Fun-loving sculptors of 7th century India

I’ve just returned from south India, where I spent several days visiting temples and archaeological sites in Tamil Nadu. This area is bristling with historic monuments, but one of the most impressive (and a key reason for my visit) was this carved rock-face at Mamallapuram, about 60km south of Chennai on the Coromandel Coast.

Mamallapuram was an important sea-port for the Pallava dynasty that ruled most of south India from the 6th to 8th century AD. The Pallava kings - notably Mahendravarman I and his son Narasimhavarman I of the early 7th century - were keen builders with an eye for beautiful architecture. The stretches of granite rock on this coastline provided ample material for their sculptors. The temples they built in Mamallapuram are of great historical significance, providing the template for subsequent religious buildings in south India. But for sheer attractiveness, it is difficult to beat this massive piece of free-form relief carving, 30m wide by 15m high.

The work is often referred to either as “Arjuna’s Penance” or “The Descent of the Ganges”, but no-one actually knows its original name, or indeed what it was for. None of that matters much when you are standing in front of it (cringing from the traffic that roars along inches behind you), because it is simply amazing. 

The rock-face is divided by a cleft down the middle, into which are carved two large images of naga (serpent) deities. The natural element of nagas is water, suggesting that the cleft represents a waterway or river. On the left is an image of the god Shiva, who once helped to channel the Ganges to avoid a flood, hence the suggested name “Descent of the Ganges”. But Shiva is also gesticulating towards a thin ascetic man standing on one leg with both arms raised (see below). Some believe that this is Arjuna, from the Indian epic Mahabharata, who performed a rigorous penance in order to persuade Shiva to grant him a weapon of deadly power. Surrounding these figures are a host of divine, human and animal images. It’s like a stone version of the Sistine Chapel ceiling: the more you look at it, the more you see.

It has been written about extensively but none of the studies prepares you for the playfulness and exuberance of the sculpture. Most commentators point out the mischievous cat who mimics Arjuna’s pose, attracting a group of gullible mice who will soon become lunch (below). But it was only when I stood in front of the rock-face that I noticed, for example, the jaunty little ganas (dwarves) who make up Shiva’s retinue. The cheeky one standing between Shiva and Arjuna looks like he’s about to give Arjuna a crafty shove to see if he can keep his balance.

A herd of elephants occupies the lower right quadrant, accompanied by their babies, one of whom is trailing behind but grinning cheerfully anyway (he’s obviously used to being left behind). On the upper left and right, the celestial beings are all giving you a cheery wave as they float by, looking so realistic that you involuntarily move your head to follow their flight. They seem to be in pairs or couples, each with a unique pose and expression that is quite unlike the systematized style of China's Terracotta Warriors. They reminded me of Olympic teams marching in the opening ceremony, full of happy optimism, waving to the crowd: at least, if Olympic teams were accompanied by pet lions with long curly tails. You get the feeling that the sculptors didn't feel the need to explain themselves.

It’s frustrating therefore that so little is known about the many different sculptures and monuments of Mamallapuram. We don’t know where the artists came from, how they learned their skills or why many of the works are unfinished. One suggestion is that Mamallapuram was a training ground for sculptors. This might explain why it contains what the historian Richard Blurton calls a “conspectus” or broad overview of rock-cut architectural styles, dotted all over the town.

Blurton also notes that the 'easy familiarity' and 'earthy' aspects of Pallava sculpture eventually gave way to the 'purest classical style' of the Cholas. In other words, south Indian sculpture became less fun and more restrained, which is a bit of a shame. But the fun-loving artists of Mammallapuram at least left their mark on other Pallava monuments, notably at the Kailasanatha temple in Kanchipuram, about 50km inland, which was the personal chapel of Narasimhavarman II of the 8th century. Below for example is an image of the goddess Durga with her lion companion, both displaying that air of bold liveliness that is so appealing.

And also at Kailasanatha, there is this wonderful image of the god Shiva in his long-haired mendicant form, baring his bum and (I swear) twerking. Perhaps after this, as Miley Cyrus discovered, there was just nowhere further to go.  

Reference material: Hindu Art (1992) by T Richard Blurton ; Indian Art (1997) by Vidya Dehejia

The Emperor Jahangir's fantasy world

This 17th century painting, attributed to Abu’l Hasan, is one of the finest works in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin and certainly one of the most bizarre. Dating from 1616, it depicts the Mughal emperor Jahangir standing on a globe while furiously shooting arrows into the decapitated head of a black man. The globe rests on the back of a bull which is standing on a giant fish. An owl perches on top of the severed head while another seems to be falling off it. Celestial beings in the upper right corner reach down to offer Jahangir more weaponry.

 The answer to the question “what’s going on here?” is not a short one, but worth unpacking nonetheless. Firstly, the head is meant to be that of Malik Ambar, a former slave of Ethiopian origin who became a successful military leader in the Deccan region, fighting against Mughal expansion in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The Mughals struggled for decades to conquer the five Deccani sultanates; it was a long painful to-and-fro affair until Jahangir’s grandson Aurangzeb finished the job in the mid-17th century. At the time of this painting, Malik Ambar was very much alive and the whole Deccan business was a massive thorn in Jahangir’s side. He seems to have commissioned this allegorical fantasy in part to assuage his own raging frustration.

Source: New York Review of Books

The surrounding images are so complex that academic sources don’t always agree on their meaning, and a full discussion is beyond our scope here. One thing that stands out is Abu’l Hasan’s use of European imagery. The globe is not only a reference to Jahangir’s own imperial name (“he who seizes the world”) but seemingly also a nod to their popularity in European Renaissance art. The Mughal court was well acquainted with contemporary European painting thanks to gifts from Jesuit missionaries from as early as the mid-1500s. Jahangir (when not obsessing about his enemies) had a keen and enquiring mind, and was much taken with this new field of art. In a way, this portrait is a distant cousin of Holbein’s The Ambassadors, another work packed with allegorical references, including a hidden skull and (yes) some globes. The little weapons-merchants in the upper right rather resemble Italian Renaissance putti, while also harking back to the celestial beings seen in classical Indian sculpture.

The art historian GA Bailey has pointed to the tiny Persian text inscriptions beside each key image as another feature seen in European Renaissance art. The one beside Malik Ambar’s head reads: “The head of the night-coloured servant has become the house of the owl”. While owls certainly had a bad rep in Indian superstition, this text also reminded me of the “habitation of dragons and a court for owls” in the Book of Isaiah; indeed, the furious speech of God’s Judgement on the Nations (read it here) could be Jahangir raging about the Deccan. The idea that this image has Christian metaphorical overtones isn’t far fetched: we know about the Jesuit connections, and on the globe Abu’l Hasan has included an image of a lion lying down peacefully with a deer or antelope. In the companion piece to this painting (“Jahangir slaying poverty”), the biblical imagery is even more distinct.

Abu’l Hasan is careful to tie it back to Indian and Islamic imagery, however, as the Mughals were Muslims after all, albeit rather liberal at times. The bull and the fish are common images in Indian art, and the artist knew that his audience could make its own references to Matsya the giant fish (avatar of Vishnu), Nandi the bull (companion of Shiva) and so on. But he may also have been referring to an idea amongst some mediaeval Islamic scholars that the earth rested on a bull and a fish.  For example, there is a striking similarity with this image from a 13th century illustration by Islamic mystical scholar Zakariya Qazwini, whose book Ajaib al-Makhluqat (The Wonders of Creation) was just the sort of thing that curious Jahangir would have loved.

Source: US Library of Congress

The main aim, I suspect, was to show Jahangir at the very centre of a painting filled with Western, Islamic and Indian imagery, both ancient and modern, so as to underline his position as He Who Seizes the World - if he could only get rid of those pesky Deccan rebels! 

Happily, Malik Ambar lived on well into his seventies as a high-ranking courtier in the sultanate of Ahmednagar, even acting as regent at one point. It was not until years after his death that the sultanate finally succumbed to Mughal forces. Sunil Khilnani talks about him in his fascinating Radio 4 series Incarnations: India in 50 lives. If you have BBC iPlayer, you can access it here. 

Useful sources of information for this post included: "Sultans of Deccan India 1500-1700", Metropolitan Museum, NY; "The Indian Portrait, 1560-1860", Rosemary Crill; "Biblical Themes in Mughal Painting", SP Verma; and "The Spirit of Indian Painting", BN Goswamy. 

My memory of the phrase "habitation of dragons and a court for owls" comes from Gerald Durrell's "The Garden of the Gods", Corfu Trilogy, Book 3, Chap 4.

A new adventure for Hamza

In July, I wrote about the Mughal painter Daswanth and his illustrations for the Hamzanama (Adventures of Hamza), commissioned by the emperor Akbar in the mid-16^th century. Akbar’s atelier of artists created some 1,400 illustrated pages (folios) for this magnificent work, of which perhaps 200 have survived. What I didn’t know at the time was that a newly discovered folio had been consigned for sale at Christie’s in London. On October 20^th, that piece (below) sold at auction for £821,000. If it had been in pristine condition, like the ones in the Smithsonian, it could have fetched seven figures.

Entitled “The Rukh carries Amir Hamza to his home”, the folio depicts a scene where our hero Hamza takes the quickest route home by clinging to the legs of a rukh, a giant mythical bird which some may remember as the roc in the Sinbad stories. The roc is really not pleased, as shown by its furious expression as it turns to peck at Hamza. Our hero hangs on bravely as they fly across the ocean, only a few feet above the waves, watched by a couple of curious fish on the lower right. Bear in mind that these illustrations are quite large, around 25 inches (65cm) high and 20 inches (50cm) wide, so its impact when new must have been stunning.

I was also excited to learn that the piece is attributed by the art historian John Seyller to the artists Daswanth and Shravana. Dr Seyller points to key elements of Daswanth’s style, like the use of huge forms and supernatural images (remember the ghoul in the Jaipur Museum’s Razm-nama). You can read the Lot Essay that he wrote for Christie’s here. Daswanth and Shravana worked together on several folios of the Hamzanama, some of which were included in the Smithsonian’s exhibition of 2002 (check out the beautiful catalogue here). You may also recall that Shravana worked on the brilliant depiction of evil Zumurrud Shah and his henchmen escaping on flying jars.

There’s something irresistible about the image of the giant roc. Below for example is a poster produced by the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin for its production of Sinbad the Sailor in 1892. Like Hamza, Sinbad uses the roc as an unwilling form of transport.

While researching other images of the roc, I came across this painting (below) from the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto, and was struck by the similarities with the Rukh folio. This piece is dated 1590, some twenty-five years later than the Rukh, and is attributed to the eminent Mughal painter Basawan. He was a colleague of Daswanth and Shravana in the imperial atelier and worked alongside them on the Hamzanama.

Although the image here derives from a poem by the Persian poet Nizami, and the flying creature is not a roc but a simurgh (more like a phoenix), I couldn’t help wondering if it was to some extent inspired by Daswanth and Shravana’s work.

Anthony Welch, in Arts of the Islamic Book, points out that the simurgh plays a key role in Arabic and Iranian mystical stories, so “a Muslim arriving at Akbar’s court from Iran or Central Asia would have recognised this work immediately”. So perhaps the similarities are simply due to the genre.  But if Basawan’s work is, even in a small way, a nod to his former colleague Daswanth (who had died tragically six years before), that must add to the importance of the Rukh folio.

I really hope that the folio will eventually reside in a public museum for all to see. Trustees of the V&A and the Smithsonian, now is the time for action!

Indus Valley seals: tiny objects of mystery

Having enjoyed the new Bollywood epic Mohenjo Daro, I’m devoting this next post to Indus Valley seals: not just because they feature in the film’s plot but because (like the plot) they are quite mystifying. Even the film’s lead actor, Hrithik Roshan, looks beautifully perplexed.

Mohenjo Daro is one of the most important ancient cities so far discovered on the South Asian subcontinent, rivalled only by Harappa which was the first to be found. Both lie in the Indus valley in modern-day Pakistan and have been dated to the 3^rd millennium BC. To put that in context, they were of about the same period as the Minoans in Crete, and pre-dated the reign of Tutankhamun by several centuries.

Although both Harappa and Mohenjo Daro were large and probably wealthy cities, not many of their fine artefacts have survived. Among the most interesting, however, are some tiny pieces of steatite or soapstone, about 4cm square, intricately carved on one side and with a little handle on the back. Historians believe that these were used as seals, perhaps by tradesmen who wanted to mark bundles of goods. The image below from the Metropolitan Museum shows one of these seals (left) and its resulting imprint (right).

Before looking at the images on the seals, it’s worth noting that the symbols along the upper edge are examples of Indus Valley script, which remains undeciphered to this day. In the Internet age, it is humbling to come up against something like this. Until we find a Rosetta stone or an Alan Turing to decode the script, our understanding of the Indus civilizations will remain sadly incomplete.

The images on the seals are equally fascinating. The Met’s is a classic because the animal shown (which is surely a bull or buffalo) has been described by fanciful observers as a unicorn because it has only one horn. I’m not sure anyone truly believes this but it provides good fodder for lengthy academic argument.

Other seals have even more complex imagery. The one below (from the National Museum in Delhi) is famous because some believe that it depicts an early incarnation of the god Shiva, flanked by a rhinoceros, a buffalo, a tiger and an elephant. One of Shiva’s titles was “Lord of the Animals” or “Pashupati”, hence the seal is commonly referred to as the Pashupati seal.

 In the one below (from the Islamabad Museum), a religious ceremony seems to be in progress: in the upper left, a figure stands in a tree while another figure kneels in worship. To the right there seems to be a bull with a human face, while along the bottom is a row of seven women. One suggestion is that they are ancient ancestors of the Matrikas, the Hindu goddesses who always appear in a group of seven.

Some other seals are so strange that they must have been used for purposes other than trade. I can’t imagine how the one below (a horned woman attacking a tiger) would find favour among clients, unless the goods or services were very specific indeed.  Pest control, perhaps?

To be fair, there are some unusual corporate logos still in use today – I’ve never understood how a picture of bees swarming around a dead lion helps to sell Lyle’s Golden Syrup, for example (below). The slogan “Out of the strong came forth sweetness” doesn’t explain much.

But what if the seals’ undeciphered pictograms are actually slogans as well? “Unicorn Cattle Feed – nourish your mythical beast”. The key to the code must surely be found someday, perhaps in a dusty museum archive. Until then, it’s a waiting game.

Daswanth the mysterious Mughal painter

Indian painting of the Mughal school blossomed in the late 16^th century during the reign of Akbar, grandson of Babur (whom you will recall was not fond of jackfruit.) It was particularly influenced by two Persian masters, Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd as-Samad, who were in charge of the imperial atelier. In 1597, Akbar’s biographer Abu’l Fazl drew up a list of the best painters of the period. The two Persians were placed respectfully at the top, but surprisingly, third place went to a low-born painter named Daswanth (or Dasavanta), who some twelve years earlier had succumbed to madness and taken his own life.

To be placed third was no mean achievement – there was some amazing talent in Akbar’s stable of artists, most of whom didn’t even make the list. Below for example is an illustration from the Hamza-nama (The Adventures of Hamza) which is attributed to two of these artists, Shravana and Madhava Khurd. It depicts an episode where the giant Zumurrud Shah and his followers escape on flying jars with the help of wicked sorcerers. Neither of these artists made the list, even though the work is quite delightful – look at the playful structure and the energy bursting off the page. 

More of this on the Smithsonian website at www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/hamza/hamza.htm and hopefully in a subsequent post.

What did Daswanth have to match this? As a young artist, he too contributed to the Hamza-nama but some of his finest mature works were said to be the illustrations to Akbar’s copy of the Razm-nama (the Persian adaptation of the Mahabharata). This is owned by the Jaipur royal family and has been locked away from public view for decades. No-one knows why – is it something as mundane as a legal dispute between the heirs of the last Maharaja? That hasn’t prevented access to other works though.

I first encountered Daswanth in an article by the art historian Milo Cleveland Beach which included some blurry monochrome images from the Razm-nama. In the one below, depicting a night assault on the enemy camp, a huge ghoul wearing a necklace of heads (upper right) rises out of the corpse of the slain warrior Sikhandin (lower right). Dating from the early 1580s, shortly before the painter’s death, it’s tempting to see in this some hint of the dark thoughts which led to his demise.

Further research led me to a massive four-volume catalogue entitled Memorials of the Jeypore Exhibition by Thomas Holbein Hendley, published in 1883 (if you request this in the British Library, be prepared to wheel it in a cart to a special table where photography is banned!). Volume 4 contains a full set of images taken from the Jaipur Razm-nama, in monochrome only but giving a pretty good idea of the range of Daswanth’s work. There is a stunning double-page picture of a maze comprised of rows of soldiers, into which the hero Arjuna’s son was lured and killed. Hendley praises the intense colours in this painting – sadly we can only imagine this for ourselves.

At least Daswanth’s skills may be appreciated in the Hamza-nama, for example in the image below depicting the messenger Umar slaying a dragon. The wonderful colours of the dragon, and the way the nervous onlookers at the top seem to be almost tumbling over the rocky cliff, may help to explain Abu’l Fazl’s high regard for Daswanth. But until we see the full glory of the Jaipur Razm-nama, we may never know for sure how great an artist he was.

Sometimes a god needs comfort food too

This 15^th-16^th century stone sculpture of the Indian god Ganesha depicts the elephant-headed deity in typical seated pose, with his fat belly bulging over his chubby thighs. Apart from his most obvious attribute, he is also identifiable by the iconographic symbols he holds: the conch shell in his upper right hand; the noose (upper left hand - sometimes a goad or an axe), representing a weapon to catch or clear away obstacles; and his favourite ladhu sweet (lower left hand) which he is tucking into greedily. He usually holds a lotus flower as well.

Ganesha is worshipped for his ability to remove obstacles and bestow success on new initiatives, so this post should really have been the first in this blog. In case you haven’t tried them, ladhus (see below) are delicious if you have a super-sweet tooth, and Ganesha’s fondness for them is one of the things that makes him a particular favourite amongst Hindu devotees.

As if that were not endearing enough, his closest companion is a mouse, depicted on the front of the plinth in the image above. Sometimes the mouse is shown clasping his little paws in worship of Ganesha; elsewhere it has been shown bearing the god on its back (although the idea of a mouse of that size is a tad disturbing). Either way, the myth about elephants being scared of mice doesn’t apply here.

Ganesha’s story is more than a little eccentric. Unlike most gods who tend to be born from lotus flowers or cosmic seas, Ganesha was born of the goddess Parvati looking quite normal. The story goes that his father Shiva (one of the three great Hindu gods along with Vishnu and Brahma) was away for a long time. On returning, he was greeted at the door by a grown-up Ganesha whom he did not recognise. Assuming him to be an interloper, he acted as gods will often do and cut off the young man’s head. At this point, Parvati appeared. Presumably there followed what the police sometimes call “an exchange of words”.

To make up for his blunder, Shiva went out to find a new head for his son (still with us here?). Like any reluctant husband sent out to do the shopping, he settled for the first thing he saw, which was the head of a passing elephant. Parvati's response can only be imagined, but with an ample supply of ladhus all seems to have ended well. In some segments of the Hindu faith, the family may be depicted as a happy group including Ganesha's brother Skanda (or Kartikeya) and his father's bull Nandi. The particularly jolly depiction below comes from the Sri Aruloli temple on Penang Hill in Malaysia. 

A lack of good fruit is not an obstacle to empire-building

This delicate painting depicts Zahir ud-Din Muhammad, known as Babur, founder of the Mughal dynasty which ruled India from the 16^th to the 19^th centuries. While descended from great warriors like Timur (or Tamerlane) and Genghis Khan, Babur was also rather refined and bookish, as is clear from his autobiography, the Baburnama.

Historians are fond of quoting the passage from that work which tells of Babur’s first impressions of India (or Hindustan). These were, to say the least, unpromising:

Hindustan is a country that has few pleasures to recommend it. The people are not handsome. They have no idea of the charms of friendly society, of frankly mixing together, or of familiar intercourse. They have no genius, no comprehension of mind, no politeness of manner, no kindness of fellow-feeling, no ingenuity or mechanical invention in planning or executing their handicraft works, no skill or knowledge in design or architecture; they have no horses, no good flesh, no grapes or musk melons, no good fruits, no ice or cold water, no good food or bread in their bazaars, no baths or colleges, no candles, no torches, not a candlestick.

While it’s amusing to hear the great Babur whingeing like a boy, this passage also illuminates the fact that India wasn’t his first choice as an empire. Being of Persian descent, he would have much preferred somewhere cultured and civilised like Kabul or Samarkand (which is unbearably sad in the context of recent history). There weren’t enough kingdoms for all the Timurid princes though, so when it was suggested that Babur might go and push out the collapsing Delhi Sultanate which ruled India at the time, off he went and the rest is history.

It is nice to know that Babur eventually came to appreciate the finer things that his new kingdom had to offer. Later in the Baburnama he writes detailed descriptions of local flora and fauna. He is impressed by the magnificence of elephants and rhinoceros; he thinks the local fish are delicious; he thinks mangoes are good, if a tad over-rated; and he finds the local flowers beautiful. But he absolutely loathes jackfruit, which smell bad and look “like sheep intestines turned inside-out” (see below).

You wonder what he would have said if he had known that his great-great-grandson would build the Taj Mahal. At any rate, he would have been pleased that he hadn’t been put off by the lack of good fruit.