Razmnama: Mahabharat through the Mughal eyes

RAZMNAMA The Persian Mahabharata Annyesha Bhuniya

BD/19/26

01. BACKGROUND Akbar’s objective, social and political conditions

02. TRANSLATION PROCESS Hindu-Muslim collaboration, reinterpretation

03. SIGNIFICANCE TODAY Current location, insights

04. MINIATURE PAINTINGS Illustration process, influences, analysis of paintings

“...the rational contents of different religions and faiths should be translated in the language of each, and that the rose garden of the traditional aspects of each religion should, as far as possible, be cleared of the thorns of bigotry.”

—AKBAR’S ORDER RECORDED BY COURT HISTORIAN MULLA DAUD

BACKGROUND By the time the Mughal Emperor Akbar ascended the throne in 1556, at the age of thirteen, the vast Turco-Mongol empire dominated virtually all of the northern part of the Indian subcontinent and would continue to expand during his reign. The empire was an Islamic state, but the Muslim elite were minority. Akbar's maintenance of power depended upon the success of his strategy to incorporate Hindu and other religious and political factions into the imperial bureaucracy, and to allow a degree of autonomy in various regions of the empire. Akbar's policies-liberal but also politically expedient resulted in five decades of imperial reign of exceptional tolerance for non Muslim art, science, and religious views. ● In 1574, Akbar 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, including the Rajatarangini (The History of the Kings of Kashmir) and the Ramayana, into Persian. In 1582, Akbar charged the translation bureau with rendering into Persian the sacred Hindu epic the Mahabharata. Since 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.. ● The activities of Akbar's translation bureau indicate his desire to do more than pacify Hindu opponents of his rule. The project was part of a larger, long-term effort to make Persian the official language of the Mughal Empire and the common tongue not only at court but also among lower ranking member of the imperial bureaucracy. Clerks, scribes, and secretaries were compelled to learn Persian, and, indeed, a multi-tiered curriculum was developed to teach the official language. ●

BACKGROUND ● Contemporaneous ascriptions to Akbar's artists found on the manuscript pages themselves, provide compelling evidence that it was in fact executed at the Mughal court, most likely as a gift for a member of the royal family According to the Mughal courtier 'Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni, once the imperial Razmnama had been completed and embellished with illustrations, the Amirs had orders to take copies of it, with the blessing and favor of God. This suggests that it was Akbar's intention that the Persian translation of the Mahabharata be circulated throughout the empire. The Razmnama was thus intended for more than private, royal consumption; it was also meant to serve a broader political function. ● According to Abu'l Fazl, the author of the preface: “It was desired by the minute-loving reason (of the king) that the Mahabharata, which is replete with most valuable things connected with religion, be translated so that those who display hostility may refrain from doing so and may seek after the truth...the books of the two communities-Hindu and Muslim were translated into the common language...the simple-minded folk. having thus realized the truth and thereby rescued from the clutches of the ignorant ones who show themselves as learned, would be in a position to achieve their goal in life.” ●

By highlighting sectarian commonalities, then, the Razmnama was meant to be a bridge between Hindus and Muslims, and to address Akbar's goal of minimizing religious factionalism. At the same time, since Akbar also had to be mindful of the opinion of the most fundamentalist Muslims among the elites, it was perhaps not coincidental that the staunchly conservative Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni was one of the men assigned to oversee the translation.

THE TRANSLATION PROCESS ●

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From the beginning, the Razmnama was a collaborative effort that required interactions across linguistic boundaries, drawing Sanskrit and Persian intellectuals into a common task. On the Persian side, Naqib Khan led the effort and was assisted by Mulla Shiri, Abd al-Qadir Bada’uni, and Sultan Thanisari. A colophon of a 1599 Razmnama, now housed in the British Library, serves as the main source of information on the Brahmans: “Naqib Khan, son of Abd al-Latif al-Husayni, translated [this work] from Sanskrit into Persian in one and a half years. Several of the learned Brahmans, such as Deva Misra, Satavadhana, Madhusudhana Misra, Chaturbhuja, and Shaykh Bhavan . . . read this book and explained it in Hindi to me, a poor wretched man, who wrote it in Persian.” the Mughal translators actually write the Brahman narrators into the Razmnama itself and thereby frame the entire Persian Mahabharata in terms of a story being told across cultural lines. The Razmnama consistently repeats slight variations on the expressions “then the narrators of the story said” and “then the Indian storytellers relayed.”

Overall the Sanskrit informants communicated the text accurately and in detail to the Mughal translators. The Persian text is not a line-by-line rendering of the Sanskrit original, but the Razmnama contains all eighteen books of the Sanskrit Mahabharata, plus the Harivamsa appendix, and the storyline is largely unchanged, complete with most of the smaller side stories and digressions. The ordering of the stories and inclusion or exclusion of certain sections attests quite clearly that the majority of the Razmnama follows the northern recension of the Mahabharata.

Sanskrit literate Brahmans (many of whom were converts to Islam) translated a common North Indian variant of the Mahabharata from Sanskrit into Hindi both in text, and verbally. Then the Hindi text was translated into Persian by a staff of Muslim, Persian speaking scholars. Then that raw translation was converted into poetic verse by the project’s head, a scholar named Abu al-Fazl.

The Mughal translators employ Sanskrit words and phrases in several different ways in the Razmnama that develop a web of associations between the epic and Indo-Persian forms of knowledge. Many such terms denote culturally specific concepts, such as gandharb (gandharva), a class of mythical beings; narak (naraka), the underworld; and puran (purana), a genre of Sanskrit literature.

Other times, the translators invoke Sanskrit words even when there are readily available Persian equivalents, such as cakra,naksatra, and pitr, meaning “discus,” “constellation,” and “father,” respectively. Through the consistent and liberal use of Sanskrit vocabulary on nearly every page of the Razmnama, the Mughal translators actively cultivate a body of Indic knowledge in the text’s readers.

THE MUGHAL RETELLING ●

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The Razmnama is a retelling of the Mahabharata with a heightened level of “aja’ib.” In other words, it more resembles a fairy tale or a fantasy adventure story than the source material which explains why the fourteenth book is drawn from a separate text altogether.

This book, the Asvamedha Parvan (Horse Sacrifice Book), is based on the Jaiminiyasvamedha, an anonymous work, likely composed in the twelfth century. Most crucially for the Mughals, the Jaiminiyasvamedha is a much more exciting and vivid tale than its canonical counterpart. In Persian, these lively and bizarre narratives fall easily into the category of dastan (narrative literature) that was often full of ‘aja’ib (fantastical elements). In light of this emphasis overall, ‘aja’ib features are likely what drew the Mughals to the Jaiminiyasvamedha. Replacing the Asvamedha Parva with the Jaiminiyasvamedha also accomplishes another goal of the Mughal translators, which was to de-emphasize the theological aspects of the text.

This de-emphasis of the text’s Hindu theology is accomplished by selective omissions or extensions of the text. For instance, the entire Bhagavad Gita is compressed down to a few pages, and it’s philosophical content is gutted. The Razmnama Krishna is the teacher of truth but not a divine figure, and he speaks of God’s will as external to himself throughout his discourse. This is not to imply that the Mughals were uninterested in the Bhagavad Gita’s philosophy (they had it translated several times in isolation,) but they didn’t see it as essential to the Mahabharata’s story, which to them was really about imaginative escapades and warfare—hence the translated title “The Book of Wars”.

While the Mughal translators and their patron may have been concerned about writing religious beliefs into the Razmnama, they show no hesitation in adding a decidedly Persianate, courtly context to the Mahabharata by incorporating quotations of Persian poetry. These poetic quotations often serve to epitomize the core of particularly emotional scenes according to Persian aesthetic sensibilities.

The Mughals treated book 12, called the Santi Parvan in Sanskrit, as the crux of the Mahabharata’s political commentary. Moreover, they quote poetry extensively in the first two of three sections of the Santi Parvan, which address kingly ethics (rajadharma) and ethics in times of emergency (apaddharma). The only other comparable concentration of poetry quotations in the Razmnama occurs in the Udyoga Parvan (Book of Effort), which focuses on negotiations to avoid civil war... In his preface, Abul-Fazl also characterizes Bhishma’s advice to Yudhishthira, contained in the Santi and Anusasana parvans, as particularly pertinent to sovereigns.

DISCUSSION OF THE SCHOLARS 1598-99 manuscript British Library ●

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Given the significance of the cooperation required for this process, it is perhaps not surprising that a painting of the Hindu and Muslim translators at their task was placed at the beginning of the 1598-1599 edition. The figures in the painting are described in the Razmnama's preface as "learned people and linguists from both these communities, who are distinguished by their impartiality and fair-mindedness. " ● The composition clearly orders the gathering into two distinct groups: in the top half, Muslim scholars sit on a floral arabesque carpet; in the bottom half, Hindu Brahmans sit on a floor with a checkered pattern. In costume and physiognomy, the two groups are largely indistinguishable; the majority of the men wear the typical jama (Mughal robe) and turban.

Surrounding the group in the upper part of the painting are codices, the standard format used for Islamic manuscripts. The men in this group are bearded, identifying them as Muslims. But there are also differences between the two groups of translators, the most telling of which is the Devanagari script-used for Sanskrit and Hindi-on the scroll held by the figure at lower left. In addition, we can see that the foreheads of the figures in the lower half are adorned with tilaks, ritual marks that identify them as Hindus.

THE FOUR MANUSCRIPTS

01 Complete, made between 1584 and 1586, and now in City Palace Museum, Jaipur, with 176 paintings of which 147 were reproduced in 1884

by Thomas Holbein Hendley.

Made between 1598 and 1599 and split up in 1921. The final five parts (of 18) are in the British library and has other pages spread out in collections across North America, Europe and India.

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03 The third, known as the Birla manuscript, is in the Birla Academy of Art and Culture in Kolkata and is dated 1605.

A fourth, from which only two miniatures are currently identified, was made around 1616-1617 under the patronage of Abd al-Rahim

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SIGNIFICANCE ● ●

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Razmnama is significant because it was the first time the Mahabharata was picturised. Until then, scenes from it were sculpted in stone in temples.

We owe much valuable information on the production and consumption of art in India to the Mughal period. Importantly, almost all the 168 paintings of The Razmnama had the names of the composer, and the artists written on the margins of the page, which gives us useful insights into the artists of Akbar’s workshop.

What makes Mughal engagements with the Mahabharata worthy of close philological analysis are the choices that were made in transforming this martial, kingly tale across cultural lines. The Persian texts that resulted offer much needed insight into Mughal self-conceptions of power in particular and the tense, productive relationship between political and literary cultures in general.

Abu al-Fazl reiterates the Mahabharata’s royal relevance when he describes the work as consisting of “advice, guidance, stories, and descriptions of war and feasting," or, more concisely, kingship.

MINIATURE PAINTINGS Confluence of aesthetics, characteristic styles, analysis of pictorial elements

The main designers of Akbar’s Razmnama manuscript were Daswanth, Basawan, and Lal. Abd as-Samad, a Persian master artist and instructor of Daswanth headed the project, and contributed a few works himself. However, more than 50 other junior artists also worked on the project. By their names, one can tell that the vast majority of them were of Hindu origin. In addition to knowledge of the mythological source material, these artists undoubtedly also brought native Indian artistic inuences into the project.

THE STYLE AND INFLUENCE ●

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Creating narrative images for the Razmnama presented a significant challenge, as a codified tradition of rendering illustrations for Mahabharata manuscripts did not yet exist in South Asia. There appears to be little similarity between the illustrations in the 1584–1586 manuscript and 1598 and 1599 manuscript even where the same subjects are depicted. The artists-some of who had also worked on the 1584-1586 Razmnama seem to have elected to invent the entire painting program anew. This choice may reflect courtly preference for novel compositions.

The artists produced some highly original paintings such as the Tale of the Song birds. Some of the Razmnama paintings warranted less invention.

Battle scenes, which comprise a large number of the manuscript's imagery, could be easily found in other illustrated codices available in the Mughal royal library. The royal collection housed Timurid illustrated copies of the Shah nama (Book of Kings) and other Persian epics and romances in which fantastic and elaborate battle scenes appeared. Indeed, battle scenes were such a significant feature of the Mughal painting repertoire that depicting horses, armor, weaponry, and fallen soldiers would have been a central part of the court artist's training. As a result, some of the battle scenes in the 1598-1599 edition are so generalized as to be indistinguishable from each other. Only the Persian inscriptions in the bottom margins of the pages, providing crucial information about the battle being depicted and the key characters, differentiate the images from each other.

In some cases, an illustration both looks to and departs from an earlier depiction of the same subject. The image of the gods and asuras (demons) churning the cosmic ocean of milk for example, finds a clear precedent in a painting by Ramdas that was in the edition of the Ramayana produced for Akbar in 1588.Other narrative episodes from the Razmnama were likewise easily adapted from the already codified artistic tradition. For example, the scene of the gods arriving to escort King Ikshvaku and the pious Brahman to heaven (back cover) takes place in a recognizably Mughal architectural space, outfitted with floral carpets, star-patterned and hexagonal tiles, and wall niches holding glass and ceramic vessels. The layout of the composition-with the sandstone verandah situated in the middle ground and only two of its sides visible-was commonly employed in illustrated books made for Akbar. Even the musicians and court figures in the immediate foreground seem to have been plucked from an earlier Mughal manuscript page. The artist Dhanu's precise characterization of the Hindu gods and his rendering of the Brahmins departing soul as a smoky column lend narrative specificity to the otherwise formulaic painting.

In addition to Persian and Indian influences, European influence is also seen. At around this time European prints (and occasionally, paintings) were entering India for the first time. They brought with them the concept of formal perspective, which although never mastered by Mughal artists was incorporated into the works. The depiction of vegetation in these works often more resembles European watercolors than any Persian or Indian predecessors. Indeed, naturalistic depictions of plants, fields, and trees all seem derivative of Antwerp school, or Dürer prints, which had been circulating in India since their introduction by Jesuit missionaries in the 1590s.

Arjuna hits the target 1584–1586 manuscript City palace, Jaipur Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper. ● This painting attributed to artists Daswant and Kesho represents the scene of Draupadi swayamvar in which Arjun hits the fish’s eye with his arrow. ● Arjun is depicted usually with dark skin and in this painting he is wearing saffron robes, true to the original stories, as the Pandavas at that moment were disguised as hermits.

The other kings either have typical Mughal courtier outfits (jamas) or dhotis with draped odhnis and are seated on an arabesque carpet. The dominant red and green colours compliment each other perfectly and the dark colours of the well against the soft earthy background draws all our attention to the hero of the scene.

The burning of the Khandava forest 1584–1586 manuscript City palace, Jaipur Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper. ●

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This painting shows the burning of the Khandava forest. Only the song birds who nested underground were able to survive, which could be symbolic of the underground tunnel that the Pandavas constructed to escape the fire.

The tale of the song birds, like many of the stories that are peripheral to the main narrative, had no set iconography in painting as far as we know.

Dhanu, the artist to whom the work is ascribed, perhaps felt free to invent and experiment. In rendering the great flames that threaten to consume the four saranga birds, Dhanu incorporated an unusually dark and dramatic palette. His emphasis on bold geometry is also atypical of Mughal court painting of the late sixteenth century. In his depiction of the fiery forest, Dhanu may have drawn inspiration from engraved images depicting Hell: from Jerome Nadal's Evangelicae Historiae Imagines. The Jesuit Mission gave Akbar a copy of this copiously illustrated religious text in 1595.

Virata parva 1584–1586 manuscript City palace, Jaipur Ink, opaque watercolor, and gold on paper. ● This folio is credited to artists Daswanth & Mukund. It depicts Bheem killing Keechak along with his 105 brothers as a punishment for assaulting Draupadi. Bheem is using an uprooted palm tree to push the brothers into Keechak’s funeral pyre. ● We see powerful rhythm in the composition that brings out this act of fantastic violence in an exaggerated, supernatural manner. Compared to his contemporaries, Daswanth’s work is far less formal, less concerned with creating realistic spaces, and more concerned with expressionism. He nearly abandons depth and technical perspective altogether and depicts his subjects on a single plane of churning, frenzied action.

Krishna and the Pandavas visit Bhishma on his deathbed 1598-99 manuscript Opaque watercolor and gold on paper British Library ●

This painting made by Rám Dás depicts Krishna, prominent in blue colour, along with the Pandavas sitting near Bhishma’s bed of arrows. This is happening probably after sunset, when the day’s battle has ended, because we see kneeling attendants, while warriors and horsemen stand in the near distance amidst a rocky landscape. ● The artists have interpreted the ‘bed of arrows’ as an actual flat spread, while most Hindu renditions show an elevated bed with arrows pierced through the body of Bhishma. Compared to the paintings of the 1584 copy, here figures are starkly contrasting against the background due to harsher lines and bright colours.

Dhritrashtra retires to the forest 1598-99 manuscript Opaque watercolor and gold on paper British Library This miniature on this folio is attributed to Dhanu. Its subject is taken from one of the closing episodes of the Mahābhārata. The blind and aged king, Dhrtarāștra, is seen abandoning the city of Hastināpur and retiring to the forest. The king is led by Kunti, mother of the three elder Pandavas, and his wife Gandhāri, blindfolded, follows behind.

The grouping and gestures of the lamenting crowd serve to underline the poignancy of the scene. ● The colours of the costume, ranging from crimson and vermilion to yellow, are characteristic of the late Akbari palette. The eaved house in the fortified city at the top left and the ominously lowering sky evidently derive from Flemish miniature painting.

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End of pandavas and Draupadi 1605 Opaque watercolor Birla Academy of Art and Culture ●

This folio depicts the final journey of Pandavas towards the heaven.

A clear sequential narration is seen starting from the right bottom corner where they start their climb up the Himalayas. Their path is interrupted by a water body where four of the Pandavas and Draupadi appear to be drowning. Only Yudhishthir along with a stray dog who was actually Lord Dharmaraj (a popular story in many versions) reach the heaven. ● Most of the paintings of the Birla manuscript have colourful compositions with pleasant colours, in contrast to the intense dramatic compositions of earlier copies. The realistic details of the vegetation and human figures seen in earlier copies is also missing.

Comparison of the illustrations How the same subject was depicted dierently in dierent copies of Razmnama

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The first painting is credited to Baswana. Control, and adherence to Persian tradition are manifest in his style. Vertical and horizontal lines, often in the form of architectural elements give his work structure even when there is a lot of action in frame. The heavily clothed and turbaned Pandavas and Kauravas sit on a raised platform within a high ceiling hall supported by pillars. The geometric patterns of Bukhara carpet somewhat downplayed the small figure of Draupadi being disrobed by Dusshasana.

Shocked and ashamed by the sudden turn of events, the central characters look sullen, despondent; Pandavas have their eyes downcast, elderly members of the court in the left corner have averted their eyes.

In the Birla manuscript. The figures are arranged in a more random manner on a single floral carpet that forms almost the entire foreground. The dramatic intensity of the earlier copy seems missing because of the use of brighter colours. The facial expressions in the Birla copy somewhat belie the shocking events of the scene.

1584–1586 manuscript City palace, Jaipur Opaque watercolor, and gold on paper.

1605 manuscript Birla Academy of Art and Culture Opaque watercolor

Arjuna slays Karna The 1598-99 painting has a lot of action going on simultaneously at the center of which are two facing chariots. Karna was in an evident position of releasing the wheel of his chariot when Arjun’s arrow slices off his head. There is a dramatic spray of blood. The landscape is very detailed with realistic vegetation and finely painted architecture in the distance. ● The 1616-17 painting credited to Fazl lacks minute details of human figure and vegetation seen in the previous copy. Even Krishna is unrecognizable as Arjun’s charioteer. There are also greater patches of plain colours seen in the landscape. All details irrelevant to the scene have been eliminated. The composition seems more aware of technical perspective. ●

1598-1599 Ink and color on paper Princeton University Art Museum

1616-1617 Opaque watercolor and gold on paper The Art Institute of Chicago

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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