Asian and African studies blog

Among the treasures recently digitised thanks to the generous support of the Iran Heritage Foundation is an illustrated copy (BL Add. 7735) of one of the most famous works in all classical Persian literature: Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr (‘Speech of the Birds’), a Sufi allegory of the quest for God.

In Manṭiq al-ṭayr, ‘Aṭṭār describes how the hoopoe, leader of the birds, tries to persuade them to set out on a quest to find the Sīmurgh, the supreme and immortal Bird who here symbolises the Creator. Most of the birds produce reasons why they cannot – or will not – undertake the perilous journey. Finally the hoopoe sets out with a few companions. Traversing seven valleys, which represent stages of the mystical Path, the thirty birds (sī murgh) finally encounter the object of their search, the Sīmurgh. Losing their illusory separative identities in the beatific vision, they find everlasting fulfilment.

Such is the narrative framework; but as in his other didactic works in masnavī form (rhyming couplets), ‘Aṭṭār intersperses many moral and instructive tales touching on the main themes of the poem. These include spiritual and earthly love and passion; faith and disbelief; death and the transitory nature of life in this world; and the ways in which ‘worlds collide’ in encounters between people who because of their respective positions in life are divided by a gulf that at times appears – and is surely intended by the author to be – partially analogous to that between the Creator and His creation. For that is one of the predominant leitmotifs in the illustrations to our manuscript. A future posting will look at the subjects of the paintings and their relationship to ‘Aṭṭār’s didactic messages.

First page of Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr.  British Library, Add.7735, f.1v.

What is now Add. 7735 was acquired by the British Museum in 1825 by Act of Parliament from the estate of Claudius James Rich (1787-1821), British Resident at Baghdad and a discriminating collector of some 806 Islamic manuscripts, all now in the British Library. The previous history of this manuscript is almost completely unknown; firstly because it is now incomplete and has no colophon, and secondly because any other evidence has been lost through the removal of any folios at the beginning or end of the volume which did not contain text. Folio 1r has several ownership inscriptions; all, however, date from the 12th/18th century.

An interesting feature of this manuscript which has hitherto escaped attention is the omission of a number of the stories that occur near the end of the poem. As Dick Davis, whose translation omits the epilogue, has remarked, it is anticlimactic. Indeed, its omission from Add. 7735 would have been more understandable for the sake of literary effect. But comparison with pp. 253-8 of the critical edition by Sayyid Ṣādiq Gawharīn, to whose memory this posting is dedicated, shows that the manuscript, which has matching catchwords and no missing text folios, lacks six consecutive stories altogether, then resumes with the last three tales about the Seljuk vizier Niẓām al-Mulk (ed. Gawharīn, p. 258), the Prophet Solomon, and the famous Khurāsānian Sufi Abū Sa‘īd of Mihana. The epilogue text ends as in Gawharīn (p. 259), leaving about 40% of the text area free for the colophon that was never added.

Last page of Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr.  British Library, Add.7735, f.208r.

Further textual omissions appear to have been avoided by the calligrapher who copied the manuscript writing in a smaller hand to compensate for want of space. A total of 18 extra bayts (couplets) were fitted into the lengthy story of a king who killed his vizier’s son out of jealousy (cf. ed. Gawharīn p. 238-43): 3 bayts on 195v, 3 + 3 on 196r, 3 on 197r, 3 on 197v, and 3 on 198r. Further scrutiny may perhaps bring further actual omissions from Add. 7735 to light.

Manṭiq al-ṭayr, with six couplets added.  British Library, Add.7735, f.196r.

The lack of documentary evidence for the date and region of origin of the manuscript is compensated for, to a limited extent, by the presence of miniature paintings in a style that displays a number of specific influences, and with which the fine nasta‘līq calligraphy and opening illuminated headpiece are consistent. Published descriptions of the paintings describe them as being in what is called the Later Herat style, associated with the patronage of Sultan Ḥusayn Bāyqarā who ruled from that city between 1469 and 1506, and with Kamāl al-Dīn Bihzād (d. 1536), the most famous of all Persian painters. Despite their similarities, however, the miniatures in Add. 7735 differ noticeably from those found, for example, in the British Library manuscripts Add. 25900 and Or. 6810, both copies of Niẓāmī’s Khamsa (‘Five Poems’), and in the superb copy of Sa‘dī’s poem Būstān (Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, Cairo), all produced under Bihzād’s supervision and with his participation. Likewise, they differ from the four contemporary illustrations in the equally magnificent, and Bihzādian, manuscript of ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr (Fletcher Fund, 63.210) preserved at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The miniatures in Add. 7735 do possess some of the charm, compositional flair and atmosphere of the late 15th century masterpieces just referred to; but they are less conceptually ambitious, more restricted in palette, architectural detail and landscape, and lack the magisterial touch of Bihzād. It is known, however, that Bihzād, his star student Shaykhzāda, and a number of other Herat painters were ‘offered’ positions at the court of the Uzbek Shaybānids, based at Bukhara, who conquered the region in 1506. Others joined later, finding themselves no longer comfortable as Sunnīs in Iran under the militantly Shī‘ī Safavid dynasty. These developments ensured the partial continuation of the Later Herat tradition. Given their similarity, in certain respects, to some of the more Herat-influenced Bukhara painting of the first two or three decades of the 16th century, one is tempted to assign the Manṭiq al-ṭayr tentatively to that era.

So far as can be ascertained, our Manṭiq al-ṭayr manuscript has been ‘formally’ exhibited (apart from occasional appearances in the general display of manuscripts in the British Library, and before that in the British Museum) only twice, in 1967 and 1977; and most of the nine miniatures have never been published. Moreover, there are several inaccuracies in the descriptions of their subjects given in Miniatures from Persian Manuscripts, the late Norah Titley’s pioneering and invaluable catalogue and subject index of miniatures in the British Library and British Museum. It therefore seems a worthwhile project to reproduce and discuss them, with reference to ‘Aṭṭār’s text, in a future posting for this blog.

This manuscript is now available in our digitised manuscripts viewer. Follow us on twitter (@BLAsia_Africa) to keep in touch with further developments.

Further reading
‘Aṭṭār, Farīd al-Dīn Muḥammad. 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.
Bahari, Ebadollah. Bihzad, master of Persian painting. London and New York, 1997.
Lukens, Marie G. ‘The Fifteenth-Century miniatures’. Online: Metropolitan Museum of Art in collaboration with JSTOR (PDF downloadable here).
Titley, N.M. Miniatures from Persian Manuscripts. London, 1974.
 
Muhammad Isa Waley, Curator for Persian

Related articles

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

Since the closure of the British Library's exhibition Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire in April 2013, we have had the opportunity to launch facsimile versions of the show first in Kabul, Afghanistan this past summer and now in New Delhi, India this winter. 

The Mughals: Life, Art and Culture has been curated by the British Library and is brought to New Delhi by Roli Books in collaboration with the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. It will be open for public viewing from 22nd November - 31st December 2013.

The exhibition showcases the British Library's extensive collection of illustrated manuscripts and paintings that were commissioned by Mughal emperors and other officials and depict the splendour and vibrant colour of Mughal life. The artwork cover a variety of subject matter; from scenes of courtly life including lively hunting parties and formal portraits of emperor to illustrations of works of literature which manage to convey the complex storylines in a single image, and dramatic panoramas of Indian landscape.

The child Akbar recognizes his mother at Kabul in 1545. This scene, from the Akbarnāmah, takes place in the women’s quarters. Ascribed to Madhu with principal portraits painted by Narsigh, 1602-3. BL Or.12988, f. 114r.

Many of these works have never been published until now. Some of the rare exhibits on display include Shah Jahan's recipe book, 'Notebook of Fragrance', an 18th century manuscript 'Book of Affairs of Love' by Rai Anand Ram Mukhlis, 'Reminiscences of Imperial Delhi by Metcalfe and illustrated by the studio of Mazhar Ali Khan, a route map from Delhi to Qandahar, the earliest Indian atlas, a map of Delhi, and some of the most extraordinary portraits of the Mughal emperors. Being in a library and not a museum, most of the objects are kept in storage and are rarely seen. This exhibition provides a unique opportunity for Indian viewers to be a part of their own history.

Akbar is re-united with his mother after an absence of two years. This scene, from the Akbarnāmah, takes place in the women’s quarters. One of the ladies is almost certainly Gulbadan (Or.12988, f. 114r)   
- See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/asian-and-african/2013/01/a-mughal-princesss-autobiography.html#sthash.f2u8YiAV.dpuf

The exhibition will be inaugurated on Thursday 21 November 2013 by the Honourable Vice President Shri Hamid Ansari as the Chief Guest, with Shri Salman Khurshid, Honourable Minister of External Affairs as the Guest of Honour. A new publication by British Library curators and printed by Roli Books will accompany the show. For the British Library publication, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire by J.P. Losty and Malini Roy, please click here.

Events accompanying the exhibition include:

22 November, 5.30pm     John Falconer, Lead Curator of Visual Arts (British Library)
India in Focus:  Photographs from South Asia

23 November, 5.30pm     William Dalrymple, Author
Painting in Late Mughal Delhi, 1707-1857

27 November, 5.30pm     Dr. Pushpesh Pant, Author, Historian
Food, Culture and the Mughals

29 November, 5.30pm     M.J. Akbar, Journalist, Author
Akbar: The Many Dimensions of Mughal India's Greatest Emperor

At the end of October, CREAM (University of Westminister), South Asian Arts Group (SAAG) and the South Asian Literature Festival (SALF) organised a symposium on the under-researched area of South Asian floor-drawing and mural traditions and their contemporary manifestations. 'From Floor to Ceiling' symposium was held at the University of Westminister with an external trip to view original wall paintings at the British Library.

Participants at the British Library, 25th October 2013

The Library's collection includes several hundred Indian popular or folk paintings produced in various regions across the subcontinent in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The collection includes Kalighat paintings from Calcutta, paintings from Orissa, Mali paintings made in Bihar, as well as Maithil or Madhubhani paintings from Bihar. The viewing session primarily focused on this last group of paintings. 

The Library is best placed to host a session on Maithil and Madhubhani paintings; the art historian who first documented this regional style of art was William G. Archer, the husband of Mildred Archer. Mildred was the Head of Prints and Drawings Section at the India Office Library from 1954-80.

William served in the Indian Civil Service and during their first year of marriage, in 1934, they were stationed in Bihar. Archer was the sub-divisional officer and responsible for documenting the damage caused by a major earthquake in the region. Visiting villages and private homes, Archer discovered murals on the walls of the homes. These drawings were produced by the women of the household to commemorate particular stages in life including the sacred thread ceremony for Brahim boys and marriage. The murals features symbols of fertility and marriage including fishes, turtles, parrots and lotus rings.  Other murals featured Hindu deities including the goddess Lakshmi and the incarnations of Vishnu.

Archer was invited into the homes and permitted to photograph the interiors. Aide-memoires produced using water-colours on multiple sheets of paper glued together were presented to Archer.  Gathering information during the next few years, Archer published his documentation and research on Maithil paintings in the arts magazine Marg in 1949. His research prompted Mrs. Pupul Jayakar of the All India Handicrafts Board to study the folk art traditions in the region in detail. In the late 1960s, when Bihar was struck by famine, Mrs. Jayakar suggested that the local women produce murals on paper that could be sold in New Delhi and provide a revenue stream. The All India Handicrafts Board presented a sets of the works from this project to the Library in 1975.

Participants at the British Library, 25th October 2013

During our viewing session, there were two specific groups of paintings that we examined, with the aim to encourage collaboration and exchange on the under-researched area of mural paintings. The first group included late 19th century drawings by Maithil Kayasth and Maithil Brahim women from the village of Darabhanga, Bihar that were presented to W.G. Archer in 1940. The second group of drawings were commissioned by the All India Handicrafts Board and made by women in Bihar between 1973-75.  All of our folk paintings are listed on our India Office Select Material Catalogue. Visual materials held in our collection can be viewed by appointment in the Asian & African Studies Print Room. Please email [email protected] for an appointment.

To read more about the symposium and learn about recent research on South Asian wall and floor paintings, visit the symposium website.

Bibliography

Mildred Archer, Indian Popular Painting in the India Office Library, 1977

W.G. Archer, "Maithil Paintings", Marg Vol. 3 Issue no. 3, pp. 24-33, 1949

Carolyne B. Heinz, "Deconstructing the Image in Mithila Art", Visual Anthropology Review, no. 2, 22, pp. 5-33, 2007

Jyotindra Jain, Ganga Devi: Tradition and Expression in Mithila Painting, Mapin, 1997

Malini Roy, Visual Arts Curator     @BL_VisualArts

Among the most spectacular of the paintings in the recent British Library exhibition Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire were two of the latest known dated works of Ghulam ‘Ali Khan, showing the court of the last Nawab of Jhajjar, ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan, in 1849 and 1852.

Nawab ‘Abd al-Rahman in his court in hot weather with various musicians and courtiers.  By Ghulam ‘Ali Khan, May-June 1849. British Library, Add.Or.4680.

 
Nawab ‘Abd al-Rahman of Jhajjar in his court in cool weather with his two young sons and various courtiers and attendants.  By Ghulam ‘Ali Khan, dated January-February 1852. British Library, Add.Or.4681.

All the numerous inscriptions identifying the participants in these two durbars were given in the book accompanying the exhibition (see Losty and Roy 2012, pp. 231-32), as well as references to other known works of Ghulam ‘Ali Khan done for the Nawab of Jhajjar, but the identification of the young European officer seated to the left of the Nawab in the 1852 picture was left undecided. His name is given in Persian characters beside him: Alakzandar Hadarli sahib.  He is dressed in a blue coat and cap, and appears to be a political officer of the Bengal civil service dressed in undress military uniform.  Diligent searches, however, of the relevant India Office files and published biographical sources failed to find any mention of any Haderly or Hiderly in any capacity in the military or civil service in the Bengal Presidency.  However, purely by chance, while researching someone else in Beale’s Oriental Biographical Dictionary, my eye fell on the following entry:

‘AZAD, the poetical name of Captain Alexander Hiderley, in the service of the Raja of Alwar.  He was a good poet and left a small Diwan in Urdu.  His father’s name is James Hiderley and his brother’s Thomas.  He died on the 7th of July, , 1861, Zilhajj AH 1277, at Alwar aged 32 years.’

Here was the answer to the problem that had vexed me since the British Library acquired these two paintings in 1994.  Hiderley seated immediately to the Nawab’s left turns out to be good-looking young man of about 22 if Beale is to be relied upon.  Clearly he had no difficulty in sitting in the Indian manner, suggesting that he might not after all be a regular East India Company man.  But if he was in Alwar service as Beale indicates, what was he doing in Jhajjar? Despite his date of death being known, there was no mention of it in the relevant volumes of the Bengal almanacs and directories. 

Detail showing Alexander Hiderley, British Library, Add.Or.4681.

Beale also describes young Alexander as a Captain, which accords with his uniform in this picture.  His absence from the official East India Company records suggested that he was ‘country-born’ with an Indian mother and that he found employment with the nobility round Delhi such as the Maharao Raja of Alwar and the Nawab of Jhajjar.  His literary productions also awaited discovery.  There is for instance no mention of him in Garcin de Tassy’s Histoire or Sprenger’s catalogue of the libraries of Oudh.

Perhaps Beale was transcribing his name from Urdu records and hence was not certain of its exact spelling?  Following this train of thought, a clue was provided in a search of the BACSA records for the Alwar cemetery in the hope that he might have been buried there in 1861 (MSS Eur F370/1329), but this search yielded no Alexander Haderli but instead an Eva Heatherly.  She was buried there in 1892, the wife of a George Heatherly, who was Superintendent of Jails at Alwar and died in 1901 in Delhi aged 60.  Was Hiderly the same as Heatherly, only badly transliterated?  Online genealogical records confirmed this supposition and revealed that George was the son of a Thomas Heatherly, who was the elder brother of Alexander Heatherly Azad (1829-61), our poet and captain.  Thomas too was something of a writer, since a manuscript of his diary in Urdu for 1842-53 is in the Central Reference Library of Delhi University, where he describes himself as in the service of Nawab Qaisar ‘Ali Khan Sahib.  Their father was James Heatherly (1787-1859), as Beale indicates, who turned out to be one of the East India Company’s subordinate officials.  He is described in the East India Registers as a writer or clerk in the customs or commissioner’s office in first Meerut and then Delhi.  He was an uncovenanted civil servant, which suggests that he went to India unofficially as many did to make some kind of career for themselves there.  There were in fact ten children in all, so the elder Heatherly seems to have made himself very comfortable in Meerut with an unnamed Indian woman.

Alexander Heatherly Azad was in fact well known in Delhi poetical circles under his pen-name Azad as a pupil of ‘Arif and he took part in the musha’iras arranged by Bahadur Shah Zafar and the princes.  He is mentioned in Farhatullah Beg’s Dehli ki akhri shama, translated by Akhtar Qamber as The Last Musha’irah of Delhi, as sitting among the 40 poets gathered in the courtyard of a great house for a night of poetry presided over by Mirza Fakhr al-Din, Bahadur Shah Zafar’s favourite son and, under the name Ramz, a fine poet in his own right.  Azad was ‘one of the great poets of the Urdu language’ (Saksena 1941, pp. 73-4).

I quote from The Last Musha’irah (pp. 88-9): “The shama’ [lamp] now came to Azad.  Azad’s own name is Alexander Heatherly.  He is French by nationality [this is obviously wrong] but was born in Delhi.  It was in Delhi that he received his education and was commissioned as captain of the Arsenal in the Armed Forces station at Alwar.  He is about twenty-one years old and has some knowledge of medicine.  He is a great lover of poetry and is a shagird [disciple] of ‘Arif’s.  The moment he gets wind of a musha’irah he promptly arrives in Delhi.  He wears a military uniform and speaks such pure idiomatic Urdu that you would take him for an authentic Dehlivala.  His couplets are not bad either.  Please judge for yourself:

So hot and passionate a sinner am I on the course of life
That not a trace of moisture is left in my garment of sin.
Had you strength in your feet you could wander aimless in the wilderness;
And your hands would know the madness of tearing your pocket.
Azad, is there any limit to his absent-mindedness and oblivion?
On the day of Chehlam [the 40th day of mourning] he turns up to ask after the health of the deceased!”

Qamber adds that Heatherly’s father was in fact English and his mother an Indian Muslim, and that he used either Azad or Alec as his nom de plume.

As for Azad’s master, Maharao Raja Binay Singh of Alwar (reg. 1815-57) was a great patron of art, literature and architecture and transformed the town of Alwar as well as the royal collections.  He built the main palace in Alwar and a small and beautiful one called Moti Dungri or Banni Bilas a short distance outside.  His greatest work was the construction of a dam at Siliserh ten miles from Alwar which formed a lake from which water was brought to the town and its environs (Powlett 1878, pp. 23-23).  He enticed to his court painters, calligraphers, illuminators and bookbinders, including such artists as Ghulam ‘Ali Khan from Delhi and the Jaipur artist Baldev (see Hendley’s Ulwar and its Art Treasures, passim).  A rather fine portrait of Maharao Raja Binay Singh by Baldev is also in the British Library. 

Maharao Raja Binay Singh of Alwar by Baldev, c. 1840. British Library,  India Office Album 53, no. 5048.

He was apparently stricken with paralysis during the last five years of his life when the governance of the state passed into the hands of his Muslim ministers which caused much trouble during his son Sheodan Singh’s reign.  In 1857 he sent the flower of his army to assist the beleaguered garrison in Agra.  They were set upon at Achnera by revolutionary sepoys from Nimach and Nasirabad.  The Alwar Muslims including the artillery sided with the rebels but the Rajputs fought and many perished.  It is not recorded whether Captain Heatherly was with the artillery on that occasion, but he certainly seems to have survived until 1861.

Although it would seem that Heatherly wore his military uniform even at poetic gatherings, his official uniform of the Maharao Raja of Alwar’s service in the 1852 painting by Ghulam ‘Ali Khan suggests that he had come to Jhajjar not as a poet but as an envoy from the Alwar Raja.  He is seated on the Nawab’s left opposite to the Nawab’s chief minister Pandit Kedarnath Sahib, alongside whom are ranged the chief judge and court officials.  The documents which they are holding or which are on the ground before them are official documents and not books of poetry, so presumably the scene represents the amicable resolution of some border dispute.  The town of Jhajjar is some 50 miles west of New Delhi, but the state itself, before its abolition in 1857, on its southern boundary bordered the state of Alwar.

In 1857 Nawab ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan made the mistake of hedging his bets, and paid for it with his life, being put on trial in Delhi and hanged on 23rd December 1857.  His end is described in William Dalrymple’s The Last Mughal (p. 417).  His estates were confiscated: most became part of the British district of Rohtak, although some areas were awarded to the loyal Sikh chiefs of Patiala, Nabha and Jind.  His moveable possessions were placed in the hands of the prize agents although Government did award pensions to his dependents. 

As for Alexander Heatherly Azad, caught between the two worlds and seeing the one that he had most identified with being brutally destroyed, he presumably retired to Alwar where he and his relatives continued in the service of the Maharao Raja.  Manuscripts of his poems might yet be found in the collections of the museum in Alwar and elsewhere in Rajasthan.

Bibliography
Dalrymple, W., The Last Mughal:  the Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857, Bloomsbury, London, 2006
Farhatullah Beg’s Dehli ki akhri shama, translated by Akhtar Qamber as The Last Musha’irah of Delhi, Orient Longman, New Delhi, 1979
Hendley, T.H., Ulwar and its Art Treasures, W. Griggs, London, 1888
Losty, J.P., and Roy, M., Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire – Manuscripts and Paintings in the British Library, British Library, London, 2012
Powlett, P.W., Gazetteer of Ulwar, Trübner & Co., London, 1878
Saksena, Ram Babu, European and Indo-European Poets of Urdu & Persian, Lucknow, 1941


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

• Over 300 important biblical manuscripts including the London Codex dating from c. 10th century, one of the oldest Masoretic Bibles in existence and the Torah Scroll of the Jewish community of Kaifeng.
• Anglo-Jewish charters in Hebrew and Hebrew/Latin attesting to the Jewish presence in England before the expulsion of the Jewish population in 1290 by King Edward I. They include debt acquittances (releases from debt), attestations (formal confirmations by signature), and other types of contractual transactions between Jews and non-Jews.
• A collection of 142 Karaite manuscripts, one of the best Karaite resources in the world, comparable only to the Abraham Firkovitch Karaite manuscript collection in St. Petersburg.
• Some 150 illuminated and decorated manuscripts representing the schools of medieval Hebrew illumination in France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Treasures include the Golden Haggadah, the Lisbon Bible, the North French Hebrew Miscellany, the Duke of Sussex German Pentateuch, the Harley Catalan Bible, and the King’s Spanish Bible.
• About 70 manuscripts containing texts of the Mishnah and the Talmud (Jewish legal code),  and  about 130 manuscript compendia and commentaries on Talmudic and Halakhic topics by some of the greatest Jewish luminaries such as Moses Maimonides, Rashi, Moses ben Jacob of Coucy, Isaac of Corbeil, and others. Many of these manuscripts date from the 14th and 15th centuries, with some dating back to the 12th century.

Ilana Tahan
Lead Curator, Hebrew and Christian Orient Studies 

Mon 28 Oct 2013, 18.30-20.00

Centre for Conservation, British Library

Price: £7.50 / £5 concessions

Book now

The Ramayana is one of the great epics of the ancient world, with versions spanning the cultures, religions and languages of Asia. Its story of Rama’s quest to recover his wife Sita from her abduction by Ravana, the Lord of the Underworld, has enchanted readers and audiences across the Eastern world for thousands of years.

Hanuman was perplexed as to how he could speak to Sita, surrounded as she was by demon guardians. Perched in his tree, he began to recite Rama’s praises. Sita was at first confused by him and thought he might be Ravana in one of his disguises. But she is then comforted by Hanuman, when he reveals himself to her as Rama’s messenger and gives her Rama’s ring. (I.O. San 3621, f. 4 recto)

Award-winning poet Daljit Nagra, reading from his new version of the Ramayana, is joined by storyteller Vayu Naidu and musician, Ranjana Ghatak, for an evening of poetry and music to mark the British Library’s involvement with Indian partners to digitally reunify one of the most lavishly produced manuscripts of this story.

Daljit Nagra was born and raised in West London, then Sheffield. He currently lives in Harrow with his wife and daughters and works in a secondary school. His first collection, Look We Have Coming to Dover!, won the 2007 Forward Prize for Best First Collection and was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. In 2008 he won the South Bank Show/Arts Council Decibel Award. Tippoo Sultan’s Incredible White-Man-Eating Tiger Toy-Machine!!! was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize 2011. Captivated by versions of the Ramayana his grandparents regaled him with as a child, he has created a vivid and enthralling version of this own.

Vayu Naidu is an accomplished storyteller, writer, performer and teacher. Her art of storytelling is derived from the Indic oral tradition and its energy comes quite simply through the telling, not reading, of a story. She has written for radio, television and theatre; appeared in films and her short stories have been published by The Critical Quarterly and Virago. Her novel, Sita’s Ascent, launched at the Jaipur Literature Festival this year, is an exposition on one of the key characters at the heart of the Ramayana.

London born Ranjana Ghatak trained in North Indian singing, whilst immersing herself in the life and sounds of contemporary Britain. Her 2011 debut EP, Awakenin, juxtaposes the beauty of sacred Indian vocal music with dynamic yet sensitive arrangements. Having studied under Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, she has subsequently performed with Akram Khan and Nitin Sawhney, and toured nationally and internationally. In this performance Ranjana sings couplets from different versions of the Ramayana in various South Asian languages. She will be accompanied by the tabla.

In association with South Asian Literature Festival

Anyone who has been in the vicinity of the Brunei Gallery SOAS during the last few weeks could hardly have failed to notice the frenzied activity in preparation for ‘The Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism in History and Imagination’ which opened last Friday (see also my earlier post on this subject). Put together by Sarah Stewart, Lecturer in Zoroastrianism in the Department of the Study of Religions, SOAS, together with Pheroza Godrej, Almut Hintze, Firoza Mistree and myself, it is a first in almost every sense. Not only has the theme, Zoroastrianism from the 2nd millenium until the present date, never been presented in this way before, but the majority of the over 200 exhibits have never been on public view.


Bishop Eznik Kolbac‘i wrote this Refutation of the Sects around 440 AD. His criticism of Zoroastrianism was directed principally against the various forms of dualism. His work is valuable as a contemporary account of the religion at a time when the scriptures were still transmitted orally, a fact which Eznik mentions himself as a reason for the existence of so many conflicting views. The frontispiece of this first edition, published in Smyrna in 1762, shows Eznik instructing his pupils (British Library 17026.b.14)


I first met Sarah almost 30 years ago when we were students together in an elementary Pahlavi (a Middle-Iranian language) class at SOAS! Since then we have often discussed her dream of mounting an exhibition. The more familiar I became with the Zoroastrian material in the British Library, the more impressed I was with the incredibly wide range of materials we had. The Library's unique collection of Zoroastrian sacred texts, collected from the 17th century onwards, had been left untouched since the 19th century and I worked closely with our conservation department to restore them, hoping to get the opportunity to be able to exhibit them! The final choice of what to include was difficult, but I’m glad to say the British Library has made a significant contribution with over 30 major loans.


A 12th or 13th century copy of the Babylonian Talmud. The Talmudic period in Babylonia largely overlapped with the Sasanian empire (224-651 AD) and during this period the Babylonian rabbis shared numerous intellectual and cultural concerns with their neighbours, the Zoroastrian priests at Ctesiphon, capital of the Sasanian empire. These affected matters of civil and criminal law, private law, theology, and even ritual (British Library, Harley 5508, ff.69v-70r)


Several people have asked me what my ‘favourite’ exhibits are! The 7th century BC cuneiform tablet from Nineveh, thought to contain the name of the principal Zoroastrian deity, Ahura Mazda (‘Wise Lord’), and a 4th century Achaemenid document from northern Afghanistan attesting the earliest use of the Zoroastrian day names and offerings for the Farvardin (spirits of the dead) must be amongst the most significant items. Equally impressive are the stunning ossuaries from 7th century Sogdiana and the beautiful Parsi portraits and textiles dating from the 19th century, the result of flourishing trade with China. A gallery on the top floor also includes works by the modern artists Fereydoun Ave, Mehran Zirak and Bijan Saffari. I mentioned a few British Library favourites in a previous post (The Everlasting Flame: Zoroastrianism in History and Imagination). Here are a few more:


The concept of Zoroaster as a magician or philosopher from the East is widespread in European literature, particularly after the Renaissance with its increased awareness of Greek and Hellenistic literature. This Italian translation by Bono Giamboni of Li Livres dou Trésor by Brunetto Latini (1230–94) dates from 1425. Of Zoroaster he writes: ‘And at that time a master called Canoaster [i.e. Zoroaster] discovered the magic art of spells and other wicked words and wicked things. These and many other things happened during the first two ages of the era that finished in the time of Abraham.’ (British Library, Yates Thompson 28, f. 51r)



‘The woman who didn’t obey her husband’. This engraving, dating from 1798, from the Persian Arda Viraf Nameh (the visionary journey of Viraf the Just to heaven and hell), is displayed in the exhibition alongside the original which is now part of the John Rylands Collection, Manchester (British Library, SV 400, vol. 2 part 3, facing p. 318)


The exhibition is free and open until 15 December, Tuesday- Saturday 10.30 - 17.00 (late night Thursday until 20.00, special Sunday opening on 15 December). For more details, follow these links to the exhibition website and facebook page.

The exhibition catalogue, edited by Sarah Stewart, includes 8 essays and photographs of every item in the exhibition. It is available from the publishers I.B. Tauris and from the SOAS bookshop (at a special discount price of £17).

Ursula Sims-Williams, Asian and African Studies

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Southeast Asia has long been connected by trade, religion and political links to the wider world across the Indian Ocean, and especially to the Middle East through the faith of Islam. However, little attention has been paid to the ties between Muslim Southeast Asia – encompassing the modern nations of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and the southern parts of Thailand and the Philippines – and the greatest Middle Eastern power, the Ottoman empire. 

The Indian Ocean world in the 16th century, from an Italian portolano.  British Library, Harley 3450, no.6  

In 2009, the British Academy funded a three-year research project Islam, Trade and Politics Across the Indian Ocean, administered by the Association of South East Asian Studies in the UK (ASEASUK) and the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA).  The project set out to investigate all forms of interaction between these two regions, from political, religious, literary and commercial exchanges to mutual influences in material culture, and culminated in a conference, From Anatolia to Aceh: Ottomans, Turks and Southeast Asia, held in 2012 in Banda Aceh in conjunction with the International Centre for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies (ICAIOS).  The results of the research project have also been presented in a photographic exhibition produced by the British Library, which has been shown in Durham, Leeds, Cambridge, Leicester and Exeter.  Today the exhibition opens in London at its final UK venue, in the John Addis Gallery of Islamic Art at the British Museum.  Turkish and Indonesian versions of the exhibition have also been produced, and are currently on display in Istanbul and Aceh.

The Ottoman lands were known in Southeast Asia as Rum, after the Arabic term for the Roman empire.  The Raja of Rum occupies a fabled position in Malay, Acehnese and Javanese epics, and the ruling houses of Kedah, Johor, Perak and Jambi all traced their descent from Rum. In Turkey similarly exotic imaginings existed in parallel with concrete geographical knowledge, and well into the 18th century Ottoman artists continued to illustrate medieval texts describing mythical inhabitants of Southeast Asia. 

Winged tree-dwellers of Zabaj, referring probably to Sumatra or Java, from ‘Aja’ib al-makhluqat by Qazvini, Persian text with Ottoman paintings, 1654/5.  British Library, Or.13935, f.76r (detail)

The main periods of direct political contact between Southeast Asian states and the Ottoman empire took place in the 16th and 19th centuries, with a long hiatus in between.  But after the Turkish conquest of Egypt in 1517 and until the early 20th centuries, the two holy cities of Islam, Mecca and Medinah, were under Ottoman control.  During this period, the main conduit for contact between the Ottomans and the Malay world was the annual Hajj pilgrimage.  Many Muslims from the Malay archipelago lived for long periods in Mecca, where they were known as the Jawi community. When they returned to Southeast Asia they brought back as souvenirs highly-prized Ottoman goods such as manuscripts, textiles and carpets.  Thus Ottoman motifs such as the tughra or royal monogram, and distinctive calligraphic styles such as zoomorphic and müsenna mirror writing, found their way into Southeast Asian art forms including batik textiles and woodcarvings.  The two-bladed sword of the Prophet called Dhu al-Faqar, so evident in Ottoman war flags and pilgrim banners, is also found on flags from Aceh, Siak, Riau and even Sulu in the southern Philippines.

Tughra of the Ottoman Sultan Murad III (r.1574-1595).  British Library Or.15504 

Reproduced in the ten exhibition panels are documents from the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives (Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi) in Istanbul, including newly-discovered royal letters from Malay rulers to the Ottoman sultan, addressed as the khalifah and protector of Muslims worldwide.  Manuscripts, maps and drawings from the British Library and other institutions also testify to links between the lands of the Ottoman empire and early republican Turkey, and the Muslim peoples of Southeast Asia, from the 16th to 20th centuries.

Sultan Abu Bakar of Johor – the first Malay monarch to visit Turkey – and his Turkish wife, Sultana Khadijah.  Na Tien Piet, Shaer almarhoem beginda Sultan Abubakar di negri Johor (Singapore, 1896).  British Library 14626.a.6

The Indonesian version of the exhibition on display in the Library of Universitas Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, September 2013.  Photograph courtesy of ICAIOS.

Further reading

For a list of publications on Ottoman links with Southeast Asia, see:
http://www.ottomansoutheastasia.org/bibliography.php

Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator, Southeast Asia
Co-Director, Islam, Trade and Politics across the Indian Ocean

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