History in miniatures

200 objects including Shah Jahan's recipe book, a rare photograph of Bahadur Shah Zafar and the earliest Indian Atlas have been brought to Delhi by the British Library, London in association with Roli Books

“On the morning of the 11th May, between 8 and 9 o'clock, a strange report reached me, as it spread through the city, that come cavalry and foot soldiers had arrived from Meerut and were in the bazaar plundering and killing the people,” says Jivan Lal’s original account of the 1857 uprising. This letter by Lal, a regular reporter of court events, is on display at the exhibition The Mughals: Life, Art and Culture curated by the British Library, London and brought to India by Roli Books.

Illuminated manuscripts, photographs, poems, scripts, miniature paintings, maps, scientific treatises, dictionaries spanning a period of 350 years, from 1526 to 1858, are part of this exhibition. “There are nearly 200 objects on display here. It is the same exhibition that we showcased in London in 2012,” says John Falconer, lead curator (visual arts) at the British Library, London. The entire selection on display comes from the exhaustive collection at the Library, except a couple that were sourced from Victoria & Albert Museum. “But, the items that are not from our collection, like the one from Victoria & Albert, we haven’t been able to get to India,” says Falconer.

In the past, exhibitions about the Mughal era have focused either on the glamour and riches of life at the court or on the various styles of paintings that emerged in that era. For instance, in 2005, Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery featured 31 works of art, including the famous Prince Resting During a Hunt made during Akbar’s reign, that traced the origins and development of the distinct Mughal pictorial style that emerged in 16th and 17th century. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art too has published a book called The Emperors’ Album: Images of Mughal India that featured for the first time 50 leaves from the iconic Kevorkian Album about Mughal art and calligraphy. However, British Library’s assemblage differs in the sense that it illustrates every single aspect of life in Mughal India -- right from the time the empire was founded to the emergence of the Raj and decline of the Mughals.

The objects have been categorised under sections such as founding of the empire, the emperors, life in Mughal India, the art of painting, religion, literature, science and medicine, and the decline. As soon as you enter Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), where the exhibition is on display, a beautifully illustrated route map from Delhi to Qandahar dating to 1770 greets the eye. While portraits of the Mughal emperors are beautiful and striking in the extent of detailing, but it’s the objects related to everyday life that are more interesting. For instance, there is a table showing crop revenues of Agra taken from the <Ain I Akbari> or the extremely rare manuscript containing recipes for breads, soups, pulaos, kebabs, samosas and other delicacies prepared for Shah Jahan taken from Nuskhah-yi Shah-Jahani or Shah Jahan’s book.

“Researching the manuscripts and paintings for the exhibition, I was amazed to find some unique manuscripts relating on Pigeon Keeping (Kabutarnama), Guide for Archers (Hidayat al-rami) and the Notebook of Fragrance (Bayaz-i khvushbu’i) in the British Library’s collection.  The individual manuscript provide a window into the domestic side of this great empire; more often, scholars and historians focus on the primary texts such as Abu’l Fazl’s Akbarnanama  (History of Akbar) and the Ain-i Akbari (‘Regulations of Akbar’) and the lesser known volumes are overlooked,” says Dr Malini Roy, visual arts curator, British Library, London, who had conceived the original print edition of the exhibition.

Especially striking is the marriage contract of the 64-year-old Bahadur Shah II to 19-year-old Zinat Mahal dating back to 1840. Opening with the traditional Arabic formula, the contract rests on a background of floral motifs and carries Shah’s signature. While Mughals are known for their patronage to art, this exhibition also highlights their commitment to science and medicine. So you have the earliest Indian atlas (1646-47) by Muhammad Sadiq Isfahani that was completed in Jaunpur in 1646-47. Then there is a Persian manuscript, a dictionary of materia medica or natural remedies authored by Shah Jahan’s personal physician Nur al-Din Muhammad Shirazi and also al Birjandi’s arabic commentary on the 13th century version of Ptolemy’s Almagest. A must-see is the architecture of Agra drawn by an Indian artist for a European patron between 1825 and 1830 detailing the structures of Taj Mahal, Moobarik Manzil Mosque, the Lal Baugh and the Mahtab Garden, among others.

While the glory of the empire under Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan is well known, the exhibition offers a glimpse of the lives of the later Mughals like Ahmad Shah Bahadur, Shah ‘Alam and Akbar II. It allows you to trace the decline of the empire caused by brutal wars of succession and the emergence of the East India Company. “Some of the most remarkable works of art were produced documenting the topography of Delhi just before the Uprising of 1857. The inclusion of photographs is particularly relevant, as photography was the new medium that documented the key sites – Akbar’s tomb at Sikandra, Taj Mahal, Shah Jahan’s palace at Agra and the Jami Masjid in Delhi – in the final years. Moving from paintings to photography, the new medium also signifies the ‘new chapter’ of Indian history,” says Roy. Nothing describes the end of this glorious era than the photograph of Bahadur Shah Zafar, reclining on a charpoy and  smoking a <hookah> as he awaits trial. “This only photograph by Robert Tytler, shot in a house in Red Fort, where the emperor was held captive is an important image as it symbolises the end of the empire,” says Falconer.

The exhibition is on till January, 2014 at the IGNCA