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.

Strong women and revolting aunts in 10th century China

This large dish or charger in the famille verte style dates from the Kangxi period (1661-1772), Qing dynasty. It sold at Bonham’s recently for a nice £25,000, well above the estimate. While I’m not a big fan of the green tones of famille verte, I was intrigued by the catalogue note stating that: “It depicts a legendary moment during the Northern Song Dynasty when, after all the men had been slaughtered by the Khitan invaders, the women of the Yang family took up arms and bravely galloped out to meet the enemy.”

Some readers may mutter “Oh, the Yangs”, and indeed they are an important strand in Chinese popular culture, but I had never heard of them. Their story is a mix of truth and legend (mostly the latter), complicated by re-telling in plays, operas, films and television.

There is historical evidence of a distinguished military family named Yang, led by General Yang Ye, who came to prominence under the great Northern Song emperor Taizong (r. 976-997). Wilt Idema in his book Generals of the Yang Family: Four Early Plays cites an 11^th century tomb inscription which praises the Yangs’ military prowess. He also notes repeated references in popular tales such as the Judge Bao stories (13^th-15^th century).

But the Yang legend really gets going in the 16^th century through two sets of fictional tales detailing their exploits against the Khitan invaders. It is from here that stories of the Yang women warriors begin to proliferate, the most famous being Mu Guiying who defeated one of the Yang sons in battle and then proposed marriage to him. According to legend, her strategies later played a key role in breaking the Khitans’ hitherto undefeated Heavenly Battle Array.

The Yang family did not lack for strong women however, many of them being widows of Yang menfolk killed in war. Mu’s mother-in-law She Saihua was famously feisty, and in one version, actually led the women into battle herself at the age of 100 (perhaps as illustrated on the Qing dish above). In a more recent TV version cited by Khoo Poh Cheng in a paper at MIT, Mu even has to deal with a revolt by senior aunts who question her authority as military leader. What would PG Wodehouse have made of that? Did they bellow like mastodons across the primeval swamp?

While the exploits of the Yang women were almost certainly fictional, their role as a cultural and political symbol in China has been very real. A key example is Women Generals of the Yang Family (Yangmen Nijiang), a staple of the Beijing Opera’s repertoire. Based on an earlier play, the opera was created around 1960 at a time when political and economic changes opened up opportunities for women in China. During the Cultural Revolution, the opera was banned by Mao Zedong’s powerful wife Jiang Qing, citing some guff about it being contrary to Mao’s views. After the fall of Jiang’s Gang of Four, the opera was gleefully restored and lauded for showing the right spirit of female dedication to political life. I’m still kicking myself for missing the performance at Sadlers Wells last winter (see below).

The depiction of the Yang women on Qing dynasty ceramics is not particularly rare: a few have come up at auction in recent years. One could go on about the various manifestations of the Yang women (I’d like to see The 14 Amazons, a 1970s Hong Kong flick starring Ivy Ling Po), but the final word must go to Mu Guiying, who has even had a crater named after her on Venus (see below). A very elegant one too.

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. 

Imperial survivors

This 12th century Chinese handscroll painting, commonly known as Auspicious Cranes, is attributed to Huizong, eighth emperor of the Song dynasty. It claims to depict a real-life incident when a flock of cranes (believed to bring good fortune) descended on the imperial palace in 1112.

That an emperor could paint as well as this may be surprising, but Huizong was a member of possibly the most cultured and accomplished dynasty ever to rule China. Unlike the more famous Tang, Ming and Qing dynasties, the Song were always a bit of a mystery to me, and I found their tale compelling.

The Northern Song ruled China from the 10th to the 12th centuries before being displaced, later morphing into the Southern Song (explained below). They were great patrons of art and culture, building massive libraries, becoming expert calligraphers and collecting art on a grand scale. Huizong typified these traits, even creating his own flowery calligraphic style known as “slender gold” (shoujing, below). What he lacked, though, were the leadership skills of his more illustrious ancestors.

China had long been threatened by two aggressive northern neighbours: the Khitan Liao and the Jurchen Jin. Huizong’s government tried ineptly to form an alliance with one against the other, annoying both in the process. Eventually, the Jin launched an invasion in the winter of 1125, and proceeded to pillage and destroy on a scale that I’d thought only existed in lurid historical movies.

Patricia Ebrey gives a gripping account of this in her book, Accumulating Culture. Two particular anecdotes stand out for me. First, having taken the capital Kaifeng after a brutal siege, the Jin began to hunt down and capture every member of the imperial family. They were so thorough that, among the dozens of children and grandchildren, they noticed that one baby prince was missing, hidden by his nursemaid. They were, of course, hunted down too.

The Jin toyed with the Song by making an endless series of demands. The hapless Huizong had abdicated by then, so it was his heir Qinzong who was subjected to this cat-and-mouse game. The Jin simply raised their demands each time (“Thanks for the silk. Now we’d like all your horses too.”) The amounts were staggering: millions of bars of gold and silver, and when this could not be met, women were accepted at a pre-agreed rate (1 princess = 1000 gold bars). When Qinzong tried to negotiate, the Jin general Nianhan said smoothly: “Is there anything here that is not already mine?” 

Finally, the Jin sent all their spoils back to the north, together with the imperial family and clansmen as prisoners. Of this 5000-strong prison convoy, most died en-route from hunger or exhaustion. Huizong and Qinzong survived but later died in captivity.

But this was not the end of the Song, for one of the princes managed to flee to the south where he founded what became known as the Southern Song. Like his ancestors, Emperor Gaozong (as he became) was a great patron of art but he was also a canny operator - he managed to negotiate a workable truce with the Jin, albeit on onerous terms. And he declined to ransom his older brother Qinzong, as this would have displaced him from the throne. The Southern Song lasted a further 150 years.

Studying the Song helped me to appreciate the ceramics from their period, which have a subtler beauty than the more famous Ming or Qing. One might argue that the difference between Huizong and Gaozong is reflected in two famous ceramics created under their respective reigns. On the upper left is an example of Ru ware: a dreamily beautiful blue-glazed Northern Song ceramic, said to resemble “the colour of sky after rain”. Below that is an example of the equally beautiful Guan ware, a Southern Song ceramic with a more pronounced crackle effect which suggests (to me) toughness, endurance and survival.

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.