MUGHAL INDIA, CIRCA 1610

This painting depicts four yogis seated in conversation under a sacred banyan tree which holds many symbolic aspects amongst Hindus, including immortality. The patched cloaks of dark earthen colours and hooped earrings worn through the earlobes are two characteristic features which makes these yogis immediately identifiable. Yogis and other types of ascetics are found in Mughal illustrated manuscripts showing meetings, documented in Mughal histories, between them and the emperors Babur, Akbar and Jahangir. They are also depicted in individual album paintings such as the one offered here. From the Mughal point of view nearly all Hindu ascetics were classed as yogis since they all practised bodily asceticism of some kind.

In his autobiography, the Baburnama, Babur speaks of his first raid into Hindustan in 1505 and mentions the well-known cave of Gurkhattri near Bigram (Peshawar) with its then-famous great banyan tree - ‘It was a holy place for yogis and Hindus, who came from faraway places to cut their hair and beards there’ (Thackston, 1996, pp.186 and 285). Two Mughal paintings in the British Library’s Baburnama of 1590-92 illustrate groups of yogis interacting with Mughal courtiers with very similar outfits and facial characteristics to our painting (BL. Or.3714, f.320v and f. 197r). A folio from the Dvadasa Bhavata attributed to Allahbad, 1600-05, bears close resemblance to ours, with a young woman with a guru under a tree (Massachusetts, 1978, no.2, pp.40-41). A group of folios from this Dvadasa Bhavata manuscript recently sold at Christie’s, New York, 21 March 2019, lots 331-334. Lot 331 depicted yogis, similar to those seen here.