This article traces the trajectory of a commonplace object, the wine-cup in Mughal
court culture, using painting as a source. Initially associated with hedonistic
pleasure alone, the wine-cup came to be represented, in allegories of
‘wine and verse’, as a locus for the realisation of
‘divine reality’, having gnostic values. The imagery of mystical
intoxication further imbued the object with a political meaning, in which the cup
became a ‘world in miniature’ and the wine in it, the elixir of
life, thereby legitimising the Mughal monarchy in a cosmological framework of
universal and immortal rulership. However, the imagery came a full circle, when in
the course of the eighteenth century, from its association with male rulership, it
came to be exclusively associated with female eroticism and pure hedonism.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
A La Cour du Grand Moghol. Bibliotheque Nationale, Musée
Guimet. 1986, Paris.
2.
Abidi, S.A.H
. 1964.
‘Life and Poetry of Qudsi Mashhadi’
, Islamic Culture, vol. 38 (2):
93–106
.
3.
Abidi, S.A.H
. 1967.
‘Tālib-i-Āmulī: His Life and Poetry’
, Islamic Culture, vol. 41 (2):
119–131
.
4.
Abu'l Fazl ‘Allami
. 1994. The Ā’īn-i
Akbarī, vol. I, trans.
H. Blochmann
, ed.
D. C. Phillott, Delhi
(second rept, first pub. 1927–49).
5.
Alam, Muzaffar
. 1998.
‘The Pursuit of Persian: Language in Mughal Politics’
, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 32 (2):
317–48
.
6.
Alam, Muzaffar
. 2000. ‘Shari‘a and Governance in the
Indo-Islamic Context’, in
David Gilmartin
and
Bruce B. Lawrence
(eds), Beyond Turk and Hindu. Rethinking Identities in Islamicate South
Asia,
Gainesville, Florida:
216–45.
7.
Arberry, A.J
. 1958. Classical Persian Literature,
London
.
8.
Arnold T.W
. and
J.V.S. Wilkinson
. 1936. The Library of A. Chester Beatty. A Catalogue of the
Indian Miniatures, 3 vols,
London
.
9.
Art of India: Paintings and Drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Catalogue and Microfiche Guide, 1992, Surrey.
10.
Atil, Esin
. 1978. The Brush of the Masters: Drawings from Iran and
India,
Washington
.
11.
Avery
,
Peter
and
John Heath-Stubbs (trans.)
. 1952. Hafiz of Shiraz: Thirty Poems,
London
.
12.
Beach, Milo C
. 1978. The Grand Mogul: Imperial Painting in India1600–1660,
Williamstown, MA
.
13.
Beach, Milo C
. 1981. The Imperial Image: Paintings for the Mughal
Court,
Washington, DC
.
14.
Beach
,
Milo C
.,
Ebba Koch
and
W.M. Thackston
. 1997. King of the World: The Padshahnama. An Imperial Mughal
Manuscript from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle,
London and Washington
, 1997.
15.
Beg, Sadiki
. 1981. ‘The Canons of Painting by
Sādiqī Bek’, trans.
M. Dickson
and
S.C. Welch
in The Houghton Shahnameh, vol. I, Appendix I,
Cambridge, MA259–69.
16.
Bencheikh, J. E
. 1978. ‘Khamriyya’, in
The Encyclopaedia of Islam,
new edn, vol. IV, Leiden: 998–1009
.
17.
Brand, Michael
. 1995. The Vision of Kings: Art and Experience in
India,
Canberra
.
18.
Brend, Barbara
. 2003. Perspectives on Persian Painting: Illustration to Amir
Khusrau's Khamsah,
London
.
19.
Browne, E.G
. 1951. A Literary History of Persia, 4 vols,
Cambridge
(first pub. 1906).
20.
Chittick, W.C
. 2000. ‘Tasawwuf’, in
The Encyclopaedia of Islam,
new edn, vol.X, Leiden
: 317–24.
21.
Choubey, O.B.S
. 1985. Traces of Philosophy in Persian Poetry,
Delhi.
22.
Clarke, C.S
. 1922. Indian Drawings: Thirty Mogul Paintings of the School
of Jahangir (17th century) and Four Panels of Calligraphy in the Wantage
Bequest,
London
.
23.
Coomaraswamy, Ananda K
. 1930. Catalogue of the Indian Collections in the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston, Part VI (Mughal Painting),
Cambridge, MA.
24.
Coomaraswamy, Ananda K
. 1989. ‘Khwaja Khadir and the Fountain of Life
in the Tradition of Persian and Mughal Art’, in his What
is Civilisation? And Other Essays,
Delhi. : 157–67.
25.
Daljeet, Dr
. 1999. Mughal and Deccani Paintings from the Collection of
the National Museum,
New Delhi.
26.
Das, Asok K
. 1978. Mughal Painting During Jahangir's Time,
Calcutta
.
27.
Das, Asok K
. 1982. Dawn of Mughal Painting,
Bombay
.
28.
Das, Asok K.
. 1998. ‘Farrukh Beg: Studies of Adorable Youths
and Venerable Saints’, in
Ashok K. Das
(ed.), Mughal Masters: Further Studies,
Bombay
.
29.
Dye III, Joseph M
. 2001. The Arts of India: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,
New Delhi
30.
Ettinghausen, Richard
. 1963. ‘Images and
Iconoclasm’, in Encyclopedia of World Art, vol. VII,
London: cols 816–18.
31.
Falk
,
Toby
and
Mildred Archer
. 1981. Indian Miniatures in the India Office Library,
London
.
32.
Findly, Ellison Banks
. 1993. Nur Jahan: The Empress of Mughal India,
New York and Oxford.
33.
Firdawsi
. 1905–1925. The Shāhnāma of
Firdausi, trans.
A.G. Warner
and
E. Warner
, 9 vols,
London.
34.
Ghani, Muhammad A
. 1929–30. A History of Persian Language and
Literature at the Mughal Court, 3 parts,
Allahabad.
35.
Gibb, Hamilton A.R
and
J.H. Kramers
. 1953. Shorter Encyclopaedia of Islam,
Leiden and London.
36.
Godard, Yves A
. 1937. ‘Un Album de Portraits des Princes
Timurides de L ‘Inde’, Athar-e-Iran,
vol. II,
Paris179–277.
37.
Gray, Basil
. 1950. ‘Painting’, in
Sir Leigh Ashton
(ed.), The Art of India and Pakistan,
London
.
38.
Hafiz, Shams al-Din Muhammad
. 1997. Diwan-I-Hafiz, trans. and commentary by M.G.
Gupta,
Agra
.
39.
Hajek, Lubor
. 1960. Indian Miniatures of the Mughal School,
Prague
.
40.
Hasan, Hadi
. 1952. Mughal Poetry: Its Cultural and Historical
Value,
Madras
.
41.
Hasrat, Bikram Jit
. 1953. Dārā Shikūh: Life and
Works,
Calcutta.
42.
Hodivala, S.H
. 1923. ‘“Portrait Muhrs” of
Jahāngīr’, XI, in his Historical Studies
in Mughal Numismatics,
Calcutta
: 147–70.
43.
Indian Art
. 1954.
Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay
.
44.
The Indian Heritage: Court Life and Arts Under the Mughal Rule:
Catalogue of Exhi-bition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 21st
April–22nd August, 1982, London.
45.
Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts. Slides collection of
miniatures in Kalanidhi-A, New Delhi.
46.
Ivanov, A.A
.,
O.F. Akimushkin
,
T.V. Grek
and
L.T. Gyuzalyana
. 1962. Al'bom Indiyskikh Persidskikh i Miniatyur
XVI–XVIII vv, Institute for the Peoples of Asia, Academy of
Sciences,
Moscow
.
47.
Jahangir, Nur al-Din
. 1994. The
Tūzuk-I-Jahāngīrī or Memoirs of
Jahāngīr, 2 vols, trans. by Alexander Rogers, edited by
Henry Beveridge
,
Delhi. (second rept., first pub. 1909–1914).
48.
Juneja, Monica
. 2001.
‘On the Margins of Utopia—One More Look at Mughal Painting’
, The Medieval History Journal, vol. 4
(2):
203–40
.
49.
Khare, Meera
. 1999. ‘Sovereignty and Images: An Analysis of
Imperial Mughal Painting during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Department of History,
University of Delhi,
Delhi
.
50.
Koch, Ebba
. 2001. Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology: Collected
Essays,
New Delhi
.
51.
Kuhnel, E
. and
H. Goetz
. 1926.Indian Book Painting from Jahangir's Album in
the State Library in Berlin,
London
.
52.
Lane-Poole, Stanley
. 1892. The Coins of the Moghul Emperors of Hindustan in the
British Museum,
London
.
53.
Lane-Poole, Stanley
. 1954. ‘Cosmogony and Cosmology
(Muhammadan)’ in
James Hastings
(ed.), Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. IV (third
impression, first, 1911)
Edinburgh
: 174.
54.
Lapidus, Ira M
. 1988.A History of Islamic Societies,
Cambridge
.
55.
Leach, Linda York
. 1995.Mughal and Other Indian Paintings: From the Chester
Beatty Library, vol. I,
London
.
56.
Lentz
,
Thomas W
. and
Glenn D. Lowry
. 1989. Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture
in the Fifteenth century,
Los Angeles and Washington, DC
.
57.
L'Inde des Legendes et des Realites. Miniatures Indiennes et
Persanes, de la Fondation Custodia Collection Frits Lugt. 1986, Paris.
58.
Marek J
, and
H. Knizkova
. 1963. The Jenghiz Khan Miniatures from the Court of Akbar
the Great,
London
.
59.
Marteau
,
Georges
and
Henri Vever
. 1913. Miniatures Persanes et Exposées au
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Juin–Octobre,
1912, vol. II,
Paris
.
60.
Martin, Fredrik R
. 1985. The Miniature Painting and Painters of Persia, India
and Turkey from the 8th to the 18th Century,
Delhi
(first pub. 1912).
61.
Massé, CL. Huart-H
. 1965. ‘Djamshīd’,
in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn, vol. II,
Leiden
: 438–39.
62.
Muqtadir, M.A
. and
E. Ross
. 1977. Catalogue of the Arabic and Persian Manuscripts in the
Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library,
Patna
(first pub. 1908–1912).
63.
Nabi Hadi, S
. 1962. Talib-i Amuli (The Poet-Laureate of Jahangir): His
Life and Times,
Aligarh
.
64.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein
. 1972. Sufi Essays,
London
.
65.
Nigam, M.L
. 1983. ‘The Mughal Jades of
India’, in
Saryu Doshi
and
Karl Khandalavala
(eds), An Age of Splendour: Islamic Art in India,
Bombay
: 76–83.
66.
Okada, Amina
. 1992. Imperial Mughal Painters: Indian Miniatures from the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,
Paris
.
67.
Pal, Pratapaditya
. 1983. Court Paintings of India: 16th–19th
Centuries,
New York
.
68.
Pal, Pratapaditya
. 1993. Indian Painting: A Catalogue of the Los Angeles County
Museum of Art Collection,
Los Angeles
.
69.
Pal
,
Pratapaditya
,
J. Leoshko
,
Joseph M. Dye III
and
Stephen Markel
. 1989. Romance of the Taj Mahal, Los Angeles County
Museum of Art;
Los Angeles, CA
.
70.
Panofsky, Erwin
. 1939. Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Arts of
the Renaissance,
Oxford
.
71.
Podro, Michael
. 1982. The Critical Historians of Art,
New Haven
.
72.
Rahman, M.L
. 1970. Persian Literature during the Time of Jahangir and
Shah Jahan,
Baroda.
73.
Randhawa, M.S
. 1983. Paintings of the Bāburnāma,
New Delhi.
74.
Richards, John F
. 1978. ‘The Formulation of Imperial Authority
under Akbar and Jahangir’, in
John F. Richard
s (ed.), Kingship and Authority in South Asia,
Madison, WI
: 252–89.
75.
Rizvi, Saiyid Athar A
. 1975. Religious and Intellectual History of the Muslims in
Akbar's Reign, with special reference to Abu'l Fazl
(1556–1605), New Delhi.
76.
Rizvi, Saiyid Athar A
. 1993. Muslim Revivalist Movements in Northern India in the
Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,
New Delhi.
77.
Robinson, Basil W
. 1976. Persian Paintings in the India Office Library: A
Descriptive Catalogue,
London
.
78.
Roe, Sir Thomas
. 1990. The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India
1615–1619: As Narrated in His Journal and Correspondence, edited
by
Sir William Foster
,
New Delhi
(first pub. 1899).
79.
Schimmel, Annemarie
. 1976. ‘The Celestial
Garden’, in
Richard Ettinghausen
and
E. Macdougall
(eds), The Islamic Garden: Dumbarton Oaks Colloquim on the History of
Landscape Architecture IV,
Washington, DC
: 13–39.
80.
Schimmel, Annemarie
. 1982. As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam,
New York
.
81.
Schimmel, Annemarie
. 1987. ‘The Calligraphy and Poetry of the
Kevorkian Album’, in
S.C. Welch
,
A. Schimmel
,
M.L. Sweitochowski
and
W.M. Thackston
, The Emperor's Album: Images of Mughal India,
New York
: 31–44.
82.
Schimmel, Annemarie
. 1993. The Triumphal Sun: A Study of the Works of
Jalāloddin Rūmī,
Albany
.
Siddiqui, Iqtidar H
. 1998. ‘Nuqtavī Thinkers at the Mughal
Court: A Study of their Impact on Akbar's Religious and Political
Ideas’, Islamic Culture, vol. LXXII (3): 65–82.
85.
Simpson, Marianna S
. 1990. ‘Shaykh-Muhammad’, in
Sheila Canby
(ed.), Persian Masters: Five Centuries of Painting,
Bombay
: 99–112.
86.
Simpson, Marianna S., with an introduction by S.C. Welch
. 1980. Arab and Persian Painting in the Fogg Art Museum: Fogg
Art Museum Handbooks, vol. II,
Cambridge, MA
.
87.
Skelton, Robert
. 1976. ‘Indian Painting of the Mughal
Period’, in
B. W. Robinson
,
E. Grube
,
G. M. Meredith-Owens
and
R. Skelton
, Islamic Painting and the Arts of the Book: The Kier Collection,
London
.
88.
Skelton, Robert
. 1982. ‘Decorative Arts’, in
The Indian Heritage: Court Life and Arts under the Mughal Rule: Catalogue
of Exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 21st April–22nd
August,
London
.
89.
Sotheby Sale Catalogues, London and New York.
90.
Soucek, Priscilla P
. 1995. ‘Sākī, in The
Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn, vol.VIII,
Leiden:883–87.
91.
Soudavar, Abolala, with contributions from Milo C. Beach
. 1992. Art of the Persian Courts: Selections from the Art and
History Collection,
New York
.
92.
Stchoukine, Ivan
. 1929. La Peinture Indienne a l'Epoque des Grands
Moghols,
Paris
.
93.
Stchoukine, Ivan
. 1954. Les Miniatures des Manuscrits Timurides,
Paris
.
94.
Streusand, Douglas E
. 1989. The Formation of the Mughal Empire,
Delhi
.
95.
Suleiman, Hamid
. 1970. Miniatures of the Babur-Nama,
Tashkent
.
96.
Swietochowski, Marie L
. 1987. ‘Decorative Borders in Mughal
Albums’, in
S. C. Welch
,
A. Schimmel
,
M. L. Sweitochowski
and
W. M. Thackston
, The Emperor's Album: Images of Mughal India,
New York
: 45–78.
97.
Tyulayev, Semen I
. 1960. Miniatures of the Babur Namah,
Moscow
.
98.
Verma, Som P
. 1994. Mughal Painters and their Works: A Bibliographical
Survey and Comprehensive Catalogue,
Delhi
.
99.
Vogel, Jean-Philippe. n.d
. Tile-Mosaics of the Lahore Fort,
Karachi
(first pub. 1920).
100.
Weber, Rolf
. 1982. Porträts und historische Darstellungen in der
Miniaturensammlung des Museums für Indische Kunst, Berlin,
Berlin
.
101.
Welch, Anthony
. 1973. Shah ‘Abbas and the Arts of Isfahan,
New York
.
102.
Welch, Stuart. C
. and
Annemarie Schimmel
. 1983. Anvari's Divan: A Pocket Book for
Akbar,
New York
.
103.
Welch
,
Stuart C
. and
Anthony Welch
. 1982. Arts of the Islamic Book: The Collection of Prince
Sadruddin Agha Khan,
London
.
104.
Wensinck, Arent J
. 1978. ‘Khamr’, in The
Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn, vol. IV,
Leiden
: 994–97.
105.
Wilson
,
Peter Lamborn
and
Nasrollah Pourjavady (trans. and commentary)
. 1987. The Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi
Poetry,
Grand Rapids, Michigan
106.
Zebrowski, Mark
. 1983. Deccani Painting,
New Delhi
.
