Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c13.31.3

c13.31.3

The first two causes were inevitable, but the last, which was intentional, was the most disastrous of all. What oriental art lost by the tide of religious antagonism which swept over Asia in the earlier centuries of the Middle Ages will never be known. Its parallel had, however, already occurred in the West. What the world lost when the pagan art of classical Europe was condemned by Christianity is also beyond comprehension. But in both continents, on the ruins of the past, new art movements arose which show that expression cannot be suppressed. It is an irony of fate that from the chronicles of one who prided himself on his iconoclastic zeal not a little information as to the extent of the artistic wealth of India at this period may be gleaned. In the first years of the eleventh century Mahmud of Ghazni, a Muhammadan ruler in Afghanistan, made seventeen attacks on India, the main object of each being the plunder of its sacred edifices. Mahmud was a man of culture in his own dominions, gathering around him to grace his court talented men from many countries, but his attitude towards the people of India displayed a religious fanaticism which knew no bounds. Some of the experiences of this ‘Idol-Smasher’, for such he gloried in being called, as recorded by his own hand according to the historian Farishta, while intended primarily as a note of exultation at the value of his booty, also throw some light on the prolific nature of the arts of the country at this time.