"Burzuya's Mission" Folio 5v, 6r from a Kalila Wa Dimna of Bidpai

Two Miniatures from a Manuscript of the Kalila Wa Dimna of Bidpai: The Leopard's Court (folio 51r) and Burzuya's Mission (folio 5v, 6r)

One of India's contributions to the world is the fable book, the most renowned of which is the classic Kalila wa Dinma, named after the two jackals whose exploits it recounts. The Leopard's Court depicts a climactic moment in Dimna's career. Having ingratiated himself with the lion-king, Dimna introduces him to an ox. But when the two become boon companions, the Iago of jackals seethes with jealousy, and with lies he so arouses the king against the ox that he kills him. On discovering his friend's innocence, the sad lion-king orders Dimna to stand trial for causing the lamented ox's death. Dimna is found guilty and sentenced to death by starvation. Here, within a zestful arabesquescape of flowers, fruit, and cypress trees, a resolute leopard sits in judgment on the devious jackal, from whom an outraged hare turns away in disgust.

According to legend the tales of Karataka and Damanaka, as the jackals were originally called, were written by Vidyapati (Bidpai), a Brahmin sage who figures in the stories, which are in fact largely based on the even older fables of the Sanskrit Panchatantra {Five Books), in which human vices and foibles are instructively revealed through the personalities and activities of birds and beasts. In the sixth century, according to the Shah-nama, the sage Burzuya, at the order of the Sassanid ruler Nushirvan, located a copy of Bidpai's book in India and brought it back to Iran, where it was translated into Pahlavi. Ironically, the extant Sanskrit versions are translations from the Pahlavi text, which was also the basis for an eighth-century Arabic translation by 'Abd Allah ibn al-Muqaffa', whose version spread Bidpai's tales to Turkey, Egypt, and other parts of the Islamic world. Nushirvan's copy of the Kalila wa Dimna would have contained marvelous pictures, which probably established the compositions for later illustrations. With each later version, however, the original designs changed, even when artists tried to be accurate by using tracings.

Most of the seventy-eight painted folios in the manuscript these two miniatures come from, which was painted in western India in the mid-sixteenth century, were derived from designs traceable to Egypt, to Mamluk prototypes that may in turn have been based on long-lost Indian originals.[1] But the Heeramaneck manuscript contains many delightful, sometimes comical, innovations. Of particular interest is the strong Ottoman flavor, especially apparent here in the windblown tulips in Burzuya's Indian Mission, a double-page miniature in which the artist has caught the sage at a particularly puzzled moment in the course of his search for Bidpai's book. Other miniatures include characteristically Ottoman textile patterns and architectural elements, sometimes in conjunction with figures wearing unmistakably Safavid turbans. Dominating this stylistic melting pot, however, is an overwhelmingly Indian spirit. The smoldering palette is rich in burnt orange and colors otherwise known to us only in paintings from Sirohi, in the southwestern corner of the present-day state of Rajasthan, not far from the Gujarat border. [2]

The Heeramaneck Kalila wa Dimna, combining vitality, cosmopolitan style, courtly refinement, and popular elan, is as informative and historically significant as it is appealing. Masterful pictures like The Leopard's Court, as rhythmically ornamental as embroidery, provide evidence of a major Gujarati stylistic synthesis. Burzuya's Indian Mission not only represents a fusion of Ottoman and indigenous styles but its potent juxtapositions of ornament, horses, and figures look ahead to the elements Gujarati artists brought to Akbar's imperial ateliers at Fatehpur-Sikri following the Mughal annexation of Gujarat in 1572.

[Welch 1985]

Footnotes:

1. For characteristic Mamluk sources, see Atil, Esir. Kalila wa Dimna: Fables from a Fourteenth-Century Arabic Manuscript. Washington, D.C., 1981.

2. For a characteristic Sirohi picture, see Lee, Sherman. Rajput Painting. Ex. cat., New York, Asia House Gallery, 1960, no. 53. A midseventeenth century miniature from a Bhagavata Purana series reveals many traces of the Gujarati elements apparent in the Heeramaneck manuscript. See Welch, Stuart Cary, and Beach, Milo Cleveland. Gods, Thrones, and Peacocks: Northern Indian Painting from Two Traditions, Fifteenth to Nineteenth Centuries. Ex. cat., New York, Asia House Gallery, 1965, no. 15.

[ Art market, India, until 1969; sold to Heeramaneck]; Nasli M. Heeramaneck, New York (1969–d. 1971); Alice N. Heeramaneck, New York (until 1982; gifted to MMA)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "INDIA !," September 14–September 14, 1985, no. 81.

Atil, Esin, and Ibn al-Muqaffa. Kalila wa Dimna : fables from a fourteenth-century Arabic manuscript. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1981. Bodleian Library Kalila wa Dimna dated 1354 (Pococke 400), a Mamluk ms., in its illustrative cycle and compositions the closest precursor to the Gujarat ms.

Welch, Stuart Cary. India! Art and Culture 1300–1900. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1985. no. 81, pp. 137–39, ill. fig. 81b (color).

Sardar, Marika. Image? : The Power of the Visual. Toronto: Aga Khan Museum, 2022. cat. 38, pp. 148–49, ill.

Brac de la Perrière, Eloise, ed. "Itineraries of Fables in the Arts and Literature of the Islamic World." In The Journeys of Kalila and Dimna. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022. pp. 233–267, figs. 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8.5. 8.6, 8.7, 8.8, 8.12, 8.13, 8.15, 8.16, 8.17, 8.19, 8.21.