International Conference on Greek Studies: An Asian Perspective (25th ‐ 28th February 2014) Organized by Greek Chair School of Language, Literature & Culture Studies Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi‐110067 In collaboration with Indian Council of Social Science Research Indian Council of Historical Research India International Centre, Asia Project Embassy of Greece, New Delhi Venue: Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi‐110067 Dipanwita Donde, PhD Research Scholar, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 2014 The Mughal Sikander* Influence of the Romance of Alexander on Mughal Manuscript Painting Abstract When Mughal emperors projected themselves as world‐conquerors, just rulers, hero‐kings and prophet‐kings, one of the models they sought to emulate was that of Alexander ‐ or rather his qualities and personality as reflected in Persian classical literature. This paper explores the connection between the image of Mughal emperors in manuscript paintings and images of Alexander or Sikander. It examines specific examples of illustrations of Alexander represented in pictorial narratives of the Romance of Alexander, painted frequently under Mughal emperors. In addition, it looks at a few examples of illustrated folios where the Mughal emperor, emulating the figure of Alexander, embedded his own or his ancestor’s portrait‐image within the composition. Why did Mughal emperors favour the image of Alexander and imitate it in order to shape their own image and identity? What did the image of Alexander denote for the Mughals? To whom did they address this message of an affiliation between themselves and the archetype of Alexander the Great? By raising these questions, this paper aims to trace one strand of the transcultural identities that underlie portrait‐images of Mughal emperors. Introduction When Alexander the Great crossed the Indus in 326 BCE, he remained in India for about a year and a half. However, his campaign took him only to the Western edge of the country and his success on the battlefield and his unstoppable course through Central Asia remained so distant for the majority of Indians, that his name did not even enter Indian literature.1 No traces remain of the cities he founded in India, and the twelve stone altars, said to have been erected to mark the limits of his * Alexander the Great is popularly called Sikander in Hindustani See Vincent Smith, Early History of India, pp. 76‐78 quoted by Walter Eugene Clark, in “The Importance of Hellenism from the Point of View of Indic‐Philology”, Classical Philology, Vol. 14, No. 4, The University of Chicago Press, 1919, pp. 301‐304. 1 conquered territory, have not been preserved.2 The only definite trace of his invasion of India is found on coins, excavated by the British in the 19th century.3 Over the next centuries, however, his invasion was to capture the imagination of rulers belonging to several dynasties, including the Mauryan kings in ancient India, the Timurid sultans of medieval Central Asia as well as the British imperialists in India in the nineteenth century.4 Alexander the Great was a tangible presence for British Civil Servants serving in India due to the prevalence of classical education in England and the availability of ancient and modern sources describing his history. Interest in Alexander was remarkably widespread among the British officers, who saw themselves reenacting Alexander’s explorations, his conquests and his mission to civilize Asia. Textual sources of British intellectual life in India provide evidence of the deep interest in Alexander in the form of histories, archeological works, periodicals as well as memoirs and letters of travellers, soldiers, scholars and civil servants, spanning the century.5 The British, however, were not the first to introduce Alexander into the cultural memory of India. During medieval times, Central Asian conquerors, imagining themselves as world‐conquerors6 while marching east towards India, introduced 2 Walter Eugene Clark, (1919), pp. 301‐304 For an exhaustive account of Indo‐Greek coins found during excavations carried out by British officers in the sub‐continent during the 19th century see Elizabeth Errington and Vesta Sarkosh Curtis, From Persepolis to the Punjab: Exploring the Past in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, British Museum Press, Reprint Edition 2011. 4 Anna Akasoy, “Alexander in the Himalayas competing Imperial Legacies in Medieval Islamic Histories and Literature, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, The Warburg Institute, Vol. 72, 2009, p.2 5 Christopher A. Hagerman, “In the Footsteps of the Macedonian Conqueror: Alexander the Great and British India”, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Vol. 16, No. 3/4, Sept‐Dec, 2009, pp. 345‐347 6 The first histories of the Timurid dynasty was commissioned by Timur (r.1370‐1405), who was famous for his lust for conquest like Alexander the Great. Timur was hailed as a world‐conqueror and compared to Iskander, Alexander the Great. This is supported by his adoption of the title Sahibqiran, closely resembling Zulqarnaian, both words derived from the same root with similar meanings, ‘Lord of the two ages’. See Muhammad Abdul Ghani, A History of Persian Language and Literature At the Mughal Court – Part ‐ 1, The Indian Press, Allahabad, 1929, p.12 3 the legend of Alexander into the sub‐continent. It was, however, not the historical accounts that penetrated the popular imagination during medieval times, but the Romance, titled Pseudo‐Callisthenes,7 composed in Alexandria in the fourth century AD, that inspired most Alexander stories which became the model for scripting the Romance of Alexander by Persian poets thereafter.8 Alexander, popularly called Sikander in Hindustani9 was an important masculine prototype, functioning as the symbol of a world conqueror and prophet‐king in Persian literature. No hagiographies of Alexander have survived but scholars have argued that two attitudes towards Alexander circulated in the Persian tradition: one through oral and literary tradition transferred from the Greek Pseudo‐Callisthenes Romance, and the other through the Zoroastrian priestly tradition. In the Pseudo‐ Callisthenes Romance, Alexander appears as a hero‐king, whose campaigns in Central Asia and India united the civilizations of the East with the West. In addition, he was also hailed as a seeker of knowledge, a prophet‐king, who sought holy men of the East and Central Asia and engaged in philosophical discourses with them. In the Pahlavi priestly version, however, he is defined as gujastak, a cursed evil and one of Iran’s greatest enemies.10 But, it was the former that inspired the Alexander stories that proliferated in the medieval period.11 7 The authorship of the Greco‐Egyptian romance of the third century AD was falsely ascribed to one of Alexander’s companions, the philosopher Callisthenes; hence the Alexander Romance is popularly referred to as Pseudo‐ Callisthenes today. 8 The Romance of Alexander exists in various languages of the Western and Islamic worlds. In addition to the original Greek and Syriac versions, there are Arabic, Persian, Ethiopian and Latin Iskander Namas, followed by a later tradition of texts written in other languages of the Islamic territories. Anna Akasoy, 2009, p.3 9 Naman P. Ahuja, “The Body in Indian Art and Thought”, Europalia International, Brussels, 2013, p. 233 10 Available at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/Eskandar‐nama. Accessed on 13.06.2013 11 By the seventeenth century, the biography of the Macedonian world conqueror had appeared in over eighty versions in twenty‐four languages. Scholars have noted that nearly all medieval episodes of the Romance, with addition of local color and changes in the personality of the hero, can trace their origins to antiquity. See The Romance of Alexander the Great by Pseudo Callisthenes, translated from the Armenian version by Albert Mugrdich Wolohojian, Columbia University Press, 1964 Two separate aspects of the Romance of Alexander define two chief characteristics of Alexander in different Persian traditions – that of the king and that of the prophet.12 In many Persian texts, including the Shah Nama and the Darab Nama, the story of Alexander’s birth brings him into the line of Achaemenian kings, and gives him legitimacy to rule as King of Persia. In the second aspect, Alexander is identified as Du’l‐Qarnayn (Lord of the two ages13), a prophet mentioned in the Quran (18: 82– 93). He is esoterically described as the Heart of the mystic, and is king of the east and the west.14 In Firdausi’s Shah Nama, composed in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, Alexander is portrayed as much as a seeker for knowledge and enlightenment as a world‐conqueror.15 Nizami of Ganjeh (1141‐1209), in his epic Iskander Nama, further established the prophetic side of Alexander. Reference to his prophetic side as well as to the attributes of a great conqueror and hero‐king suited the demands of Central Asian rulers who presented themselves as reincarnations of Alexander the Great.16 During my research of royal portraits included in Mughal history paintings, I began tracing how Mughal emperors, sharing a common cultural heritage with Timurid rulers of Central Asia, made a conscious attempt to apply the attributes of an ideal king and prophet, taken from the Romance of Alexander, for constructing their own image and identity in manuscript paintings. By studying a few examples of Mughal paintings and comparing them with manuscripts illustrated during the Timurid dynasty, I will attempt to examine 12 Richard Stoneman in “Alexander the Great, A Medieval Hero”, The Legends of Alexander the Great, I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd, London, 2012, p. vii 13 The root of the Arabic word Qaran can also mean ‐ near, century, horn, beam of light or peak. Discussions with Dr. Syed Akhtar Husain, Associate Professor, Persian Studies, School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 2014 14 See Laleh Bakhtier, Sufi – Expressions of the Mystic Quest, Thames and Hudson, 1976, p. 80 15 Dick Davis, translation of Firdausis’s Shahnameh, Persian Book of Kings, Penguin Books, 2007, Introduction, p. xxvii 16 Scholars have noted that it could perhaps have been a belated reaction to the destructive impact of the Mongol invasion of Persia and intended to celebrate the revival and recovery of Persian culture from the memory of that devastation. “This can be seen as an aspect of a more general revival of the arts after the conversion of Ghazan in 1295, a revival which marked not only the definitive recovery of Persian culture, but also a new‐found Mongol commitment to that culture.” Robert Hillenbrand in “New Perspectives in Shahnama Iconography”, Shahnama: The Visual language of the Persian Book of Kings, ed. Robert Hillenbrand, British Library Cataloging in Publication data, UK, 2004, p.2 and identify common features of the Alexandrian archetype favoured by emperors of both dynasties to shape their portrait‐images. The King and the Hermit One of the genres, repeated several times in both Mughal and Timurid manuscript painting, is the category defined as the ‘King and the Hermit’ type. In this genre, two figures occupy the composition prominently – that of Alexander and the other of a sage – representing either an Indian ascetic, al‐Khidr17 or another holy man, Falatun.18 The first episode records the event of Alexander’s meeting with ascetics when he arrived in India in 326 BCE19. The second episode narrates a meeting of Alexander with another man of God, Falatun, described in the adventures of Alexander, after he returns to Persia from the East. Owing to the retelling of this common story found in Greek, Roman, Christian, Jewish and Islamic medieval literature, the theme found extensive representation in medieval manuscript paintings commissioned by kings during Timurid, Safavid and Mughal dynasties. In the painting, “Jahangir visits the Hindu ascetic Jadrup” (Fig. 1) illustrated by the Mughal artist Govardhan, we can see the figure of Jahangir, seated on the floor of a humble kutir or mud hut, facing the yogi Jadrup. Jahangir (r. 1605 – 1627), the fourth Mughal emperor, commissioned this painting for the Jahangir Nama or the memoirs of Jahangir. It is the visual record of an event that actually occurred when 17 When Alexander the Great met the Gymnosophists at Taxila in 326 BCE, that meeting fired the imaginations of writers for the next twenty‐four centuries. The Arab historian, Yaqubi (d. 897) recorded a version in which Alexander appoints Kayhan king of all India. (While Greek historians recorded the names of two Gymnosophist leaders, only the name of Calanus came down in Islamic tradition, and appeared in such local variants as Kalus, Kayhan, Khand, Kaid, and sometimes al‐ Kidr—though attributes of both leaders were frequently conflated under a single name.) Paul LeValley, "Jewish and Islamic Tales of the Gymnosophists.", Yavanika: Indo‐Hellenic Studies, no. 13 (2010). pp. 78. 18 Iskander, upon hearing about Falatun, invites him to join him. Falatun, who lives in the mountains, sends the reply that, since he has retired from the world, if Iskander wishes to meet him, he must come himself. Barbara Brend, Perspectives on Persian Painting, Illustrations to Amir Khusrau’s Khamsah, Routeledge, 2003, p. 20 19 The Indians left no record of this encounter, Prof. Paul Le Valley, 2010, p.72 Jahangir visited Jadrup Gosain20, who lived in a hole on the side of a hill.21 We can recognize Jahangir seated in an imposing pose, occupying a dynamic space, a little off centre. The royal image is slightly larger than the bent figure of the holy man, seated to the left of the emperor. The emperor is represented with symbols of kingship that includes the halo, presents the royal right profile and is surrounded by empty space denoting a sacred area reserved exclusively for the emperor. However, instead of the emperor displayed in the opulence of his royal durbar, he is represented seated on the earthen floor without any embellishments. Falling under the category of the ‘King and Hermit’ type22, this painting functioned as the portrait of a prophet‐king paying his respects to a holy man. What previous models could have inspired the shaping of the context and composition of the painting under review? In the painting titled, Alexander’s visit to the cave of sage Plato (Fig. 2) painted by the great master Behzad (c.1450 – c.1535) for the Timurid ruler Husayn Mirza Bayqara (r. 1469 – 1506) in Herat in 1494, we see the figure of Alexander kneeling in humility in front of an image of a saint. This is one of the four paintings painted by Behzad to Nizami’s Iskander Nama, the story inspired by the Romance of Alexander. Scholars have observed that the figure of Alexander resembles a portrait of Sultan Bayqara (Fig. 3)23. This fact is corroborated by a separate study of the sultan’s portrait, reversed but in the same kneeling posture, ascribed in the upper margin to Behzad, preserved in the Harvard Art Museum.24 The Sultan is portrayed kneeling in 20 Jahangir first visited the yogi in Ujjain in the eleventh year of his reign in 1616. He visited Jadrup Gosain seven times during the next three years, sometimes covering the last length of the distance on foot. Subsequently, Jadrup shifted to Mathura where Jahangir visited him twice. Satish Chandra, Medieval India: From Sultanate to the Mughals Part II, Har‐Anand Publications, 2005, pp. 252‐253 21 “The place he (Jadrup) had chosen to live in was a hole on the side of a hill which had been dug out and a door made. At the entrance there is an opening in the shape of a mihrab.” Quoted from Jahangir’s Memoirs (trans. A. Rogers) by Michael Barry, Figurative Art in Medieval Islam and the Riddle of Bihzad of Herat (1465‐1535), Flammarion, Paris, 2004, p. 379 22 Barbara Brend, “Akbar’s Khamsah of Amir Khusrau Dihlvi: A Reconstruction of the Cycle of Illustration”, Artibus Asiae, Vol. 49, No. 3/4, 1988‐89, p. 315 23 Eleanor Sims, Peerless Images: Persian Painting and its Sources, Mapin Publishing in association with Yale University Press, 2002, p.55; Michael Barry, 2004, p. 257 24 Michael Barry, 2004, p. 274 King and Hermit Fig. 2 Fig. 1 Alexander’s visit to the cave of sage Plato Emperor Jahangir visits the Hindu ascetic Jadrup A folio of the Iskander Nama Text title: Khamsa of Nizami Artist: Behzad For Timurid ruler Husayn Mirza Bayqara Herat, 1494. British Library, London Or. 6810, fol. 213 Artist: Govardhan Text title: Jahangir Nama Mughal period, c.1616‐1620 Musee Guimet, Paris, No. 7171 Fig. 3 Right Study, attributed to Behzad, Portrait of Sultan Husain Bayqara as he appears in Behzad’s painting of Alexander’s visit to the cave of sage Plato Herat, c.1494 Former Louis Cartier Collection (Paris). Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Art Museum. the posture of Alexander, humbly by night, before a hermit’s cave. The figure of the hermit is dramatized by his flowing white hair and long white beard falling upon his naked upper torso and framed by the dark ‘hole cut into the side of the hill’.25 The composition is set in the midst of a clearing in the mountains, surrounded by a circle of coloured rocks. The fort walls in the distance suggest that the meeting between the king and the hermit is taking place far from human habitation. The manuscript containing the painting came into the possession of the Mughals and this particular painting must have drawn Jahangir’s special attention as he scrawled the name “Behzad” on the lower margin of the painting.26 The two paintings share several common features, notably, the arrangement of both kings seated upon the earth, facing a hermit. Both royal figures occupy the left half of the composition, with the frail figures of the holy men represented on the right. The city walls projected in the distance contrast notably with the wilderness, marking the isolated spots chosen by the hermits to reside in. The king’s presence at the holy man’s abode instead of the hermit paying a visit to the king highlights the importance paid to the hermit by the emperor. Further, both kings can be recognized by their portrait‐images, dressed in the costume of current times. Studying the commonalities between the two paintings, it may be suggested that in all probability, Behzad’s painting of Alexander visiting a hermit may have served as a model for Govardhan’s painting of Jahangir visiting yogi Jadrup. Significantly, what appears at first glance to be a naturalistic depiction of an actual event turns out to be that and something more – the actual event is recast as an archetypal one. Hence, one may argue, Govardhan’s painting, in addition to being a copy of Behzad’s painting, also emulates the archetypal Alexander visiting the holy man, Plato (or Falatun, as he was called in the Romance). Govardhan’s transformation of the earlier Persian prototype into a composition displaying the current emperor emulating the figure of Alexander is a Mughal masterpiece. It captures the solemnness of the 25 26 See footnote 21 Michael Barry, 2004, p. 274 moment of meeting between the mighty Mughal emperor seated on the same register as the Hindu ascetic. Historically, it is documented that the Mughal emperors often sought the company of jogis, sanyasis and qalandars27 and hence Jahangir’s visit to the Hindu ascetic Jadrup was not an undiplomatic gesture. What purpose though, would such a visit serve as the context of an illustration in a painted manuscript? Why would the emperor necessarily announce his visit to an ascetic in such a carefully composed masterpiece? By recasting a Mughal historic event in an earlier Persian archetype, the Mughals were undoubtedly, citing the popular tale of Alexander meeting with the gymnosophists at Taxila in the third century BCE. Though scholars hardly believe such an episode actually happened, the event found its way into several variations of the story translated in later centuries. The Syric translation of the Romance was rendered into Arabic, now lost, but known to Muhammad.28 Though unnamed, the gymnosophists get a brief mention in the Quran as the naked and easternmost people that Alexander met before turning back to Persia.29 The episode illustrates a list of unanswerable questions posed by Alexander to the gymnosophists in the European versions of the encounter.30 In the Islamic tradition, however, the event relates to the specific genre, usually titled wa’z (“spiritual admonishment”).31 In the Perso‐Arabic or Turkish renditions of the Pseudo‐Callisthenes version, the episode of Alexander visiting the holy man is always present. The event marks a dialogue between the king and the ascetic, whereby the hermit admonishes the king for his lust for power in order that the king should reflect upon his own mortality.32 In the 27 See Susan Stronge, in “Illustrating the Akbarnama”, Painting for the Mughal Emperor: The Art of the Book, 1560‐1660 V&A Publications, London, 2002, p. 79. 28 Paul Le Valley, 2010, p.73 Paul Le Valley, 2010, p.73 30 Paul Le Valley, 2010, p.74 31 Michael Barry, 2004, p. 274 32 Michael Barry, 2004, p. 274 29 Central Asian illustrated versions of this narrative, the prince is always, directly or indirectly, modeled upon the Alexander archetype.33 Scholars have argued that the ‘King and Hermit’ was an oft‐repeated theme found in innumerable manuscripts painted during the reigns of Timurid and Safavid rulers.34 Alexander was the hero in Nizami’s poetry, a conqueror and a prophet, who undertook campaigns as far as Russia, India and China in his quest to conquer the world and know the unknown. His popularity as a medieval hero was further augmented by the qualities of a pious monotheist and a missionary king.35 After his conquests, Alexander meets the saint al‐Khidr, who guides him to perform his divine mission36. After performing the most important task of confining Gog and Magog behind a wall, Alexander decides to search for the Water of Life, accompanied by al‐ Khidr.37 Later, after many adventures, Alexander seeks out the sage Falatun38, who resides in solitude in the mountains. Alexander goes to visit him personally and a dialogue takes place between the king and the sage.39 These two encounters between Alexander and the sages find innumerable visual representations in medieval Central Asia by Timurid, and later Safavid rulers. Translated as metaphors for ideal rulership,40 the qualities and personality of the Alexandrian archetype got transferred onto the image of the Turko‐Mongol conquerors between the thirteenth and the sixteenth centuries, and were later absorbed by the Mughal emperors from the sixteenth century onwards. 33 Michael Barry, 2004, p. 274 See Barbara Brend, 1988‐89, p. 315, Eleanor Sims, 2002, Michael Barry 2004, p. 274 35 Faustina Doufikar‐Aerts, Sirat al‐Sikander: An Arabic Popular Romance of Alexander, Oriente Moderno, Nouva Serie, Anno 22 (83), No. 2, Studies on Arabic Epics, 2003, p. 506 36 Iskander causes the people of every land to accept true religion, or pay jaziyah (poll tax). See Barbara Brend, 2003, p. 21 37 Faustina Doufikar‐Aerts, 2003, p. 508 38 See footnote 26 39 Barbara Brend, 2003, pp. 21‐22 40 Eleanor Sims, (2002) p. 54 34 Therefore, I wish to argue, that Jahangir, by recasting his own portrait‐image in a narrative layered upon the Alexander episode, was projecting himself as Sikander, the medieval hero‐king‐prophet. In the following section, I will examine a few illustrations painted during the reign of emperor Akbar that displays the significance of Alexander for shaping portrait‐images of Mughal emperors. Influence of the Romance of Alexander on Mughal Manuscript Painting The Mughals were descendants of the Timurids and shared a cultural legacy similar with the Turko‐Mongol rulers of Central Asia. The Timurids were avid bibliophiles and commissioned a large number of painted manuscripts illustrating classical Persian poetry, including the Shah Nama and the Khamsas of Nizami and Amir Khusrau. Firdausi’s Shah Nama is an epic containing narratives about the kings of Iran’s ancient past. It detailed qualities of kingship that described the great kings of ancient Persia and became a ‘mirror for princes’ for both local and foreign rulers.41 All these classics included the Alexandrian narrative, becoming an ideal prototype for future monarchs to emulate his personality and qualities. Zahir al‐Din Muhammad Babur (r. 1526‐1530), a fifth‐generation descendant of Timur, was the founder of the Mughal Empire of India in 1526. He treasured books and carried copies of Persian manuscripts, including a copy of an imperial Shah Nama with exquisite illustrations, from Herat to India and passed it onto his descendants.42 Born into the ruling elite, most of whose members valued art and calligraphy, literature and music, Babur was chiefly groomed by his father Umar Sheikh, who had considerable influence in shaping Babur’s literary taste. Babur’s favorite readings were: The Quran, the Masnavi of Maulana Jalauddin Rumi, the Shah Nama of Firdausi, The Gulistaan of Sa’di, the Khamsas of Nizami and Amir Khusrau, Sharafuddin Ali Yezdi’s Zafarnama and Abu Umar Minhaj al‐ Jauzjani’s Tabaqat‐i‐ 41 Robert Hillenbrand, 2004, p.2 This refers to a copy of the Shah Nama dated 1444 made for Muhammad Juki b. Shah Rukh. Muhammad Juki died before the manuscript was completed. In the early sixteenth century, it came into the possession of Babur, who took it to India when he founded the Mughal dynasty. 42 Nasiri.43 Although no illustrated manuscripts commissioned by Babur have survived, later manuscripts illustrated during the reign of his grandson, Akbar, projected him Alexander like, visiting Indian ascetics. In the painting titled, “Babur and his warriors visiting the Hindu temple Gurh Kattri (Kur Katri) in Bigram”, (Fig. 4) a folio from Babur Nama, (Memoirs of Babur), painted in the 16th century and preserved in the Walters Art Museum, Babur is projected as a Central Asian sultan visiting an Indian hermit. The painting is undoubtedly recast in the Alexandrian ‘King and Hermit’ theme. We can recognize Babur with defined Mongolian features, attired in Central Asian garments seated on his knees at the hermitage of an Indian holy man. The sword at the emperor’s waist contrasts starkly with the unarmed naked sadhus, shown engaged in daily chores and occupying the front register of the painting. The bodies of the sadhus are coloured grey, suggestive of ash‐smeared bodies of Shaiva yogis, patronized devoutly by Akbar44. The chief ascetic, however, is clothed in saffron robes, the colour preferred by Hindu sadhus, and shown engaged in a discourse with Babur. The dark doorway behind the figure of the ascetic cites the cave featured in Behzad’s “Alexander visiting Plato” illustration. Humayun, (r.1531‐1540, 1555‐56) Babur’s son and successor, was a great patron of Persian literature and the arts of the book. Though not enough illustrated folios survive from his time, an early Akbari painting shows him emulating the figure of Alexander. In the painting, “Alexander the Great enthroned in Persepolis” (Fig.5), a folio representing the adventures of Alexander from the Khamsa‐e‐Nizami in the collection of the Walters Art Gallery, Alexander is projected as a king, seated under a pavilion in a Persian landscape, adjusting the turban on his head. Scholars have argued that instead of the Greek hero, the image of the emperor resembles 43 Firdausi’s Shah Nama, Nizami’s Khamsa and the Khamsa of Amir Khusrau, all included the story of the Romance of Alexander. Quoted from the Memoirs of Babur (p.479) by Muhammad Abdul Ghani, 1929, p.47 44 Akbar constituted the madad‐i‐ma’ash, or confirmation of land grants to non‐Muslims, which allowed the receiver the right to collect revenue and keep it. The Shaiva Jogi Udant Nath was given two hundred bigahs of madad‐i‐ma’ash land for the first time in 1571. See, B. N. Goswamy, J. S. Grewal, The Mughals and the Jogis of Jakhbar, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla, 1967, p. 21 Humayun, meant as a tribute to Akbar’s father.45 The claim becomes authentic as the three‐pointed turban worn by the emperor in the painting was exclusive to Humayun and used to differentiate the portrait‐image of Humayun from Babur in the works of Akbar‐period artists. Fig. 4 Babur and his warriors visiting the Hindu temple Gurh Kattri (Kūr Katrī) in Bigram. Folio from Babur Nama (Memoirs of Babur) Author: Zahir al‐Din Muhammad Babur Mughal 16th century Walters Art Museum W.596 Fig. 5 Alexander the Great Enthroned at Persepolis Text Title: Khamsa‐e‐Nizami Author: Nizami Ganjavi Scribe: Abd al‐Rahim ‘Ambarin Qalam’ Artist: Bhim Gujarati Mughal Dynasty, c.1595 The Walters Art Museum W.613 The Romance of Alexander found several representations during the reign of Akbar (r.1556‐1605), under whose patronage several hundred illustrated folios were 45 Stuart Cary Welch in “The Emperor Akbar’s Khamsa of Nizami”, The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, Vol. 23, (1960), p. 96. produced. Historians have observed that patrons in the Mughal court wished to promote comparisons between their sovereign and rulers such as Alexander. Thus, it appears that the Persian artist Abd al‐Samad deliberately likened Akbar to Alexander by locating a hunting expedition of the Mughal emperor in the region where Alexander founded the city of Bucephalus.46 Sheila Canby notes that this Fig. 6 Prince visits a Hermit Artist: attributed to Abd al Samad Mughal c. 1585‐90, Prince Sadruddin Khan Collection, Geneva Fig. 7 Akbar and a Dervish The drawing is inscribed, ‘Portrait of Shah Akbar. Work of 'Abd al‐Samad, Sweet Pen.’ Mughal c. 1586‐87 Prince Sadruddin Khan Collection, Geneva event is represented in a painting titled, “Prince visits a Hermit” (Fig. 6) attributed to Abd al‐Samad, illustrated between 1585‐90, in the Aga Khan Collection. Scholars believe that the prince represented in this image could be Akbar’s son Salim, the 46 Pheroze Vasunia in “Sikander and the History of India”, The Classics and Colonial India, Oxford University Press, UK, 2013, pp. 104‐105 future emperor Jahangir, based on the likeness of this figure to that of a seated prince in a tinted drawing identified as Prince Salim and signed by Abd al‐Samad, also in the Museum's collection. Canby, however, has suggested that the princely figure may represent Akbar if it can be linked to a hunting event (qamargha) in the Punjab ordered by the emperor in April‐May 1578 at the alleged site of one of Alexander the Great’s successful battles.47 In yet another drawing titled, “Akbar and the Dervish” (Fig. 7) inscribed by the words, ‘Portrait of Shah Akbar, work of 'Abd al‐Samad, Sweet Pen’, a young Akbar occupies the centre of the composition, seated on a bier under a plane tree. Painted in 1586‐87, the stylish drawing by Abd al‐Samad in monotone (called neem‐kalam), once again echoes the Alexandrian theme. However, instead of representing the king visiting a hermit in the mountain, it represents emperor Akbar granting audience to the dervish. The above examples, including the depiction of Jahangir visiting Jadrup, are not the only Mughal echo of the Alexandrian theme. Mughal emperors, beginning with Akbar, extensively explored the theme demonstrating the significance of the subject. Although the other representations don’t repeat the composition so closely, the idea of a king seeking out a holy man remains constant and may owe itself to not just documentation of such events but the example of Alexander. Conclusion The memory of Alexander’s invasion in India was completely wiped out from the cultural memory of India. However, ahead of the British discovering the material remains of the historical Alexander in India in the 19th century, the Mughals brought the memory of Alexander from Central Asia into India during the second half of the 16th century. During medieval times, the Romance of Alexander was a popular theme in circulation in the wider Persian‐speaking world. Alexander was hailed as a 47 Sheila Canby, “Princes, Poets and Paladins: Islamic and Indian Paintings from the Collection of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan”, British Museum Press, 1998, p. 111. world conqueror and prophet‐king, who, in addition to his distinguished record on the battlefield, was also remembered as a seeker of knowledge. Central Asian rulers especially favoured the prophetic qualities of the medieval hero‐king and absorbed them to define their personalities. The episode of Alexander visiting a hermit found several representations in Timurid illustrated manuscripts, with the figure of the sultan emulating Alexander, sitting with a holy man at his solitary abode. The Mughals came to India from Central Asia and were keen to retain their cultural affiliations with the Timurid dynasty in the newly conquered foreign territories. In continuation of a shared cultural legacy, they traced the image of the great hero‐ king‐prophet from Persian classics to shape their personality upon the Alexandrian prototype. The occurrence of the hero‐king‐prophet theme illustrated repeatedly by Mughal emperors suggest that they were keen to establish their prophetic side along with being remembered as ideal kings, ruling justly and bringing peace upon the realm. By projecting themselves as Alexander, they too aspired to earn glory by being undefeated conquerors as well as project their prophetic mission by bringing people to accept true religion. 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