Madonna & Mughal art

Far from capitulating to western cultural superiority, Mughals took European material culture and put it to work for themselves, writes Dhananjaya Bhat

Mughal miniature of Madonna and infant Jesus

In the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai, also known as the Prince of Wales Museum of western India, there is an unattributed 17th century Mughal miniature of Madonna with Infant Jesus, with priests of different religions, especially Hinduism revering the Child.

The British Royal Mail in November 2005 decided that the painting was good enough to put it on their 2005 Christmas Stamp collection — along with Haitian, Aboriginal, Native American and Italian madonnas.

The Hindu Forum of Britain, on the other hand, felt that this was not acceptable. The forum felt that even if we accept that a Mughal painter in 1620 AD took the artistic licence to portray practising Hindus worshipping the Infant Christ, it was not proper in the 21st century, where the Christian missionaries’ decision to continue their evangelising (read converting) mission in India is still not stopped. Finally in order not to provoke controversy, the British Government decided to withdraw the stamp from circulation.

In this context, it is interesting to note how Mughal artists began to portray Christian themes, especially that of Madonna and Child Jesus.

The first European paintings that reached Akbar’s court were large oil paintings of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Mary was a known figure in Akbar’s court. She is the only woman mentioned by name in the Qur’an, and Akbar’s mother was named Maryam, the Arabic form of the name Mary.

A Jesuit priest at Akbar’s court described in early 1580 Akbar’s reaction to two paintings of Mary: "On entering he was surprised and astonished and made a deep obeisance to the picture of Our Lady that was there, …as well as to another beautifully executed representation of Our Lady brought by Fr Martin da Silva from Rome, which pleased him no end, and then he left to praise them to his captains who waited outside. He was so taken up that he came in again with a few of his intimates and his chief painter and other painters, of which he has many excellent ones, and they were all wonderstruck and said that there could be no better painting nor better artists than those who had painted the said pictures".

Another contemporary Jesuit account of an event in March 1582 provides similar types of details, as well as some complex and distinctive senses: "…a certain noble, a relation of the King, secretly asked the officer in charge of the royal furniture for the beautiful picture of the Virgin which belonged to the King, and placed it (unknown to the King himself) on a bracket in the wall of the royal balcony at the side of the audience chamber, where the King was wont to sit and show himself to the people and to give audience to those who desired it.  The aforementioned noble surrounded and draped the picture with the most beautiful hangings of cloth and gold and embroidered linen. For he thought this would please the King. Nor was he mistaken: for the King warmly praised the idea, which also gave great pleasure to the priests, who perceived that non-Christians were worshipping and reverencing the picture, and – as if compelled by the unaided force of the truth – were not denying veneration to the image of her whom the morning stars extol, and whose beauty amazes the Sun and Moon…"

 Far from capitulating to Western cultural superiority, the Mughals took European material culture and put it to work for themselves. The Mughal art specialist Bailey goes on to note, that such indigenised paintings and murals were "intended only for a select group of elites who gained entrance to the Hall of Public Audiences" and not to "offend the religious sensibilities of the general public of the Mughal Empire by being displayed in public".

As one scholar notes: They interpreted missionary art on their own terms and used images of Christian saints and angels to proclaim a message based on Islamic, Sufi, and Hindu symbolism and linked with Persian poetic metaphor.  …Far from being alien to Indo-Islamic culture, these figures carried a rich range of associations for their Mughal audience and communicated messages related to moral leadership, divine guidance, and royal genealogy. It naturally follows that Mughal artists encoded the same meaning into portraits of these holy figures."

Mughal paintings done in early 1620s, show Jahangir, Akbar’s son, seated in court with a portrait of Mary on the wall above.  Unlike Akbar who had a religious streak in him, making him even start a short-lived religion known as Din-i-Ilahi, Jahangir prized the sacred pictures which the Fathers gave him, not, as they fondly imagined, out of veneration for the subjects represented, but because he had a passion for works of art and curios of all kinds, and especially for pictures, of which he was not only an enthusiastic collector, but a very competent judge.

After Jehangir, his successor Shah Jahan did not evince much interest in depicting Christian themes in Mughal miniatures and with his son Emperor Aurangzeb, the very idea was anathema.—MF (With inputs from the authors of Inter-Cultural Encounter in Mughal Miniatures, and the Christian Art section of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK).

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