Today we  welcome back guest blogger Emily Mokros, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley. This is the first of two posts on printing and moveable type in East Asia.

Representation of movable type at the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony. Wikimedia Commons

In 2008, the Beijing Olympics opened with a demonstration of four great inventions from China’s long history: the compass, gunpowder, paper, and printing. In particular, you might remember the dramatic representation of movable type: 897 performers manipulated movable type blocks representing the character he (harmony) in a series of historical script styles. The display spoke to the important role that this innovation played in Chinese, and indeed world, history. Readers with a knowledge of Chinese book history, however, are probably more familiar with books printed with solid woodblocks rather than movable type.

The British Library is home to a significant collection of texts printed using wooden movable type – this is the Peking Gazette collection. The Peking Gazette was a periodical record of government communications for the Qing dynasty (1644-1911) in China. The British Library collection includes a wide variety of editions from the nineteenth century. In my last post I described the significance of the Peking Gazette as a source for understanding the political and diplomatic history of China in the nineteenth century. In this, the first of two posts, I’ll highlight the ways these material sources shed light on little known aspects of the history of print in China. Peking Gazettes contain valuable clues as to the everyday applications of wooden movable type, the diversity of premodern print techniques employed by urban publishers, and even the routes by which print and paper were made, bought, and distributed in Qing China and maritime East Asia.

Xylography, or printing from wood, enabled a vibrant print culture to emerge in premodern Chinese empires. The fine detail of the British Library’s Diamond Sutra from AD 868, the oldest dated woodblock print example, makes it clear that woodblock carving and printing techniques were already very sophisticated in the Tang Dynasty (618-907). In later centuries, woodblock printed books became increasingly common, especially after an explosion of commercial publishing activity in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To print books from woodblocks, manuscript pages were commonly laid onto prepared blocks of hardwood, on which a block-cutter carved the text, columns, and other features in relief. After carving, a printer applied ink to the block, laid paper on the surface, and pounded the paper evenly with a special brush, producing an imprint. Depending on the quality of the block, thousands of imprints could be taken from a single woodblock before it required repair. The flexibility of this technology was a key factor in the flourishing book culture of early modern China.

The woodblock is darkened by the use of black ink for printing. On the upper right side, the original colour of the wood is visible in a hole made for replacing a character (British Library Or. 14251)

Despite its apparent rarity, movable type came into use quite early in the history of print in East Asia. In the eleventh century, the polymath scholar Shen Kuo wrote of a contemporary named Bi Sheng, who had invented an ingenious method of using fired clay to form movable types (huo zi 活字) for printing. According to Shen, Bi laid the clay type into a frame, the bottom of which had been painted with a mixture of ash and wax. After laying the type, the bottom of the frame was heated to fix the type in place, allowing the printing process to proceed in the same way as in traditional xylography. According to surviving descriptions, movable types of fired clay, wood, and metal (predominantly copper) were used in succeeding centuries to print both Chinese and non-Chinese script. Such editions are extremely rare today.

Today, the most prevalent examples of premodern wooden movable type printing in China come from two commercial enterprises: the printing of lineage genealogies, and of government gazettes. In genealogical printing, traveling printers carried a type supply and carved new types on a per-job basis. By contrast, gazette printing took place in cities, typically adjacent to government offices or the examination yards. Still, on the level of texts, these two seemingly disparate industries shared some important qualities. Both used a limited subset of the vast corpus of characters in the Chinese written language. Genealogies used a fairly circumscribed vocabulary, focusing on names, generational and familial terms (which could be recycled between jobs); gazettes contained summaries of official correspondence and employed the constrained vocabulary of bureaucratic language. In both cases, the producers did not have any use for retaining stores of carved woodblocks—instead, they wanted to produce a fixed and limited set of copies on a quick basis. In addition, while block-cutting labor was growing increasingly cheaper in early modern China, natural resources were limited. In particular, the durable and large-format hardwoods used for woodblock printing grew increasingly rare with the pressures of population expansion, urbanization, and wartime destruction. By using movable types, often carved from relatively soft woods, printers minimized their expenses. As a result, gazettes were cheaply available in urban markets.

Jingbao pages printed in movable type (British Library 15440 – 1872 vol.1, pt. 1)

These gazettes exhibit the visual markers of movable type printing. A low “shoulder” on carved wooden types allows us to see the imprint of square borders around characters. The occasional mistake in type-setting resulted in a flipped character. Most types were of individual characters, but printers also produced “double characters,” that held common two-character combinations. Daily gazettes typically numbered about ten leaves of paper (thus twenty pages), each containing up to seven columns of text. However, movable-type techniques freed the printer to create a wider page if needed. In the case of a long memorial, printers could fill a wider page and simply fold the page within the gazette.

Beijing, as the seat of the imperial government, was naturally the main hub for gazette publishing. At least ten publishers operated in late Qing (1860-1911) Beijing, clustering in the southern commercial districts of the city, close to Liulichang, Beijing’s lively market for books and antiques. Together, the publishers produced between one and two thousand gazettes per day. Of these, about two hundred were carried by government couriers to officeholders around the empire, but the majority were sold to capital residents. Rutherford Alcock (1809-1897) called this district “the Paternoster Row of the capital” (Alcock, p. 252), in reference to London’s news district, and described the cabinets of wooden type that lined the walls of the shops in a widely reprinted account in the English periodical press. Wang Zhonglin (1818-1878), a Chinese minor official, once wrote in his diary about an idle afternoon spent watching printers “hunting for characters to fill their blocks.”[1]

 
Jingbao daily edition covers, in long octavo format , showing shop names on the lower part of the page. (British Library 15440,  1861 1st to 4th month)

The publishers typically included their shop names on an opening page or the issue cover. The names of some of these publishers and these names attest to the use of movable types (as in juxing 聚興 “assembled prosperity,” in which the use of the character ju 聚 often refers to assembled types); more commonly they simply summoned auspicious themes, with recurring terms as in the recurrence of terms like “prosperity,” (xing 興) “advance,” (sheng 升), and “success” (cheng 成).

In my next post I'll be writing about some provincial gazettes published outside the capital.

Further Reading
Rutherford Alcock, “The Peking Gazette,” Fraser’s Magazine (1873): 245-256; 341-357.
Devin Fitzgerald, “Chinese Paper Stamps,” Books and the Early Modern World blog post, 26 March 2017.
David Helliwell, “Papermarks,” Serica blogpost, 26 April 2017.

Thank you to Devin Fitzgerald and Guillermo Ruiz-Stovel for sharing their research in Chinese paper stamps.

Emily Mokros, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Kentucky and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of California, Berkeley
[email protected]

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[1] Wang Zhonglin riji 王鍾霖日記, in Lidai riji congchao (Beijing: Xueyuan chubanshe, 2006), vol. 59: 483.

Sultan Baybars’ Qur’an is one of the most magnificent Qur’ans in the British Library. This seven-volume Qur’an produced in Cairo between 704-5 AH/1304-6 AD is the earliest dated Qur’an of the Mamluk period. 

The Sūrat al-Fātiḥah at the beginning of Sultan Baybars’ seven-volume Qurʼan (BL Add MS 22406, ff. 2v-3r)

In 2002 selected pages of this Qurʼan were made available online as a ‘virtual’ manuscript in our ‘Turning the Pages’ Project (Sultan Baybars’ Qurʼan). We have now had the opportunity to digitise all seven volumes cover-to-cover and present them in our new Universal Viewer (Add MS 22406; Add MS 22407; Add MS 22408; Add MS 22409; Add MS 22410; Add MS 22411; Add MS 22412). Well-known to art historians and exhibition visitors, these amazing volumes can now be appreciated by anyone, anywhere with an internet connection!

Digitisation in progress with Senior Imaging Technician Elizabeth Hunter

Sultan Baybars’ Qur’an was commissioned by Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Jashnagir, who at that time was a high-ranking official in the court of Nasir Muhammad. Only later, between 1309 and 1310, did he acquire the title al-Muzaffar Baybars, or Sultan Baybars II.


Colophon page of volume seven with the date 705 AH/1305-6 AD in the last line (BL Add MS 22412, f. 166v)

Though the Arabic historical sources make reference to this Qur’an, the purpose of Sultan Baybarsʼ patronage is unclear. It is not known whether the Qur’an was intended either as a pious gift to the mosque of al-Hakim in Cairo (built 990-1013), for whose restoration he was responsible after it was severely damaged by an earthquake in 1303, or as a donation to the building of a religious foundation. The subsequent history of the Qur’an is rather vague, but it was purchased by the British Museum from the antiquarian booksellers T & W Boone on 12 June 1858.

The beginning of  Sūrat Āl ʻImrān. Text page written in gold thuluth script outlined in black, with the chapter heading overlayed in red ink (BL Add MS 22406, ff. 86v-87r)

The physical size of this Qur’an, measuring 47.5 x 32 cm., enabled the calligrapher, Muhammad ibn al-Wahid, together with a team of three illuminators, Muhammad ibn Mubadir, Abu Bakr Sandal and Aydughdi ibn ‘Abdallah, to work not only with a large script and extensive decoration but also within a spacious page layout. Its 1,094 folios (2,188 pages) written in gold thuluth script spread over seven volumes give an indication of its monumental stature.

The calligrapher Muhammad ibn al-Wahid, mentioned in all the colophons, was born in Damascus in the mid-thirteenth century though he lived most of his life in Cairo. This Qur’an is the only known surviving example of his work.  His choice of thuluth is rather strange, for by the Mamluk period this cursive script was generally considered ornamental, being used primarily for chapter headings and not for the body of the text. The gold thuluth script is outlined in black, with vowels marked in red and other spelling signs in blue. The layout of the calligraphy is also of special interest. Unlike many Qur’ans which have an odd number of lines per page, each page of the Baybars Qur’an carries six lines of text. Of interest, too, is the fact that the text layout is continuous, without large illuminated panels to indicate the beginning of a chapter, as in many other Qur’ans of the period. In this Qur’an, chapter headings are merely indicated by a change of colour, with red ink overlaying the gold, with no additional spacing between the lines. Ornamentation in the margins include illuminated medallions to indicate the end of a tenth verse; pear-shaped medallions to mark the end of a fifth verse; and illuminated oval markers for the sajdah, instructing the reader when to prostrate during the recitation of the Qur’an.


Detail of an illuminated medallion containing the word  ‘ashr in gold kufic script  indicating the end of a tenth verse (BL Add MS 22409, f. 92r)

Detail of an illuminated pear-shaped medallion containing the word khams in gold kufic script indicating the end of a fifth verse (BL Add MS 22412, f. 156v)

Detail of an illuminated oval marker containing the word sajdah instructing the reader to prostrate at this point during the recitation of the Qur’an (BL Add MS 22412, f. 156r)

Each volume of Sultan Baybars’ Qur’an has a magnificent double frontispiece or carpet page indicating the volume number in its central design. The illuminators worked on specific volumes: the colophon of volume one is signed by Muhammad ibn Mubadir and volume three by Abu Bakr Sandal, the master illuminator in charge of the team.

Volume one signed by Muhammad ibn Mubadir in the marginal ornaments (BL Add Ms 22406, f. 155v) 



Volume three signed by Sandal in the ornamental semi-circles (BL Add MS 22408, f. 154v)

The style of ornamentation of volumes two, four, and six makes it more than likely that these volumes, though unsigned, were illuminated by Muhammad ibn Mubadir, and that volumes five and seven, also unsigned, were illuminated by Abu Bakr Sandal. Aydughdi ibn ‘Abdallah worked on all the volumes. According to the inscription in volume seven, his role was to paint-in “either the gold or polychrome areas”. This accords with David James’s interpretation of the Arabic verb zammaka in the inscription (James, Qur’ans of the Mamluks, p.67).

The inscriptions in the top and bottom panels describing the role carried out by Aydughdi ibn ‘Abdallah in all seven volumes (BL Add MS 22412, f. 2v)

Below the seven opening frontispieces are shown together for the first time:

Frontispiece to the first volume of Sultan Baybars' monumental Qurʼan. Cairo, 1304-6  (BL Add MS 22406, ff. 1v-2r)

Frontispiece to the second volume of Sultan Baybars' monumental Qurʼan. Cairo, 1304-6  (BL Add MS 22407, ff. 1v-2r)

Frontispiece to the third volume of Sultan Baybars' monumental Qurʼan. Cairo, 1304-6  (BL Add MS 22408, ff. 1v-2r)

Frontispiece to the fourth volume of Sultan Baybars' monumental Qurʼan. Cairo, 1304-6  (BL Add MS 22409, ff. 1v-2r)

Frontispiece to the fifth volume of Sultan Baybars' monumental Qurʼan. Cairo, 1304-6  (BL Add MS 22410, ff. 1v-2r)

Frontispiece to the sixth volume of Sultan Baybars' monumental Qurʼan. Cairo, 1304-6  (BL Add MS 22411, ff. 1v-2r)

Frontispiece to the seventh and final volume of Sultan Baybars' monumental Qurʼan. Cairo, 1304-6  (BL Add MS 22412, ff. 1v-2r)

Further reading
Baker, Colin F., Qur'an manuscripts: Calligraphy, Illumination, Design, London, 2007, pp.43-56.
James, David, Qur’ans of the Mamluks, London, 1980, pp. 34-75.

Colin F. Baker, Head of Middle Eastern and Central Asian Collections

 

On Wednesday 7 March, the British Library welcomed members of the local Somali community to the Learning Centre for the first ever ‘show and tell’ of the Library’s Somali collections. Further to the success of the opening event of the Somali Week Festival, which the Library hosted last October, ‘Soo Dhawoow’ , meaning ‘welcome’ , invited artists, students, poets and historians from the Somali Community to participate in a proactive archiving engagement.

Photo credit: Venetia Menzies

The Somali collections at the British Library, which range from archives and sound recordings to photographs and printed books, contain vital cultural and historical information on Somalia and Somalis, both at home and as part of the diaspora. The collections in the Somali language include books, periodicals, sound recordings, microfilms, maps and newspapers. There are also bibliographies of writings in Somali. In addition to this, the British Library holds a wide variety of relevant published materials in other languages such as English, Arabic, Italian, French, German, Russian, Dutch and Swedish.

Attendees were shown the highlights of the Library’s Somali collections, including two 20th century wooden Qur’an boards, ritually used for rote learning of the Holy Scripture, as well as printed books in languages such as Somali, English and German.

Qurʼan board BL Or.16442. Photo credit: Venetia Menzies

The British Library also holds historic manuscripts and archives relating to Somalia and Somalis including correspondence about Somalia and Somaliland in the India Office Records and the India Office Private Papers. During the colonial period, the British Raj, the UK’s authority in India, managed the Empire’s holdings in the Horn of Africa and East Africa. To find archives and manuscripts, go to our catalogue Explore Archives and Manuscripts. These collections are currently being digitised and are available in the Qatar Digital Library. Photographic collections include studio portraits of members of the Somali diaspora in Aden which were published in an 1877 publication An Account of the British Settlement at Aden in Arabia compiled by Captain Frederick Mercer Hunter.

Representation of the Somali community was a key theme explored in the discussion at the engagement event, specifically the legacies of colonial photography.

‘Male Somali’ from An Account of the British Settlement of Aden in Arabia, London, 1877, compiled by Captain F.M. Hunter (Printed collections T.11308)

Given the need to expand existing heritage collections and open discussion, the Library’s Somali Collections Project Officer Mahamed Ali worked with visual artist Venetia Menzies to develop a unique programme for this community event. ‘Soo Dhawoow’ not only provided an insight into the Library’s Somali collections but asked the participants to produce heritage archives of their own.

In response to the artefacts, written books and poetry in the Somali collections, participants later contributed artistic responses that expressed their own snapshot of Somali culture as members of the diaspora. The results were wide-ranging, including an array of mediums such as photography, poetry, paintings and graphic designs. These were exhibited at London Gallery West from March 27th to April 3rd.

One of the participants, Huda Hassan, a graphic designer, depicted Somali idioms such as ‘cagta wax ka dey’, which literally means ‘search feet’ and is a metaphor for ‘run’. Huda said that the engagement event was ‘informative’, and ‘very promising’, but noted that the scope of the collections could be developed. The British Library welcomes suggestions for this collection, specifically from those publishing books in Somali from around the world.

Artist Credit: Huda Hassan

Anab Aided, a painter, produced colourful paintings of Somali staple goods, as well as common onomatopoeia in the Somali language. Anab, an art teacher working with Somali children with the Galbur Foundation, also encouraged her students to contribute. They produced a colourful selection of pictures and drawings depicting aspects of Somali culture.

Photo Credit: Anab Aided and Venetia Menzies

The youngest attendee, Khadar Mahi, contributed a poem depicting the Somali landscape that was eloquent in both English and Somali. Khadar’s main interests are physics and poetry, which he claims are one and the same.

All the livestock
within your sight
whichever way you look,
grazing near the homestead.

The herding youth
in their white sheets
resting in the shade,
passing time with games,
chatting without a care.
(Poetry: Asha Lul Mohamud Yusuf)

Photographer Abdul Aziz Ismail contributed photographs depicting his journey by sea from Yemen to Somalia, as well as from Bosaso in Puntland.

Photo Credit: Abdul Aziz Ismail

Mohamed Mohamud, founder of the project Somali Sideways, contributed portraits from his ongoing body of work. Somali Sideways collates portraits of Somalis from around the world standing sideways, aiming to highlight that there are always two sides to an individual. It provides a platform for representations of the success, determination and entrepreneurship that characterise the Somali diaspora. These works were exhibited alongside portraits of the participants.

The British Library’s Somali collections exist for the public to view. A reader pass for the Library is free, and offers everyone the opportunity to experience these collections for themselves. The British Library is always seeking to expand its outreach with regard to its collections, so individuals within the Somali community in the UK are encouraged to engage with the collection. The British Library also has a growing number of printed books in the Somali language, which offer an indispensable source of information for older members as well as young people in the Somali community to use for their own comprehension.

To find out more about our collections, you can search our main catalogue Explore. For more information on the British Library’s holdings see our subject guide to African collections.

Mahamed Ali, Somali Collections Project Officer

 

[Note from editor: Authorship of poem corrected 11.5.2025]

Our guest contributor today is Shiva Mihan of the University of Cambridge who recently completed her thesis Timurid Manuscript Production: The Scholarship and Aesthetics of Prince Bāysunghur’s Royal Atelier (1420–1435).

Opening to the British Library's copy of the Kullīyāt of Khvājū Kirmānī (BL Or. 11519, ff. 1v-2r)

When I came across the following description of  British Library Persian manuscript Or. 11519 on page 63 of G.M. Meredith-Owens, Handlist of Persian Manuscripts 1895-1966, my interest was piqued:

Or. 11519 Selected poems (mostly kasidahs) of Khvājū Kirmānī, apparently once part of a majmū‘eh of 500 f. xvth century. 66 f. 30.3 x 21 cm.

At the time, I was writing up my doctoral research into 15th century Persian book production under the patronage of Prince Baysunghur in his atelier in Herat, modern day Afghanistan. I was therefore familiar with the most complete early manuscript of the works of Khvājū Kirmānī (died c.1352), Tehran Malek 5963[1], which was almost certainly produced under Baysunghur. The scribe of this manuscript, which is dated 1426, was Muḥammad b. Muṭahhar, a senior scribe in Bāysunghur’s atelier, who had copied other important manuscripts for him. The manuscript Malek 5963, is an exquisite example of Timurid royal book production, now sadly slightly defective at the beginning and the end.

The beginning of Gul u Nawrūz, from the Kullīyāt of Khvājū Kirmānī (Malek 5963, p. 811) By permission of the Malek National Library

Malek 5963, internal colophon dated 1 Shaʿbān 829/7 June 1426, Herat, penned by the royal scribe, Muḥammad b. Muṭahhar b. Yūsuf b. Abū Sa‘īd al-Qāz̤ī al-Nisābūrī (Malek  5963, p. 1070) By permission of the Malek National Library

In order to verify the completeness of the Baysunghuri manuscript, bar the minor losses at start and end, I had compared its contents to the oldest known Khvājū Kirmānī manuscript, now housed in the same library, Malek 5980. That manuscript was copied during the poet’s lifetime, in 750/1349, by another accomplished scribe, Muḥammad b. ʿImrān al-Kirmānī. It too is very beautifully illuminated, and was very likely the presentation copy for the poet’s patron, the vizier Tāj al-Dīn Aḥmad who had commissioned the collection.

Sarlawḥ of the Rawz̤at al-anvār (Malek  5980, p. 435) By permission of the Malek National Library

The colophon signed by the scribe, Muḥammad b. ʿImrān al-Kirmānī on 9th Ṣafar 750/1349 (Malek  5980, p. 708) By permission of the Malek National Library

Malek 5980 is thought to be the oldest extant manuscript by some 50 years. Khvājū Kirmānī is highly regarded in Iran to this day, and in 2013 a facsimile edition of Malek 5980 was produced by the University of Kerman in 2013 (see Further reading).

So, with this background, the reader might well imagine the excitement when the good people of the British Library delivered Ms. Or. 11519 to me in the Reading Room. On opening up the manuscript, I was confronted by a beautiful illuminated double-page frontispiece and a few folios later a magnificent double-page heading (sarlawḥ).

Double-page sarlawḥ  to mark the beginning of the text (BL Or. 11519, ff. 4v-5r)

Straightaway, it was clear to me that the catalogue had been in error – this was not the work of the 15th, but of the 14th century. But the hand, a beautiful Persian script (a combination of taʿlīq and naskh) seemed strangely familiar to me. When I read the colophon I was amazed to find that although it was undated, the scribe named himself as Muḥammad b. ʿImrān.

The undated colophon signed by Muḥammad b. ʻImrān (BL Or. 11519, f. 66r)

No wonder I recognized the hand. There was no doubt in my mind: this manuscript must date to the mid-14th century, around the time the same scribe had copied the oldest known manuscript, Malek 5980, in 1349. As with the Malek manuscript, when Or. 11519 was copied, the poet himself was still alive.

To what was Glyn Meredith-Owens referring when he said “apparently once part of a majmuʿeh [collection] of 500 folios”? There is a note in Turkish on the first folio, which says something to this effect (where the number, I believe, is not 500, but 580). Could Or. 11519 (66 folios) and Malek 5980 (352 folios) have once been part of a single manuscript? If so, were there other parts remaining to be discovered? These seemed intriguing possibilities.

A note in Turkish, in Arabic script, records that the manuscript once contained 580 folios (BL Or. 11519, f.1r)

The similarity of the illuminations and the common scribe were very suggestive. It remained for me to study the text of the BL manuscript in more detail. Ursula Sims-Williams, Lead Curator of the Persian collections, very kindly sent me photographs to enable this. I laboriously tracked down every poem by comparing the manuscript to the edition of Suhayli Khwansari (1336 shamsi/1957) and to other early manuscripts, using images kindly provided by librarians in Iran. Those other early manuscripts of the Kullīyāt of Khvājū Kirmānī were:

• Tehran University Central Library, no. 5154, dated 808/1405
• Tehran, Majles Library, no. 352, dated at a later time 820/1417, but I suspect it might date back to the late 14th century
• Tehran, Golestan Palace Library, no. 335, dated 824/1421
• Tehran, Malek National Library, no. 5963, dated 829/1426 (the Baysunghurī manuscript)

The valuable Jalayirid manuscript of the recently digitised BL Add.18113, dated 798/1396, is older than the above copies (see earlier posts  An illustrated 14th century Khamsah by Khvaju Kirmani and The archaeology of a manuscript: the Khamsah of Khvaju Kirmani), but since it only contains three mathnavis, it was of little use in this comparative analysis.

As a result of my analysis, I can now say with confidence that there is no overlap in content between Or.  11519 and Muhammad b. ‘Imrān’s other Khvājū manuscript, Malek 5980. Putting all the evidence together, although Malek 5980 was previously thought to be a complete manuscript, in fact, BL Or. 11519 almost certain formed the first part of it. As such, despite the unfortunate inaccuracy in the catalogue, Or. 11519 presents a very good claim to being the earliest complete extant manuscript of Khvājū Kirmānī’s poetry. It is an unsuspected treasure of the Persian collection and a great gift for devotees of Khvājū Kirmānī.

Recalling the note in Turkish at the beginning of Or. 11519 stating that the original manuscript contained 580 folios, I was determined to do what I could to track down other missing parts, with a view to reconstructing the complete works of Khvājū in its original form. My initial investigations threw up to two strong candidates and another outside possibility. Firstly, a manuscript in the Konya Mevlana Museum, no. 140, was catalogued as 748 AH. Secondly, a Dīvān of Khvājū Kirmānī was said to be in the hand of our scribe, Muḥammad b. ‘Imrān, but was catalogued as a work of the 13th/19th century, in Mashhad, Astan Qods Library, no. 4650. With the help of colleagues in Turkey and in Iran I was able to study digital images of both manuscripts. As it turned out, neither was a part of the original Khvājū manuscript: the first had mistaken the date of composition for the date of copying, and the second proved to be a literal copy, including the colophon, of Malek 5980.

The third manuscript on my list, the outside chance, I had found catalogued as Khvājū’s Mafātiḥ al-qulūb in Tehran University Central Library, no. 2043, dated 705/1305, and penned by Muḥammad b. ʿUmar, 44 folios. The date had to be wrong, so why not the scribe’s name? More excitement was in store. When, thanks to the generosity of the Director, I was able to examine the manuscript first hand in Tehran University Library, I immediately recognised it was yet another part of the puzzle: here again was the same handwriting and the same style of illumination, the same paper, folio size, layout, rulings, ink, and headings.

Heading (sarlawḥ) of the Mafātiḥ al-qulūb of Khvājū (Tehran University 2043, f. 1v) By permission of Tehran University

Tehran University 2043 is incomplete at the end and so has no colophon. However, a note at the beginning of the manuscript in a similar hand to that of the scribe, provides the title of the work and the name of the scribe, Muḥammad b. ‘Imrān (not ʿUmar), as well as the year, 750 (not 705)/1349. Other notes on the same folio tell us that the manuscript was once owned by Luṭf ‘Alī b. Muḥammad Kāẓim in 1343/1924.

20th century ownership notes and ‘signature’ in the manner of Muḥammad b. ‘Imrān (Tehran University  2043, f. 1r) By permission of Tehran University

Luṭf ‘Alī b. Muḥammad Kāẓim (1857-1931), known as Ṣadr al-Afāz̤il, was a prominent scholar and calligrapher as well as a collector of Islamic manuscripts, in a line of such men (the Nasīrī-Amīnīs)[2]. A close examination of the Tehran University manuscript convinced me that the scribe’s signature (f. 1r) was not in the hand of Muḥammad b. ‘Imrān, but was a skilful forgery. The similarities with the authentic colophons of BL Or. 11519 and in Malek 5980 suggest that whoever forged this note had seen one or both of the other colophons. Yet another note, at the beginning of Malek 5980, signed by Ṣadr al-Afāz̤il, states his ownership of that manuscript also in 1339/1920. The BL manuscript was presented to the British Museum by R.S. Greenshields in 1934. Of course these could all be coincidences, but the signs are that the original Kullīyāt (of 580 folios?) – containing what would become BL Or. 11519, Malek 5980, and Tehran University 2043, and perhaps other fragments, yet to be discovered – was divided up between 1920 and 1934.

As stated above, I have compared the three parts of the original manuscript to numerous later ones (all pre-1440). The results have been both interesting and complicated. The poetic content of BL Or. 11519 is found in each of the four manuscripts I listed above. In Tehran University 5154 that content is faithfully reproduced; however, in the other three manuscripts, extra poems appear in this section, drawn from the first section of Malek 5980, but the redistribution of poems is different in each case. Surely, BL-Malek-Tehran University should now be regarded as the core corpus against which later reorganisations and additions are assessed, and much work by Khvājū Kirmānī scholars remains to be done in this area. To facilitate such work, and to satisfy a demand for reproductions of high quality illuminated manuscripts from the period, it is intended that a facsimile of the BL and Tehran University manuscripts be published to complement the University of Kerman’s Malek facsimile of 2013. The complexities of my textual comparisons will be provided in the introduction to the facsimile.

Further reading
Khvājū Kirmānī, Kullīyāt-i Khvājū-yi Kirmānī, ed. A. Hāshimī & M. Mudabbirī (Tehran, 1392 shamsi/2013).
Wright, E.J. The Look of the Book: manuscript production in Shiraz, 1303–1452 (Washington, D.C., Seattle, Dublin, 2012).
Adamova, A.T. & M. Bayani, Persian painting: the arts of the book and potraiture (Farnborough, 2015).
Swietochowski, M.L. & S. Carboni, Illustrated poetry and epic images Persian painting of the 1330s and 1340s (New York, 1994). 

 

Shiva Mihan, University of Cambridge

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[1] See Malik Library catalogue for details: Dirāyatī, Muṣṭafā, Fihristvārah Dastnivisht'hā-yi Īrān (DENA), (Tehran, 1389/2010), pp. 153, 619.

[2] For more on faked manuscript interventions and the part played by Ṣadr al-Afāz̤il and his family, see F. Richard, “FORGERIES iv. OF ISLAMIC MANUSCRIPTS” and A. Soudavar, Reassessing Early Safavid Art and History, pp. 85-9.

 

Related article

The archaeology of a manuscript: The Khamsah of Khvaju Kirmani

An illustrated 14th century Khamsah by Khvaju Kirmani

Last month as part of a pilot on using three-dimensional modelling at the British Library's Digitisation Studio, a few objects from the Visual Arts section were photographed and rendered using a Cyreal 3D camera rig and made available through Sketchfab. One of the objects selected is the terracotta model of 'Ummeechund', a trooper of Skinner's Horse which painted using polychrome pigments and modelled with wires and an armature. It measures 28.5 cm high. The trooper is featured wearing the distinctive long yellow coat with red trimmings, a black jacket with red frogging, a tiger-skin bandolier, a tall shark marked with a crescent and with red trimmings and tassels, and white pantaloons. His left hand rests on the hilt of his upright sword. As the trooper was last displayed in the Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire exhibition at the British Library from 2012-13 and now currently in storage, it was the ideal candidate for digital modelling as it is fragile.

Ami Chand ('Ummeechund'), a trooper in Skinner's Horse. Delhi or Lucknow, c. 1819-20. British Library, Foster 979.

Skinner's Horse was the regiment of irregular cavalry established by James Skinner (1778-1841) in 1803 in northern India. As Skinner was an Anglo Indian, son of a Scottish solider and Rajasthani mother, he was not allowed to serve in the East India Company as a solider and established an independent cavalry. Skinner initially supported the Marathas against the British, but changed sides in 1803. In 1814, he established the second regiment of the irregular cavalry to support the British against the Nepalese. Aside from establishing Skinner's Horse or the 'Yellow Boys', Skinner is recognised as a key patron of art in Delhi during the first half of the 20th century. Skinner was close friends with artist James Baillie Fraser and his brother William Fraser, the Assistant to the Resident at Delhi from 1805, who were also patrons of local artists.

The terracotta figure of Ami Chand was produced approximately in 1819-20. The portrayal is closely linked to a portrait of Ami Chand, commissioned by William Fraser (in the collection of Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan) in May 1819. The inscription below the painting in William Fraser's hand reads: 'Ummee Chund the son of Oodey Ram by birth a Bath of vil. Gundana District Gohand province Hissar or Hurreeanah. The man who saved my life when an assassin cut me down by seizing him tho' unarmed himself. In his troop dress - done in May 1819.' Ami Chand saved Fraser by throwing an inkstand at the assassin. According to correspondence between the Fraser brothers, Ami Chand was employed by the Frasers for several years and featured in at least two portraits belonging to the brothers. A study of six recruits from the peasant castes Jat and Gujjar that lived on the outskirts of Delhi is featured below for comparison of the style of the uniform.  

 Six recruits to the second regiment of Skinner's Horse, Delhi 1815-20. British Library, Add Or 1261. 

 

Ami Chand was not the only servant working for the Fraser brothers that was portrayed. In the David Collection in Copenhagen, there are two drawings featuring Kala, one showing him dressed in simply trousers and turban with no top based on his attire while out hunting and a second in full regimental attire of the irregular cavalry of Skinner's Horse. 

Further reading:

Mildred Archer and Toby Falk, India Revealed: the Art and Adventures of James and William Fraser 1801-35, London, 1989.

J. P. Losty, 'New evidence for the style of the 'Fraser artist' in Delhi: Portraits of Afghans in 1808-10', AAS Blog, 01/11/2015.

J.P. Losty, 'James Skinner's Tazkirat al-Umara now digitised', AAS Blog, 07/07/2014.

J.P. Losty and Malini Roy, Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire – Manuscripts and Paintings in the British Library, London, 2012, ch. 4.

Malini Roy, Head of Visual Arts

The Burmese New Year falls in the second week of the Burmese month of Tagu (April). It is an auspicious time for Burmese people, who each year determine to make the New Year a happier, healthier and more successful one. The New Year is ushered in with the Thingyan water festival, which starts on 13 April and lasts for four days, after which comes New Year's Day itself. The word Thingyan is derived from the Sanskrit word Samkranti, which means literally ‘a passing on’, and the exact date and the precise time of the commencement and termination of Thingyan and New Year’s Day are fixed through astrological calculations. The first day of the festival is called Thingyan a-kyo nei (welcoming day), the second day is Thingyan a-kya nei (falling day) and the third day is Thingyan a-kyat nei (tight day). Certain years may contain one or two extra a-kyat days, and then the last day of the festival is Thingyan a-tet nei (rising day). The following day, 17 April, is celebrated as the Burmese New Year's Day.

Saṅʿkranʿ tvakʿ naññʿʺ cā (Calculation the Thingyan), ca. 1880. British Library, Mss. Burmese 116

Shown above is a half-length Burmese palm leaf manuscript of Thingyan sa, which gives explanations of Thingyan with calculations. Thingyan sa are traditionally written annually at the time of the Thingyan festival, based on astrological calculations, and purport to predict the great events of the coming year.

The Tagu Thingyan festival, depicted in a Burmese manuscript, 19th century. British Library, Or.15021, ff. 1-3

The above illustration portrays royal people in a procession to celebrate Thingyan and New Year, attended by musicians. Some carry small water pots with flowers on their shoulders, some carry long fans and some wear masks resembling mythical animals. According to traditional beliefs, Sakka, king of the Tavatimsa heaven, descends to the earth from his celestial abode on a-kya day. People place a small pot with seven different kinds of flowers representing seven days of the week in front of their house to welcome Sakka. He remains upon earth for three days. During the festival people, regardless of age, gender or religion, wear colourful dresses and sing and dance together, sprinkling scented water on one another, in the belief that the Thingyan festival water will make them healthy. For fun, some people enjoy playing with water hoses at their temporary pavilions.

A depiction of an alms-giving ceremony, 19th century. British Library, Or.13293 , f. 1

The above illustration shows an alms-giving ceremony. The practice of offering food to monks is the most common ritual practised in in Burma, and is a peaceful and spiritual ceremony. Indeed, the true spirit in which the New Year should be celebrated is by fasting, giving alms, doing meritorious deeds and observing the Buddha’s teachings (Dhamma) on New Year’s Day. Kadaw (Homage) day is held in this season. On this day, people pay their respects to their parents, teachers and superiors, and novitiation ceremonies are held in towns, cities and villages.

This painted scene depicts the ruler receiving homage from his ministers and court officials on Kadaw or Homage day. The king is seated in a pavilion and traditional offerings of coconuts and bananas are set before him. The bottom yellow border of the painting is inscribed in Burmese characters, ‘Receiving homage’. British Library, Or.14963, f. 7  

Paying homage to the king on the New Year Day.  British Library, Or.6779, f.2

In the scene above, the king is shown receiving homage from his ministers and members of the royal family. The ceremony features folk music troupes and processions of elephants and horses. During the days of royal rule, the New Year celebration included the state-sponsored feeding of monks for three continuous days, the watering of the sacred banyan trees and the cleansing of Buddha statues, and a three-gun salute was fired to usher in the New Year.

Further reading:

Khin Myo Chit. Flowers and festivals round the Myanmar Year. Yangon: Sarpaylawka, 2002.

San San May, Curator for Burmese

Related articles

Burmese marionette theatre

The Visual Arts section has recently acquired a portrait of Adam Sri Munni Ratna, a Singhalese Buddhist monk, who accompanied Sir Alexander Johnston (1775-1849) from Sri Lanka to England in 1817-18. Raised between Scotland, Madras and England, Johnston would be appointed as the President of the Council of Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in 1811 and be a founding member of the Royal Asiatic Society in Great Britain in 1823. Fluent in multiple languages including Tamil and Telegu, he was in regular communication with local Buddhist priests who elucidated Buddhist judicial matters and were instrumental towards helping Johnston to establish trial by jury on the island. In 1817, Sri Munni Ratna and his cousin Dharma Rama, approached Johnston and requested his support to travel to England as it was understood that they were keen to learn about Christianity after reading the Singhalese translation of the New Testament by the Wesleyan ministers in Colombo. Ratna was in his late twenties.

Adam Sree Goona Munhi Rathana Vadhegay by Robert Hicks, published by Henry Fisher, after Alexander Mosses hand-coloured stipple engraving, published 1821. British Library, P3386.

Arriving in England in May 1818, the two monks were met by Dr. Adam Clarke (1762-1832), an Irish Methodist and well known scholar on the New Testament who took it upon himself to look after them. Later in his life, Clarke would become a notable collector of Arabic, Persian and Syriac Manuscripts. In 1820, Clarke wrote: ‘did so; and in doing it encountered many difficulties, which, because the good hand of my God was upon me, I surmounted; and, after twenty months instruction under my own roof, I was fully convinced that they were sincere converts to the Christian religion, and that their minds were under a very gracious influence. At their own earnest desire I admitted them into the church of Christ by baptism’.

An Account of the Baptism of two Budhist Priests by Adam Clarke as observed and written by Philoxenas provides the detailed account of the education the Singhalese monks received while living in Millbrooke, Clarke’s home near Prescot. As Clarke could not speak Singhalese or Tamil and the monks did not understand English, ‘the teacher and his pupils formed, in effect, a language for themselves, and that principally out of the Portuguese, Cinghalese and Sanscrit [sic]: these helps, however proved insufficient; but Dr C. had the high satisfaction of frequently witnessing, that his pupils, under the immediate influence of a Divine Teacher, comprehended his meaning..’

Philoxenas, An account of the Baptism of Two Budhist Priests by Adam Clarke, L.L.D. Thomas Courtney, Dublin, 1820. British Library 4323.000.44  

During their brief stay in England, several portraits of the Buddhist monks and their tutor Adam Clarke were produced. In the collection of the John Wesley’s House & Museum of Methodism, is a portrait by the artist Alexander Moses. This 19^th century orientalist painting features Clark seated in a chair in his library with one of the monks seated in a chair and pointing to a manuscript, possibly a copy of the New Testament. An engraved version of this painting was published in 1844. In comparison, our newly acquired portrait instead features the Singhalese monk dressed in western clothing, including a suit jacket and a cravat. In the period following their baptisms, Munni Ratna and Dharmma Rama returned to Ceylon where they entered into government service (Sivasundaram 2013, 111)

Adam Clarke and Two Former Buddhists by Alexander Mosses (1793–1837). Image reproduced with the permission of The Trustees of Wesley’s Chapel, John Wesley’s House & The Museum of Methodism.

 

Bibliography

Sujit Sivasundaram, Islanded: Britain, Sri Lanka, and the Bounds of an Indian Ocean Colony, University of Chicago Press, 2013. 

Philoxenas, An account of the Baptism of Two Budhist Priests by Adam Clarke, L.L.D. Thomas Courtney, Dublin, 1820. 

Happy Birthday Alexander Johnston, Royal Asiatic Society, April 2015.

 

Malini Roy, Head of Visual Arts

Burmese puppet shows (yokthe pwe) were a popular entertainment under the Burmese monarchy, and possibly date back to the Pagan kingdom of the 11th century. Historical sources show that puppet plays have certainly been performed since the early 15th century, and rapidly grew in prestige and popularity in the 17th century. By the 18th century, puppet shows were common in ordinary Burmese circles, and were seen as a means of educating people in history, religion, culture and everyday life. At court, puppet shows were patronized by the Burmese kings, and the Thabin-wun (Minister for the performing arts) was in charge of performances.

The string puppets used in Burma (Myanmar) are made of wood, ideally Yamane wood (botanical name, Gamelina arborea) which is light and soft. Teak is also used, but it is heavier than Yamane wood. The size of the puppets varies from one to three feet tall, with small dancing puppets while non-dancing puppets are made larger. The standard repertoire involves a troupe of 28 puppets of characters comprising a nat (deva), sakka (ruler of the Tavatimsa heaven), zawgyi (alchemist), a king and queen, four ministers, a prince and princess, a hermit, a pageboy, punna (brahmin), bhilu (ogre), nat kadaw (spirit medium), two prince regents, a handmaiden, and animals including tiger, horse, elephant, monkey, parrot, garuda (mythical bird, in Burmese galon), naga (serpant), kinnara and kinnari (mythical birds). Each puppet has its own style of dancing, with accompanying song and music.

A depiction of a traditional Burmese puppet show, late 19th century. British Library, Or.14031, ff. 19-20

Detail of the Burmese puppets, from the painting above. British Library, Or.14031, ff. 19-20

A late 19th century Burmese manuscript in the British Library (Or.14031) contains painted scenes of a courtly puppet show and dramatic performance. The painting on folio 9 is inscribed on the bottom left in English, ‘Maung Tsa Painter.’ This identifies the painter as Saya Sa, the son of the most famous court painter U Kya Nyunt, who served as a royal artist to King Mindon (r. 1853-1878). Saya Sa was also a royal artist at the Burmese court, who served King Mindon’s son and successor, King Thibaw (r. 1878-1885). The illustration above shows the stage for the puppet show which is built of bamboo and thatch. The marionettes on the stage are surrounded by green trees. The white backdrop is about waist high. The puppeteers who work behind the curtain are visible to the audience. The stage is bare except for a male and female dancers and page boys against the white backdrop. The duet danced on the stage is performed by the leading characters in romantic scenes which are favourites with the audience. The puppets are dressed in real clothes and the puppeteers skilfully make their puppets act like living performers. The show is held under the open sky, and the grounds are filled with people who stand to watch the show. Spectators, enjoying the free entertainment, walk along the line of food stalls in the bazaar in the marionette theatre grounds.

The puppet show was allowed to use a stage as the puppets would otherwise be too small to be seen, and was hence termed amyint thabin (raised performance). However the puppet theatre was the only form of entertainment allowed to use a stage at the royal court at that time, and other entertainments performed by men and women could only be staged on the ground. Amyint thabin was later called yoke thay, and the popular saying, tha bin a sa yoke thay ka, ‘dance and drama began with marionettes’, reflects the prestige of the puppet theatre.

The themes of the puppet plays were based on the Buddha’s previous births (Jataka stories), Buddhist fables and stories, folktales and incidents in Burmese history, including the history of the pagodas. The last ten Jataka tales were very popular as they describe the perfection of ten important virtues. People learned about history, astrology, court intrigues and ethics from puppet plays.

Court entertainment, British Library, Or.14031, f. 1-3

The painting above, from the same manuscript, portrays a royal dramatic performance. The king is shown on the stage on the right watching the court musicians and dancers in the large white umbrella hall shown in the centre. Two drum circles are in place on either side of the stage, and alongside each of them is a brass gong circle. The drum circle consists of 21 drums, and the player sits within the circular frames and strikes the drums with his bare fingers and the heels of his hands. The brass gong circle is similar in design and there are 18 brass gongs. The player sits in the middle of the gongs and strikes them with a short knobbed stick (glimpsed on the left). In the centre, the male and female dancers sing and dance the duet hna-par-thwar. All the dancers and musicians perform on the ground, as they are not allowed to dance on a stage.

Detail of the dancers, from the painting above. British library, Or.14031, f. 1-3

A Burmese puppet troupe includes puppeteers, singers and musicians. The most complex aspect of the art of the Burmese marionette is the working of the marionette strings. 16 strings are attached to the head, hands and feet of each puppet, and these strings are then attached to a cross-piece handle. The puppeteer needs great skill to hold the handles in both his hands and pull the strings to make the marionettes perform delicate movements. The vocalists sit behind the screen and the puppeteers stand behind the screen to handle the puppets, working in conjunction with each other. A skilful puppeteer can operate the puppet in time with the vocalist’s dialogue or song, bringing the puppets alive. Some vocalists could sing both male and female voices, playing many different roles. Sometimes the puppeteer is able to perform both tasks, to sing and to manipulate the strings at the same time.

A Burmese puppet show (Yoke thay pwe), photograph taken by Philip Adolphe Klier in 1890s. British Library, Photo 88/1(42).

The marionette stage in the photo above is built of bamboo. A group of some thirty people are seated on bamboo mats spread on the bare ground, watching the performance. The puppets are arranged on the stage, and in front is the saing (puppet troupe orchestra). At one side of the stage is a throne, and puppets such as the king and queen, the prince and princess, the hermit, the minister, the page boy and the elephant can be seen on the stage. The hermit puppet is depicted as a religious image and is treated with respect by puppeteers. The scene being performed is set at the royal court and involves the king, queen and the minister.

In the present day, puppet shows can be seen at pagoda festivals in Rangoon and Mandalay, which are still occasions for traditional entertainment, with food and other bazaar stalls in the festival grounds. The dance style of the puppets differs from that of humans, but nowadays in Burma we see human performances adopting puppet characteristics and movements, as professional artists try to save this beautiful art form from disappearing.

Further reading

Khin Myo Chit, ‘Burmese marionette theatre’, The Guardian, Rangoon, 1976.
Dagon Nat Shin. Myanmar Yoke thay thabin. Rangoon: Yin Kye Mu, 1959.

San San May, Curator for Burmese