A History of Agriculture in India v2.c50.52

v2.c50.52

A source of which the historians have made little use are the paintings of the Mughal and the Rajput schools of the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. No amount of writing can convey what a painting reveals. The Mughal portraits tell us about the physical appearance of principal actors in the drama of history and also reveal their character. The power which we see in the face of Akbar is no longer there in the faces of his successors. Contemporary portraits reveal the sensuousness of Jahangir, the elegance of Shah Jahan, the asceticism and the cunning of Aurangzeb, and the imbecility of the later Mughals who were rulers only in name. The paintings also reveal vividly the socio-economic conditions, the types of clothes worn by the people, their weapons and tools, and the fauna and flora. It was under the patronage of Akbar (1556-1605) that Mughal painting began and magnificent series were painted illustrating the *Babur-nama* and the *Akbar-nama*. Jahangir encouraged his artists to paint rare birds, animals and plants. The paintings of the *Babur-nama* illustrate the birds, domestic and wild animals and fruit trees grown in India during the reign of Akbar. In fact, the *Babur-nama* is the first illustrated Natural History of India in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Research and study of Indian miniature paintings has been my hobby since 1950. During the last thirty years, I have seen thousands of Mughal and Rajput paintings in public and private collections in India as well as in England, the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. This research enabled me to select paintings that are relevant to agriculture and animal husbandry.