Tuesday, 24 July 2018

Krishna lifts the roof in Cambodia

Source: National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh 

This 7th century Cambodian sculpture of the Hindu god Krishna, from the National Museum in Phnom Penh, caught my attention in John Guy’s excellent catalogue* of ancient South-East Asian sculpture. I was particularly taken by the statue’s graceful stance and the wonderful expression on his face. How does something from 7th century Cambodia come to possess all the energy and elegance of Indian and Greco-Roman art?

You may remember Krishna as the god who swooped down to rescue the Elephant King in the previous post. This time, he is lifting a mountain called Mount Govardhan with one hand and holding it over an entire village, in order to protect it from a rain-storm sent by the god Indra. This scene (known as Krishna Govardhana) is a favourite in Indian art, especially in the field of miniature painting. In the 17th century version below, from Bikaner in Rajasthan, Krishna lifts the mountain nonchalantly, like a waiter holding a tray, while he basks in the attentions of adoring women. Cowherds tend to their flocks in the foreground, while in the upper right corner Indra watches from atop his white elephant, no doubt cursing Krishna for foiling his plan.

Source: British Museum

I like the fact that, while depicting Krishna as the hero, the artist has also emphasised the life-giving qualities of rain. The foliage is lush and green (which you would appreciate if you lived in dusty Rajasthan) and the cows are obviously healthy and productive. The one in the bottom left is even giving birth to a new calf under the anxious gaze of a rain-soaked cowherd!

In the Hindu pantheon, Krishna is one of the forms taken by Vishnu, though he may actually have been a regional deity in his own right before being absorbed into the Vaishnavite fold. He is always portrayed as youthful and energetic, often associated with cowherds (hence the bovine imagery), notorious for his dalliances with pretty girls, and beloved of mothers and grannies who coo over his childish antics such as stealing butter from the pantry.

All of which makes me wonder how this laddish deity was received in 7th century Cambodia, nearly three centuries before the Angkor civilisation. There are so few surviving records that it’s impossible to be sure. Hinduism and Buddhism both made a strong impact on the region, spreading along trade routes from Eastern and Southern India early in the first millenium (precise dates are sketchy). Cambodian sculpture from this period shows clear signs of influence from Indian models; there are even some examples of Hari-hara, the half-Vishnu half-Shiva composite figure that is a classic of Indian sculpture. The novelist W Somerset Maugham was enchanted by a Hari-hara that he saw in the Phnom Penh museum while he was travelling through Cambodia in the 1920s.*

The predominance of Buddhism in Cambodia today disguises the fact that for long periods, Hinduism was the dominant religion there. And local devotees seem to have taken to Krishna enthusiastically, judging from the several images of Krishna Govardhana that have been found. The finest, like our sculpture, come from a site called Phnom Da, about 60km south of Phnom Penh. Not much is known about it, except that it was a Hindu cave temple complex, probably active around the 6th-8th centuries. When excavated by French archaeologists in the early 20th century, it yielded some beautiful and sophisticated sculptures, with long elegant limbs, smooth powerful bodies and expressive faces. These have become a reference point for the study of South-East Asian sculpture, with scholars often referring to a “Phnom Da style”.

The example below (now in the Cleveland Museum in the US) is a fine example, described by John Guy as “perhaps the greatest pre-Angkorian sculpture outside Cambodia”. A Cleveland curator has noted that it’s the perfect image for a cave temple, as Krishna seems to be holding up the roof!

Source: Cleveland Museum of Art

The Cleveland piece is certainly more imposing than our Krishna, being twice as high (2.4m versus 1.2m) and in possession of his lower limbs which were re-discovered in the 1950s.  But I have a sneaking fondness for the Phnom Penh piece because of its cheery and slightly smug expression – exactly how a boy-god would look while lifting a mountain with one hand.

* Reference material:
Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early South-East Asia (
2014), ed. John Guy, Metropolitan Museum, New York
The Gentleman in the Parlour (1930), W Somerset Maugham
"The Cleveland Museum's Kṛṣṇa Govardhana and the Early Phnom Da Style of Cambodian Sculpture", (2000), Stanislaw Czuma, Ars Orientalis Vol 30

Saturday, 21 April 2018

So hungry you could eat an elephant


 
Source: British Museum

This Indian musical instrument (a sarinda - like a small violin) caught my eye in the British Museum. Made of ivory in the early 18th century, the main body is carved with images of flowers and angels, while the scroll-end depicts a monster devouring an elephant and clutching another in its claws (above right). The artist had a macabre sense of humour, because the sarinda is played in an upright position, so the musician would have the monster staring straight at him! On the other hand, I wonder if this was a decorative piece only, as ivory surely wouldn't produce good resonance for a stringed instrument.

By showing the poor elephant sliding into the monster’s maw, the artist persuades us that the monster must be enormous. It’s a neat trick that is also seen for example at Gangaikonda Cholapuram, the magnificent South Indian temple built in the 11th century by Rajendra Chola I. In this case, the image is carved beside a doorway to act as a threat to trespassers.


The elephant’s size makes it a good snack for monstrous appetites. This occurs in another popular image in Indian art: the god Vishnu rescuing an elephant from the makara, a crocodile-like monster. As told in the Bhagavata Purana, the king of the elephants was having a quiet drink from the river when it was seized by the makara and held in a death struggle. The elephant prayed to Vishnu, who swooped down and killed the monster with his deadly sudarshana chakra (a sharp-edged spinning disc). In artistic renderings, Vishnu is often portrayed as the handsome dark-skinned young avatar Krishna, accompanied by his flying companion Garuda who seems to be a kind of parakeet in the example below. You can also see the chakra embedded in the makara's neck. The scene is known collectively as Gajendra Moksha, the Liberation of the Elephant King.

Source: Victoria & Albert Museum
It’s not hard to see where the idea of the makara came from: India is home to three large species of crocodile, two of which (the saltwater and the mugger) regularly attack humans, while the gharial is harmless but grows to over 5 metres. Their presence was noted by the armies of Alexander the Great when he reached the Indus River in the 4th century BC. He thought he’d reached a section of the Nile because it was the only other place where they had seen crocodiles.
And crocodiles do actually attack elephants, as shown in this photograph taken in Zambia in 2010 (see also this article). A Google search turns up at least three recorded incidents in the past 10 years. In all these cases the elephant survived, so clearly Vishnu is still standing by when needed. But if you ask me, it’s never really safe to go back in the water. 

Source: Scientific American


Saturday, 7 April 2018

The emperor's war-horses keep up the fight

 On a recent visit to the V&A, I was taken aback by this strange clay sculpture of a horse from 3rd or 4th century China. Is that an asparagus growing out of its head?

Source: Victoria & Albert Museum

Anyway, it set me thinking about horses in Chinese art, and in particular those depicted on carved stone panels at the tomb of the emperor Taizong. Looking further into this, I learned something about the panels’ troubled history.

Taizong (r. 626 to 649 AD), the second emperor of the Tang dynasty, is revered in Chinese history as a great ruler: a fearless warrior, highly literate, concerned for the welfare of his people, and open to foreign trade and culture. In many ways, he laid the foundations for the brilliance of the Tang dynasty. The Tang ruling elite were passionate about horses and equestrian sports, including polo which was especially popular among women. They imported top-quality horses from expert breeders in Central Asia whose livestock was superior to the rather weedy local ponies. The Tang love of horses was reflected in their art, notably in the horse figurines which are a must-have for any wealthy Chinese antique collector (see below).

Source: Metropolitan Museum, New York

More importantly, good horses were vital to the army and therefore a symbol of dynastic power and prestige. Taizong led his troops into battle on a series of mighty war-horses which he loved so much that he chose the six greatest ones and had their images engraved on stone panels, each accompanied by a poetic epitaph which he wrote himself. In accordance with his wishes, the huge panels (each measuring 1.6m x 2m) were installed as part of his tomb complex at Zhaoling, 60km north-west of Xian in Shaanxi Province.

Source: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

The most famous of the six panels (shown above) depicts the horse named Saluzi, or Autumn Dew. The story goes that while carrying Taizong into battle, Saluzi was hit by an arrow. Taizong’s army chief, General Qiu, pulled the arrow out of Saluzi’s chest then and there, the brave horse showing no sign of pain or suffering. The sculptor (whose identity is unknown) has portrayed Saluzi standing calmly with his legs angled slightly forward, bracing himself, while the general’s knees are bent to show the force needed to extract the arrow.

Each of the six horses was chosen because it carried Taizong to victory at a particularly important battle. All of them sustained serious injuries in the process: for example, the horse named Quan Mao Gua (Curly-haired) was hit by nine arrows but continued to surge forward bravely, as shown in the carving below – the picture isn’t very good but you might just make out two arrows sticking out behind the saddle. 

Source: University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

A black horse with white socks named Bai Di Wu (White-footed Crow) reportedly carried Taizong on an epic 100km ride through the night. His panel shows him in a “flying gallop”, all four feet off the ground, and his poetic epitaph reads:

With a sword long enough to touch the sky
And this swift steed that could run with the wind
On a gallop I recovered Long
With one look I brought peace to Shu.

倚天長劒, 追風駿足, 聳轡平隴, 囘鞍定蜀.

It turns out, however, that the panels are the subject of a long-running dispute between the University of Pennsylvania Museum, which currently owns the two shown above, and the museum authorities in Xian where the other four remain. According to the UPM’s records, it first received the two panels in 1918 on loan from the Paris-based Chinese art dealer Loo Ching Tsai (known as CT Loo). The museum eventually purchased them from Loo in early 1921 for $125,000. 

It emerged that the panels’ provenance was shady, to say the least. The UPM received a letter in June 1921 from a French collector named Paul Mallon, who thought they might like to know that he had paid a fellow Frenchman named Grosjean to “obtain” the panels from Taizong’s tomb in 1912. Unfortunately, the grave-robbers hired by Grosjean were “attacked by peasants” while carting the loot away. The panels were confiscated by local officials and sent to the district museum. And so poor Monsieur Mallon was left out of pocket, quelle domage

The next problem is that no-one knows how the panels ended up in the US. After their sojourn at the district museum, they turned up in Beijing in the possession of the new ruler of post-imperial China, the warlord Yuan Shi-Kai. CT Loo claimed that the shipment to the US was arranged by a local middleman who was authorised by “the supreme authority of the country”, implying that either Yuan, his family or someone in his government had approved the deal, which is perfectly plausible but impossible to verify.

CT Loo himself had a controversial reputation. An orphan who moved to France in 1902 as servant to a Chinese businessman, he became the pre-eminent dealer in ancient Chinese, Indian and South-East Asian art, catering to wealthy collectors and major museums in the US and Europe. Anyone studying the provenance of Asian antiquities in the West will encounter his name repeatedly: an online search of the Smithsonian’s Freer-Sackler collection turns up over 300 hits. As a result, he came to be viewed with suspicion for his links with objects of questionable origin, the Taizong horses being a well-known example. He always denied any wrongdoing, and was in fact known for his philanthropy towards Chinese causes up until his death in 1957.
   
So where does that leave our heroic horses? Demands for their return have been made by authorities in Xian every few years but the UPM is not giving in. Perhaps tellingly, the issue has not come up at the highest diplomatic levels, suggesting that the Chinese central government is not (yet) interested in turning this into an Elgin Marbles situation. Will this change in the new climate of Sino-US relations? The horses probably don’t mind: they’ve seen a lot worse.

Reference material: "Emperor Taizong and his six horses", Zhou Xiuqin, Orientations 32, No 2 (2001); "CT Loo: highs and lows of a great art dealer", presentation by Geraldine Lenain to the Asia Society, Hong Kong (link here)

Monday, 12 March 2018

Doors of Perception at Luang Prabang


These ornate double doors caught my attention when I visited Haw Pha Bang, the golden temple which lies in the grounds of the Royal Palace at Luang Prabang, Laos. Many temples in Luang Prabang have similarly dazzling doorways, usually depicting famous scenes from Buddhist literature. But you have to be quite familiar with the literature to make sense of the images, and unless you have been a keen reader of the Jatakas (the vast collection of stories about the Buddha’s path to enlightenment), some of the images can be a bit baffling.

So I was quite pleased to be able to decipher the images here. They depict one of the most famous scenes from Buddhist scripture, where Gautama Buddha, having at last achieved the state of enlightenment, is attacked by the demon Mara and his wickedly tempting daughters. They try to undermine the Buddha’s new-found equanimity by offering him all manner of worldly pleasures. But the Buddha touches the ground with his right hand and calls on the Earth to witness that he is enlightened and beyond all temptation. The Earth (sometimes portrayed as a goddess) responds accordingly: Mara is vanquished and his daughters are revealed as evil hags. This is the point when the Buddha is proven beyond doubt to have reached the transcendent state of Nirvana.

The sculptors at Haw Pha Bang have made it fairly easy to follow the story. On the upper left is the Buddha being attacked by the hideous many-armed Mara and his retinue of strange beasts.


On the lower left are the temptress daughters, wearing plenty of bling and striking their finest poses.


On the upper right, the Buddha sits newly resplendent on his lotus throne, his right hand calling the Earth to witness.


And below him sit a trio of women whose appearance at first I found puzzling. Because if these were meant to be Mara’s daughters revealed as evil hags, why did they look like normal women? 


Fortunately, just minutes earlier, I had seen a useful clue to this question: the royal family’s collection of illustrations to the Vessantara Jataka.

The Vessantara is the last of the Jataka stories and a great favourite among Laotian Buddhists. It tells the tale of Prince Vessantara (an incarnation of the Buddha) who willingly suffers all kinds of losses and even gives away his wife and children – a bit like Patient Griselda in Bocaccio’s Decameron. At its heart is the Buddhist precept of non-attachment to all things temporal. For our purposes however, the key element is the preamble, where the prince’s mother (on learning that she is pregnant) asks the gods for ten special favours. According to the description in the Royal Palace, she wishes not only that her child will be a great leader, but also (and this really caught my attention) that she will retain her youthful figure after childbirth, and specifically that her breasts will remain firm and not sag like those of other women. The Royal Palace’s English translation is actually more graphic than this.

Having gotten over my unexpected coughing fit, I found that this anecdote helped to explain the final images on the temple doors. A key indicator seems to be that the three women’s breasts have succumbed to gravity, instead of remaining supernaturally perky like those of the temptress daughters on the left. Other clues are their walking sticks, their practical hair-styles and their lack of jewellery. 

My first response was a feminist snort of disdain, bearing in mind that Haw Pha Bang was actually built in the late 20th century when (as I harrumphed to myself) the sculptors should really have known better. But thinking further, one could argue that the sculptors were seeking to distinguish between fantasy and reality. The left door is about the perils of self-doubt and illusion, while the right door is about remaining grounded in reality. Perhaps I’m trying too hard here?

The image of the Buddha touching the Earth with his right hand is one of the key mudras or hand gestures in Buddhist art. The position, known as bhumisparsha mudra, is a particular favourite in Thailand, for example in this 15th-16th century bronze from Ayutthaya, in the collection of the Musée Guimet, Paris.


While researching this piece, I was delighted to learn that the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, will be holding an exhibition of Burmese and Sri Lankan artifacts relating to the Vessantara Jataka. This coincides with the start of my third and final module at SOAS, which by happy coincidence is on Buddhist Art. Check out the Ashmolean exhibition here.


Friday, 22 December 2017

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

Wednesday, 22 November 2017

The Pensive Prince: beautiful art from a miserable time

This 6th century marble stele was the star attraction at this season’s sale of Chinese Buddhist art at Eskenazi in London. Despite its age, it still has traces of original gilding and paintwork. The central deity is in near-pristine condition, as are the nineteen attendant figures, two small dragons and the pair of lion-dogs under his feet. Arched above these figures are the scalloped leaves of a gingko tree. And that’s just the front! The 65cm-high stele is carved on the sides and back as well.


Although the deity is not named, this image is typically recognised as Maitreya, whom some Buddhists believe will return in future as the next incarnation of the Buddha. He sits in the so-called “pensive” pose: one leg over the other, his eyes downcast and his right hand held up to his cheek as he ponders the mysteries of life. The Chinese have a delightful name for this type of image: siwei taizi, the Pensive Prince. Given what was happening in China at the time, you couldn’t blame Maitreya for feeling pensive either.

The Eskenazi sale is called “Six Dynasties Art from the Norman A Kurland collection”, but nearly all the items come from the Northern Wei (386-534 AD) and Northern Qi (550-557 AD) dynasties. This places them at the latter end of the Six Dynasties period which stretched from the fall of the Han in 220 AD to the rise of the re-unifying Sui dynasty in 581 AD.

The history of this period is so complicated and depressing that it’s mostly glossed over in popular accounts (apart from the 3rd century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which doesn’t cover the remaining 300 years of misery). It was a prolonged period of chaos, with various clans scrapping over the remains of the Han empire while trying and failing to fend off the Tuoba invaders from the north. Eventually the Tuoba established the Northern Wei dynasty, occupying what is now the north-central half of modern China (see below). The southern half was ruled by an equally confused set of short-lived dynasties but fortunately that doesn’t concern us here.


It was during this time that Buddhism replaced Daoism and Confucianism as the main religion, possibly because its message of peace and re-birth was so attractive to people who had suffered decades of war. The Tuoba, who were Buddhists themselves, helped to promote the religion through their patronage of religious art. This continued under one of their successors, the Northern Qi, to which period our stele is dated.

Examples of this type of stele are relatively rare. One of the better-known is at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum (see below), also from the Northern Qi although in less good condition. The Smithsonian’s Freer Sackler Gallery has two: an unusual one with twin Maitreyas (see below) and one which it freely admits is a fake, sold to Charles Freer in 1909! That does suggest, though, how long there has been an interest in Six Dynasties Buddhist sculpture.

Source: Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

 Source: Freer Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian

Not all art from the period is as refined as this: there are a lot of comparatively workmanlike stone steles from the earlier 6th century. But they also have an interesting story to tell, because they were commissioned as acts of piety in anticipation of a coming apocalypse called the mofa. Followers of the Pure Land school of Buddhism were led to believe, based on totally accurate calculations of course, that the world would plunge into darkness and spiritual chaos in 552 AD. After this point, the cycle of re-birth that helps mortals to attain Nirvana would cease to function and their souls would wander lost forever. Their only hope was to be re-born instead into a pure land called Sukhavati but this was only for true believers. Commissioning a stele engraved with prayers for the merit of friends and family would help you to earn a place in Sukhavati. 

History doesn’t describe how the Pure Land devotees felt as the year 552 came and went, but luckily for us, this didn’t affect the practice of commissioning religious images as a merit-earning act. A close relative of our stele, found in Hebei Province in 1978, is dated 562 AD and bears an inscription from its donor stating “The beneficiaries of this pious act are the emperor, teachers and parents going back seven generations, all beings living and deceased, ordained clerics, as well as secular believers”. An interesting feature of our stele is that, for whatever reason, it is not inscribed.

Objects like the Maitreya stele are the reason why I study Chinese art: otherwise, I would never have heard of China’s Dark Ages, the Northern dynasties or the Pensive Prince. Looking at the stele five years ago, I would have been more impressed by the perfect little expressions on the faces of the lion-dogs. Which is not to say that they aren’t still my favourite feature. They’re irresistible! 


Reference material: "Six Dynasties Art from the Norman A Kurland Collection" (Eskenazi); "China: Dawn of a Golden Age" (Met Museum NY); "Wisdom Embodied" (Denise Patry Leidy);"Prince Moonlight: Messianism and Eschatology in Early Mediaeval Chinese Buddhism" (Erik Zurcher). 


Saturday, 11 November 2017

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.