Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c11.11.4

c11.11.4

When Aurangzeb came to the throne, premonitions of the crumbling of the Mughal empire, and with it all its institutions, were not wanting, and it is this circumstance, more than the strict application of the *Sunnat* by the royal zealot, which brought about the deterioration of the school. And, while discussing the influence of religion on the art of the Mughals, the fact should not be lost sight of, that in its pictorial aspect it was severely secular in character, rarely, if ever, straying into other fields, so that its patrons were guided by the spirit rather than the letter of Muhammad’s ‘prohibition’.