Published in Art Journal, Vol. 49, No. 4, New Approaches to South Asian Art (Winter, 1990), pp. 370-378
Admired in the West for their small scale, their unusual color schemes (bright reds and hot yellows, light mauves, and saturated greens) and their delicate lines, later Indian paintings from the Hindu and Muslim courts in the north often stand for the entire tradition of Indian painting. [1] Dating from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, and sometimes painted at a court made up of an area of no more than five miles square, these pictures consist of a wide variety of subjects and themes ranging from religious and literary texts to portraits of rulers and representations of court women. The illustrated manuscripts are more commonly associated with the Hindu courts ruled by the Rajputs in northwest India, whereas portraiture and other secular themes are seen as the domain of the contemporaneous Indi-Islamic court of the Mughals with capitals at nearby Agra and Delhi.
One of the more persistently controversial issues in the study of these paintings has been the relationship between Rajput and Mughal painting. The scholarship to date ranges from the utter neglect of the more indigenous Rajput tradition by the nineteenth-century Western specialists to pronouncements by the nationalistically minded scholars such as Ananda K. Coomaraswamy that this was the “true” Indian tradition, to be understood as standing apart from the more easily admired Mughal tradition, which was a synthesis of elements borrowed from Iran, India, as well as the West. Most scholars now acknowledge that the two styles are interconnected and generally assume that the reason for this relationship lies in the nature of the political contact between the Mughal emperors and Rajput rulers. The discussion of the relationship between Mughal and Rajput painting, especially in the seventeenth century, is often framed in terms of the influence of the more powerful Mughal court on the smaller Rajput kingdoms governed by the Hindu warrior-rulers, who came in the Mughal orbit either intentionally or by force. However, neither the complexity of this political and cultural relationship nor its impact on the painting developments at the Rajput courts has been sufficiently explored.
The present study, a preliminary discussion of the political context of Rajput painting in the seventeenth century, is intended to redress this problem. It is hoped that through a detailed study of paintings with varying degrees of Mughal influences at two Rajput courts-Mewar and Bikaner-in the context of their political and cultural relationship with the Mughal court, we can begin to define the processes by which Mughal influences came to the Rajput courts and develop a greater understanding of the complex regional nature of the Rajput culture. Based on the assumption that painting developments and patronage invariably reflect contemporary political trends, cultural preferences, and artistic traditions, this analysis also attempts to develop a multidimensional model for understanding Rajput painting.
The History of Scholarship
Beginning with the pioneering studies of Ananda Coomaraswamy in the early decades of this century, the character and the development of seventeenth-century Rajput painting have been defined in relation to or in contrast with the contemporary pictures made for the more prominent Mughal court at Delhi and Agra. Generally referred to as Rajput painting, denoting both style and patronage, the pictures come from the Hindu courts in the regions of Rajasthan, Punjab Hills, and central India. [2] In the first major publication on the subject published in 1916, Coomaraswamy sought to define Rajput painting by contrasting it to the better known Mughal style, which had been admired in the West from as early as the seventeenth century. [3]
It is no longer necessary to argue the distinction of Rajput from Mughal painting; for every addition to our knowledge makes it only more evident that here could scarcely exist two contemporary schools more diverse in temper… Mughal art is secular, intent upon the present moment, and profoundly interested in individuality. It is not an idealization of life, but a refined and accomplished representation of a very magnificent phase of it… It is splendid and attractive, but it rarely touched the deep springs of life.. The distinction of Mughal from Rajput painting is indeed nowhere more apparent than in the fact that the former is aristocratic and professional, while the latter is at once hieratic and popular, often essentially mystic in its suggestion of the infinite significance of the most homely events. [4]
While Coomaraswamy acknowledged some points of connection between the two styles of painting, he regarded the Rajput style as the true heir of the earlier indigenous traditions, making it “at one” with the “universal” and “deep-rooted” values of the Indian society, Cognizant of the Western awareness and preference for the comparatively more Westernized mode of Mughal painting, Coomaraswamy sought by emphasizing the differences between the two styles to establish the distinctive character of Rajput painting. He also tended to idealize the seemingly ahistorical and “traditional” qualities of Rajput painting in his efforts to sing the praises of the virtues of a preindustrial society such as India was in the early twentieth century. [5]
Coomaraswamy’s idealization of the values inherent in Rajput painting should also be understood n the context of his association with the intellectual leaders of India’s nationalist movement in the early decades of this century. In his numerous publications on the relationship between the nationalist movement (swadeshi) and the arts, Coomaraswamy led the attack on the Westernization of the subcontinent and emphasized the need to return to the values of the earlier, traditional culture. [6] Together, this group of intellectuals tried to counter the Western biases against the traditional Indian culture as manifested in the visual arts. As Coomaraswamy remarked in a note in Rajput Painting, one of the reasons why this genre of Indian painting was entirely overlooked by the English writers on Indian art may have been precisely due to the preconceived biases of these scholars, who were inclined to emphasize that in India one “must not expect to find anything that appeals to mind or to deep feeling” and that not “for one moment [can it] be contended that India ever reached the intellectual supremacy of Greece or the moral greatness of Rome.” [7] Thus, it was not simply because of the paucity of information or visual data that Coomaraswamy erred on the side of overzealous pronouncements on the distinctive qualities of Rajput painting. It was also because of his own preconceived and idealized notions of the traditional Indian society,whichwasunderstoodtohave“eternal”spiritual values in direct contrast to the contemporary Western values. His disdain for purely formal studies of art that did not take into account the subject matter or the meaning of the images, and his advocacy for the study of the metaphysical and philosophical context of art, can also be understood from this point of view. While we can greatly appreciate his efforts to elevate the status of Indian art to a level higher than it was accorded in the early twentieth century, we must also acknowledge that Coomaraswamy’s methodology did not take into account the complex political and societal structure of the Mughal-Rajput world in the seventeenth century and the link between political relationships and painting developments.
In keeping with the ascendancy of the formalist methodology in the study of Western art, scholars who succeeded Coomaraswamy began to pay closer attention to the divergent styles of seventeenth-century Rajput painting. For example, Hermann Goetz and William Archer took Coomaraswamy to task for overstating his case, emphasizing the courtly nature of Rajput painting and its close relationship to Mughal painting. [8] In fact, on the basis of a detailed formal analysis and with the additional support of certain clothing motifs, some scholars, led by the Indian specialist Karl Khandalavala, argues that the seventeenth-century Rajput painting in Rajasthan could not have come into existence without a strong impetus from the Mughal court. [9]
In recent years scholars have begun to recognize that Rajasthani painting is neither as distinct from Mughal painting as suggested by Coomaraswamy, nor as completely dependent on the Mughal tradition as stressed by Khandalavala. There is also an increasing awareness that far from being a unified monolithic tradition, painting from Rajasthani courts is diverse and regional in nature. Through stylistic analyses of paintings from the individual courts, scholars routinely discuss seventeenth-century Rajput painting in terms of varying degrees of Mughal influence. At one end of the spectrum is a pre-Mughal mode with little, if any, Mughal elements. This style is distinguished by flat expanses of bright, unmodulated colors, two-dimensional surface patterns, and schematic compositions of religious or literary narratives and poetry. At the other end of the spectrum are the modes that adopt the contemporary Mughal style wholeheartedly. The heavily Mughalized Rajasthani pictures often depict courtly rather than religious or literary subjects. There is a much greater use of modulated, secondary colors applied in a more literal than symbolic manner.
In more recent writing on the subject, the extent of Mughal influence on a given regional style of Rajasthani seventeenth-century court painting is generally explained in terms of the political proximity of Rajput ruler to the Mughal empire and the date his court surrendered to the Mughal throne. For example, in the exhibition catalogue India: Art and Culture, 1300-1900, Stuart Cary Welch states:
Following the successive waves of Mughal influence in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the local schools of Rajasthan and Central India assimilated elements of Mughal style in varying degrees. Malwa and Bundelkhand, for example, too remote to be much influenced by Mughal customs, remained closest to the bold drawings, simplified designs, and color schemes of the pre-Mughal style… The courts of Jaipur, Bikaner, Bundi, and Kishangarh, all of which were economically and politically linked with Mughal rule… combined Rajasthani and Mughal features with ease and assurance… The ranas of Mewar, who had so staunchly held out against the Mughal efforts to dominate Rajasthan, patronized a school of painting that produced an abundance of religious manuscripts in the early Rajasthani style… [10]
Such observations, though they imply a connection between political developments and painting styles, have, for the most part, remained at a level of broad generalizations and uncritical assumptions. Some of these assumptions are based on stereotypes promoted by earlier writers such as Coomaraswamy, who emphasized the ahistorical or unchanging nature of the Rajput world. Thus, one assumption is that painting developments in the mid-seventeenth century could be explained by political events of the late sixteenth century: if the seventeenth- century Mewar painters did not adopt the Mughal style completely, it was because their royal patrons had not subjugated themselves to the Mughal authority in the late sixteenth century. Similarly, the heavily Mughalized pictures from Bikaner in the first half of the seventeenth century are explained in terms of the Bikaner rulers’ early acceptance in 1570 of the Mughal authority. [11] Another assumption embedded in the generalized discussions of the Mughal- Rajput painting relationship is that painting developments were solely determined by the personality and political activities of the male rulers of the Rajput courts. Arguably, both of these assumptions may be related to the assertions of earlier writers such Tod, who emphasized the conservative, male-dominated, somewhat archaic view of the Rajput world. As we shall see below, issues of gender in the discussion of patronage of painting go beyond the earlier, more facile premises.
There are several reasons for the lack both of a more thorough investigation of the complex processes accounting for the divergent painting developments and of greater understanding of the differing responses of the Rajasthani courts to the Mughal world. The field is still quite young; to date, not a single, comprehensive volume on Rajasthani painting, let alone on the Rajput painting of the seventeenth century, has been published. Andrew Topsfield has pointed out that many pictures remain unassigned to a particular school or sub-school of Rajasthan. [12] Dominated by connoisseurs, collectors, and curators, the field continues to be preoccupied with questions of authenticity, date, and provenance of individual pictures. [13] The dearth of any serious investigation of the political context may also be attributed to an emphasis on connoisseurship and to a corresponding absence of ideological conviction that artistic developments are inextricably linked in India, as elsewhere in the world to political changes. Donald Stadtner in his introductory essay points out that the philosophical and essentially ahistorical approach to the study of Indian art by the early twentieth-century scholars like Coomaraswamy has discouraged a socio-political study of Rajput painting. Additionally, the unavailability until recently of individual court records, and the inability of many Western scholars to read Indian languages, have hampered the contextual studies of Rajput painting. In an attempt to begin a new methodological dialogue, this study offers a fresh look at the politicalcontextoftheseventeenth-centuryRajputpicturesthrough a comparative analysis of painting and politics at two leading courts vis-à-vis the Mughal world.
Seventeenth-Century Painting Styles at Mewar and Bikaner
Early seventeenth-century paintings form Mewar are easily identified by their bright colours, angular forms, and two-dimensional compositions, as seen in the Ragamala of 1605. [14] Painted by the Muslim artist Nisaruddin at Chawand, a temporary capital of the Mewar court in the early years of the century, this set is the earliest known document of seventeenth-century Mewar painting. The stylistic relationship of the Chawand Ragamala with the pre-Mughal Rajput paintings in the Caurapancasika group, dating most likely from the early sixteenth century, is obvious and well known. [15] In keeping with the earlier pre-Mughal tradition, the Chawand set communicates its central meaning through the gestures and postures of the figures. There is no interest in modulating the forms to create a more naturalistic composition or a more believable sense of action. Although painted at a time when Mughal painting under the reign of Akbar (r.1556-1605) had already reached its zenith, with its complex spatial formulas, sophisticated color schemes, action-packed compositions, naturalistic landscape, and more realistically rendered figures, the Chawand Ragamala reflects none of these characteristics.
The next dated set of paintings from Mewar is also a Ragamala, and was painted by the leading Mewari court artist Sahibdin in 1628. Although this set has some connection with a substratum of Mughal painting known as sub-imperial or popular Mughal, its color scheme and its two-dimensional compositions are direct descendants of the 1605 set. [16] The second quarter of the century is dominated by the productions of this great artist and his followers, almost all of whose works consist of profusely illustrated sets of such religious and literary texts as the Ramayana, the Gita Govinda, the Ragamala, the Bhagavata Purana, and the Rasikapriya. With their red backgrounds, enamel-like color finishes, flat spaces, cyclical narratives, and crowded compositions, these paintings continue the stylistic elements of the Chawand Ragamala with minor variations, and ultimately hark back to the Caurapancasika group. It is true that the figures are now softer and smaller, their gestures less emphatic, their eyes not quite as bold and dramatic, and their movements not so angular. Some of these changes may be attributed to contemporary Mughal tastes, but it is noteworthy that there is no direct emulation of Mughal painting and very little change in the conceptual framework of the pictures.
The earliest known pictures from the court of Bikaner could not be more different from the contemporary Mewar pictures. A profusely illustrated series of the Bhagavata Purana is often though to be an example of Bikaner painting around 1600. Here the figures are smaller, less angular, and more naturalistically rendered. Differences are also evident in the treatment of the water, sky, and other landscape elements. Indeed stylistically, the Bikaner Bhagavata is closely allied to, and often identified as, a subimperial or popular Mughal manuscript. [18] The presence of such a Mughalized manuscript at Bikaner suggest that this Rajput court may have been an active center of the sub-imperial Mughal painting. It is also possible that a Bikaner ruler brought sub-imperial manuscripts from the Mughal court or that artists trained at the Mughal court and imported to Bikaner were responsible for the Mughalizing of Bikaner painting.
By the mid-century we are on much surer ground regarding the influence of Mughal style on Bikaner painting. Based on inscriptional evidence, we know that by this time a group of Muslim artists had emigrated from Delhi and become leading painters at the Bikaner court. [19] The close connection between the contemporary Mughal pictures and the mid-century Bikaner painting is evident in the well-published image of the Hindu God Vishnu with his consort Laksmi painted by a Bikaner artist. [20] The female attendants of the divine couple in this picture are closely related to the figures found in contemporary paintings from the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. [21] Some Bikaner images, especially the zenana pictures, or harem scenes of court women, are almost directly based on the Mughal originals. This is vividly illustrated in the painting of the soring festival of Holi in the Cleveland Museum of Art, which is almost an exact replica of a similar Mughal composition now in the Chester Beatty library in Dublin. [22] Once again, the similarity between the two pictures is particularly striking in the treatment of the women. The conspicuous absence of the Mughal emperor in the Bikaner picture also suggests that the artist carefully selected and adapted, not simply imitated, Mughal motifs and styles. Compositionally, Bikaner paintings are also often based on the Mughal prototypes. Only in the simplification and relative flattening of details-of the foliage, and the treatment of the ground and figures-can one distinguish a Bikaner painting from its Mughal model.
Similar indebtedness to Mughal conventions is discernible in the Bikaner court portraits dating from the mid-century. A striking example is the large line drawing of the Bikaner raja Karan Singh. In the sensitive treatment of the face of the raja, and successful rendering of the volume of his robe, the artist clearly displays Mughal tendencies. [23]
On the whole, it can be said that Bikaner painting from the first half of the century, in direct contrast to the contemporary Mewar pictures, was inspired by and based on Mughal conventions. This is evident not only in the style of the pictures but also in the prevalence of courtly subjects and relative absence of illustrated manuscripts of religious and literary texts, which predominated at Mewar in the first half od the seventeenth century.
Portraiture, entertainment, and zenana scenes-principle Mughal themes-begin to appear in Mewar only in the latter part of the seventeenth century, during the reigns of Jai Singh (r. 1680-98) and Amar Singh II (r. 1698-1710). Significantly, with the ascendancy of courtly themes in painting, two divergent styles of painting become evident at Mewar. While the religious and literary manuscripts illustrations in earlier styles continue with minor modifications, the secular pictures from the same period become closer in conception and execution to Mughal painting. However, even these courtly scenes are only indirectly influenced by the Mughal tradition; their direct prototypes seem to be the portraits from another Rajput court, Bundi, which in turn, are based on Mughal originals.
Contrarytothepaintingdevelopments at Mewarthesecond half ofthe century at Bikaner is a period of resurgence for literary and religious manuscripts such as the Rasikapriya and the Bhagavata Purana. It is almost as if, after its Mughalized origins, Bikaner painting began to establish its Rajput character in the second half of the century. These illustrated manuscripts, although inherently part of the mainstream Rajput tradition, do not derive their style from the indigenous pre-Mughal forms but are based on the earlier Mughalized style found in the secular pictures of Bikaner. In short, Bikaner painting originates with late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Mughal prototypes, and until the third quarter of the century closely follows the contemporary imperial developments. Even when it begins to develop its own character, Bikaner painting never loses its somber Mughal tonalities, soft figures, and interest in depth and volume. Seventeenth-century Mewar painting, on the other hand, is scarcely affected by Mughal painting.
Political Developments at Mewar and Bikaner
This comparative analysis of the seventeenth century painting styles at Mewar and Bikaner can be superficially understood by the generalizations of art historians. Many of us have so far postulated that the different paths chosen by the Mewar and Bikaner patrons and their court painters reflect the formative years of relationship between these two courts and the Mughal powers in the late sixteenth century. Thus, we have tended to equate the Mughalized nature of Bikaner painting with the early acceptance of Mughal sovereignty by the Bikaner rulers Kalyan Singh and Rai Singh in the late sixteenth century. [24] Similarly, the traditionalism of Mewar painting is seen as a direct reflection of the Sisodia rulers’ resistance to the Mughal authority in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. This kind of equation has also encouraged scholars to continue to accept the romantic views of Rajput chivalry espoused by the nineteenth-century English chroniclers, such as James Tod, who hailed Mewar painting as the apex of Rajput culture. A further study of the seventeenth-century political realities suggests that such as assumption may be facile and outdated.
If the simple fact of a political connection between the Mughal and the Rajput courts was the most significant determinant in the development of a Rajput painting style, then Mewar painting in the seventeenth century should also reflect substantial Mughal qualities. After all, the Mewar ruler Amar Singh I (r. 1597-1620) was forced to surrender to Jahangir by the latter’s son Khurram (future Shah Jahan) by 1615. In his memoirs Jahangir describes this important event in considerable detail:
From the report it appeared that on Sunday the 26th Bahman, the Rana paid his respects to my fortunate son with the politeness and ritual that servants pay their respects, and produced as offerings a famous large ruby that was in his house... My son also behaved to him with perfect kindness… He (Khurram) presented him with a superb dress of honour, a jeweled saddle, and a private elephant with silver housings… [25]
Jahangir also mentions that the Mewar heir apparent, Karan Singh, spent a considerable amount of time from 1615 to 1620 at the Mughal court, where he was continuously showered with expensive gifts, for which, in return, he was required to pay tribute to the Mughal emperor, while learning the ways of the imperial life. In Jahangir’s words, “As Karan, owing to the rude life he had led in his native hills, was extremely shy and unused to the pageantry and experience of a court, in order to reconcile and give him confidence I daily gave him some testimonies of my regard and protection.” [26]
Both Mewar and Mughal records also indicate that Karan Singh, his brother Bhim Singh, and the next heir apparent, Jagat Singh, were close to Shah Jahan. In fact, when Shah Jahan rebelled against his reigning father in the 1620s, he was supported by Bhim Singh and offered shelter at the Jag Mandir palace in Udaipur. [27] Tod mentions that Shah Jahan’s imperial title was first conferred upon him in the Badal Mahal of the palace of Jagat Singh I (r. 1628-52) at Udaipur. [28] Even though Jagat Singh, in keeping with the special treaty negotiated by his grandfather at the time of the Mewar court’s surrender to the Mughal court, did not have to attend the Mughal court as the maharana (the Mewar heirs-apparent attended the court, but never as official rulers), he remained active in Mughal politics. This was also true of his successor Raj Singh (r. 1652-80), who actively supported Dara Shikoh in the family battle for the Mughal throne against Aurangzeb. The importance of the Mewar ruler in the heady world of imperial Mughal politics is clearly indicated by the fact that in their quest for the throne, all of the feuding Mughal princes solicited the Mewar ruler’s aid. [29]
This brief political history suggests that in the seventeenth century Mewar was as politically involved with the Mughal empire as any other Rajput court, including Bikaner. If anything, the Mewar rulers enjoyed a special relationship with the Mughal empire, which was acknowledged by the Mughal emperors themselves; heirs apparent were normally places closest to the emperor and were considered to be superior to all other Rajput rulers. Indeed, resistance to the Mughal throne, as exhibited by the legendary rana Pratap in the sixteenth century, was a thing of the past. Thus, judging from the nature of the political relationship between Mewar and the Mughal court, the Mewar rulers, if they so wished, could have adopted the Mughal ways to a much greater extent. In principle, the Mewar maharanas could also have commissioned the highly Mughalized pictures of the kind seen in Bikaner. That they did not implies that the simple fact of political relationship or proximity may not be sufficient to explain the painting developments. It also points out the need to examine more carefully the very nature of the political and cultural relationships between the Mughal and Rajput courts.
As mentioned earlier, the Bikaner rulers came into the Mughal orbit earlier than the Mewar rulers and remained active in the Mughal arena throughout the seventeenth century. Rai Singh, from the time he came to the throne and introduced himself at the Mughal court of Akbar in 1573 until his death in 1611, served the Mughal emperors and fought their battles. [30] This was continued by his successors Sur Singh (r. 1613-31) and Karan Singh (r. 1631-ca. 1669). [31] During his father’s reign, Karan Singh fought for the Mughal army in the Deccan and held the governorship of Daulatabad. It is not clear whose side Karan Singh actually took in the Mughal succession wars, but after the investiture of Aurangzeb to the Mughal throne, Karan Singh seems tohaveultimatelysuffered atthe hands ofAurangzeb.[32]
The factthat the simple principle of political proximity is inadequate to explain the level of Mughal influence at a Rajput court is further corroborated by study of the painting and politics at the central Indian Rajput court of Orchha. Like the Bikaner ruler Rai Singh, Madhukar Shah of Orchha had submitted to the Mughal authority in the late sixteenth century (1578-79) [33] Although he periodically tried to resist the Mughal power by abstaining from fighting their wars in other parts of India, his son and heir apparent, Ram Chand, frequently visited the Mughal court and paid homage to the emperor. Ram Chand’s successor, Indrajeet Shah, also continued to play an active role in imperial politics and culture in the first half of the seventeenth century. [34] If the general principle of political proximity is to be applied uniformly, we should expect to see Mughalized pictures at Orchha as well. Paintings from this court actually reveal exactly the opposite qualities: the illustrated Rasikapriya and the Ramayana series, which can be attributed to Orchha, are even less affected by Mughal painting than Mewar painting. [35] Once again, the standard explanation equating the political proximity of a given Rajput ruler with the presence of Mughal influence in painting from that court does not seem to hold up.
The point is not that there is no relationship between political and painting developments, but that the very nature of political connections between the Rajput court and the Mughal world needs to be examined in the larger context of regional cultural developments and art history. Thus, the explanation for divergent painting developments at Bikaner and Mewar lies more in the differing nature of their linkages with the Mughal court than in their dissimilar entrances to that world or shared connections with it. The major distinction between the relationships of the seventeenth-century Mewar and Bikaner courts with the Mughal power lies in the ways the rulers of these two courts related to the Mughal emperor in the seventeenth century. The key principle in the Mughal-Rajput relationship centers around the mansabdari, or the special fiefdom system established by the Mughals. Chieftains such as the rajas of Bikaner, after submitting to the Mughals, were granted large mansabs, or land districts, as acknowledgments of their status and independent position within their territories. In return, they were required to render military service to the Mughal emperors wherever and whenever needed. [36] For example, as recipients of large mansabs and jagirs, or small fiefdoms, the Bikaner rajas spent most of their reigns in attendance at the Mughal court or fighting Mughal wars in distant lands, away from their home territories. Rai Singh fought numerous battles for Akbar, going from Kabul to Bengal and from Kashmir to the Deccan. When not at war, he served in various administrative capacities in the newly captured Mughal territories. Similarly, his successors Karan Singh and Anup Singh also fought extensively on behalf of the Mughal empire, especially in the Deccan. Clearly, the Bikaner rulers lived in a predominantly Mughal orbit, separated from their own cultural milieu for an extended period of time. [37]
The Mewar maharanas, on the other hand, negotiated a very special position in the Mughal empire at the time of their subjugation in 1615. As part of the treaty, the Mewar rulers, who were not forced to accept all aspects of the mansabdari system, were specifically exempted from personal attendance at the Mughal court as long as their heirs apparent occasionally appeared to pay homage. [38] While some of the relatives and courtiers of the maharana occasionally participated in Mughal battles, the Mewar rulers were not required themselves to fight in the extensive imperial wars. Contrary to the situation at Bikaner this scenario suggests that the Mewar rulers were never thrust into an eminently Mughal cultural climate and cut off from their own cultural bases. Thus, it seems natural that, less affected by the Mughal fashions, and more divorced from the imperial cultural milieu than their Bikaner contemporaries, the Mewar patrons would continue the older, pre-Mughal tradition of commissioning illustrated sets of religious and literary themes, without borrowing significantly from the Mughal tradition.
In addition to examining the nature of the political relationships between the Rajput and Mughal courts, it is necessary to look at the resulting cultural connections between them. One such determining factor may be the active role played by the Rajput princesses as a consequence of the matrimonial alliances between individual Rajput courts and the Mughal emperors. For example, as part of the early political alliance between the Bikaner raja Kalyan Mal and Akbar, the former is supposed to have married either his daughter or his niece to the Mughal emperor. [39] This was followed by the marriage of his grand-daughter to the Mughal heir apparent, Salim, the future Mughal emperor Jahangir. Similarly, strong matrimonial connections are also evident at other Rajput courts where Mughalized pictures are seen. [40] By contrast, the Mewar rulers were exempted from this convention, and thus no Mewar princess was married to the Mughal royalty in the seventeenth century. Given the fact that many Rajput rulers spent considerable time away from their homeland, it is very likely that their absence, combined with the movements of the Rajput princesses between the Mughal court and their pre-marriage home, had an impact on the artistic and cultural connections between the Mughal and Rajput courts.
Although little work has been done on the role of women as patrons of the arts or as receivers of gifts of art at the Rajput courts, a preliminary study suggests that the female court members were active patrons. For example, from the colophons of several unillustrated manuscripts of the Rasikapriya from the north Indian Rajput courts of Amber and Jodhpur in the seventeenth century, we know that the manuscripts were commissioned by queens and princesses. [41] Another indication of female patronage is a profusely illustrated series of the Ramayana from the seventeenth-century Orchha court that was painted for Hira De, the queen consort of Pahar Singh. [42] Additional indirect evidence comes from the Bikaner court. A large number of seventeenth-century Bikaner paintings-illustrated sets of the Rasikapriya and the Bhagavata Purana, and zenana pictures, all in the heavily mughalized Bikaner idiom-were found in the zenana section of the palace, [43] suggesting that the Bikaner princesses may have commissioned such pictures. [44]
Presumably, the princesses of the Rajput courts of Amber, Bikaner, and Marwar married toMughalemperors andprinces wouldhave beenaffected bythe Mughal customs,[45] and may have played some part in the dissemination of the painting styles and in the importation of Mughal artists to Rajput courts. At the very least, we should consider the possibility that individual Rajput princesses, married to Mughal kings and princesses, brought their courts into closer interaction with the Mughal court and thus affected the development of painting. This is particularly true in light of the fat that many Rajput rulers from the same courts were away a lot. Some of the rulers may have taken a few painters with them on their military campaigns, but most of the pictures from the Mughalized Rajput courts were not done on the road. As more information becomes available from the Rajput court records, the impact of these matrimonial alliances one the cultural relationship between the Mughal and Rajput worlds may become apparent.
This exploratory study of painting, politics, and patronage at Mewar and Bikaner in the larger context of the Mughal-Rajput relationship suggests both obvious and subtle conclusions. Undoubtedly, a connection exists between painting and politics in the seventeenth century, but a closer look at the contemporary political realities reveals a more complex picture than previously assumed. The most significant political factor in the study of Mughal influences on Rajasthani painting, in particular, and on Rajput culture, in general, is not simply that a Rajput ruler is connected to the Mughal world but in what way that relationship is manifested. The Rajput ruler’s continuous physical presence in the Mughal world and his resultant assimilation into the new society away from his own culture is clearly important in the development of new styles of painting. Matrimonial alliances, with the presence of the Rajput princesses at the Mughal court and their constant movement between the two cultures, would also have affected the cultural assimilation process. Together with art-historical investigations of the individual courts, and studies of the migration of Mughal artists to Rajput courts, a more complete picture of the relationship between Mughal and Rajput painting is provided. Such a study points out the limitation of a singular or monolithic definition of Rajput culture or aesthetic. It also suggests that we become more thoroughly conversant with the complexity of the relationship between the individual Rajput courts and the Mughal court and incorporate specific political realities into our discussion of painting developments. We may still need to continue to assign each newly uncovered picture or illustrated set to a specific court or region and refine our definitions of a specific court style. But we also need to alter our fundamental thinking about the dissemination of painting styles and the political and cultural forces affecting such processes.
Notes
[1] There are traditions of wall paintning as well as of painting on palm leaf, both dating from periods earlier than the sixteenth century, but neither has survived in large numbers.
[2] The word Rajput literally means “son of king” and refers to the warrior Hindu clan that ruled much of northwest India in the form of small kingdoms from the thirteenth through the nineteenth century.
[3] Mughal paintings were sent to England as gifts by the English ambassador at the Mughal court, Sir Thomas Roe, in the seventeenth century. The most celebrated evidence of the popularity of the Mughal pictures in the seventeenth-century West is Rembrandt’s copies of Mughal pictures. See Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, Creative Copies: Interpretative Drawings from Michelangelo to Picasso (New York: Drawing Center, 1988), 123-29.
[4] Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Rajput Painting (London: Oxford University Press, 1916), 4-6.
[5] Coomaraswamy’s ideas about traditional cultures and societies were directly related to his involvement in the Arts and Crafts movement in England at the turn of the century. For further information on this aspect of Coomaraswamy’s intellectual development, see Roger Lipsey, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy: His Life and Work (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 40-53.
[6] For information on Coomaraswamy’s involvement with the nationalist movement, see Lipsey, Coomaraswamy, 75-90.
[7] Coomaraswamy, Rajput Painting, 6. [8] W.G Archer and Edwin Binney, 3rd, Rajput Miniatures from the Collection of Edwin Binney, 3rd (Portland, Oreg.: Portland Art Museum, 1968), 7-9.
[9] This argument did not acknowledge the existence of a pre-Mughal style of Rajput painting nor take into account the fact that this indigenous form of painting contributed significantly to the genesis of Mughal painting. For the discussion of Khandalavala’s early views, see Karl Khandalavala, Moti Chandra, and Pramod Chandra, Miniature Pianting from the Sri Motichand Khajanachi Collection (New Delhi: Lalit Kala Akademi, 1960), 11-14.[10] Stuart Cary Welch, India: Art and Culture, 100-1900 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1985), 335.
[11] Bikaner raja Kalyan Singh and his heir apparent, Rai Singh, accepted the Mughal authority under the reign of the great Mughal emperor Akbar. For further information, see James Tod, Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (1921; Delhi: Motilal Banarasi Das, 1971), 2: 1132-34.
[12] Andrew Topsfield, Paintings from Rajasthan in the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1980), 9.
[13] Exceptions include writings of B.N Goswamy, particularly on the Rajput courts of the Punjab Hills, articles by the German scholar Joachim Bautze on the historical and political context of Kota pictures; work by the Indian scholar Naval Krishna on the study of court records to establish painting workshop practices at the court of Bikaner; and my own work on the narrative structures of the illustrated manuscripts of the Rasikapriya and on the political context of the Rajput pictures. A seminal article addressing the conceptual and contextual basis of Rajput painting since the early publications of Coomaraswamy is by Milo C. Beach, “Context of Rajput Painting,” Ars Orientalis 10 (1975): 11-18.
[14] The colophon page of the set is in the Kanoria collection, Patna. For further information on the set, see Gopi Krishna Kanoria, “An Early Dated Rajasthani Ragamala,” Journal of the India Society of Oriental Art 19 (1952-53): 1-7.
[15] One of the most important groups f Rajput pictures, known by its flagship manuscript, the Caurapancasika, is also one of the most highly debated sets of pictures in Indian art-historical scholarship. Although its exact date and origin are far from resolved, the majority of scholars, with the exception of Khandalavala, agree that most of the manuscripts in the group were painted befirethedevelopment of theMughaltradition in thesecond halfod the sixteenthcentury. The proposed dates for the genesis of this style range from the early fifteenth to the late sixteenth century. For a detailed discussion of the group and for divergent opinions on its date and provenance, see Karl Khandalavala and Moti Chandra, New Documents of Indian Painting (Bombay: Prince of Wales Museum of Western India, 1969), 57-114; Pramod Chandra, The Cleveland Tutinama and the Origins of Mughal Painting (Graz, Austria: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1976); and Jerimiah P. Losty, The Art of the Book in India (London: British Library, 1982), 49-53.
[16] In contrast to the paintings made for the imperial Mughal family, sub-imperial or popular Mughal pictures were mist likely made for other clients such as court officials. Some of them may have been painted at Rajput courts or brought there as a result of the interaction between the Rajput courts and the Mughal empire. This style is highly relevant for the development of Bikaner painting discussed later in this essay.
[17] This set was originally in the collection of the maharaja of Bikaner. When first published by Hermann Goetz, the series was dated to ca. 1580, but on the basis of the relationship between this set and other related examples datable to the early part of the seventeenth century, Pratapaditya Pal has dated it to ca. 1600. For further information, see Hermann Goetz, The Art and Architecture of Bikaner State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950), 100, and Pratapaditya Pal, The Classical Tradition in Rajput Painting (New York: Paul F. Walter and the Gallery Association of New York State, 1978), 54.
[18] As pointed out by Pal, this set if related not only to the pictures generally referred to as sub-imperial Mughal, but also to late sixteenth-century Rajput painting series such as the Issarda Bhagavata Purana from north India. This suggests that at least some of the sub-imperial illustrated manuscripts may have been painted at Rajput courts.
[19] Khandalavala et al., Miniature Paintings, 48-53.
[20] Ibid., frontispiece.
[21] For comparison, see Milo C. Beach, The Grand Mogul: Imperial Painting in India, 1600-1660 (Williamstown: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1978), 99.
[22] Linda York Leach, Indian Miniature Paintings and Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Oriental Art, Part I (Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1980), 122-23; T.W. Arnold and J.V.S. Wilkinson, The library of A. Chester Beatty: A Catalogue of the Indian Miniatures (London: Oxford University Press, 1936), pl. 56.
[23] For further information on this painting, see Vishakha N. Desai, Life at Court: Art for India’s Rulers, 16th-19th Centuries (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1985), 29.
[24] For further information on the Bikaner rulers’ acceptance of the Mughal authority, see Tod, Annals, 2: 1132-34.
[25] Henry Beveridge and Alexander Rogers, trans. And ed., Tuzuk-i-Jahangir or the Memoirs of Jahangir, 2nd ed. (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1968), 2:275-276. [26] Ibid., 275.
[27] Tod, Annals, 1:427.
[28] Ibid., 432.
[29] Ibid., 434; Jadunath Sarkar, A History of Aurangzeb, 5 vols. (London: n.p., 1924-30), 2: 32-34.[30] Tod, Annals, 1: 1135; Abu’l Fazl, Ain-i-Akbari, trans. H. Blockmann and H.S. Jarrett (Calcutta: Royal Asiatic Society, 1927-49), 3:357-58.
[31] Although Tod does not mention Sur Singh as the Bikaner ruler, other authorities mention a brief rule by Dalpat Singh and a longer reign of Sur Singh between Rai Singh and Karan Singh. See Major Erskine, Rajputana Gazeteers III: The Western Rajput States and Bikaner Agency (Allahabad: Government Press, 1909), A. 39, B. 83.
[32] There is some disagreement among the history scholars and sources about Karan Singh’s allegiance to Aurangzeb. Sarkar mentions that after Karan Singh’s death, Aurangzeb settled his score against the Bikaner ruler by meddling in the succession wars at the Bikaner court and by successfully placing Anup Singh, the youngest son of Karan Singh, on the throne. See Sarkar, History of Aurangzeb, 2:37. [33] Ahsan Raza Khan, Chieftains in the Mughal Empire during the Reign of Akbar (Simla: Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1977), 147.
[34] His court poet Keshavadas was sent to the Mughal court where he composed a special poem, “Jahangir Jas Chandrika,” eulogizing the Mughal emperor.
[35] For further information on these series, see V.N. Desai, “Connoisseur’s Delights: Early Rasikapriya Paintings in India,” Pd.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1984, 96-140.
[36] For more detailed explanation of the mansabdari system, see Khan, Chieftains, 1-16.[37] The mansabdari principle could be applied to such other Mughalized courts as Amber and Marwar as well. The few seventeenth-century pictures known from these courts are in heavily Mughalized styles. Not surprisingly, the Kachhwaka and Rathor rulers of these courts also spent large chunks of their political life fighting the imperial wars away from home.
[38] Tod, Annals, 1:428.
[39] Khan, Chieftains, 117.
[40] In this context, painting developments at Bundi in the seventeenth century present an interesting situation. After submitting to the Mughal throne in 1570, the ruler of Bundi negotiated a treaty that exempted the Hara family from the custom of dola, or sending a Rajput princess to be betrothed to a Mughal prince. However, like the Bikaner rulers, the Bundi rulers fought for the Mughal army all over India and were often away from their home region. Not surprisingly, paintings from Bundi are neither as directly based on the Mughal prototypes as Bikaner pictures nor as devoid of Mughal influences as Mewar paintings. Beginning with the first known Ragamala set of 1591, Bundi pictures in the early seventeenth century display a consistent relationship with the sub-imperial or popular Mughal pictures. From the middle of the seventeenth century, Bundi painting begins to follow its own course with stronger non-Mughal elements.
[41] Desai, “Connoisseur’s Delights,” 40.
[42] Anand Krishna, Malwa Painting (Banaras: Banaras Hindu University, 1963), 16.
[43] Goetz, Art and Architecture of Bikaner, 28. [44] Another useful line of inquiry in this regard would be to look at the list of dowry items at the time of a Rajput princess’ wedding. Such court records have been made public recently. According to Naval Krishna, a scholar of Bikaner painting who has worked extensively with these records, painting sets are often listed in the dowries among with clothing, jewelry, and servants.
[45] The impact of the Mughal customs on these Rajput courtsisclearly evident intheMughalized clothing oftrousersand long, transparenttunic frequently worn by the women in Bikaner painting, compared to the more traditional full skirt, short blouse, and half-sari (odhni) worn by the women in Mewar painting.
Published in Art Journal, Vol. 49, No. 4, New Approaches to South Asian Art (Winter, 1990), pp. 370-378