitised manuscript.  Digitisation of these manuscripts was supported by the Henry Ginsburg Legacy, while the display cabinets were sponsored by the Royal Thai Government.

Further reading

Annabel Teh Gallop, Javanese art in the early 19th century: Serat Selarasa.  Southeast Asia Library Group blog, 4 March 2013

Jana Igunma, When an angel meets a demon: advice on love and relationships in a Thai divination manual. Asian & African studies blog, 7 January 2014.

San San May, Scenes from the Ramayana. Southeast Asia Library Group blog, 3 April 2013.

Jana Igunma, San San May and Annabel Teh Gallop, Southeast Asian studies

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Meditation is an essential part of Buddhism. It aims to develop mental discipline and to cultivate a wholesome, alert state of mind which eventually results in the practice of Dhamma. Meditation, often combined with chanting methods, helps to reach a mental state of happiness (piti) which is one of the Seven Factors of Enlightenment (satta bojjhanga), which are: mindfulness, investigation, effort, happiness, tranquility, concentration, and equanimity.

Happiness in the Buddhist sense, however, should not be misinterpreted as a state of individual happiness or temporary contentment. It cannot be self-centered or selfish but is rather a state of mind that has overcome all desire (tanha) –the principal cause of suffering (dukkha). Dukkha is often described as suffering or pain, but it also refers to impermanence and change, as well as to conditioned states of mind, i.e. being dependent on or affected by something/someone. Meditation is a powerful tool which can overcome such states of mind by focusing in different ways on the body, on emotion, and on the conscious or unconscious mind. Common methods of contemplation can be by breath and body movements, by means of a meditational device (a candle flame, metal object, beads or a mandala drawing), and also through sounds and smells (senses and emotions).

Fragment of a manual of a Buddhist mystic (yogacavara) on meditation practices, including morbid meditations. Or.14447, f 4

Although it is no longer widely practiced, morbid meditation is possibly the most efficient of all meditation practices aiming to overcome conditioned states of the mind and emotion. It is described in the Buddha’s discourse on the practice of mindfulness (Maha Satipatthana Sutta), one of the earliest Buddhist teachings. According to Buddhaghosa, a fifth-century Buddhist scholar who compiled numerous commentaries on the Buddha’s teachings, morbid meditation is explained as follows:

As though he were to see a corpse thrown aside in a charnel ground – one, two, three days dead, bloated, livid, and oozing matter… being devoured by crows, hawks, vultures, jackals, or worms… a skeleton with flesh and blood, held together with sinews… disconnected bones scattered in all directions bones bleached white, the colour of shells… bones, heaped up, more than a year old… bones rotten and crumbling to dust – a monk compares his own body, ‘this body too is of the same nature, it will end up like that, it is not exempt from that fate.’ In this way, he abides contemplating the body as body… and he abides independent, not clinging to anything in the world. (Skilling, p. 30)

Or.13703, fol. 35

The highest state of meditation is reached when both attraction and repulsion cease to exist: ‘In the arahant, there is neither liking nor disliking: he regards all things with perfect equanimity, as did Thera Maha Moggallana when he accepted a handful of rice from a leper.’ (Francis Story).

Morbid meditations are very well documented in Thai manuscript painting. Many manuscripts about the famous monk Phra Malai (see my post ‘A Thai book of merit: Phra Malai’s journeys to heaven and hell’) include one or more scenes of morbid meditations. These manuscripts were often commissioned by families of deceased persons as funeral presentation volumes. The Thai, Lao and Cambodian Collections of the British Library hold over 20 such manuscripts, all of them beautifully illustrated with scenes from the monk’s encounters and his teachings to the lay people.

Illustrations of the monk Phra Malai meditating over corpses. On the left side, he touches the burial cloth of the deceased which is believed to be a method to transfer merit to the dead. Or.14838, fol. 7

In most cases, the meditation scenes in these manuscript paintings depict one monk (in the context of the legend of Phra Malai this would be the monk Phra Malai himself) sitting or standing in meditation near one or more decaying corpses. The monk is usually shown with one or more of his paraphernalia such as a fan, an alms bowl, an umbrella or a walking stick. The walking stick fulfils various purposes: to scare away small animals when the monk is walking, or to provide support during seating or standing meditation, but sometimes the monk can be seen touching a corpse with his walking stick in order to transfer merit to the deceased while meditating.

Illustrations showing two corpses, one being eaten by animals and the other wrapped in a sheet made from bamboo sticks, with the monk Phra Malai touching the wrapped body with his walking stick. Or.13703, f 9

The bodies of the dead are usually shown bloated and in a greyish colour, often with wounds discharging blood and pus, wide eyes, and in an obvious state of decay. Sometimes animals can be seen feeding on the corpses.

Lay people practising morbid meditation as shown in a Phra Malai manuscript. Or.14559, fol. 73

It is not only monks who are shown practising morbid meditation in Thai manuscript paintings. The story of Phra Malai includes a scene where the monk teaches lay people what he has heard from Metteya, the future Buddha, about what will happen to mankind. While violent humans kill each other, those who follow the Dhamma – lay people and monks alike - will hide in caves meditating, and in some cases meditating over corpses until the fighting is over.

Further Reading

Brereton, Bonnie Pacala. Thai Tellings of Phra Malai: Texts and Rituals concerning a Popular Buddhist Saint. Tempe, Ariz.: Arizona State University, 1995
Maha Satipatthana Sutta: the Great Discourse on the Foundations of Mindfulness, with notes by Michael Potter on a 14 tape commentary by Bhikkhu Bodhi
Skilling, Peter. “The aesthetics of devotion: Buddhist arts of Thailand”. In Enlightened ways: The many Streams of Buddhist Art in Thailand. Singapore: Asian Civilisations Museum, 2012, pp. 18-31
Soma Thera. The Way of Mindfulness: the Satipatthana Sutta and its Commentary, 1998
Story, Francis. Buddhist Meditation: the Anagarika Sugatananda, 1995

Jana Igunma, Asian and African Studies

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A Thai book of merit: Phra Malai's journeys to heaven and hell

Among the Persian treasures recently digitised with the generous support of the Iran Heritage Foundation is a fine illustrated copy (BL Add. 7735) of Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr (‘Speech of the Birds’), a Sufi allegory of the quest for God. Links to the three previous posts on this work are given below in this, the last in the series, which discusses the final three miniature paintings (see Titley, p. 35) and the accompanying text, in relation to ‘Aṭṭār’s poem and some of its principal themes.

As regards the date of Add. 7735 and the style of its miniatures, there are certain points of similarity with a copy of Manṭiq al-ṭayr completed in 860/1456, probably at Herat. This manuscript is preserved at the Staatsbibliothek, Berlin, and has been fully digitised (see Ms. or. oct. 268). In this Berlin Manṭiq al-ṭayr the shading and contours of the landscapes are occasionally comparable, though the sky is invariably gold rather than blue. The figures are drawn with less assurance and are much less animated. Again, there are contrasts as well as similarities between the respective treatments of, for example, Shaykh Ṣan‘ān espying the Christian maiden (Ms. or. oct. 268, f 49r, compare Add.7753, f 49r), and the prince with the beggar at the gallows (Ms. or. oct.268, f 174r, compare Add.7735, f 181v below). Finally, there is no imaginative use of the margins. On balance, therefore, one is still inclined to favour a considerably later date for Add. 7735 (see my first post).

The king is admonished by an ascetic (BL Add.7735, f 91r)

The inevitability of death is, as we have seen, one of ‘Aṭṭār’s main themes. This miniature, folio 91r (ed. Gawharīn, p. 120), shows a king, who has summoned all and sundry to admire his new palace, receiving a sharp admonition from an unimpressed ascetic. Despite its flawless appearance, there is an invisible fissure in one wall through which ‘Azrā’īl, the Angel of Death, will one day enter to collect the king’s soul.

Everybody was coming from every land
    to pay homage, bringing trays filled with largesse.
The king summoned the wise men and courtiers
    to his presence, and seated them on a dais.
‘Never shall this palace of mine,’ said he,
    ‘be matched in beauty or in perfection.’
All declared that on the face of the Earth
    none had seen its like, and none ever would.
An ascetic stood up, and said ‘Fortunate One,
     there is one fissure here, and it is a grave fault.
Had your palace no flaw in the shape of that chink,
    you could give Heaven’s castles away for it.’
Said the monarch, ‘No rift have I seen in it;
     you’re making trouble out of ignorance.’
‘You who are so proud to be king’ said the sage,
     ‘there’s a crack there, wide open for ‘Azrā’īl…’

Sultan Maḥmūd of Ghazna is waylaid by an importunate beggar (BL Add.7735, f 151r)

Another favourite theme is the fate of those who fall passionately in love with someone completely unattainable. For ‘Aṭṭār, the case of God's true lovers is similar. In the story illustrated on folio 151r (ed. Gawharīn, p. 191), Sultan Maḥmūd of Ghazna and his page Ayāz are waylaid by an importunate beggar who is infatuated with Ayāz. He announces to the Sultan that the two of them are alike, in that both are like polo balls struck this way and that by the mallet of passionate love for Ayāz – and if the Sultan were a truly devoted lover, he too would be happy to sacrifice his life for his beloved. Having spoken these words, the beggar collapses and dies at the feet of his beloved.

He said, ‘While I’m alive I’m not destitute yet:
    I’m a fake and not worthy of this assembly.
But if I fling my life away for love’s sake,
    flinging life away is the sign of the bankrupt.
Where, Maḥmūd, is the reality of love in you?
    Fling your life away – or drop your claim to love!’
Thus he spoke, and his spirit departed this world –
    gave his life in a trice for his loved one’s face.

A prince rescues a beggar from the gallows (BL Add.7735, f 181v)

The same theme recurs in the final illustrated excerpt, folio 181v (ed. Gawharīn, p. 227). A beggar  who has publicly declared that he is in love with a prince receives a visit from him. The king, his father, orders that the importunate man be executed; but once his vizier has described his wretched and helpless condition the king relents and sends the prince to go and sit with the poor man, comfort him, and bring him to the royal presence. The beautiful prince hastens to the rescue of his unintended victim, who lies prostrate at the gallows. ‘Aṭṭār tells us:

At this point, [readers,] let go for sheer joy.
    and dance about, waving your hands and feet.
That prince finally came to the foot of the gallows;
    a tumult like the Resurrection arose.
That beggar he saw in a state like death –
    saw him fallen headlong onto the dust…

But our happiness for the reprieved lover is short-lived. No sooner has the prince exchanged a few words with him than the beggar, overwhelmed with joy and rapture at having finally seen and spoken with his beloved, utters a loud cry and dies.

In concluding this series of postings, this question come to mind: what are we to make of the choice of episodes for illustration in this elegant copy of Manṭiq al-ṭayr, a work rarely illustrated?

Of the nine miniatures in Add. 7735, most accompany tales of death, passion apparently doomed to be thwarted, or a failure of will, the exceptions being those of Shaykh Ṣan‘ān, Sultan Mas‘ūd as a fisherman, and the man rescued from idolatry. Very probably the subjects were either chosen by the patron or by the artist(s), or else in consultation between them. The preoccupation with death may, then, reflect the mindset of one or both parties, or a concern that the wealthy patron be reminded of such matters; or it may be a matter of subconscious inclination. There is no point in speculating further; but it may be relevant to point to the discussions of ‘Aṭṭār and his treatment of the darker and lighter sides of death in Ritter’s major study and in an article by the present writer (see below, ‘Further reading’).

In ‘Aṭṭār’s eyes, all of humankind are beggars in need of the help and mercy of a king before whom we are nothing – unless we have love and adoration for Him, in which case divine compassion is bound to embrace us in the Hereafter. In the world’s quest literature, often the hero(ine) must descend into realms of darkness before reaching the light and fulfilling his or her quest. Where ‘Aṭṭār, in his allegories of self-transcendence, takes us with the soul-birds into darkness, he does so in order to bring us to back to the divine Sīmurgh and to a greater, and everlasting, light.

Translations by Muhammad Isa Waley

Further reading
‘Aṭṭār, Farīd al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm. Manṭiq al-ṭayr (Maqāmāt al-ṭuyūr). Ed. and comm. Sayyid Ṣādiq Gawharīn. Tehran, 1342/1963.

Attar, Farid ud-Din. The Conference of the Birds. Tr. Afkham Darbandi and Dick Davis. London, 1984. New illustrated edition: The Canticle of the Birds by Farîd-ud-Dîn‘Attâr: Illustrated through Persian and Eastern Islamic Art, Paris 2014.

Lukens, Marie G. ‘The Fifteenth-Century miniatures”. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Series 25, no. 9: The Language of the Birds (May, 1967), pp. 317-38.

Ritter, Helmut. The Ocean of the Soul: men, the world and God in the stories of Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār. Tr. J. O’Kane. Leiden, 2003.

Stchoukine, I. et al., Illuminierte Handschriften (Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland 16). Wiesbaden 1971.

Titley, N.M. Miniatures from Persian manuscripts. London, 1974.

Waley, M. I.  ‘Didactic style and self-criticism in ‘Aṭṭār.’ In: ‘Attar and the Persian Sufi Tradition: The Art of Spiritual Flight, ed. L. Lewisohn and C. Shackle. London, 2007.

Muhammad Isa Waley, Asian and African Studies

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Mantiq al-tayr ('the Speech of Birds'), part 3

Mantiq al-tayr ('the Speech of Birds'), part 2

'The Speech of the Birds': an illustrated Persian manuscript