NORTH INDIA, POSSIBLY DELHI, SAMVAT 1887-93/1830-36 AD

The story of Rama’s journey, or the Ramayana, is one of India’s oldest and most popular epics. As well as a great story, it is also an important devotional text. Originally composed in the 4^th or 5^th century by Valmiki, this manuscript is the famous version of Tulsi Das: the Ramchatrimanas. Tulsi Das (1532 – 1623) lived during the reigns of the Mughal emperors Akbar and Jahangir and is best known for writing the Hanuman Chalisa and the Ramchatrimanas. The Ramchatrimanas was composed in the Awadhi dialect in 1574 in Ayodhiya and completed in Benares. Emperor Akbar is known to have had a keen interest for Hindu literature and texts and the earliest illustrated Ramayana surviving today was commissioned by the Emperor circa 1584-88.

A number of illustrated copies of the Ramayana are known, prepared at various royal courts, in particular in Rajasthan and the Punjab Hills. A number of these are now in the Jaipur City Palace Museum. However, few complete manuscripts survive outside India and generally only associated illustrations are found. The largest complete copy of the Ramayana is known as the Mewar Ramayana and contains around 450 illustrations. The manuscript is in the traditional Hindu horizontal format and was commissioned by Jagat Singh of Mewar (r. 1628-52).

It is far rarer to find manuscripts, or single folios and illustration from manuscripts, of the Ramchatrimanas of Tulsi Das. One section of an original seven belonging to an illuminated Ramchatrimanas from Jaipur and dated VS 1853 (1796-97) was sold in these Rooms 12 June 2018, lot 76.

The present Ramchatrimanas is particularly fascinating as it contains both the original text in Avadhi Hindi as well as a transliteration alongside it in Urdu. The discrepancies between the original and Urdu text suggest the scribe was unfamiliar with the adjacent text. Nonetheless the manuscript was likely prepared or intended for an Urdu reader as the Urdu foliation and the right-to-left reading order given priority.

The lacquer binding is also notable. It depicts the ruler of the Delhi Sultanate Razia Begum (d. 1240). She was the first female Muslim ruler in India and the only female ruler of Delhi. The ghazal which surrounds her image describes the former Queen of Delhi as ‘mardanah dimagh’, or ‘possessing a manly brain’.