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    Mausoleum of Shad-e (or Shadi) Mulk Aga in Shah e Zinda, Samarqand

    Mausoleum of Mahmud Pahlavon in Khiva, Uzbekistan

    The tomb of Baba Rukn al-Din Shirazi, Takht-i Fulad, Isfahan, Iran

    The Summer Mosque of the Arc in Khiva, Uzbekistan

    Shrine of Sheikh Zainuddin Bobo in Tashkent, Uzbekistan

    The Madrasas ( educational institutions) of Ulugh Beg

    The Madrasas ( educational institutions) of Ulugh Beg

    Dargah of Sheikh Raju Qattal in Khuldabad, Maharashtra

    Dargah of Sheikh Raju Qattal in Khuldabad, Maharashtra

    AkshayVat in Allahabad/ Prayagraj

    AkshayVat in Allahabad/ Prayagraj

    Helical stepwell in Pavagadh area of Gujarat

    Islam Khoja ensemble in Khiva,Uzbekistan

    Mysore Silk and Tipu Sultan

    Mysore Silk and Tipu Sultan

    Lord Buddha statue in Chandigarh Museum

    Akbar’s Inscription in The Ranakpur Jain Temple

    Neelkanth Temple in Kumbhalgarh

    Neelkanth Temple in Kumbhalgarh

    Vijai Stambh in Chittorgarh Fort

    The importance of River Yamuna in Vrindavan

    The importance of River Yamuna in Vrindavan

    Tajuddin Baba of Nagpur or Shahenshah-e Haft-e Aqleem Hazrat Baba Tajuddin

    Tajuddin Baba of Nagpur or Shahenshah-e Haft-e Aqleem Hazrat Baba Tajuddin

    Shri Niwas or the House of Mirrors in Jaipur’s City Palace

    Shri Niwas or the House of Mirrors in Jaipur’s City Palace

    Kanishka statue in Mathura museum

    Kanishka statue in Mathura museum

    Shahji ka Mandir, Vrindavan

    Shahji ka Mandir, Vrindavan

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      Mausoleum of Shad-e (or Shadi) Mulk Aga in Shah e Zinda, Samarqand

      Mausoleum of Mahmud Pahlavon in Khiva, Uzbekistan

      The tomb of Baba Rukn al-Din Shirazi, Takht-i Fulad, Isfahan, Iran

      The Summer Mosque of the Arc in Khiva, Uzbekistan

      Shrine of Sheikh Zainuddin Bobo in Tashkent, Uzbekistan

      The Madrasas ( educational institutions) of Ulugh Beg

      The Madrasas ( educational institutions) of Ulugh Beg

      Dargah of Sheikh Raju Qattal in Khuldabad, Maharashtra

      Dargah of Sheikh Raju Qattal in Khuldabad, Maharashtra

      AkshayVat in Allahabad/ Prayagraj

      AkshayVat in Allahabad/ Prayagraj

      Helical stepwell in Pavagadh area of Gujarat

      Islam Khoja ensemble in Khiva,Uzbekistan

      Mysore Silk and Tipu Sultan

      Mysore Silk and Tipu Sultan

      Lord Buddha statue in Chandigarh Museum

      Akbar’s Inscription in The Ranakpur Jain Temple

      Neelkanth Temple in Kumbhalgarh

      Neelkanth Temple in Kumbhalgarh

      Vijai Stambh in Chittorgarh Fort

      The importance of River Yamuna in Vrindavan

      The importance of River Yamuna in Vrindavan

      Tajuddin Baba of Nagpur or Shahenshah-e Haft-e Aqleem Hazrat Baba Tajuddin

      Tajuddin Baba of Nagpur or Shahenshah-e Haft-e Aqleem Hazrat Baba Tajuddin

      Shri Niwas or the House of Mirrors in Jaipur’s City Palace

      Shri Niwas or the House of Mirrors in Jaipur’s City Palace

      Kanishka statue in Mathura museum

      Kanishka statue in Mathura museum

      Shahji ka Mandir, Vrindavan

      Shahji ka Mandir, Vrindavan

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      Tradition of Mughal Miniature Paintings under Akbar

      inOur Cultural Heritage
      0

      Mughal painting refers to a particular style of painting, generally confined to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums, which emerged from Persian miniature painting, with Indian Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist influences, and developed largely in the court of the Mughal Empire.
      Though there are references of miniatures from the Delhi Sultanate period it was Emperor Akbar who encouraged and revived the tradition of paintings which are world famous today as Mughal miniatures.
      He said that contrary to opinion of religious scholars that painters tried to rival God’s creation, they in fact felt more humble as they knew they reproduced only lifeless art and could not infuse life into them, which only God could do.
      Persian artists Abd-us-Samad and Mir Saytyed Ali were the mainstays of his painting kharkhana. They had initially been invited by Humayun (1530–1540 AD) to teach this art to himself and to his son Akbar to Kabul with Humayun (where he was in exile) and in later years shifted to Delhi when he won back his empire. More than 100 painters were employed under them. They were Hindus from Gujarat, Gwalior and Kashmir and it developed into a unique Mughal for of miniature painting.
      Paper was initially imported from Iran and later produced in India.
      The paint was made from animal,mineral and vegetable substances. Brushes were made from animal hair.
      Akbar established a workshop under them to produce miniature paintings in Fatehpur Sikri.
      The first project was illustration of the 14th-century Persian series of 52 stories by Naksahabi :Tutinama or Tales of the Parrot.
      An illustrated version containing 250 miniature paintings was commissioned by the Mughal Emperor,
      and Urdu translation version by Al-din Nakhshabi Ziya, Saiyid Haidar Bakhsh, (1875), English translation by George Small.
      The illustrators were Mir Sayyid Ali
      and Abdus Samad. It is now in the Cleveland Museum of Art .

      image

      In Iran, as in India, parrots (in light of their purported conversational abilities) are popular as storytellers in works of fiction.

      image

      The Parrot addresses Khojasta, a scene from the Tutinama (1556–1565) paintings
      The adventure stories narrated by a parrot, night after night, for 52 successive nights, are moralistic stories. the Tuti-nama.

      image

      “A Young Woman Visited by the Sultan’s Viziers”
      India, Mughal; c. 1570

      The next project was The Hamzanama or Dastan-e-Amir Hamza -(Adventures of Amir Hamza) narrates the legendary exploits of Hamza bin Azrak, a brave man who lived in the Banu Abbas reign.These are fanciful romantic tales and lend themselves beautifully to illustration.

      image

      Though Babur, described the Hamzanama as “one long far-fetched lie; opposed to sense and nature”, his grandson Akbar, who came to throne at the age of fourteen, enjoyed it so much that he commissioned his court workshop to create an illustrated manuscript of the Hamzanama.

      image

      The project was conceived on such an unusually large scale that it took fourteen years, from about 1562 to 1577, to complete. It had 1400 paintings.

      image

      The Gulistan by Saadi was illustrated in Fatehpur Sikri in 1582

      image

      in a Rose garden, from a Mughal manuscript of the Gulistan.

      image

      The Khamsa of Nizami in the British Library, is a lavishly illustrated manuscript of the Khamsa or “five poems” of Nizami Ganjavi, a 12th-century Persian poet, which was created for the Mughal Emperor Akbar in the early 1590s by a number of artists and a single scribe working at the Mughal court.
      But it was the Persian translation Ramayana and Mahabharat which were the highlight miniature painting in Akbar reign

      image

      According to Abul Fazl, these translations were ordered by Emperor Akbar to dispel the fanatical hatred between Hindus and Muslims as he was convinced that it arose only from mutual ignorance.

      image

      The first Ramayana in Persian was by Mulla’ Abdul Qadir Badayuni. In AH 992 (1584 AD) Emperor Akbar asked him to translate it from Sanskrit.

      image

      In 1574, Akbar had established a translation bureau (maktab khana) at his capital of Fatehpur Sikri. Here, the emperor’s top scribes and secretaries were given the task of translating a range of Sanskrit texts. Mahabharata,the epic comprises approximately 100,000 verses, the endeavor was formidable and the result is an abridgment rather than a strict translation of the entire text. Titled the Razmnama (Book of War), the copiously illustrated imperial manuscript—completed between 1584 and 1586—is housed in the City Palace Museum in Jaipur

      The battle of Duryodhana and Bhima (among others.) From the 1616-1617 edition of the Razmnama.

      image

      The challenge was in painting the epic characters in Mughal settings and clothes!

      image

      depiction of Hindu and Muslim scholars translating the Mahabharata from Sanskrit into Persian. This is another example of an attempt to contemporize the text. From the 1598–99 copy of the Razmnama.
      Image source: The Free Library of Philadelphia

      A folio from a 1616 copy of the Razmnama in which: “Asvatthama Fires the Narayana Weapon (Cosmic Fire) at the Pandavas.”

      image

      Krishna and the Golden City of Dwarka” a miniature from a different translated Sanskrit text called the Harivamsha (Geneology of Vishnu,) also commissioned by Akbar. 1585.
      Image source: Sackler Freer Gallery

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      Rana Safvi

      Come, explore and fall in love the Beauties of Delhi (Dilli ki Ranaiya’n) and the World with me, Rana Safvi

      I have a masters in medieval history from the prestigious Centre for Advanced Studies, Dept. of History, AMU. A firm believer in our Ganga Jamuni Tehzeeb, I am passionate about gaining and sharing knowledge and these days I am doing it via the social media platform.

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