Mughals as naturalists
Farhan Siddiqui
FOR Emperor Babur, a keen naturalist, Hindustan was the land of
exotica. His memoirs contain finely observed descriptions of birds and
animals, trees and flowers. He describes the height of the nilgau and
the differing colours of the male and the female, while a tiny parrot
is distinguished from others of its species by its red head. "The tops
of its wings are also red. An area of two fingers at the tip of its
tail is white."
When the Baburnama was translated from Turkish into Farsi in Akbar's
reign, his painters illustrated it in careful detail, and Mansur's
studies are acknowledged as masterpieces. His best work was done at the
court of Jahangir who took him along on excursions or hunting trips to
paint what he saw. There is a superb study of a dipper with each
feather marked out in tiny brushstrokes, and a fine one of a chameleon
crouched dramatically on a bough, spotted in shaded green, its saw-
toothed spine highlighted from neck to tail in points of colour.
Jahangir, it is said, would have been happier as the head of a natural
history museum than he was at court. His attitude to nature was both
lyrical and rigorously scientific, and his curiosity was boundless.
Nothing could guarantee a more favourable reception for a foreign
emissary than some rare bird or animal, and his memoirs are as much a
description of these as a record of his reign. Each characteristic of
the turkey-cock specially brought from Goa was carefully noted - its
head, the markings round its eyes, and its changes of colour when in
heat - and the zebra presented to him on the 16th anniversary of his
accession to the throne created a sensation. "One might say," he
writes, "that the painter of fate has with the pen of novelty
bequeathed to the album of existence a masterpiece." He commented on
the varying thickness of the stripes, their distribution over the body
and their similarity to those of the tiger. When it was rumoured that
they had been painted on the animal, he ordered an enquiry after which,
he concludes, "it became certain that they (the stripes) were by the
Creator of the World."
Floral painting took a new direction in Jahangir's time. For centuries,
flowers had been used as decorative motifs, particularly for borders,
in cultures world wide, but depiction of individual species was
unknown. Mansur was set to the task but sadly, of more than 100
paintings mentioned by the Emperor, only four are extant. The study of
the Indian tulip is typical in its fidelity to detail. The pollen
grains at the ends of the stamens and the delicate venation of the
leaves are clearly visible under a magnifying glass. A butterfly and
dragonfly hover over the plant, offsetting its stillness with a sense
of movement and creating a holistic relationship among natural
phenomena.
Subsequently, natural flowers as distinct from stylised elements of
design embellished the broad margins of album pictures and became
popular architectural motifs. Superb examples of the latter can be seen
in the dados at the Agra Fort and the portal of the Taj Mahal, their
grace and delicacy showing Mansur's influence. They are markedly
similar to the plants in bloom on the cover of Flora and Fauna... In
comparison, later flower studies such as one of the rose, the iris and
the daisy in the Dara Shukoh album, seem stiff and formal and devoid of
lyrical feeling.
In no culture other than the Mughal, have flora and fauna been put to
such a wide range of decorative uses. Generally purely ornamental, they
sometimes served as dynastic emblems. Bejewelled floral designs on
dagger hilts, sheaths and perfume bottles indicate their Mughal
provenance. Even more distinctively, flora or fauna often determined
the shape of luxury objects such as a perfume bottle in the form of a
bud or a mango, and powder primer flasks made of ivory. An intricately
carved example of the latter has an antelope head and upper body at one
end and a bird's head at the other. Floral and animal forms are
combined in Shah Jehan's superb drinking cup now in the Victoria and
Albert Museum, London. Carved out of white jade it has a gourd-shaped
body, a floral base and a goat's-head handle. No description or
photograph can do justice to its pearly translucency and the exquisite
purity of its lines. One must see it to believe it.
Carpet weaving came to India in the reign of Akbar, who brought in
Persian craftsmen to establish looms at Agra and Lahore. The designs
were largely Central Asian to begin with, gradually becoming
indigenised. Few Mughal carpets are still intact. The Vienna Museum has
an unusual one, with a pictorial design, not a repeating pattern,
except for the borders. A veritable aviary of lively birds is depicted
on a red background - a pair of cranes, a rooster and hen with chicks,
doves, hoopoes, a peacock and peahen and many others. There are about
30 in all, so perfectly represented and naturally arranged that the
carpet does not look cluttered or untidy.
In their pursuit of the fantastic, Mughal artists often reinvented
nature, taking dragons and simurghs from the Persian tradition and
adapting Hindu art to create a new genre, that of the composite animal.
Here a host of tiny fauna of every species, and sometimes humans too,
were arranged to form a camel, a horse or an elephant. The artist had
to portray each figure in every detail, while the whole had to be life-
like and free of distortion. The mood was generally playful with demons
riding on an elephant, a highborn lady on a galloping camel, or a
drummer on a horse composed entirely of acrobatically contorted humans.
Sometimes the intention was more serious. In an allegorical painting,
King Solomon's reign is depicted as an emblem of cosmic order in
accordance with Koranic teaching. He rides an elephant made up of
various animals and jins, his arm commandingly extended, his golden
wings symbolising his divine powers.
The chapter on elephant in Mughal painting is a delight to read. Akbar
had a life-long love affair with them, and at any given time as many as
101 were set aside for his exclusive use. They were caparisoned in
velvet and brocade, wore gold necklaces and body chains, and were
grandiloquently named Atash Khan, Gaj Ratan, Nur Baksh (Light of
Fortune) and so on. They were fed and tended by retinues of servants
and given warm water baths in winter among other conveniences. Prized
animals were valued at Rs. 1 lakh or more. The most expensive was the
one presented to Shah Jahan by Adil Khan worth Rs. 3 lakhs. Multiply
this by 85 to get its present value and you have a truly staggering
figure.
The recklessly brave Akbar would ride elephants in heat when their own
mahouts were afraid, and participated in that most dangerous of sport,
elephant fighting. Their courage, loyalty and intuitive sensitivity
were legendary. "Punishment" elephants, for example, were trained to
kill criminals with their trunks or trample them underfoot. One such,
however, could sense when a condemned man was innocent, in which case
instead of crushing the head of the terrified victim, he would nudge it
gently aside and turn away. When animals can be so perspicacious what
shall we say of mere humans?
In addition to its other qualities, Flora and Fauna has an unintended
archival significance. The fine essay by Divyabhanusinh recreates the
colourful practices of Mughal shikar, most royal of sports, in which
entire armies participated. The French traveller Bernier estimated
2,00,000 men on a single hunt. Trained cheetahs were blindfolded,
seated on platforms and transported to the scene of the hunt by
palanquin or bullock cart or on a horse or camel, before being loosed
on the quarry. A well-known painting shows a cheetah, just released,
pouncing on a black buck, while Akbar on a magnificent chestnut horse
looks on. Sadly the cheetah is now extinct, and shikar with all its
rich pageantry has passed into history.
Another painting depicts an actual incident in which Akbar slew a
tigress that suddenly attacked the royal cavalcade. For naturalists,
the focus of interest is the unusually light colouring of two of her
five cubs. Experts say they are clearly white tigers. This is the first
recorded instance of these mutants anywhere in the world.
Even more exciting was the "discovery" of the dodo in 1958, in a Mughal
painting belonging to the Institute of Oriental Studies, St.
Petersburg. This flightless bird, extinct since the 17th Century, is an
important link in the evolution of ducks, but no one had a clear idea
of its features. Scholars had only a poor drawing made by a Flemish
artist in 1626. Dr. Ivanov's announcement of his find at an
international ornithological seminar created a sensation, particularly
when experts said it was correct in every detail. It appears to have
been painted from a live bird presented to Jahangir by a foreign
visitor.
With its superb reproduction, its beastly stories, and tales of
Emperors and their doings Flora and Fauna ... is utterly irresistible,
and will give as much pleasure to naturalist and animal lovers as to
art enthusiasts and historians.
ZERIN ANKLESARIA
Flora And Fauna In Mughal Art, edited by Som Prakash Verma, MARG
Publications, Rs. 1,950.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.