The Arts of Persia Part 2

The Dedication in the handwriting of the scribe, in ornate gold lettering, reads:

"For his majesty, the AUGUST, the just, the possessor of virtues, the great KHAGAN GHAZI ABD-UL-AZIZ BAHADUR KHAN, may his domain last forever."

The autograph of the Emperor SHAH JAHAN, the "GREAT MOGUL", on the magnificently decorated mount reads:

"In the name of G.o.d compa.s.sionate and merciful this YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA treasured on the occasion of BLESSED ACCESSION." (A.D. 1627)

In confirmation of the foregoing, it is of great interest that JAHANGIR makes special reference in his memoirs (Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri) to an incident, as of highest importance, that he was presented by ABD-AL-RAHIM KHAN, KHAN-I-KHANAN, with a superb copy of J'AMI'S poem YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA, transcribed by MIR ALI SULTANI, "Prince of Penmen", and that the gift was appraised at "a thousand Muhr".

[Ill.u.s.tration: COMPLETE ILl.u.s.tRATED AND ILLUMINATED Ma.n.u.sCRIPT OF "YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA", BY THE FAMOUS MYSTIC POET J'AMI]

ONE OF THE ILl.u.s.tRATIONS TO THE Ma.n.u.sCRIPT YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA

ZALIKHA in old age, broken and in poverty, meets YUSUF in the market place in Egypt.

_"Where is thy youth, and thy beauty, and pride?"

"Gone, since I parted from thee," she replied.

"Where is the light of thine eye?" said he.

"Drowned in blood-tears for the loss of thee."

"Why is that cypress tree bowed and bent?"

"By absence from thee and my long lament."

"Where is thy pearl, and thy silver and gold, And the diadem bright on thy head of old?"..._

--Quotation from YUSUF-OU-ZALIKHA (J'AMI).

Translation of R.T. GRIFFITH.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHISELLED SILVER BOWL, DECORATED IN FILIGREE AND POLYCHROME ENAMEL. PERSIAN WORK OF THE XVITH CENTURY, PROBABLY EXECUTED IN ASIA MINOR FOR A PRINCELY OTTOMAN PATRON]

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and professed unqualified allegiance. A powerful political unity came into existence and continued for a period of SIX centuries uninterrupted. The nations of this united kingdom of ISLAM were thus merged into one unit, under the stimulus of one formal religion, freely transmigrating local ideas. Arts and culture were transformed, but the evolution thus caused by the Religion was essentially political in nature.

"There is no G.o.d but G.o.d," said the APOSTLE OF ARABIA, but the poet reflected awhile, and his rejoinder was: "The Ways of G.o.d are as the number of SOULS OF MEN."

The Prophet's religion was rational, its principles attainable; it secured for the poet social amelioration and physical comfort, but there was a voice from the depth of his soul that he could not silence. It was the voice of mystery; he was concerned with the problems of the "Wherefore, the Whence, and the Whither".... Was he not a Son of the land which PLOTINUS visited to learn mystery of the Orient of Old?[9]

[Footnote 9: "Il prit un si grand got pour la philosophie qu'il se proposa d'etudier celle qui etait enseignee chez les Perses et celle qui prevalait chez les Indiens. Lorsque l'empereur Gordien se prepara a faire son expedition contre les Perses, Plotin, alors age de trente-neuf ans, se mit a la suite de l'armee. Il avait pa.s.se dix annees entieres pres d'Ammonius. Gordien ayant ete tue en Mesopotamie, Plotin et a.s.sez de peine a se sauver a Antioche."--PORPHYRY ON PLOTINUS: Translation of the Enneads of Plotinus (Bouillet; Paris, 1857).]

We have to look therefore to the RELIGION, "The Ways" of whose G.o.d "are as the number of Souls of Men", to perceive the true nature of the evolution of the artistic expression of these people.

Souls with irresistible cravings for Mysticism, poets, artists, philosophers and the like, discovered for the first time from MUHAMMAD'S formal teachings, which contained certain esoteric elements, that the senses, unreal and phenomenal, have yet an important mission to fulfill in the task which aims to escape from SELF (which is an illusion and the root of SIN, PAIN, and SORROW) and to attain the height where the eternal beauty,

[CONTINUED ON PAGE TWENTY-SEVEN]

"PORTRAIT OF MEHDI ALI GULI KHAN, COMMANDER OF FORTRESS, BY RAMDAS"--A.D. 1630.

A leaf from the National Portrait Alb.u.m conceived by the Emperor AKBAR, and amplified and executed by JAHANGIR and SHAH JAHAN. The volume consists of portraits of the Royal Family of the GREAT MOGULS and their princ.i.p.al supporters. These historic personages are represented in the centre as single individuals, with their chief officials and retainers in the border around them.

RAMDAS, a Hindu artist, was one of AKBAR'S artists who worked under JAHANGIR and SHAH JAHAN. His signed works include the following:

BABURNAMA in the British Museum and South Kensington Museum.

AKBARNAMA in South Kensington Museum.

RAZMNAMA in the State Library, Jaipur, India.

TIMURNAMA in the Oriental Public Library, Bankipur, India.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "PORTRAIT OF MEHDI ALI GULI KHAN, COMMANDER OF FORTRESS, BY RAMDAS"--A.D. 1630]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SILK FABRIC--A RARE EXAMPLE OF THE KIND PRODUCED BY THE ROYAL LOOMS AT ISPAHAN, WHICH FLOURISHED UNDER THE DIRECT PATRONAGE OF SHAH ABBAS THE GREAT (A.D. 1588-1629)]

"Oct. 18th, 1666.--To Court. It being ye first time his Ma'ty (CHARLES II of England) put himself solemnly into Eastern fas.h.i.+on of vest, changeing doublet, stiff collar, bands and cloake, into a comley dress, after ye Persian mode. I had sometime before presented an invective against our so much affecting the French fas.h.i.+on, to his Majesty, in which I took occasion to describe the comelinesse and usefulness of the Persian clothing, in ye very same manner his Ma'ty now clad himself."--JOHN EVELYN (A.D. 1666), celebrated historian and diarist.

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which is but ONE, reveals itself through countless phenomena which are but reflections of ONE. "The PHANTASMAL is the BRIDGE to the REAL,"

says the mystic, and the immortal lines of J'AMI read:

_"Though in this world a hundred tasks thou tryest, 'Tis Love alone which from thyself will save thee.

Even from earthly love thy face avert not, Since to the real it may serve to raise thee.

Ere A, B, C, are rightly apprehended, How canst thou con the pages of the_ QUR'AN?

_A sage (so heard I) unto whom a scholar Came craving counsel on the course before him, Said, 'If thy steps be strangers to love's pathways, Depart, learn Love, and then return before me, For, shouldst thou fear to drink wine from form's Flagon, Thou canst not drain the draughts of the Ideal.

But yet beware, Be not by form belated, Strive rather with all speed the bridge to traverse.

If to the bourn thou fain wouldst bear thy baggage, Upon the bridge let not thy footsteps linger."_[10]

[Footnote 10: "Religious Systems of the World" (Swan Sonnenschein, 1892).]

The unreality of things material, the illusion of Self and desires, the perception that all living things and apparent phenomena reflected but one all-embracing GOOD and BEAUTY, was the philosophy of Hindu and all Oriental mystics of old; but they attempted to destroy the self and desires (Source of Sin) uncompromisingly and unreasonably. It was a philosophy "cold" and "bloodless", as Professor BROWNE points out, in trenchant terms. The MUHAMMADAN mystic became conscious that the stream cannot be crossed without the aid of the BRIDGE constructed for this purpose.

Here (as it seems to us) lies the KEYNOTE, the mainspring of inspiration of artistic expression, which (for the lack of better designation) might be termed MUHAMMADAN ART: A merging of physical and spiritual, of worldly magnificence and eternal bliss.

[CONTINUED ON PAGE THIRTY-ONE]

THE PRINCES OF THE HOUSE OF TIMUR

EMIR TIMUR (TIMUR-I-LANG) on the throne (A.D. 1335-1405)

On the right of the throne:

BABUR A.D. 1526-1530 HUMAYUN A.D. 1530-1556 AKBAR A.D. 1556-1605 JAHANGIR A.D. 1605-1627 SHAH JAHAN A.D. 1627-1658