by Subhash Parihar

Mughal builders embellished their buildings using a number of media, namely, glazed tiles, mirror-mosaics, inlay-work, carved stone, stucco, and painting. Painted decoration was usually limited to the use of vegetal or geometrical motifs. The application of animate motifs was not so frequent. Hence the surviving examples of such work are a few. However, their former existence in a greater number is attested by the accounts of numerous European travellers, their depiction in a number of Mughal miniatures, as well as by some actual extant specimens.

Amongst European visitors, Portuguese Jesuit Father Jerome Xavier (1608), British traveller William Finch (1611), British Ambassador to the court of Jahangir Sir Thomas Roe (1615-19), Portuguese Missionary Fray Sebastian Manrique (1641), and French traveller Jean de Thevenot (1666-67), have been eye-witnesses to the existence of Mughal wall paintings depicting Christian subjects.[1] Father Xavier specifically mentions that Jahangir ordered his artists to prepare large-sized sketches for wall paintings and consult the Fathers as to the colour to be given to the costumes of the Christian figures.[2] Obviously, the main interest of all these travellers in Mughal wall-paintings was due to their Christian themes. Other animate subjects may also have been depicted.

Horse with rider on the façade of the gateway  © All photographs by the author

Numerous examples of the painted representations of figurative wall paintings are also known. The earliest of these is a painting from a Baburnama manuscript (ca. 1589) depicting Babur receiving a courtier.[3] In this painting appear two rabbits and a fabulous bird painted on the wall behind the sitting figure of Babur. Almost similar in spirit is the wall painting shown on the back wall in an illustration from a manuscript of Anwar-i Suhaili (1604-10).[4] An illustration by the Mughal artist Miskin to the Khamsa of Nizami (dated 1595) shows a building in the background on the walls of which there are three paintings, all of European inspiration.[5] The Freer Gallery of Art, Washington, has a miniature (ca. 1617) depicting the reception of Jahangir and Shah Jahan by Nur Jahan. [6] In this miniature is shown a pavilion, the outer wall of which has the representations of Jesus, the Virgin, and two animals. Another miniature (dated 1617-18) in the Institute of Peoples of Asia (Leningrad), recording the coronation of Jahangir also depicts two Christian wall paintings on the back wall.[7] A painting from the Minto Album (c. 1635) showing Jahangir celebrating the festival of Holi has the outer wall of the right-hand pavilion adorned with a wall painting depicting an animal figure.[8] At least six illustrations in the Windsor Castle manuscript  of Padshahnama show the murals painted on walls. In the painting showing Jahangir receiving Prince Khurram on his return from the Mewar campaign, just above the figure of Jahangir is painted a portrait of emperor Akbar. [9] Of the five others, three show wall paintings depicting Christian subjects like Christ, Virgin Mary, fairies etc.[10]

Of the actually surviving specimens of Mughal wall paintings, mention may be made of the paintings in the so-called Mariam's House at Fatehpur Sikri (dating from the reign of Akbar), Nur Jahan's Pavilion in the Ram Bagh, Agra, western gateway of the Arab sarai, Nizamuddin, Delhi, a  room of the Jahangiri quadrangle, and Kala Burj in the Lahore Fort, and the tomb of Sultan Khusrau at Allahabad (all the five painted during Jahangir's reign).[11] The wall paintings in all these buildings but for the last one, are of fine quality, most probably, executed by court painters. But in comparison to these fine works, on some other Mughal monuments are seen the wall paintings which are of lesser quality. In these, the draftsmanship is crude and figures archaic. Sometimes the both types of wall paintings—fine as well as crude—appear on the same monument, e.g., in the Rang Mahal at Buria (District Yamunanagar, Haryana), most probably built during the reign of Jahangir (1605-27).[12] Here the elephant figures decorating the interior walls are finely rendered but the figure of a woman with a peacock on the outer side of the north-western wall is of a raw quality. But as the surviving number of Mughal wall paintings is not large, their each and every specimen is significant.

Some such raw quality wall paintings, the author has come across at Doraha (District Ludhiana, Punjab), situated some 295 kilometres to the northwest of Delhi, on the National Highway No. 1. During the Mughal period Agra-Delhi-Lahore Highway passed through the town. The building bearing the wall paintings is a carvansarai, one of numerous halting stations built along the route, mostly during the seventeenth century.

In its original condition, the sarai comprised a square walled-in enclosure.[13] The entry to the enclosure was provided through two splendid gateways, placed in the middle of its northern and southern walls. All along the inner side of the enclosing wall were small rooms for travellers. A set of inter-connected chambers in the northeast corner of the sarai comprised hammam or bath-suite. The lodgers in the sarai could offer their prayers in the mosque, situated in its western half of the courtyard. But for this mosque the other structures in this half have crumbled since long.

The two surviving gateways of the sarai form the most prominent visual feature of the extant remains. Both are double-storeyed structures adorned on their exterior with panels and borders filled with various geometrical patterns formed with unglazed brick, and inlaid with brilliant glazed tiles of turquoise, indigo, yellow and white colours. This style of glazed tile decoration was prevalent during the first quarter of the seventeenth century, roughly coinciding with the reign of Emperor Jahangir (1605-27).

Some other modes of decoration are also seen on various other parts of the sarai. Stalactites moulded in plaster fill up the soffits of some recesses of the gateways. The spandrels of the rooms for travellers have simple designs formed with off-colour bricks. The ceilings of the hammam rooms are adorned with painted stylised medallions in Indian red and viridian. But the most significant decoration in the sarai are the wall paintings, appearing on the interior and the facade of the southern gateway (Fig. 1). These wall paintings, depicting human beings, animals, and birds, have escaped the notice of scholars so far.

When I first studied the monument in early 1980s, in these wall paintings only a few crudely painted human figures were visible. I dismissed these as having been executed, probably, by the refugee families from Pakistan who inhabited the sarai for a long period after the partition of 1947, as the figures did not display fineness usually associated with Mughal art. Then I visited the monument again about two decades later. By this time the wall paintings had been cleansed chemically by the Department of Archaeology, Punjab. The subjects of the wall paintings were now visible more clearly. The appearance of some typical Mughal motifs like flower-pot, flowering tree, and men in Muslim dresses, confirmed their execution during the Mughal period.

These wall paintings appear on the facade of the gateway, in the squinches for the domical ceiling, and the soffit of the ceiling of its main passageway.  The paintings on the facade occupy spandrels of the main archway. Being on the exterior, only a few inches of the upper parts of the paintings survive now, the rest having been destroyed by the Sun and rains. But even from the surviving few inches it is possible to make out their subject matter, as faint traces of incised drawings are still visible. In the right spandrel is a galloping horse with its rider, and followed by an elephant driven by its mahaut wearing a typical Mughal turban, and carrying a goad in his hand (Fig. 2). The same scene is mirrored in the left spandrel. The space around the figures in both spandrels is filled with painted floral vines. The colour palate is limited to Indian red, yellow ochre and green.

The paintings on the interior have lost their original colours and appear more or less monochromatic.[14] In many cases it is difficult even to identify if a figure is that of a male or female. 

As each squinch has a semi-octagonal base, its inner side resolves itself into five vertical panels. Of the twenty panels so formed sixteen have one human figure each. Of the remaining four panels, two have one flowerpot each and the other two, flowering trees. A detailed description of these wall paintings, in clock-wise direction, follows:

Painted figures in the southeast squinch

Southeast [SE] squinch

In this squinch, in the middle stands a lady with her head in profile, and having both her hands raised as if to tell something to the figure sitting in front of her (Figs. 3-4).

Detail of right panel of the above figure

Behind the central lady are shown two standing figures, the first one, most probably a female wearing a skirt. The male figure behind her supports a turban. His thin legs are in a position of movement. The male figure standing behind the seated male, folding his hands in front of his chest, also has lean legs. The curved space above the figures is filled with vines bearing two types of flowers (one type being eight-petalled) and a few leaves. Of the four cartouches formed above these figures by vines, each has a sitting bird, arranged as facing pairs. The space around the right four figures has also a sprinkling of flower motifs.

        

Central figure in the southwest quinch         Detail of painting in the southwest quinch     

Southwest [SW] squinch

 The central figure is that of a garlanded male, his hair tied in a knot above his forehead (Fig. 5). His lower garment resembles the grass skirts worn by Easter Island ladies. The garlanded male is followed by another male wearing a similar dress. The front figure appears to be making some offering whereas the rear figure holds something stick-like in his hands. The garlanded figure is preceded by a male wearing a conical cap and carrying a bow in his right hand. In between the two front figures are three trees, the middle one a cypress, collectively perhaps representing a forest. Behind the above-mentioned three figures stands a male wearing tight trousers and supporting a turban wound around a conical cap on his head (Fig. 6). He appears to be carrying something like a book in his left hand.

 

Male figure painted in the northwest quinch                               

North-west [NW] squinch

The first panel in this squinch is occupied by a clumsy female figure having her hair plaited in a tail. She is wearing a frock-like garment and carrying something like a fish in her hands. The second panel is filled with the flower pot motif. A male figure holding a stick or something like it in his right hand, stands in the third panel (Fig. 7). Figures of trees fill the fourth panel whereas a galloping horse with a rider is shown in the fifth one (Fig. 8).

North-east [NE] squinch

But for the first panel in this squinch in which is depicted a long-necked flask out of which sprouts a bunch of nine symmetrically arranged stylised flowers, the other panels have one human figure each (Fig. 9). The narrow-waisted figure in the second panel, probably a lady, is presenting a fruit-tray to the person in the third panel who appears to be saluting her (Figs. 10-11). These two figures are separated from the remaining two figures in the fourth and fifth panels by a tree. Of the figures in the last two panels, the left one shows presenting something like a pair of sandals to the figure in the last panel who carries a sword in his left hand and a bunch of flowers (?) in his right hand (Fig. 12). The garments of the figures in this squinch show better details.

Horse and rider painted in the northwest quinch       

As is obvious from details of the wall paintings, at least the pictures in the northeast, southeast and northwest spandrels depict some episodes, may be from different narratives, not identifiable at least at present. It is probable that the central male and female figures in the northeast squinch represent Jahangir and Nur Jahan Begum.

Besides the wall paintings in the four squinches, the soffit of the central domical also clearly shows a human figure standing amongst some animals and birds (Fig. 13). Contrary to all other wall paintings, the human figure here is clearly identifiable. It is no other than Lord Krishna playing on flute, Krishna the Venugopal. Slender-waisted Krishna though standing on his left leg, presents himself in a frontal pose, having his face turned in profile. Surrounded with birds and cows, the lord wears a plumage crown. I wonder if the themes of the squinch panels also relate to some episodes in the life of Krishna, or may be of Rama, the hero of the Indian epic Ramayana.

In the space to the right hand side of the Krishna figure are some more human figures (Fig. 14). The activity performed by these figures can not be identified.

The faces of the most of the figures are depicted in profile. The draftsmanship is clumsy, extremely archaic. But so is the execution of all painted architectural decoration of the region during the Mughal period. May it be the tomb of Muhammad Momin (popularly called tomb of Ustad) (1612-13) at Nakodar or the tomb of Jamal Khan (c. 1620) at Rupar (now Rup Nagar).[15] The space used for painted decoration in the Rupar tomb is also squinches. The figures stand on a single plane, against a blank background. The clothing of figures shows Islamic influence. The trees are just decorative props.

Recently, reading Rosa Maria Cimino's Wall Paintings of Rajasthan: Amber and Jaipur, I felt that the wall paintings at Doraha bear some stylistic resemblance to those on some monuments of Rajasthan, namely, the pavilion at Bairat, dated c. 1620, the chhatri at Mairh (near Bairat), the chhatri at Bhaopura, Zenana Mahal in Amber Palace, and the so-called Makhdum Shah's cenotaph, also at Amber.[16] The paintings share the same crude and static style. The figures everywhere also are archaic.

Paintings in the northeast quinch  

In particular one may note the similarity of the Krishna Venugopal figures on the south-west upper chhatri of the Bairat pavilion with the Krishna figure at Doraha; and the similarity of the galloping horse on Makhdum Shah's cenotaph and Zenana Mahal of the Amber Palace with similar figure in the southwest squinch at Doraha. It is probable that the Doraha wall paintings also were the work of the same group of itinerant painters who executed the wall paintings in the above-mentioned monuments around Amber and Jaipur. The artists appear to have been Hindus who were trying to imitate the new Mughal style and iconographies and at the same time continuing to draw subjects from their stock of Hindu mythology.

According to Cimino, the paintings on the above-mentioned monuments around Jaipur belong to the initial artistic phase of Rajasthani wall paintings established during the reign of Raja Man Singh (1590-1614). H. Goetz also labels the wall paintings at Bairat as "early Rajput wall paintings".[17] I wonder how apt this
labelling is.

The building at Bairat, is given the generic name of "garden house" by H. Goetz. Dr. R. Nath calls it a Shikargah, i.e., a hunting pavilion, of Emperor Jahangir, and dates its construction about 1620.[18] But the emperor does not mention its construction anywhere in his memoirs. A similar building erected by Shah Quli Mahram (completed in 1001/1592-93), an influential noble of the court of Akbar, still survives at Narnaul, some 65 kilometres north of Bairat.[19] Thus not much can be said with certainty about the Bairat pavilion as the buildings on this plan continued to be built during the reign of Jahangir.  On the other hand it is the similarity of the wall paintings at Doraha with these can help to place the building during the reign of Jahangir. In case of the Bairat pavilion the whole discussion revolves around the assumption that it was built by Man Singh to which we have no proof.

Krishna Venugopal with birds and cows – details from southeast quinch

As far the date of the wall paintings at Doraha is concerned, these were most probably contemporaneous with the building. The real name of the sarai was Sarai Itimad al-Daula, as mentioned in the Abd al-Hamid Lahori's Padshahnama.[20] Shah Jahan while going to Lahore, halted here on 23 Ramzan 1043/23 March 1634. Itimad al-Daula was the title of Mirza Ghiyas Beg, the father of Nur Jahan Begum, conferred upon him in 1014/1605-06. He died on 27 January 1622. So this sarai could have been built in between 1605 and 1622. The English traveller William Finch passing through Doraha in 1611 while travelling from Agra to Lahore, does not mention the existence of the sarai whereas he distinctly mentions all other sarais en route.[21] So the date of construction of the sarai lies somewhere between 1611 and January 1622. And so does the date of the wall paintings in the sarai.

Itimad al-Daula was made wazir (Prime Minister) of the realm on 26th July 1611. May be he ordered the construction of the sarai on this occasion.[22] But the Persian noble who must have seen the finest painted decoration on royal buildings, would not have felt much pleasure on seeing the work executed under his own patronage.

The wall-paintings at Doraha, significant in their own right, can also help in ascertaining the dates of wall-paintings at Bairat and the surrounding area. •

[Marg, Vol 63 No. 3 March 2012-05-05

About the author

Subhash Parihar is now Professor of Museology Archaeology and Conservation in the Central University of Punjab

E: sparihar48@gmail.com