'ART & SOUL
Books as lines of life
Works of art featuring love for books and joys of reading have come down from the Mughal period
B. N. Goswamy

THE season of literary festivals in India is upon us again, and it seems appropriate somehow to speak of books and of the joys of reading at this time. For the festivals are everywhere now: Jaipur, Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Bhopal, Kasauli, even Bhutan. Everywhere, excerpts from books will be read; themes touched upon in them will be discussed; pleasure will be shared; arguments will ensue. But the focus will, pleasantly so, remain on the printed, or scripted, word.

Many of us love books, and this is how it has been throughout history: not only in our own land but across cultures. My mind, however, often travels back to the time of the Mughals which has, as far as the love of books is concerned, a peculiar, remarkably delicious, flavour.

Where else would, for instance, one find an emperor go into the Imperial library, on the day of his accession to the throne, take out the choicest of volumes, and inscribe in his own hand a note stating that the volume was now a part of his precious inheritance? For that is exactly what Shah Jahan did on an illustrated manuscript of the Divan of Anvari, recording the exact date of his ‘ownership note’— "the 25th day of the month Bahman-i Ilahi, corresponding to the 8th day of the month of Jamadi-al Sani of the Hijra year 1037" — and ending it by placing his signature and seal on the page.

One can keep going back in time and keep discovering the same love of books among the Mughals. On this very volume of the Divan, there is a similar note by Shah Jahan’s father, Jahangir, who also had inherited it. Of the great library that the great Akbar had assembled — despite being unable to read and write himself — his chronicler, Abu’l Fazl, has left a long account in his work.

Akbar’s father, Humayun, also had a passion for books, we know, for there is that wonderful reference in a text of his times to how, during his years of wandering in exile — in which, surprisingly, he kept his choicest books by his side — he lost some books and then, fortuitously, recovered them.

"A pleasant chance befell Humayun on the stricken field", a text reads, referring to a minor victory he had won, "for when he claimed, as his share of booty, two driverless camels, he found in their loads his own books which he had lost at the Qibchaq defile". At which the exiled Emperor fell to his knees and thanked God for this divine favour. Among the books were manuscripts of Persian poetry which had belonged to his father, Babur.

Copies of books were routinely made in the Mughal circles. The Khan-i Khanan, it is recorded, asked his master, the emperor Akbar, for the loan of his volume of the Ramayana for having it copied and illustrated by his own painters. When Gulbadan Begum wrote her account, the Humayun Nama, at the asking of Akbar, nine copiesof the book were made, one reads.

"Of these two went to the Emperor’s library; three to the princes Salim, Murad, and Daniyal; one to our begam ; two to Abu’1-fazl ; and one perhaps was kept by the author".

When Badayuni, that other historian at the Akbari court, borrowed a copy of the book Khirad-afzafrom the royal library, and the copy went missing, "an order", says Badayuni, "was issued that my allowance should be stopped, and that they should demand the book of me". So on it goes.

For me, equal interest resides in the images featuring books, and reading, that have come down from the Mughal period. Again and again, one sees paintings of men in the company of books: calligraphers sitting down to write, poring over pages with great intensity; sufi saints seated in a circle with a pile of books placed on a low chauki-stool at its centre; Biblical figures, copied from some European painting, witha book lying close or in the hand; studious men reading — reciting? — from books, sitting all by themselves in gardens, distanced from all company.

There is, for instance that enchanting study of a young man, barely past the threshold of youth, seated out in the open on a carpet, all by himself, legs tucked under, slightly bent forward, reading from a book placed on a rehal-bookrest in front of him. A pen-case and an inkwell lie close-by on the grassy patch on which the carpet is placed; a curled up scroll of paper lies casually at one side.

There are suggestions here that the young man might not only be a passionate reader but possibly a writer, or painter.

For, on a tablet that lies just at the edge of the carpet are inscribed, in Persian, words that read: "the work of Sayyid Ali, Rarity of the Realm, Humayun-Shahi (owing his allegiance to the king Humayun)". The ambiguity built into the inscription has led to it still being debated among scholars whether this is a self-portrait of that gifted painter at a young age, or a study of a young scholar as painted by Mir Sayyid Ali.

Whatever the arguments, the enchantment of the image remains unaffected by them. The look of untouched innocence and curiosity on the face of the young man is moving, as is his gently indicated but eager stance of bending forward towards the bookrest.

There is great courtly refinement here: the lilac-mauve rocks that rise at the back, and the lone tree with its sparse leaves and gently twisting and turning trunk and branches serve as reminders.

Much the same air belongs to another Akbari image of a man — decidedly older than the young scholar just mentioned — whom one sees seated in the crook of a small plane tree, reading — or reciting — from an open book that he holds.

A young man — a pupil perhaps, or a dedicated servant — stands facing him, hands respectfully crossed in front, but the reader/poet pays no attention.

Meanwhile, the idyllic landscape impresses itself upon the mind: gentle undulation of land, a clump of trees, an elegant pile of rocks, and a little stream running at the bottom of the page. Nothing obtrudes. The joy of the man, the utter absorption in what he is reading, are palpable.

While speaking of all this, I am put in mind of the time, not long back, when we were sitting with Kati and Kurt Spillman — warm Swiss friends of ours — just conversing.

The conversation turned to their recent visit to Iran during which they went to Shiraz where, in a garden at the edge of a river, Hafiz the great 14th century poet lies buried.

Not many people were around in the garden at that time but their eyes greeted a sight which they found deeply moving: in the shade of a tree a young couple, lost to the world, sat, the young man reciting from a book that he held in his hand, gazing up all the time at the face of his beloved. It seemed as if time had ceased to exist for them. There was no way of knowing of course what the words were. Perhaps Hafiz’s own?

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