John Seyller, Professor of Art History at the University of Vermont, U.S.A., is an internationally acclaimed authority on Indian painting. During the past twenty-seven years he has published numerous insightful articles about various aspects of 16- and 17th-century Mughal paintings and manuscripts. Among his books are Workshop and Patron in Mughal India: The Freer Ramayana and Other Illustrated Manuscripts of 'Abd al-Rahim (1999); Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Walters Art Museum Khamsa of Amir Khusraw of Delhi (2001); The Adventures of Hamza: Painting and Storytelling in Mughal India (2002); and The Eva and Konrad Seitz Collection of Indian Miniatures: Mughal and Deccani Paintings (2010). He is currently collaborating with Jagdish Mittal on three other Museum catalogues: Pahari Paintings; Mughal Paintings, Drawings, and Islamic Calligraphy; and Deccani Paintings.
Jagdish Mittal is an artist turned art collector and art historian. He is the Principal Trustee of the Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art, to which he and his wife, Kamla, gifted their unique art collection in 1976. In 1990, the Government of India awarded him the honour of Padmashri. Along with many research articles in prestigious publications, he has published Andhra Paintings of the Ramayana (1969); Sublime Delight Through Works of Art from Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art(2007); and Bidri Ware & Damascene Work in Jagdish and Kamla Mittal Museum of Indian Art (2011).
The Deccan, which takes its name from the Sanskrit dakshina (southern), is one of the most heterogeneous and fascinating regions of India. Medieval Muslim historians designate gnated it as the Dakhan (south), a term applied thereafter to the region and all aspects of its culture. A plateau spanning south-central India, the Deccan is bracketed on the north by the Satpura Range, which generally demarcates the Deccan from north India, and on the west and east by the Western Ghats mountain range and the much lower Eastern Ghats. These mountain ranges impede the monsoon rains in such a way that broad stretches of the Deccan remain semi-arid for much of the year. The region's modern-day political states reflect its linguistic diversity, with the Marathi, Telugu, and Kannada languages being the primary organising principle of the states of Maharashtra, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka, respectively. Included in this linguistic mix is Dakhni Urdu, a regional variant of Urdu used as the language of commerce and literature in much of the central Deccan. As with many Muslim communities across the Indian subcontinent, Muslim elites of the Deccan also had some proficiency in Arabic and Persian for religious, historical, and cultural reasons, and regularly commissioned manuscripts and paintings with texts and inscriptions written in those languages. The regionalism of the Deccan is manifested throughout its political history, which saw such Hindu empires as the Yadava, Kakatiya, and Vijayanagara control large areas of the Deccan plateau. Muslim rule in the Deccan began in the aftermath of the 1294 invasion of Sultan Ala' al-Din Khalji of Delhi (d. 1316). It was extended practically to the southern tip of India under Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq (d. 1351), who parlayed his initial military success in the Deccan into an audacious relocation of the Tughluq capital from Delhi to Devagiri (subsequently renamed Daulatabad) in northern Maharashtra. The forced migration of many of Delhi's inhabitants to the south significantly increased the Muslim population in the area, including a number of prominent Sufi teachers. But years of oppressive policies provoked revolts among both Hindus and Muslims, causing the Hindu kingdoms to collapse and Tughluq territory in the Deccan to contract dramatically by 1335. In 1336, two Hindu brothers founded the Vijayanagara dynasty at Hampi south of the Tungabhadra River and later extended their control to all of South India. Disaffected Muslim officials formed a new Bahmani sultanate (1347-1518) with its capital at Gulbarga. This sultanate eventually extended its dominion over the entire Deccan, stretching from coast to coast. By the 1490s, the Bahmani sultanate had begun to break up into five independent states: Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, Berar, Bidar, and Golkonda. These states fought amongst themselves periodically. A turning point in Deccani history occurred when these five Muslim states formed a temporary alliance to defeat the Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagara on 26 January 1565 at Talikota, about 80 km southeast of Bijapur. With the battle culminating in the beheading of Rama Raya, the Vijayanagara ruler, the kingdom collapsed, and some descendants of the crown relocated to the eastern part of the earlier Vijayanagara empire. The Bijapur and Golkonda sultanates eventually moved to fill the political vacuum to the south. Soon afterward, habitual infighting among the five sultanates left them weakened. The earliest of the five sultanates to falter was the northernmost, Berar, which was annexed by Ahmadnagar in 1572. But Ahmadnagar's own northern location left it vulnerable to Mughal expansionism, and by 1600, it was partly in Mughal hands. By 1636, Ahmadnagar's subjugation was complete, and it was formally annexed by the Mughals. Bidar, the smallest of the five sultanates, was ruled by the Barid Shahi dynasty from 1492 until it was swallowed up by the much larger Bijapur state in 1619. The most powerful sultanates were 'Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur and the Qutb Shahi dynasty of Golkonda. Both kingdoms withstood Mughal incursions for decades, but were eventually compelled to acknowledge Mughal suzerainty in the 1636 Deed of Submission imposed upon them by Emperor Shahjahan. With its coffers drained by the onerous annual tribute to the Mughals and its power sapped by internal ethnic conflicts and Maratha predations under Shivaji, Bijapur finally fell in 1686. Despite the vast wealth generated by its lucrative diamond mines, Golkonda suffered a similar decline, and was compelled to capitulate to Mughal forces in 1687. Golkonda (and Hyderabad) became the de facto Mughal capital of the Deccan until 1724. One key figure in Deccani history is Prince Awrangzeb (or Aurangzeb) (1618-1707), who triumphed in the bloody Mughal war of succession of 1657-58 and seized the crown in 1658, assuming the post-accession name of 'Alamgir ("World Seizer"). Like many Mughal princes before him, Awrangzeb had spent years in the Deccan in military campaigns and multiple stints as viceroy, and soon upheld a time-honoured political tradition of having a a city renamed after himself. Thus, a city founded in 1610 on the site of a village originally named Kharki became Fatehnagar in 1626, and then ultimately Aurangabad in 1653. Only 19 km from the citadel of Daulatabad, whose perennially dry site constrained its capacity for growth as a population centre, Aurangabad became the pre-eminent Mughal stronghold and cosmopolitan cultural centre in the northern Deccan instead. When Emperor 'Alamgir himself returned to Aurangabad in 1681, he made it the de facto capital of the Mughal empire. With it as his base, he spearheaded the conquest of Bijapur and Golkonda in 1686 and 1687. A new war of succession broke out upon the death of 'Alamgir in 1707, which resulted in a series of short-lived and weak reigns that ended only with the accession of Muhammad Shah (r. 1719-48). Following a well-established pattern of decentralisation, a subsequent Mughal minister broke with the devitalised Mughal empire and defeated the Mughal viceroy of the Deccan in 1724. He asserted independence and ruled over all six subas (provinces) of the Deccan, adopting the title of Nizam al-Mulk and inaugurating the Asaf Jahi dynasty. Asaf Jahi rulers initially governed from Aurangabad, but in 1763 shifted their capital to Hyderabad, a city founded by the Qutb Shahis in 1589 some 11 km east of Golkonda. The Nizams of Hyderabad and their offspring dominated the eastern Deccan, became embroiled in French and British adventurism in the region, and enlisted the assistance of some nawabs and the Hindu rulers of fourteen regional samasthans (tributary estates) in ongoing struggles against the Marathas and others. Muslim rulers of the Deccan had a host of ethnic, trade, and cultural connections with West Asia. The constant infusion of Turkmen and Persian immigrants contributed greatly to the cosmopolitan nature of the major centres of the Deccan, but also made for a contentious political dynamic as individual rulers took measures at court to favour foreigners over native Deccani inhabitants or the reverse. Perhaps the most important effect of the longstanding kinship with West Asia was in the religious complexion of each Deccani state. Much of the local populace embraced Shi'a Islam, which predominated in Iran and was imposed as the state religion at Bijapur and Golkonda during various periods. All Deccani Islamic states accommodated Hindu religion and culture in myriad ways, a habit that produced a unique and lively synthesis in art and architecture.
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