Indian Painting under the Mughals, A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1750 c18.2.1

c18.2.1

On many of the illustrations in the manuscripts here referred to, there are inscriptions which are written with the object of identifying the pictures with the artists who are presumed to have painted them. From these it is possible to prepare a list of over a hundred artists who worked in the school organized by Akbar. But before any description of the pictures or the painters can be attempted a digression seems necessary in order that the meaning, and specially the authenticity, of these inscriptions may be discussed. In the first place, although they give their names, none of them is in the writing of the artist himself. They were subsequently added by the clerks or *munshis*, employed either at the court of Akbar or in the office of the imperial library. In most cases the artists were Hindus, and so were not likely to be acquainted with the Persian script in which they are invariably written. A few exceptions occur, but they are rare. As an example the very minute inscriptions executed with a brush, which are on the picture reproduced on Plate XI, so fine as to be invisible in the photograph, may be by the hand of the artist, who would be a Muhammadan. Being illiterate, he spelt the Hindu name of Raja Todar Mall phonetically, and as if he were a Muhammadan. Occasionally, where the name is microscopically inscribed on some detail of the picture, it may have been written by the artist himself, as for instance the miniature (fol.