Asian and African studies blog

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

Related articles

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

31 January 2014 is the first day of the Year of the Horse, according to the traditional lunisolar Chinese Calendar.  According to this system years are counted in a series of sixty-year cycles, each identified by a combination of two Chinese characters – the first from a cycle of ten known as the Heavenly Stems representing the elements – wood, fire, earth, metal and water, the second from a cycle of twelve known as the Earthly Branches represented by animals: rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, cock, dog and pig.

People born in each of these years are traditionally believed to display particular characteristics –those born in the Year of the Horse, for example, are said to be passionate, talented, adventurous and independent but also self-centred and headstrong.

The Chinese Calendar was widely used in East and at various times was adopted in Japan, Korea, Tibet and Vietnam. In all these cultures the horse had a prominent role in practical life and was widely depicted in art.

Part of a printed almanac from Dunhuang dating from AD 877. Babylonian, Persian and Indian influences can be seen including the animal zodiac. (Or.8210/P.6)

In Chinese culture the horse is an animal that represents health and persistence and the written character for horse 馬 mǎ is found in many metaphors and idioms related to fortune and well-being.  For example, 千里馬 qiān lǐ mǎ (literally: 10,000-mile horse) is a metaphor used for talented people and 馬到成功 mǎ dào chéng gōng (literally: riding to success) is used to wish someone good fortune.

In pre-modern Japan the horse was highly prized by the warrior class and horsemanship was one of the key skills of the Samurai.  The image below is taken from Riō busshoku zusetsu ‘An illustrated explanation of the selection of strong horses and cows’ (Or.15562), an album dated 1647 depicting 97 horses and 14 cows, with anatomical annotations, by Kurosawa Sekisai 黒澤石齋 (1622-1678), an expert adviser on horses to the Tokugawa Shogunate.

A selection of different kinds of horses from the Japanese Riō busshoku zusetsu (Or.15562)

Although the Chinese calendar is not widely used in Thailand, the zodiac is important for fortune-telling. According to Thai horoscopes, people born in the year of the horse almost always achieve prosperity and wealth during their lifetime. They are often successful, but not always kind-hearted. They have to be careful in their thirties, sixties and eighties as there are certain years in which they can face danger or even death. It is important at these times to make much merit (in the Buddhist sense).

Horoscope for those born in the year of the horse (ม้า ma, as in Chinese). This illustration also shows the female avatar for the year of the horse and the banana tree. (Or.13650, f 4r)

Curators of the East Asian Section, Asian and African Studies

Asian and African Studies have just uploaded more than 15,000 images of Persian manuscripts online. This is the result of two years' work in an ongoing project sponsored by the Iran Heritage Foundation together with the Bahari Foundation, the Barakat Trust, the Friends of the British Library, the Soudavar Memorial Foundation and the Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute.


The jackal Dimnah tricks the ox Shanzabah into believing that his former friend the lion had turned against him, and was intending to eat him. From Husayn Va'iz Kashifi’s Anvar-i Suhayli. Mughal, 1610-11 (BL Add.18579, f87v)

The manuscripts were selected for their historical, literary and artistic importance and form part of a three year project to provide digital records of our Persian manuscript collection and images of 50 manuscripts.  We have created a dedicated project page which gives details of all the digitised manuscripts together with links to their images and supporting documentation. This is located at Digital Access to Persian Manuscripts but can also be easily found by clicking on the ‘Persian’ tab at the top of this page.

We’ve already written posts about several of these manuscripts, for example the Jalayirid Khamsah of Khvaju Kirmani (Add18113); Shah Tahmasp’s copy of Nizami’s Khamsah (Or.2265) and the late Timurid Mantiq al-Tayr by Farid al-Din ʻAttar (Add.7735), posts 1, 2 and 3 . We’ll be publishing more during the next few months so please subscribe to our blog (add your email in the box at the top of this page) to keep up with further developments.

Meanwhile, here is a selection from what we’ve digitised so far! Click on the links to go directly to the digitised folio.


The well known story of the hare who tricks the lion into drowning by attacking his own reflection in the well. From Naṣr Allāh Munshī's Kalīlah va Dimnah dated 707/1307-8 (BL Or.13506, f 52v)

The opening of Timur’s grandson Iskandar Sultan’s pocket encyclopedia containing 23 works. Copied 813-4/1410-11 (BL Add.27261, ff 2v-3r)




The fire-ordeal of Siyavush. From Firdawsi’s Shahnamah, Shiraz Safavid style, dating from the 16th century (BL IO Islamic 3540, f 98r)


 

The dragon outside its mountain cave explaining to Darab that it had been sent by God as His servant on earth. Artist: Narayan, c.1580-85. From the Darabnamah, a prose romance written in the 12th century by Abu Tahir Tarsusi (BL Or.4615, f112v)



A leaf from the Saddar (‘100 doors’), a popular compilation of 100 rules for Zoroastrians which range from justifying instant death for sodomy to the treatment of good and evil animals, and the avoidance of different forms of pollution. This copy, dated Samvat 1631 (AD 1575), is in Persian language, but transcribed in Avestan (Old Iranian) script, together with a Gujarati translation (BL IO Islamic 3043, f 137r)




Fath ʻAli Shah Qajar with two princes in attendance, receiving Mirza Riza Quli Munshi al-Mamalik. From the Shahanshah namah by Fath ʻAli Khan Saba. Qajar, dated 1225/1810 (BL IO Islamic 3442, f 64v)

Ursula Sims-Williams, Asian and African Studies

The Vietnam War had a substantial impact on those involved, with the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. During the 1960s and 1970s, artists from both sides of the conflict, Vietnamese and American, created paintings to capture the human side of the war.

Weaving. Pastel. Artist: Dương Ðình Khoa. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1969, no.139. British Library, SU216(2)

In June the Army Vietnam Combat Artists programme was established as part of the United States Army Art programme. From August 1966 through to 1970, the U.S. Army sent teams of artists into Vietnam to record their experiences as soldier artists.

In Vietnam, art was also utilised as a propaganda tool to enlist mass support for the war. In the North the Hanoi College of Fine Arts, which was founded by the French in 1925 during the period of colonial rule, played a vital role in training artists during the Vietnam War, while in the South, from 1961 unofficial art classes began in the Resistance or “liberated” areas controlled by the National Liberation Front (NLF) or the Việt Cộng in the Mekong Delta.  From June 1962 patriotic artists from the North volunteered to go to the South to train fellow artists in the liberated zones. From 1964, official art classes started at NLF headquarters (Buchanan 2008: 2, [19]).

Grandmother. Lacquer. Artist: Phạm Viết Song. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1970, no.152. British Library, SU216(2)

Mother heads to the Alert Unit. Silk painting. Aritst: Nguyễn Phan Chánh. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1972, no.167. British Library, SU216(2)

Despite hardships and difficulties during the war, the Vietnam War artists from both the North and the South risked their lives to capture many different aspects and events of the War in various media including paintings, drawings, and sketches. Nguyễn Toan Thi, a guerrilla artist in the South, who after the War became the Director of Hô Chí Minh City Fine Arts Museum, recounts his experiences as follows:  “Art classes were held outside in the forest until our schools were bombed: classes were then held underground. Art teachers and students shared the same trenches. We fought and sketched together, to record spontaneous and realistic images of the battlefield and our life in the forest. Our headquarters were not like a mini-Pentagon. The administration, soldiers and artists lived in nylon and canvas tents under the forest trees … We moved camp every two or three days… As a guerrilla artist, I was fully engaged in the fighting. Unlike artists who were civilians…”  (Nguyễn Toan Thi, “Memories of a Guerrilla Artist”, in Buchanan 2008: [29-30])


Fight till the end. Silk painting. Artist: Cố Tấn Long Châu. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1967, no.115. British Library, SU216(2)

In 1966 the Fine Arts Museum opened in Hanoi and occasionally displayed works from the Vietnam War artists.  In addition to these art exhibitions, the Hanoi regime also published art works in their various official publications.

Although the British Library does not hold original examples of this art work, it has a number of official publications in its Vietnamese collections, which published artworks from the Vietnam War during the 1960s and 1970s. All the pictures shown here were reproduced in Báo Ảnh Việt Nam [SU216(2)], a serial which started publication before the War, and still operates today.


A guerrilla fighter returns to cosy shelter on Route 9. Pastel. Artist: Huỳnh Biếc. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1971, no.159. British Library, SU216(2)

After the battle. Watercolour. Artist: Việt Sơn. Báo Ảnh Việt Nam, 1971, no.161. British Library, SU216(2)

Further reading

Báo Ảnh Việt Nam.  Hà Nội: Thông tấn xã Việt Nam, 195[?]-.  British Library, SU216(2). 

Buchanan, Sherry. Mekong Diaries 1964-1975. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Vietnam behind the lines : images from the war, 1965-1975.  Jessica Harrison-Hall with contributions by Sherry Buchanan, Katharine Lockett, and Thu Stern. London : British Museum Press, 2002.

Two websites on American art and propaganda from the Vietnam War:
http://vietnamwar.cloudworth.com/art-and-propaganda.php
http://reactingtovietnam.wikispaces.com./American+art+of+the+Vietnam+Era

Sud Chonchirdsin
Curator for Vietnamese

The collection of Indian paintings in the former India Office Library’s Prints and Drawings section (now British Library Visual Arts) is famous above all for its individual imperial Mughal and later Mughal paintings, forming a complement to the collection of illustrated Mughal manuscripts that came to the British Library from the British Museum’s collections.  Not so well known are the individual items from other schools of Indian painting, particularly the Rajasthani and Pahari paintings.  The collection of Pahari paintings was very small when described by Toby Falk and Mildred Archer for their seminal 1981 catalogue, and it still is, but this post will pick out the highlights of what was in the collection in 1981 and the paintings acquired subsequently.

We begin with four paintings acquired since the publication of the 1981 catalogue showing the Pahari style in its early form little influenced by Mughal painting.

Mangala, the planet Mars, holding mace and water-pot and unusually riding a tiger.  By a Mankot artist, c.1700-20.  83 by 131 mm; page 107 by 155 mm.  Add.Or.4318, acquired 1986.

Mangala wears a lotus-topped crown, a sprigged dhoti, and a muslin dupatta with flowered ends, and rides facing left on a snarling orange and white tiger.  The ground is a dark red, with a narrow band of cloud-streaked sky at the top and another of green at the bottom; the latter is lightly applied over the dark red ground, and is relieved by clumps of white daisies.  Inscribed above in white takri characters is the name Magala and on the verso is a verse detailing the consequences good or evil of seeing the planet, indicating the painting comes from a dream manual.  The iconography is unusual, since Mangala normally rides a goat. The composition is typical of early Pahari painting with the subject silhouetted against a coloured ground with flowers below and a sky above, but without any indication of space or spatial recession.  Although acquired as from Chamba, subsequent research by Goswamy and Fischer (1992, pp. 95-125) suggests Mankot as a more likely school and possibly from the hand of the artist they designate the ‘Master at the Court of Mankot’.   Our Mangala can be compared with that master’s image of Rama being worshipped by Hanuman in the Rietberg Museum (ibid., no. 52), while the tiger with its fearsome claws is close to that master’s tiger in Vasudeva crossing the Jumna with the infant Krishna in a painting now in Chandigarh (ibid., no. 43).

Rama and Laksmana are pinned by serpentine arrows.  By a Pahari artist from Bahu or Kulu, from the Shangri Ramayana, Style III, circa 1700-10.  186 by 290 mm; page 215 x 316 mm. Add.Or.5696, acquired 2010.

The Shangri Ramayana series is one of the most hotly disputed topics in Pahari painting.  A large part of this loose-leaf series is in the National Museum, New Delhi, but many paintings are also dispersed.  When it was first analysed by W.G. Archer (1973, pp. 325-29), he thought it was prepared at Kulu and discerned four separate styles between 1690 and 1710.  B.N. Goswamy and E. Fischer (1992, pp. 76-91) moved the first two styles to Bahu, an offshoot of Jammu, but this unfortunately left the last two styles in an artistic limbo, since they have absolutely nothing in common with either Bahu or Jammu paintings, and much further research is needed to resolve this.  Wherever it comes from, style III with its wonderfully human monkeys is one of the most exuberant and charming of all the Pahari styles.

Our page is from Book 6, the Yuddhakanda or Lankakanda (Book of Battles or Lanka), of the Ramayana, canto 49.  Ravana's terrifying magician son Indrajit, who has the power to make himself invisible, has successfully ensnared Rama and Laksmana in serpentine coils so that they cannot move and lie on the ground unconscious, their eyes rolled up. On the left stands the monkey king Sugriva who is seeking advice from his nephew Angada and the king of the bears Jambavan as to what to do.  All the other monkeys, including the blue crowned monkey general Nila, are terrified when they see Vibhisana, Ravana's brother, advancing on them with his club.  Vibhisana had previously abandoned his doomed brother and had come over to Rama's side, but the monkeys mistake him for the invisible Indrajit and run away in terror.

This particular artist has a peculiar trick of perspective.  The monkeys are not climbing up over each other in order to escape but are actually in a receding line:  other paintings by this artist show him resolving perspective issues of one person or monkey behind another in the same individual way.  The artist is trying to adjust his inherited style to include depth but he lacks awareness of how to do it.

This archaic style continued in use in several Pahari court styles until late in the 18^th century, even after other styles were becoming increasingly influenced by Mughal painting from the court of Muhammad Shah (reg. 1719-48).

Raja Shamsher Sen of Mandi (reg. 1727-81) enjoying a smoke.  By a Mandi artist, 1760-70.  180 by 207 mm.  Add.Or.5600, acquired 2006.  From the collection of W.G. and Mildred Archer (1967, no. 30).

Raja Shamsher Sen of Mandi is kneeling on a terrace and much enjoying the fragrant smoke from a hookah.  The artist shows the tobacco smoke rising from the hookah’s burning pan before some is drawn down and through the rosewater in the body of the hookah and then emerging from the raja’s mouth.  He is accompanied by a young attendant waving a white cloth (one of the insignia of royalty) and by another tending the hookah, both wearing the long dreadlocks fashionable at the time among young men.  Portraits of rulers sitting on terraces had by this time become standard throughout the various schools of Indian painting, but in Mandi no concession is made to depicting space even though the terrace is now separated from the plain ground beyond.  Shamsher Sen, who inherited the throne from his grandfather, the formidable Sidh Sen at the age of five, was by all accounts a fairly weak and superstitious character and his numerous portraits suggest this.

Raja Ranjit Singh of Suket (reg.1762-1791) with his younger brother Kishan Singh.  By a Kangra artist, c. 1780.  224 by 165 mm.  Add.Or.5601, acquired 2006.   From the collection of W.G. and Mildred Archer (Archer 1973, vol. 1, p. 283, vol. 2, p. 197)

Court artists in Kangra were commissioned to produce a large series of portraits of neighbouring rulers from early in the reign of Sansar Chand (reg. 1775-1823) (Archer 1973, vol. 2, pp. 196-97).  In this portrait, set within a jharoka or window frame, Ranjit Singh reclines against a red bolster and smokes from his hookah.  On the left, his brother Kishan Singh is pictured facing Ranjit Singh.  His figure is much larger in proportion to his brother, no doubt because Kishan Singh was in fact Sansar Chand’s father-in-law.   On the right, an attendant waves a morchhal (peacock-feather fan, another of the insignia of royalty) with his right hand and holds the hilt of a wrapped-up sword in his left.  Although Kangra painting has become synonymous with a naturalistic, elegant and gracious style (see below), this was not the case with its portraiture which even later than this preserved an archaic and hieratic approach.

The marriage ceremony of Vasudeva and Devaki.  Illustration to the Bhagavata Purana.  By a Guler artist at Basohli, possibly Fattu son of Manaku, c. 1760.  227 by 334 mm; page 298 by 403 mm.  Add.Or.1811, acquired 1960 (Falk and Archer 1981, no, 543).

Signs of change first became apparent in Pahari painting in 1730, with the Guler artist Manaku’s Gita Govinda (Lahore and Chandigarh Museums, and dispersed).  He and his brother Nainsukh were both exposed to contemporary Mughal painting and in their different ways in the period 1730-60 introduced stylistic change into the painting of the hills, softening the jagged outlines, moderating the fierce colours, and giving solidity to their figures and depth to their compositions.  The two brothers had six sons between them.  All of them followed the family profession and introduced the new style to the various court studios of the hills. 

A page from what is now called the large Guler-Basohli Bhagavata Purana was acquired in 1960, when 200 or so individual paintings from the set from the collection of Mrs F.C. Smith were dispersed at auction.  This dispersed series of the Bhagavata Purana is one of the most important achievements of Pahari artists and the most influential in determining the development of Pahari painting at Guler and Kangra in the illustration of poetical Vaishnava texts.  It is also among the most controversial, although most authorities agree that Manaku’s son Fattu had a hand in it.

Pahari artists introduced depth into their compositions by raising the viewpoint, so that figures could be depicted one behind the other in some kind of believable spatial setting.  That this did not come naturally to them is suggested by the somewhat awkward wall zigzagging across the picture plane, a feature of quite a few paintings from this series.  Within the high walls of the palace at Mathura and under the night sky, Vasudeva and Devaki, the future parents of Krishna, are married.  They wear the traditional marriage costumes, while the priests facing them add ghee to the sacred fire and chant the Vedic mantras.  They sit side by side beneath a canopy decorated with parakeets. Household ladies and other priests are gathered on either side, while women at the palace windows above look down on the scene or chatter among themselves.

Radha makes love to Krishna in a grove.  An illustration to the Rasikapriya of Keshav Das.  Kangra, c. 1820.  Attributed to Purkhu and his school.  248 by151 mm; page 272 by 177 mm.  Add.Or.26, acquired 1955 (Falk and Archer 1981, no. 548).

Some of the great masterpieces of the new style were produced for Sansar Chand of Kangra early in his reign, including now dispersed series of the Gita Govinda, Bhagavata Purana and Ramayana.  Sansar Chand at the age of 20 in 1786 set out to make himself the preeminent chief in the hills and was indeed so by 1806, with most of the rajas paying him tribute.  In that year occurred the disastrous Gurkha invasions from Nepal when Kangra was overrun and Sansar Chand was forced to appeal to Maharaja Ranjit Singh of the Punjab for assistance.  It was granted and the Gurkhas were expelled by 1809, but at the price of Sansar Chand having from then on to release the other states from paying tribute and indeed having to pay tribute himself to the Lahore court. 

Sansar Chand from then on lived more in retirement, but still commissioning paintings.  The first flush of brilliance in the style had passed and was replaced by a more mannered but still lyrical elegance.   Typical of this period is a very large dispersed series from around 1820 illustrating the Hindi text on poetics, the Rasikapriya, by Keshav Das.  This work classifies the various types of heroines and their lovers and proved irresistible to patrons and artists alike as a way of combining sringara rasa, the erotic sentiment of classical poetic theory, with the bhakti movement of personal devotion to Krishna, since the lover in the pictures was often identified with Krishna himself.  Goswamy and Fischer now attribute the series to the artist Purkhu with assistants (2011).

The painting illustrates the verse 1.20, prachanna-samyoga-sringara (‘hidden love in union’):

‘One day Vrishabhanu’s daughter [Radha] and Murari [Krishna] decided to hide in the forest and engage in reverse love  play.  Fully immersed in each other and groaning with pleasure they were fully enjoying each other.  During the amorous acitivity Radha’ sapphire-studded pendant tied round her neck with a black thread was moving and it seemed as Surya and Saturn were swinging’ (translated Harsha Dehejia, 2013).

In our painting in a blossoming grove by a pool, Radha, wearing a flowing pink gown, makes love to Krishna who dressed in saffron lies beneath her.   Sansar Chand was visited in 1820 by the traveller William Moorcroft whose manuscript journals and letters are in the British Library and quoted extensively by Archer (1973) for his assessment of Sansar Chand and his patronage of artists:  ‘He is fond of drawing, keeps several artists who execute the minute parts with great fidelity but are almost wholly ignorant of perspective.  His collection of drawings is very great … Many subjects from the Mahabharut are given in details, some of which for decency’s sake might have been spared, yet there were few of the latter description’ (MSS Eur D241, f. 67, quoted Archer 1973, vol. 1, pp. 262-63).

Further reading:

Archer, Mildred, Indian Miniatures and Folk Painting from the Collection of Mildred and W.G. Archer, London, 1967

Archer, W.G., Indian Painting from the Punjab Hills, London, 1973

Dehejia, Harsha V., Rasikapriya: Ritikavya of Keshavdas in Ateliers of Love, DK Printworld, New Delhi, 2013

Falk, T., and Archer, M., Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library, Sotheby Parke Bernet, London, 1981

Goswamy, B.N., and Fischer, E., Pahari Masters: Court Painters of Northern India, Delhi, 1992

Goswamy, B.N., and Fischer, E., ‘Purkhu of Kangra’ in Beach, M.C., Fischer, E., and Goswamy, B.N., Masters of Indian Painting, Artibus Asiae, Zurich, 2011, pp. 719-32

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

In 1970 the British Museum purchased a small illustrated Balinese palm leaf manuscript from a vendor, who last week – nearly 44 years later! – contacted the British Library to say “As a matter of fact the MS was missing a page, because I had given it to my then girlfriend.  Recently I saw her again, and she returned the page, which I think ought to be reunited with the whole.”  And so last Wednesday I met Clive Sinclair, renowned author (his latest book, Death & Texas will be published in London next month by Peter Halban) and in fact no stranger to the British Library, where he was Penguin Writers Fellow in 1996.  In the course of sorting out his literary archive, which has been acquired by the Lilly Library at Indiana University, Clive had rediscovered the palm leaf folio and, very generously, resolved to bring it back into the fold of its family.  


Clive Sinclair with the Balinese palm leaf (lontar) manuscript of Sutasoma Kakawin (Or.13277), together with the framed fourth folio, now reunited with its siblings.  Photo by A.T. Gallop, 15.1.2014.

Clive Sinclair had bought the manuscript, at the time described as a ‘Chinese book’, in Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley, California, in early 1970.  The manuscript originally consisted of eight numbered palm leaves with illustrations – incised with a sharp knife and then inked with black ink – on one side, and brief explanations in Balinese on the reverse, between two bamboo covers.  The fourth leaf was given to his girlfriend, who had it framed as an artwork in its own right.  It subsequently travelled with her to Australia and on to South Africa, before coming back to London only recently.  

The seven leaves acquired by the British Library in July 1970 were given the shelfmark Or.13277.  The manuscript – which was probably written within a few decades of its purchase – narrates an episode from the Balinese version of the Sutasoma Kakawin, an Old Javanese Buddhist court poem perhaps dating from the 14th century, remotely related to the Maha-sutasoma-jataka.  The illustrations depict the arrival of Prince Sutasoma on the island Gili Mas [Small Gold Isle] in a lake at Benares, to wed the Princess Candravati, sister of King Dasabahu.  Archived correspondence shows that the then Keeper of the Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books of the British Museum, Dr G.E. Marrison, had enthusiastically set about getting the greatest experts in Balinese literature to work on the manuscript.  He first contacted Dr C. Hooykaas, Reader in Old Javanese at the School of Oriental and African Studies, who in 1968 had published a facsimile edition of the British Museum’s finest illustrated Balinese manuscript, Bagus Umbara (Or. 12579).  Hooykaas in turn had consulted Prof. Ensink of Groningen, an expert on the Sutasoma story, and eventually sent Marrison in August 1970 a full reading of the Balinese text found on each leaf, together with an English translation.  As these notes do not appear ever to have been published, they are presented here alongside a picture of each illustrated leaf, together with an image of the reverse of the first leaf to show the Balinese writing.


Or.13277, f.1r & f.1v. Puniki Gili Mas, sami kuri, umah, priyangan kayu-2, sami khmas, kahilehi tlagā, mmageṅ bvaya mahā yan, tan dadi kanak mrika. ‘This represents Gili Mas, gates, houses, chapels/temples, trees, all of them golden, encircled by a lake; great crocodiles, it is forbidden with the result that people do not go thither.’


Or.13277, f.2r. Sampun pada ravuh riṅ Gili Keñcana, Sraṅ Devi Pramésvari, Devi Candravati, taṅkil inṅ  i raka, Saṅ Prabhu Dasabahu, Saṅ Sutasoma. ‘All have arrived at Gili Mas; the two Devi pay homage to Sang Prabhu Dasabahu and Sang Sutasoma.’


Or.13277, f.3r. I bvaya, dadi raksasa, ṅuniṅayaṅ dévanya, pacaṅ dadi kreteg, sareṅ papat, riṅ Saṅ Sutasoma. ‘The crocodiles, having become monsters, inform their god that the four of them will become a bridge on behalf of Sutasoma.’


Or. 13277, f.4r.  This is the well-travelled leaf, now restored to its correct position in the manuscript.  Although the text on the reverse has not yet been read, the scene evidently shows the crocodiles of f.3 in their guise as monsters.


Or.13277, f.5r. I bvaya sampun dadi kṛteg ka Gili Keñcana. ‘The crocodiles have been transformed into a bridge leading to Gili Mas.’


Or.13277, f.6r. Vidyadhari kahutus, maṅda luṅa ka Gili Keñcana, dadi juru hyas, pavaraṅan, Saṅ Hyaṅ Buddha. ‘The heavenly nymph goes to Gili Mas to be a chamber maid; conversation; Lord God Buddha.’


Or.13277, f.7r. Vidyadhari bluṅa ka Gili Keñcana, dadi juru hyas. ‘The heavenly nymph goes to Gili Mas to be a chamber maid.’


Or.13277, f.8r. Devi Saci, vidyadhari, luṅha ka Gili Keñcana. 'Devi Saci and the heavenly nymph on their way to Gili Mas.’

Further reading

C. Hooykaas, Bagus Umbarara, Prince of Koripan.  The story of a Prince of Bali and a Princess of Java, illustrated on palm leaves by a Balinese artist, with Balinese text and English translation.  [Or. 12579].  London: British Museum, 1968.

Raechelle Rubinstein, ‘Leaves of palm: Balinese lontar’ in: Illuminations: the writing traditions of Indonesia: featuring manuscripts from the National Library of Indonesia, ed. by Ann Kumar and John H. McGlynn.  New York: Weatherhill; Jakarta: Lontar Foundation, 1996, pp.129-154.

Annabel Teh Gallop
Lead Curator, Southeast Asia

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Among the treasures recently digitised thanks to the generous support of the Iran Heritage Foundation is a fine illustrated copy (BL Add. 7735) of Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār’s famous poem Manṭiq al-ṭayr (‘Speech of the Birds’), a Sufi allegory of the quest for God. The first posting in this series introduced the poem and discussed some textual and artistic features of the manuscript. The second examined three illustrations while, this, the third in the series, examines three more miniatures and the accompanying text, in relation to ‘Aṭṭār’s poem and some of its principal themes.


British Library Add. 7735, folio 68r

The skilful and atmospheric painting on folio 68r (ed. Gawharīn, p. 93) illustrates one of the more charming stories in the Manṭiq al-ṭayr, in which Sultan Mas‘ūd of Ghazna, son of the redoubtable Maḥmūd, is depicted helping a poor orphan to catch fish. The miniature, too, is attractive although it is slightly discoloured and the setting is less ambitious than that of most Bihzād school paintings (see my earlier post). In both the catalogue description by Norah Titley (Miniatures, p. 35) and the brief mention of the episode by Helmut Ritter in his vast study of ‘Aṭṭār, the royal protagonist is misidentified as Maḥmūd rather than Mas‘ūd.

The sad-faced boy needs fish to feed himself and his six siblings. Mas‘ūd, whose name means ‘fortunate’, catches a hundred fish for him but declines the half share of the catch which the boy offers him. Next day the Sultan sends for the boy, having found him to be a sincere friend, who unlike some of his courtiers asks nothing of his king – and shares his throne with him.

While galloping his grey horse as fast as the wind,
  he espied a child sitting by a river,
with a net cast into the flowing stream.
  The King greeted and sat down next to him.
The youngster sat there despondently;
  he was sore of heart and weary of soul.
Said [the King], ‘Why are you so sorrowful?
  I never saw anyone as mournful as you!’
The youngster replied: ‘O most virtuous Prince,
  we are seven children, now fatherless.
We have a mother, who’s unable to move;
  she is so very poor, and all alone.
Every day I cast out a net for fish;
  until nightfall I stay here at my post.
If I catch one fish, with a hundred pains,
  that’s our food until the next night, great Prince.’
Said the King, ‘O dejected child, would you like
  me to join in and be partners with you?’
The youngster was happy to be his partner;
  the king began casting the net in the stream.

British Library Add. 7735, folio 75v

The mysteriousness of Providence features once again in the passage in ‘Aṭṭār’s poem to which folio 75v relates (ed. Gawharīn, pp. 102-3). One night the Angel Gabriel (Jibril) hears from on high the cries of a worshipper whom he takes to be a person of great purity of soul. Unable to locate that individual, the Angel seeks directions from God, Who directs him to a temple in Rūm, or Asia Minor. There Gabriel finds a man from whom the imprecations are emanating, and he is kneeling before a golden idol. Deeply puzzled that such a pure-sounding prayer should come from an idolater, Gabriel implores God for an explanation. The response is that the man is the victim of his own ignorance, that he is to be pardoned, and that by Divine Providence this idolater will be guided to true faith.

Jibrīl went, and espied him, plain to see,
  imploring that idol most plaintively.
Jibrīl, perturbed at such goings-on,
  returned to [God’s] Presence, scandalized;
then, opening his mouth, he said: ‘You Who need naught,
  unveil this mystery for my sake.
A man in a temple – addressing an idol!
  Do You respond to him with kindness?’
God Most High said: ‘He has a blackened heart.
  Knowing not, he has erred in the path he’s taken.’

British Library Add. 7735, folio 84r

In the previous illustration the Archangel flies, or hovers, in the margin of the page. Likewise, this painting on folio 84r (ed. Gawharīn, p. 112), which like many Persian miniatures ‘reads’ from right to left, makes imaginative use of the space beyond the text frame. The subsidiary characters are at the centre, while the main ones leap into the margin and almost, as it were, off the page. The artist has brought the text to life with charm and inventiveness.

By contrast, however, this vignette from Manṭiq al-ṭayr exemplifies ‘Aṭṭār’s sometimes grim sense of humour. Narrated in just four couplets, it is a tale of two foxes whose happy life together comes to an abrupt end when a king (thus in ‘Aṭṭār’s text – but the artist has painted a young, beardless prince, accompanied by an older huntsman) appears on the scene, hunting with a falcon and cheetah. The second couplet of the four in this passage, which mentions the royal hunter’s arrival, is mysteriously missing from the text in our manuscript. A number of other omissions from Add. 7735 were mentioned in the first posting in this series.

Two foxes met and became companions;
  then a couple, living a fine life together.
[A king came to their land with a falcon and cheetah,
   parting those two foxes from one another.]
The vixen asked the dog, ‘O bolt-hole seeker,
  do tell me, please: where shall we meet again?’
Said he, ‘Even if we survive for a while,
  it will be in town – in the furriers’ shop!’

ʻAṭṭār’s contemporaries in northeastern Iran had experienced extreme and bloody upheavals even before the horror of the Mongol invasion in the early 7th/13th century. They would probably not have been surprised at the fact that the theme of the nearness of death looms large in his poetry – any more than we are surprised that the same is true of many of those who seven centuries later found themselves fighting in a Great War, a ‘War to end all Wars.’

Follow this link to see the whole manuscript on the British Library's digitised manuscripts site, and keep in touch with further developments at @BLAsia_Africa.

(Translations by M.I. Waley)

Further reading
‘Aṭṭār, Farīd al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm. Manṭiq al-ṭayr. 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.
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.
Titley, N.M. Miniatures from Persian manuscripts. London, 1974.

Muhammad Isa Waley, Asian and African Studies

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

Mildred Archer’s catalogue in 1972 of the Company drawings in the then India Office Library established a whole new area of research for scholars of Indian painting.  Her chapter on Delhi artists is especially valuable, since the works of artists she knew mostly only by name such as Khairallah, Ghulam Murtaza Khan, Ghulam ‘Ali Khan and Mazhar ‘Ali Khan have over the succeeding decades been discovered and published.  All of these artists have been influenced to some degree by European techniques and compositions.  Archer also wrote in 1972 (p.171):  ‘A few of the Delhi artists even painted on canvas in oils.  Jivan Ram was extremely versatile and could work in a number of styles and techniques.’  It proved possible during the last twenty years to flesh out Archer’s brief mention of Jivan Ram with the acquisition of some important works for the India Office Library’s Prints and Drawings collection (now British Library Visual Arts) and to expand the known range of his accomplishments.  This blog introduces a new acquisition by Jivan Ram and is a foretaste of a paper on the artist by the present author to appear in the electronic BLJ.

Jivan Ram is in fact well known from literary sources.  There is a long passage in William Sleeman’s Rambles and Recollections (London, 1844, vol. ii, pp.285-7) referring to the artist in 1834:  ‘Rajah Jewun Ram, an excellent portrait-painter, and a very honest and agreeable person, was lately employed to take the Emperor's portrait.’  Although the painting is not now known, a preliminary drawing survives, acquired by the India Office Library in 1971 just after the Archer catalogue had been sent to press.  This is a brush drawing in appearance much like a European portrait.  It appears from the truncation and the background shading to have been intended as the basis of a portrait miniature.

The Mughal Emperor Akbar II (1806-37).  By Jivan Ram, Delhi, c.1834.  Brush drawing with wash and some colour on paper.  20 by 15 cm.  Add.Or.3167.

When an actual oil painting signed by Jivan Ram appeared in 1993, it was swiftly acquired.  This painting is a small three-quarter length portrait in oils on canvas of Captain Robert McMullin (1786-1865), of the East India Company’s Bengal Native Infantry, signed Jewan Ram on the front and dated 1827.  Jivan Ram had obviously seen and been inspired by some of George Chinnery’s portraits.  This was published in a small exhibition catalogue (J.P. Losty, Of Far Off Lands and People:  Paintings from India 1783-1881, Indar Pasricha Fine Art exhibition catalogue, London, 1993).

Two years later in 1995 another small half-length portrait in oils appeared of another army officer, Captain William Garden (1790-1852), again signed and dated 1827 and this time inscribed on the back as having been executed at Delhi.  Here the manner is more akin to that of Robert Home.

Captain William Garden.  By Jivan Ram, Delhi, 1827.  Oil on canvas.  36 by 31 cm.  Signed and dated on front:  Jeewun Ram 1827.  British Library, F882.

Garden was attached to the suite of Lord Combermere (Commander-in-Chief 1825-30), when the British successfully intervened in Bharatpur in 1825-26 to restore the infant Maharaja Balwant Singh to the throne.  Garden was then attached to the suite of Lord Amherst (Governor-General 1823-28) in his tour of the Upper Provinces in 1826-7.  Amherst visited Akbar II in Delhi in 1827 and it must have been then that Jivan Ram painted Garden’s portrait also.

At this period Jivan Ram was based in Delhi and then around 1827 seems to have moved to Meerut where Sleeman says he was based.  His principal clientele was army officers especially after the successful conclusion to the Bharatpur war.  He had no competition from British artists in upper India at this time.  A few years later in the 1830s we find him working for the famous Begum Samru of Sardhana (1745-1836), whose palace was decorated with some twenty of his oil paintings.  In 1893 they were sold;  some were bought for Government House, Allahabad, while others wound up in the Indian Institute, subsequently in the Bodleian Library, in Oxford.  They are all described in Sir Evan Cotton’s The Sardhana Paintings at Government House, Allahabad (Allahabad, 1934), while the Bodleian’s paintings along with the Library’s and others by or attributed to Jivan Ram in public collections in the UK may be seen at http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/search/painted_by/jayun-ram.

In addition to his oil paintings, Jivan Ram was also a painter of miniature portraits on board and ivory.  In another literary reference to Jivan Ram, Emily Eden’s refers to the artist in glowing terms (Up the Country, London, 1866, vol. i, pp.33-4).  She was staying in 1838 at Meerut with her brother George Lord Auckland (Governor-General 1836-42), and her sister Fanny:  ‘I treated myself to such a beautiful miniature of W[illiam] O[sborne, her nephew]. There is a native here, Juan Ram, who draws beautifully sometimes, and sometimes utterly fails, but his picture of William is quite perfect. Nobody can suggest an alteration, and as a work of art it is a very pretty possession. It was so admired that F[anny, her sister] got a sketch of G[eorge] on cardboard, which is also an excellent likeness.’.

So miniature portraits by Jivan Ram on ivory might be expected to surface, but it was not until 2006 that the Library was able to acquire a signed and dated example.  Subsequently another two were acquired:  all three of them are dated 1824 (Add.Or.5605, 5636, 5637).  Another more ambitious miniature signed and dated 1826 appeared at Bonham’s, London, in November 2013 and this has now been acquired by the Library.  This is a standing three-quarter length portrait of Lieutenant Gervase Pennington (1795-1835), dressed in the uniform of the 3rd Bengal Horse Artillery.  

Lieutenant Gervase Pennington, 3rd Bengal Horse Artillery. By Jivan Ram, Meerut or Delhi, 1826.   Gouache on ivory.  16 by 11.5 cm.  Add.Or.5726

This is set in an interior with a view to a landscape outside through arched embrasures.  Pennington adopts a military swagger pose with one hand on his hip, the other on his sword, while his crested helmet is beside him.  Pennington was Adjutant to the 3rd Brigade Bengal Horse Artillery from 1825 to 1832 and along with his regiment was involved in the Siege of Bharatpur in 1825-26, which would have brought him into Jivan Ram’s ambit.

The Library’s paintings and miniatures by Jivan Ram are limited to those of the 1820s, while the Bodleian’s portraits carry the story forward to 1835.  No miniature has yet appeared from his work in the late 1830s corresponding to Emily Eden’s enthusiastic description.  Jivan Ram boldly essayed the techniques and style of European portraits and set himself up as a portrait painter without a patron.  He is not of course among the greatest of Indian artists, even in the nineteenth century.  Yet they are undeniably charming examples of the art of portraiture. Not until more signed and dated work appears will it be possible to provide a definitive account of one of the most interesting Indian artists of the nineteenth century.

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