The Indian Conquest of Catholic Art: The Mughals, the Jesuits, and Imperial Mural PaintingAuthor(s): Gauvin Alexander BaileySource: Art Journal, Vol. 57, No. 1, The Reception of Christian Devotional Art (Spring, 1998),pp. 24-30Published by: College Art AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/777989Accessed: 27/11/2010 09:30

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The Indian Conquest of Catholic Art The Mughals, the Jesuits, and Imperial Mural Painting

Gauvin Alexander Bailey

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The Encounter Recent scholarship has acknowledged that the art of early colonial Latin America was often the product of a partner- ship between indigenous and conquest civilizations, and not merely a provincial variation on European models.1 Either covertly or with the tacit encouragement of their

European employers, Amerindian artisans perpetuated pre-Conquest iconographies, ideals, and rituals in their Catholic art commissions. Nahua artists in sixteenth-

century New Spain, for example, introduced pre-Conquest glyphs and styles into conventual mural cycles, making it

possible for them not only to understand the new faith on their own terms but even to assert their own identity or resist church authority. Nevertheless, among the peoples of the former Aztec and Inka empires-along with other

groups under Spanish rule from Hispaniola to Luzon-- conquest was the reality. The imported civilization had the

upper hand, and the art of these regions became increas-

ingly dominated by European forms and meanings. What would have happened if the situation had been

reversed; if the non-Europeans had chosen to patronize Catholic religious art on their own initiative rather than

having it forced upon them against their will? What if the

encoding was overt, and it was the missionaries who were

scrambling to preserve their doctrinal integrity? Imagine for a moment that Cuauht6moc or Atawallpa, the last

emperors of Mexico and Peru, had invited Spanish mendi- cants to their courts and ordered them to conceive and direct Catholic mural cycles in their own palaces, appro- priating the foreign iconography as a vehicle for their own

propaganda. We need not look far for this fantasy to become reality. Sixty years after the conquest of Tenochti-

tlin (Mexico City), and while the Inka Empire was still

being subjugated, a prince with a passion for world reli-

gions and late Renaissance art invited a Jesuit mission to live at his royal palace in India and direct his art projects. The result was the most visually potent figural iconography ever devised by an Islamic power.

The prince was the Mughal Emperor Akbar (1556-

1605), followed by his son Jahangir (1605-27), descen- dants of Ghengis Khan and rulers of the richest and most

powerful Muslim state on earth, a nation that a few decades later would produce such wonders as the Taj Mahal

(1632-43) and the Red Fort of Delhi (1639-48). In open defiance of Islam's traditional abjuration of figural art, the

Mughal royal family evinced an active interest in-and even open worship of-Catholic devotional images. After

inviting the first Jesuit mission to court in 1580, Akbar ordered his artists to paint hundreds of iconic portraits of Jesus, Mary, and a panoply of Christian saints in the styles of the late Renaissance to adorn books, albums, jewelry, and even treaties (fig. 1). These images were used in court rituals and major royal festivities such as coronations. The dramatic culmination came when imperial throne rooms, harems, tombs, and gardens were prominently adorned with mural paintings of Christian figures. Astounded and

delighted, European travelers wrote home declaring that the Muslim regime was on the verge of conversion. They could not have been more wrong. Far from capitulating to Western cultural superiority, the Mughals took European material culture and put it to work for themselves.2

Like the Portuguese strongholds in the south and west of India, the Mughal Empire (1526-1707) had arrived

only recently, and as Muslims its rulers were also a reli-

gious minority in a predominantly Hindu continent. Unlike the Portuguese, however, the Mughals promoted a policy of

religious tolerance and political alliance in the hopes of

maintaining harmony between themselves and their sub-

jects. In a subtle and erudite combination of Muslim and Hindu beliefs, philosophical inquiry, and spiritual con- sciousness that drew deeply on the mystical branch of Islam called Sufism, the emperors forged a syncretic ideol-

ogy of kingship that would reflect the multicultural makeup of their growing empire, while promoting their own unify- ing image as divinely chosen rulers of a new millennium.3 What they lacked, however, was a visual manifestation of this ideology.

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FIG. 1 Attributable to Kesu Das. Crucifixion, c. 1585-90. Opaque watercolors and gold on

paper, approximately 77/8 x 7 inches (20 x 18 cm). Lucknow State Museum, Lucknow, India.

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In Asia, the newly formed Society of Jesus was in the

vanguard of mission activity, combining rigorous scholarly training with an approach to mission work that privileged tolerance and accommodation over the bigotry that was all too common in other orders. By treating their mission encounters as a dialogue instead of a harangue, the Jesuits earned a reputation as skilled debaters and were welcomed to the courts of some of Asia's most powerful regimes, such as Mughal India.4 They were also known as purveyors of fine arts.

Akbar capitalized on both of these skills. First he amassed an astounding collection of Renaissance visual and literary artifacts. The Jesuits presented him with an extensive library of printed books comparable to the col- lections of the great Italian preachers of the day;5 a vast number of engravings of the work of artists ranging from

Michelangelo, Raphael, and Taddeo Zuccaro to Dtirer and Martin de Vos; oil paintings donated by the great aristo- cratic families of Rome; and even a Portuguese painter.6 With Akbar's encouragement, and in close consultation with the Jesuits, Mughal artists deftly and selectively co-

opted European subjects as well as stylistic conventions and pictorial realism. Mughal paintings influenced by Catholic art ranged from iconic representations of individ- ual saints with an overtly propagandistic function to narra- tive groups containing both sacred and profane figures that served as entertainment during literary gatherings.7 As Akbar's royal panegyrist wrote, "His Majesty ... looks

upon [the art of painting] as a means, both of study and amusement."8

The Mughals, however, were not just interested in art lessons. By holding regular debates with the Jesuits in the

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FIG. 2 School of Kesu Das. The Philosopher King, c. 1585-90. Mughal mural painting, approximately 13 x 15 inches (33 x 38.1 cm). Khwibg•lh, Fatehpur Sikri, India (reconstruction). The image is copied from an engraving by Georg Pencz, Joseph Telling His Dream to His Father (1544).

imperial forum called the Ibnadatkhana (Debating Hall),9 and by submitting their beliefs to a thorough interrogation, the court acquired a deep understanding not only of the narrative meaning of Christian pictures, but of justifica- tions for the use of images being formulated at the time by Catholic churchmen at the Council of Trent (1645-63).lo The emperors' European library also included recent works stressing the power of images, which Akbar had translated by secretaries such as Abd al-Sattar Ibn Qasim Lahorr (active 1597-1615).11 It is hard to say to what

degree Catholic thought influenced the Mughal's own atti- tudes to the figural arts, but since the two cultures already shared a similar horizon of expectation due to ideas that derived from a common Neoplatonic cultural heritage, it was probably more a case of concurrence than influence.12 This affinity, likely perceived by Akbar before he met the Jesuits, was probably one of his main incentives to invite them to court.

The Murals Murals (and sculptures) depicting Christian subjects were executed in the principal rooms of at least four imperial palaces, the tomb of Akbar in Sikandra, several royal gar- dens, and also in a number of buildings belonging to

prominent nobles.13 Akbar initiated the practice in the 1580s, when he began imitating Catholic ritual by appear- ing in person (or represented by a portrait) in the company

of European devotional oil paintings during religious festi- vals. At the same time he (and possibly his mother) com- missioned permanent murals depicting Jesus, Mary, and various prophets for the royal palace at Fatehpur Sikri, including a portrait of a prince taken from a German

engraving of the sixteenth century (fig. 2).14 Nevertheless, it was Jahangir who commissioned the largest number of devotional murals, beginning in 1608 and continuing until about 1621, when Catholic influence began to wane after the arrival in 1615 of an official English embassy.

Catholic-inspired murals appeared in two general areas: a semipublic, official setting, such as the imperial thrones and tombs, and a more intimate context often asso- ciated with women-for example, garden pavilions or the

apartments of the zenana (harem). The imperial harem was the setting not only for musical and other entertainments but also for important ceremonies such as royal marriages, funerals, and religious festivals; and the harem housed as strict a hierarchy as the male household. Royal women wielded great political power in this period and were them- selves avid patrons of the arts.

The earliest of Jahangir's public saints' murals

appeared in Agra Fort around the emperor's throne in his Hall of Public Audience, where he would sit every day before the nobility to give promotions and receive petitions (fig. 3). Soon afterward, similar murals appeared at his

palaces at Lahore and Mandu. Typically, the saints were

arranged into a frieze on the wall over the throne, usually focusing on a paired portrait of the Virgin Mary and Jesus as Salvator Mundi. Other saints' portraits adorned the upper walls of interior reception rooms, and domes were frequent- ly painted with angels (fig. 4) and images of Christ in bene-

diction, or Crucifixions. The Crucifixion, a theme popular in

Mughal miniature painting as well, was especially abhor- rent to Muslims, who deny that Jesus was crucified.

Private rooms in the harem and garden pavilions were also extensively painted with saints' portraits-for example, in the harem in Lahore Fort and the garden of Jahangir's consort, the Empress Nur Jahan, at Agra. Recent cleaning at Lahore Fort has uncovered an important collection of

original paintings of male and female saints in a small pavilion of the period. They include St. Gregory reading a book (fig. 5) copied from a late sixteenth-century engraving by Anton Wiericx, and St. Anthony Abbot (fig. 6) and St. Dorothy offering a tray of fruit, also after Flemish engrav- ings.15 These images originally flanked miniature portraits of princes, only one of which-a picture of the future Shah Jahan-survives.16 The juxtaposition of holy images with actual members of the royal family lent the latter palpable spiritual legitimacy.

Nur Jahan's Bagh-i Nur Afshan at Agra (1621), a miniature harem in a garden setting, was also adorned with saints' murals. Two of the eight figural panel paintings that

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FIG. 3 Payag. The Emperor Jahangir's Final Encounter with Shah Jahan before the Latter's Departure for the Deccan (detail), c. 1640. Opaque watercolors on paper, 117/8 x 8 inches (30.0 x 20.3 cm). The Royal Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

FIG. 4 School of Abo'l-Hasan. Qubbat al-Khadra c. 1610-20. Mughal mural painting, approximately 16 x 16 feet (4.9 x 4.9 m). Vault of the Kala Burj, Lahore Fort, Lahore, Pakistan.

FIG. 5 School of AbW'l-Hasan. St. Gregory the Great, c. 1610-20, Mughal mural painting, approximately 523/4 x 23%5/ inches (134 x 60 cm). North spandrel of the west wall, the "sehdrTi" pavilion, Jahangir's Quadrangle, Lahore Fort, Lahore, Pakistan.

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originally adorned its pavilions can be identified today: they include an introspective portrait of Jesus (fig. 7) and a female saint (fig. 8), which bring to mind the combina- tions of Jesus and Mary in the audience room paintings. The Bagh-i Nur Afshan murals are echoed in a miniature

painting from the period that shows Jahangir and Nur Jahan in a similar garden setting, possibly in Mandu. Here the more typical Jesus and Mary duo is repeated in the

pavilion's upper frieze.

Clearly, these ensembles of saints' pictures were intended to convey a distinct iconographical meaning. As we have seen, images of saints were consistently arranged in rows in the upper register of the wall, or on the ceiling. This would suggest a symbolic division between heavenly and earthly spheres, which conforms to a prevalent Sufi doctrine that depicts the heavens as consisting of several tiers of angels and saints who transmit God's light to cog- nizant mortals." Islamic tradition also accepted Jesus'

apostles as prototypes for pious Muslims, and some even believed that they accepted Islam. Therefore, many of the saints arranged around images of Jesus may have repre- sented the apostles, used here to parallel the devotion of

Mughal subjects to their emperor. The pairing of Jesus and

Mary is consistent enough to suggest that it is a reference to monarchy, or to the actual person of the emperor and his divine lineage through the female line, a theory borne out

by Jahangir's use of these images on his royal seal.18 A brief examination of Islamic and Hindu traditions

provides a key to this motif. First of all, Jesus and Mary both figure prominently in the Koran and are revered by traditional Islam. Jesus was especially associated with asceticism and moral leadership, and he became a model and proto-master for Sufis. Mughal legitimacy drew heavily upon Sufism. Jesus also fit into Jahangir's messianic ideol-

ogy, since Muslims believed that he would reappear on

Judgment Day to slay the Antichrist (dijjal) and usher in the Golden Age.19 The royal genealogy, a vital pedigree for

royal prerogative, included a mythical proto-mother called

Queen Alanqoa, who was impregnated by a divine light from God and whom royal panegyrists openly compared to the Virgin Mary and to Akbar's mother, whose name was

Mary.20 Jahangir, whose mother was also called Mary, was

praised as one whose breath is Jesus.21 The pairing of a male and female figure also relates to

FIG. 6 School of AbW'l-Hasan. St. Anthony Abbot, c. 1610-20. Mughal mural painting, approximately 523/4 x 235/8 inches (134 x 60 cm). North spandrel of the east wall, the "sehdari" pavilion, Jahangir's Quadrangle, Lahore Fort, Lahore, Pakistan.

FIG. 7 School of AbI'l-Hasan. Jesus, c. 1613-21. Mughal mural painting, 31 7/ x 247/s inches (81 x 63 cm). West wall, north pavilion, Bagh-i Nur Afshan, Agra, India.

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FIG. 8 School of Abu'l-Hasan. Female Saint, c. 1613-21.

Mughal mural painting, 317/8 x 247/8 inches (81 x 63 cm).

West wall, north pavilion, Bagh-i Nur Afshan, Agra, India.

an important Hindu tradition of kingship in which the king is the husband of the earth, and together they are the father

(pita) and mother (mata) of their people.22 The division into tiers and the combination of earthly and heavenly images around the throne also reflect the Hindu practice of treating thrones and palaces as microcosms of the universe. On a more basic level, the inclusion of the emperor's person among holy pictures suggests a retable in which he is the

principal object of devotion, a notion underscored by the

open practice of both Hindu and Muslim traditions of wor-

ship before the monarch's person. These few examples should give us an idea of the many levels of meaning employed in creating a new hybrid allegorical language of

kingship. The Hindu context is especially important in a nation where Hindus formed the majority; it is quite possi- ble that the Mughals chose Catholic imagery because Islam itself did not provide an iconographic tradition capable of

combating the visually potent pantheon of Hindu deities. Whether in a formal or a garden setting, these murals

were meant for a limited audience. Christian devotional

pictures were painted on a small scale and never appeared on the exteriors of buildings, perhaps so as not to offend the religious sensibilities of the general public. They were intended only for the select group of elites who gained entrance to the Hall of Public Audiences and would be suf-

ficiently immersed in palace culture to comprehend their

message. They specifically echo the blend of esoteric

Hindu, Muslim, and Mongol ideologies professed by a

courtly brotherhood founded by Akbar in 1583 called the Den-i Illahi.23 The Dzn-i IllahT consciously abandoned

public prayer and other formal aspects of orthodox worship

in favor of direct homage to their leader. Although they came from different backgrounds, faiths, and languages, these courtiers could be united in their fealty to the emper- or through a complex, many-layered ideology of kingship that drew on India's heterogeneous traditions. Catholic devotional art provided the perfect visual manifestation of this fealty since it was perceived as culturally neutral; its realism and immediacy were believed to be universal and allowed it to transcend cultural and ethnic boundaries and embrace the whole of humanity. In this context, therefore, Catholic devotional art was produced and received in a

profoundly different manner than in Europe and many of its colonies and challenges our traditional understanding of reception as something passive and derivative.

Notes 1. Recent studies in English include James Lockhart, "Some Nahua Concepts

in Postconquest Guise," History of European Ideas 6, no. 4 (1985): 465-82; Sabine MacCormack, "Pachacuti: Miracles, Punishments, and Last Judgment: Visionary Past and Prophetic Future in Early Colonial Peru," American Historical Review 93, no. 4 (October 1988): 960-1006, and Religion in the Andes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), esp. 249-80; Cecelia F. Klein, "Editor's State- ment: Depictions of the Dispossessed," Art Journal 49, no. 2 (Summer 1990): 106-109; Gabrielle Palmer and Donna Pierce, Cambios: The Spirit of Transforma- tion in Spanish Colonial Art (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992); Jeanette Favrot Peterson, The Paradise Garden Murals of Malinalco (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993); Serge Gruzinski, Painting the Conquest (Paris: Flammarion, 1992), and The Conquest of Mexico, trans. Eileen Corrigan (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993); James Kiracofe, "Architectural Fusion and

Indigenous Ideology in Early Colonial Teposcolula," Anales del Instituto de Inves-

tigaciones Estiticas 66 (1995): 45-84; and Carol Damian, The Virgin of the Andes: Art and Ritual in Colonial Cuzco (Miami Beach: Grassfield Press, 1995).

2. This article is an extract from my 1996 dissertation for the Fine Arts

Department at Harvard University, entitled "Counter Reformation Symbolism and

Allegory in Mughal Painting," which I am currently expanding into a book com-

paring Jesuit mission art in Asia and Latin America. See also my "Unto the Indies: The Jesuits and the Great Mogul," Company 13, no. 2 (Winter 1995): 8-10; "In the

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Manner of the Frankish Masters: A Safavid Painting and Its Flemish Inspiration," Oriental Art 40, no. 4 (Winter 1994-95): 29-34; "The Catholic Shrines of Agra," Arts of Asia 23, no. 4 (July-August 1993): 131-37; and "The Lahore Mirat al-

Quds and the Impact of Jesuit Theater on Mughal Painting," South Asian Studies 13 (1997): 95-108.

3. The millennium of the Muslim hijra took place during Akbar's reign, in 1591-92. Akbar responded in 1584 by beginning a new millennium, known as the Divine Era, based on the solar calendar, in contrast to the lunar calendar used by Muslims. Akbar assumed all of the ideology of a mahdi, or messiah, who would usher in a Golden Age of justice and peace, and his panegyrists complied. For a discussion of Akbar's millennial movement, see Abfl'l-Fazl, Ain-i Akbari, vol. 2, trans. H. Blochmann (Rpt. Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1989), 29-30; and S. A. A. Rizvi, "Philosophical Traditions at Akbar's Court," in Michael Brand and Glenn D. Lowry, Fatehpur Sikri (Bombay: Marg Publications, 1987), 185-98.

4. See Andrew C. Ross, A Vision Betrayed: The Jesuits in Japan and China, 1542-1742 (Edinburgh: Orbis Books, 1994); and Dauril Alden, The Making of an Enterprise: The Society of Jesus in Portugal, Its Empire, and Beyond, 1540-1750 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).

5. The Jesuits furnished Akbar with a library designed specifically with reli- gious debating in mind, since it reproduced the kind of library owned by the great Jesuit preachers in Rome, who discoursed by means of commentary, or explication de texte. The collection was heavily scholastic, with an emphasis on works aimed at non-Christians and texts justifying the use of images, and it also included the fundamental Jesuit writings, as well as books on Portuguese history and law to sat- isfy Akbar's interest in that nation. Particularly influential was the lengthy history of the world by the Dominican bishop of Florence, St. Antoninus, which was exten- sively translated by Akbar's writers.

6. Many of these images survive in the original or in copies. Others are men- tioned in the missionaries' letters, which constantly refer to the emperor's interest in religious images and include a litany of requests for pictures, whether retables, large and small engravings, illustrated books, and even a copperplate to make engravings from (e.g., in the Jesuit archives in Rome [ARSI] Goa 14, f. 288a [August 20, 1595]; f. 344a [August 18, 1597]; Goa 461, f. 64a [September 24, 1607]). The third mission brought a Portuguese painter to court, and Akbar and his son commissioned so many Christian images from him that he had no time for the father's work (ARSI, Goa 14, f. 288a [August 20, 1595]; Goa 461, f. 30b [Septem- ber 8, 1595]).

7. Both genres of painting were produced at the same time and by the same artists, although some specialized in pastiches while others tended to make direct copies of European pictures and more serious works of an ideological nature.

8. Abtf'l-Fazl, Asn-Akbar , vol. 1, 113. 9. These debates were common in the last decades of the sixteenth century, but

under Jahangir only one lengthy debate took place in 1608 (British Library, Add.MSS 9854, fols. 64a-76b). In addition, the emperor frequently asked the fathers to explain pictures on a more spontaneous basis.

10. For example, Gabriele Paleotti, Cesare Baronio, and Antonio Possevino. In fact, the Jesuits at the Mughal court sent accounts of these debates directly to such prominent reformers as Cardinal Bellarmino (1542-1621) and Claudio Aquaviva (1543-1615). Most of the letters in the Roman archives are addressed to Aquavi- va, since he was the General of the Society, and one letter from Francisco Corsi (dated June 18, 1607) was sent to Cardinal Bellarmino (e.g., ARSI Goa 461, fols. 60a-63a). On Bellarmino's reforms, see Stefania Macioce, Undique Splendent (Rome: De Luca Edizione d'Arte, 1990), 22-37.

11. These included the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola, the meditative picture book Adnotationes et meditationes in evangelia of Jer6nimo Nadal, as well as a good representation of the scholastics (St. Thomas wrote prolifically about the use of images). See E. D. Maclagan, "The Jesuit Missions to the Emperor Akbar," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 65 (1896): 68-69. The sources tell us that Akbar had at least some of his European works translated-for example, a copy of

the history of Greek and Roman philosophy by St. Antoninus of Florence (1458), which he had rendered into Persian by his court historian 'Abd al-Sattar ibn Qasim Lahori as part of the latter's Thamrat al-Falasafa (The Fruit of Philosophy), written in Lahore in 1603 (National Archives of India, New Delhi, 2713; India Office Library, London, Or. 5893). That same work included material "mixed in from other histories" (2713, f. 3b; Or. 5893, f. 7). Akbar also ordered Xavier him- self to translate "some histories" and Bible stories into Persian (ARSI, Goa 461 [September 8, 1596], f. 32). A letter written by Jerome Xavier on September 16, 1603, reports that Jahangir (he was still a prince at the time), read Nadal's book (ARSI, Goa 461 [September 16, 1603], fols. 52b-53a).

12. Both Mughal and Counter-Reformation notions about images come from Neoplatonism and ancient writers such as Pseudo-Dionysus. Shared concepts included the educational and mnemonic power of images, their potential as an emo- tional stimulus to piety and meditation, and the ability of an image to show the invisible (or spiritual) by means of the visible, the latter deriving from a Neoplaton- ic concept prevalent in Sufism. This quotation from the great religious debate of 1608 shows how Jahangir and Jerome Xavier agreed in their justification of images:

A Captain remarked, "[Do you pay courtesy] to an image of the Virgin, or to the Vir-

gin herself?". . . I answered, "Sir, we do not venerate the images for what they are, because we are well aware that they are merely paper or canvas with pigments; it is because of those whom they represent. Just as with your fermans [decrees]: you do not touch them to yourforeheads because they are papers covered in ink, but because

you know that they contain your order and will." The King... replied... "he rea- soned well."

[British Library, Add.MSS 9854, f. 67a; for an extract of this discussion, see Fer- nao Guerreiro, Jahangir and the Jesuits, trans. C. H. Payne (London: G. Routledge and Sons Ltd., 1930), 59.]

13. Palaces include the forts at Fatehpur Sikri, Agra, Lahore, and Ajmir, the royal palace at Ahmedabad, and the Perimahal palace at Lahore; gardens include the Bagh-i Nur Afshan at Agra, Nur Jahan's garden at Mandu; and subimperial examples appear at the house of Asaf Khan (the brother of Nur Jahan) and the Car- avanserai of Mehr Banu Agha in Delhi. Many of the sources are well known to spe- cialists and are listed in E. D. Maclagan, The Jesuits and the Great Mogul (London: Burns, Gates and Washbourne, 1932). I have found several new references in unpublished Jesuit letters in Rome and Madrid. Akbar's tomb was rebuilt by Jahangir in 1613, and the paintings date from this period. Although sculptures of Jesus, the Crucifix, and the Virgin Mary are mentioned in published sources and Jesuit letters, I have published the only surviving example, a life-sized statue of the Virgin (c. 1600) which is presently in the compound of Agra Cathedral. See my "Catholic Shrines of Agra."

14. A Jesuit letter dated 1600 mentions these biblical pictures at Fatehpur Sikri (ARSI, Goa 55, f. 20b).

15. Because these paintings were in the harem, they were never described by contemporary European travelers.

16. See Ilay Cooper, "Sikhs, Saints, and Shadows of Angels: Some Mughal Murals in Buildings along the North Wall of Lahore Fort," South Asian Studies 9 (1993): 20-27.

17. This tradition comes from the twelfth-century Persian mystic and philoso- pher Shihabuddin Suhrawardi Maqtul, the founder of the Eastern or Ishraki School of philosophy. See J. F. Richards, "The Formulation of Imperial Authority under Akbar and Jahangir," in Richards, Kingship and Authority in South Asia (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 265-66.

18. British Library, Add.MSS 9854, f. 72a. 19. According to the medieval Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun, "After (the

Mahdi), 'lsa (Jesus) will descend and kill (the Antichrist), and have him as the leader in his prayers." See S. A. A. Rizvi, The Wonder That Was India (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1987), 258.

20. The Akbarnama, for example, compares Alanqoa to the Virgin Mary (vol. 1, 179) and to Miryam Makhani (vol. 1, 179-80). See Abii'l-Fazl, Akbarnama, trans. H. Beveridge (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1902-39).

21. The reference is from the Ma'a-sir-i Rahrnmi by 'Abd al-Bclqi Nahavandi,

ed. M. Hidayet Hosain (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1927), bk. 3, p. 12: "In breath he is Jesus, the brightest moon; In heart he is a sea with abundant water." It was cited by Ebba Koch in "The Influence of the Jesuit Missions on Symbolic Rep- resentations of the Mughal Emperors," in Christian Troll, ed., Islam in India, vol. 1 (New Delhi: Vikas Publishing House, 1982), 27. This is a reference to Jesus' breath, which gave life to a clay bird with God's permission (Koran, 5:110), an

image that became popular in poetry, as, for example, in a line from Hafez: "Ah, where is someone inspired with Jesus's breath to inspire me?" See Javad Nur- bakhshi, Jesus in the Eyes of the Sufis (London: Khaniqahi-Nimatullahi Publica- tions, 1983), 57.

22. Ronald Inden, "Ritual, Authority and Cyclic Time in Hindu Kingship," in Richards, Kingship and Authority, 30.

23. This was consistent with a new social contract instituted by Akbar. To cement loyalties within their far-flung and heterogeneous empire, the emperors enforced an allegiance with their most prominent courtiers modeled after the mas-

ter-disciple tradition of Sufism (and by extension the affiliation of Jesus with his apostles), which they called the Din-i Illahi, or "Divine Faith." This discipleship was similar to a present-day fraternity or masonic lodge and depended upon con- stant personal contact, a system of promotions, a rigid hierarchy, and even regular prostrations before the emperor in imitation of prayer. See Richards, Kingship and

Authority, 267-68; and Rizvi, Wonder, 195ff.

GAUVIN ALEXANDER BAILEY is assistant professor of Renaissance and Baroque art at Clark University. He is

completing a book entitled A Global Partnership in the

Arts: Jesuit Mission Art and Ethnic Identity in Asia and

Latin America, 1542-1773.

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