1. Introduction

Light has no form or substance that the human hand can work and shape. To attempt to do so would seem ambitious beyond reason, but the very possibility affords a world of brilliant visual effects and deeper mystical symbols. Inspired by the challenge man has done just that—sculpted light by means of passing it through a lattice, which sharpens its beams, creates crisp patterns and softens its harshness into enigmatic shadows and evocative patterns. In the parts of Asia and the Mediterranean where solar rays are strongest and brightest is where architects, sculptors and artists were able to shape and form them, evolving an aesthetic language of dappled designs and layered views. Ornamental pierced screens share a common aim to bring light into enclosed spaces, while providing protection and privacy. But, additionally, they also shape the atmosphere of a sacred space, augment the grandeur of palaces and enhance the charm of domestic interiors.

Compressing light through open pierced screens captures another ephemeral element, that of breeze. Like light, air, too, is shaped and funneled through narrow shafts, creating and amplifying areas of movement. Set in window openings or as tall walls, perforated screens—known as jali (ja¯lı¯, Hindi, a network, a net, a lattice, trelliswork, from Sanskrit ja¯l, s.m. and Prakrit ja¯la¯)1 in Indian buildings, and as mashribyya, mangour, qamariyya or shamsiyya in Islamic architecture—became the interface between the interior and exterior world. Seen from the exterior, such screens completed the presentation of a whole building, breaking up the mass of an edifice and offering a veil of privacy. Seen from within, the screen would have been silhouetted against the light, throwing its patterns on the interior floor. At night-time, the glowing interior, seen through the jali, would have lent yet another aesthetic effect. The effect of light coming through a jali also changes through the day and through the seasons. Thus, a certain sense of temporality is also built into the jali screen.

For writers and interpreters of the visual effects of a jali, philosophical concepts such as zahir wa batin (the seen and the unseen) and sawal wa jawab (question and response) lend conceptual frameworks within which to view the jali and its metaphorical potential. Not least is the important symbolism of light in the art and architecture of India and the Islamic world, and the Mughals in particular. Together, the effect of light, pattern, colour and breeze in the art of the jali form a powerful aesthetic of Mughal India whose story is told in these pages.

This book is written around the remarkable photography that has been contributed. It attempts to speak of the jali in a wide aesthetic and historical context, rather than offering a survey of all the wonderful variations that remain to be found.

notes

1. John T. Platts, A Dictionary of Urdu, Classical

Hindi and English (1884; reprint New Delhi: Oriental

Books Reprint Corporation, 1977), p. 372.

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UNEDITED TEXTBetween India and the Mediterranean As the first Islamic buildings of the seventh century in the eastern and western Mediterranean were to establish new formulas of space, ornament and fenestration, distant India, as yet largely untouched by Islamic influence, was also seeing important developments in its burgeoning styles of free-standing temple architecture. While inspirations and sources profoundly differed, architects at both ends were simultaneously attempting to shape light through pierced screens into the realm of the sacred space. We find remote echoes between marble interlace windows of early mosques and the pierced masonry walls of Indian temples, each developing separately and locally. Yet each advanced the techniques, styles and understanding of materials for artisans. With the introduction of Islamic styles of architecture to India from the twelfth century these traditions met and the pierced and carved jali screen, as it was known in Hindi, came into a new visual vocabulary. Middle-eastern designs which had expanded in scope over time were interpreted and executed by Indian stone carvers, experienced in the existing local styles. Like so much of Indo-Islamic architecture, jalis thus represent a marriage of traditions. Replete with symbolism, the Indian jali evolved to become both a technical and aesthetic marvel in the architectural ornament of south Asia.

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Mughal and Sultanate Jalis

The arts and ideals of the Mughal court were suffused with symbols of heavenly light and royal radiance. Jalis allowed for the elegant amplification of these themes; celestial majesty was enhanced by marble screens with starry openings while vegetal trellises evoked the filtered light of paradisiacal gardens around tombs and graves. Auspicious symbols of magical protection such as swastika meanders or lotus medallions from Hindu and Jain architecture were interwoven with Persianate motifs, further enriching the meaning and styles of Mughal and Sultanate jalis.

Jalis in some sense acted as portals to heavenly light, mediating between the world of man and the divine.1 The spiritual association of light expressed in the Qur’an’s

Verse of Light (Surah an-Nur) which describes God’s presence as a light from a lamp in a niche (“God is the light of heavens and the earth. The symbol of His light is as a niche, wherein is a lamp…”, Qur’an, 24.35) has inspired many responses and interpretations in art.2 This motif of divine illumination was integral to Sufism as were allegories of light in Islamic doctrines of creation and in the description of the Prophet Muhammad, saints, teachers, angels and divine figures.3 Celestial imagery in Islamic art exalted the power of the sun and the mysticism of the stars set in the vault of heaven, which were evoked in radiating rosettes (shamsas), stellar shapes UNEDITED TEXT(sitare) and tracery patterns (girih) of windows and screens. For the Mughals the importance of light also evolved from sources pertaining to royal identity. This included the origin myth of the ancestral Timurids in which their legendary progenitor the Mongol princess Alanquva was impregnated by a beam of divine light. Rajput rulers, with whom the Mughal royal family was intermarried, had long traditions of light symbolism of their own, claiming celestial decent in their genealogies.4 Mughal art integrated light symbolism from multiple sources, including early Indian traditions of divine kingship, European allegories of heaven, and Persianate and Sufi metaphors of divine illumination. The devotion of the Mughal royal family to Chishti saints spurred the restoration or elaboration of several Sufi shrines, such as at the tomb of Sheikh Salim Chishti at Fatehpur Sikri (fig. x), to which the addition of splendid jalis provided a focal point for pilgrims to tie sacred threads. Pierced screens also formed walls and windows in palaces, separating the earthly worlds of men and women through shrouds of privacy and protection. In terms of style the Mughal jali evolved most immediately from precedents of the earlier Sultanate age. Sacred symbols and square-grid formats (sakandhaka) of jalis in shrines and mosques of Sultanate Gujarat themselves clearly display a debt to Hindu and Jain temples of the region (see chapter 3 and essay by George Michell). The Delhi Sultanate and central India on the other hand incorporated new styles from the Islamic west, such as geometric star-and-hexagon patterns, celestial designs, and arabesque scrollwork (see chapter 4). Early Mughal jalis in the buildings of Akbar and Jahangir combined these formulas with fresh inspiration and new materials. Jalis stayed true to the geometric patterns and stellar designs that had evolved in the wider Persianate world, while also integrating certain Gujarati motifs and symbols such as square grids, floral heads and swastika meanders (see chapter 5). Later Mughal jalis in Shah Jahani buildings went in another stylistic direction, abandoning celestial order for paradisiacal floral trellises of organic form (see chapter 7). Meanwhile the Deccan sultanates in the south had their own distinctive styles of architecture, featuring fantastical and calligraphic jali designs (see chapter 8). The

imperial Mughal style became spectacularly elaborated at Rajput forts and palaces through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially veiling the secluded areas of courtly women (see chapter 9). This “jali mania” evolved into further stylistic variations in the buildings of the British Raj and the ‘Indo-Saracenic’ style of monuments such as the Gateway of India in Mumbai. This volume concludes with the innovations of the jali within new styles of architecture in the modern age and as a form of individual expression by contemporary artists (see epilogue).

The skillful techniques of carving jalis are testament to the abilities of the Indian stone cutter (see essay by MAK Crites). Materials used include sandstone, marble, basalt, stucco, iron, and wood. Mughal jalis appear light and airy, emerging from large blocks of stone with the use of stencils, drills, and small chisels. Some are carved to give the impression of an inner trellis set within an outer trellis, the outlines of each shaped, grooved and staggered to add depth and dimension. At Humayun’s Tomb in New Delhi, for instance, the rigid straight lines that form the star-and-hexagon pattern of jali screens are faceted along their length (fig.x). Each bar of each line is clearly outlined while the entire jali is edged with a fine chevronlike border. Another challenge was met in the later Mughal carvings of the Shah Jahan period when naturalistic trellises came to be carved. Straight bands turned into softly curving vines and stems upon which blossoms and leaves interlock to form the jali. These are the styles seen at the Taj Mahal around the central graves, and the Scales of Justice jali at the Delhi Red Fort (recently damaged).5 In the Shah Jahani jalis we also see European elements, such as Italianate forms and shapes.

FIG. 1 Roman terracotta lantern, Egypt, ca. 2nd century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Joseph W. Drexel, 1889, 89.2.2092

FIG. 3 Earthenware lantern with pierced walls, Nishapur, Iran, 9th-10th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1939, 39.40.87

The sheer size of Mughal jalis which are often designed to act as entire walls transformed the appearance of buildings.6 This monumentality can be seen in the marble jalis that were made for the tomb of Sheikh Salim Chishti (added in 1605-07 to an earlier existing structure) at Fatehpur and then later for that of Itimad ud-Daula (1628), possibly by the same Agra workshop. In both these buildings the delicate marble screens, each over eight feet in height, create a filigree shroud that envelops the upper or lower structure. Very large jalis are sometimes made of two or three separate pieces, but almost seamlessly joined so as to appear as one continuous UNEDITED TEXTform. Another instance of monumental jali walls, can be seen in the tomb of Sheikh Muhammad Ghaus in Gwalior (c.1565) which is surrounded by a web of squarebased trellises (fig.x). Mughal architecture offers a visual interplay between its various styles of ornament, including carved jalis, stone inlay and relief decoration.7 Taken together these forms often echo the variations of the same designs shown open, closed, rising or sunken into surfaces, creating a richness of surface effects while offsetting one-another. Textile designs, manuscript illumination and openwork ornament in the decorative arts are also related to architectural decoration.8

The jali lamp

Before the modern electric age, the source of night light in all societies was a flame, fueled by oil, coal or some other source and contained within a holder. These included hand-held oil lamps in clay, stone or metalwork, lanterns and hanging lamps, open

FIG. 5 Glazed earthenware mosque lamp with pierced walls and relief inscriptions, Raqqa, Syria, 13th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Henry G. Leberthon Collection, Gift of Mr and Mrs A. Wallace Chauncey, 1957, 57.61.17

FIG. 6 Openwork, sheet brass mosque lamp with Qur’anic inscriptions, Iran or Iraq, 10th century, The David Collection, Copenhagen, Inv. No. 17/1970

FIG. 7 Bronze openwork ornament, Iran, 12th period, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1949, 49.60.2

FIG. 8 Bronze Ornamental Boss, Iran, 16th century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Arthur Jaffe, 1976, 1976.159.3

FIGs 9 & 10 Pair of enameled stirrups, Spain, late 15th – early 16th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917, 17.190.642

FIG. 9 Underside of stirrup showing openwork pattern, Spain, late 15th – early 16th century, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917, 17.190.642 flames on poles or torches, long candles in candle-stands and varieties of standing, resting or footed lamps. Some of these lamps offered the possibility of piercing the walls around the flame to create a pattern that would be reflected outwards while also shaping the view of the internal light. These effects and experiments with light and pattern must have played a role in the aesthetics of larger pierced screens.

Terracotta or unglazed clay lanterns - the lamp of the simple villager all over the world - survive from the ancient world and are still widely produced in village and urban south Asia today. Their shapes often echo an architectural form with the appearance of pierced walls, such as an example from Roman Egypt in the form of a wayside shrine with peaked roof and open cross bar walls (fig. 1).9

From Nishapur excavations a good number of such unglazed lamps appear in whitish earthenware (fig 3).10 The walls are pierced with a simple geometric grid, usually triangular openings through which the light would have been thrown out. A few glazed ceramic lamps with pierced openings are also known. A lantern attributed 12th century Raqqa is in the shape of a square-domed building, its wall pierced with a rose-window style opening and dome punctured by smaller open roundels resembling the roof of a bathhouse or hammam (fig. 4).11

Although the material is heavier and the treatment less delicate, a mosque lamp attributed to Raqqa displays celestial stars in a circular composition that recalls the pierced domes of bath houses (hammam) (fig 5).12

Early on, the pierced lamp made its way into mosques. From excavations at Rayy fragments of such early lamps display fine scrolling vegetal designs cut out from sheet metal.13 A complete mosque lamp of this type, now in the David Collection, Copenhagen, is attributed to tenth-century Iran or Iraq (fig. 6).14 Its sheet brass body displays an openwork pattern executed in a delicate web of rounded scalelike openings bearing bold kufic inscriptions (the accompanying chain is probably of later date). An internal glass bowl would have held the wick and oil, throwing out dappled patterns.

The model of a pierced openwork mosque lamp continued through the later periods of Islamic history, some associated with royal patronage.15 Impressively large ensembles of such lamps became known, either as large single pieces almost resembling architectural edifice or assembled and hung together in a stacked circular installation below a dome as was popular in Ottoman interiors. Sheet metal openwork lamps appeared to be patronized by the highest authorities, for instance,

an impressive pyramidal example in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, is made for the Mamluk sultan Qa’itbay (1468-96).16

Metal pierced mosque lamps were the models favored by British restorers for the interior of certain Mughal monuments. Lord Curzon’s gift of a perforated Cairene ‘Saracenic’ lamp for the Taj Mahal cupola for example, reflects the tracery of the marble screens all around. Any other choice might have seemed heavy for such an ethereal space (fig.x).17

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UNEDITED TEXTThe miniature jali While we think of jalis as primarily architectural, many Indian and Islamic luxury wares and practical objects - beyond lamps - contain a world of miniature jalis. Openwork geometric or vegetal interlace or pierced stars, medallions and floral heads abound, often sharing the same designs as large windows and screens. Around the