Beyond the bling: Mughals, Catholics and glittering works of art

There must be plenty of art enthusiasts who don’t know what a regular Mughal is, let alone a Great Mughal. The memory of a dynasty that was once the world’s richest has been fading everywhere, except wherever William Dalrymple is taking his one-man word manufactory. For a dazzling visual reminder, there is the V&A’s latest exhibition in London: The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence, which opens to the public this weekend.

The museum that bears the name of the first Empress of India is going beyond the bling. It’s a subject the size of a subcontinent, with the accomplished hand of curator Susan Stronge steering the juggernaut through a maze of misapprehensions and hostility. Juggernaut (originally Jagannath) is, of course, a Hindu entity as well as a term that used to be heard a lot more than it is nowadays. The impression made by India in the 19th century is immense: “Juggernaut” was used by Dickens, HG Wells and RL Stevenson. The references were rarely favourable; Mr Hyde, for example, was described as a vehicle of this deity.

At the top of the sub-continental hierarchy of influence were the Mughals. Originally known in English as Moguls, the word combined the bigness of Juggernaut with the bravura of Hollywood. Movie moguls were the business deities of the 20th century. Somehow an electric-vehicle mogul lacks the mystique. Which brings us back to the real thing: the three Great Mughals represented at this exhibition, with all their dazzling allure.

Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan remain majestic, despite the efforts of politicians such as Narendra Modi to disown them. Hindu nationalists’ most longstanding dislike is the fourth Great Mughal, Aurangzeb, who has been omitted.

The original Mughals ruled much of what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. They are usually thought of as Indian, but in reality they claimed descent from the Mongols, spoke Persian and practised a religion that was unpopular among many natives when they invaded in 1526 and is even less popular 500 years later.

The term “India” hardly appears in this exhibition – the “diversity” word comes up far more often – for this was Hindustan. The religion took its name from the place, rather than the other way round; modern India is making more of a strict-vegetarian meal of religion than during Mughal times.

Multi-faith culture is not the only type of diversity on display. Women are in there, too, and the curator makes a compelling case for the importance of the ladies of the court. Nur Jahan, wife of Jahangir, had coins minted in her name; a significant achievement in Islamic power-broking. Women were also people of business. Above all, they were much loved – as in Mumtaz (Taj) Mahal – as well as being influencers of aesthetics.

There is a feminine touch, if I’m allowed to say it, to Mughal art that is missing from so many cultures around the world. Most of the weapons on display would have been laughed out of the officers’ mess. Dandified daggers encrusted with jewels and gold detailing might have earned a man a sound drubbing in most of Europe. Further east, gemstones were a mark of masculine power and discernment. As a bonus, the frivolous-looking weapons actually worked. The watered-steel blades of the Indo-Persian world are the deadliest ever created, outside Japan.

This exhibition promises opulence rather than metalworking technology. The early, great Mughal emperors were hardly defined by Islamic disapproval of male adornment. Any luxury that the ladies of the court might sport, the males of the species would easily outdo. Long ago there was a multi-destination travelling exhibition called “Treasury of the World”. This description of the Mughals is back, with the eyewitness account of Sir Thomas Roe, the first official English ambassador to the court of Jahangir. Roe saw the emperor “laden with diamonds, rubies, pearls, and other precious vanities, so great, so glorious!” The rubies (spinels, in fact) that caught his eye were “as great as walnuts”.

The Mughals at this exhibition are about more than bijouterie. There are, for example, portraits; lots of them, and it must be admitted that the subjects are often bejewelled. There is also an element of psychological analysis and identity creation. Some of the portraitists were the Holbeins of the empire. These were works for a family album – often a highly dysfunctional family – to be perused within a private space in the palace. Sometimes they have an artist’s signature: a rarity in the field of what used to be called “Islamic art” and is now more widely known as “art of the Islamic world”. It’s a piece of political correctness that sometimes makes sense. There’s nothing very Islamic about a painting of a zebra, and even less of a wine cup, of which there are several examples.

The zebra is a delight. Painted by Ustad (Master) Mansur in 1621, it sums up the Mughal love of exotica. Sadly, my favourite miniature painting of an animal is absent: the only colour image of a living dodo, based on a bird taken from Mauritius to the menagerie of Emperor Jahangir. Probably also painted by Mansur, this gap is surely state-mandated political correctness; the tiny image is in the Hermitage Museum, which is in Russia. As the Mughal court was a more freewheeling environment, the same dodo was seen by an English visitor around 1630.

Outlandish though the dodo is, there are more outlandish happenings in the numerous other paintings and manuscripts on display. Who could resist the mid-sixteenth-century miniature of a peacefully sleeping King of Ceylon being abducted by a type of demonic figure memorably known as a “div”?

The presence of foreigners, often from more distant lands than Ceylon, is one of the most intriguing elements of the exhibition. Catholics were especially welcome, at least for a while, and Jesuits taught the rudiments of faith to the ruling family. Although none of the known Mughal depictions of the Crucifixion are display, other imagery is. There is an engraving of the subject by Durer, who influenced Abu’l Hasan. At the age of 12, this important Mughal artist made an impressive sketch of St John the Evangelist. Some pictures are more enigmatic, such as an angel chatting with some Europeans while a man with a cross emerges in the background.

The great strength of the exhibition is, as promised, its diversity. There is much more to look at than the usual jewellery and miniatures. Well-publicised carpets work well alongside previously overlooked copper, bronze and brassware. Not to be missed are the sublime jades, with or without incrustations of precious stones. Connections with China and elsewhere are explained in detail. The Mughals were, as long-time authority Souren Melikian states: “the most multicultural empire in Asian history”. They also endured longer than many.

Bahadur Shah Zafar was the 20^th and last Mughal emperor. The poet-ruler who lost out to the British foretold his funeral arrangements of 1862 in Burma: “How unfortunate is Zafar! For his burial / Not even two yards of land were to be had, in the land of his beloved.”

Photo: The Giant Zumurrud Shah flees with his army by flying away on urns sent by sorcerers, c. 1570
© MAK / Georg Mayer

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