Twilight of the Sultanate c17.s8.9

c17.s8.9

Indian artists and jewellers specialised in making curios and articles which were very highly priced. During the reign of Sikandar Lodī an artist by the name of Miān Tāh was a genius in workmanship. "He had made a single writing tablet and a cap out of ivory. Besides he made an ear-ring in the design of a lotus, inside which was set a fly. When the woman put it in her ear, it seemed a bud so long as the head was kept still. As soon as the head was shaken, the bud opened up into a lotus, the fly flew out and hovered in front of the eye. When she stopped shaking the head, the fly returned to the lotus and became a bud once more. How are such marvels to be described!"¹³³ These artists could create such works of art because their art was handed down from generation to generation. According to Bābur, "another good thing in Hindustan is that it has unnumbered and endless workmen of every kind. There is a fixed caste for every sort of work and for everything, which had done that work or that thing from father to son till now".¹³⁴