Akbar Restrains Hawai, an Enraged Elephant

Akbar Restrains Hawai, an Enraged Elephant

a painting by Basawan
from Akbarnama
 Akbar period
16th century AD.

      While Babarnama was Babar's autobiography,  Akbarnama is Akbar's biography written by  his friend and court historian Abul Fazal. Akbarnama was written between 1590 to 1596. Akbarnama not only deals with Akbar's life, but also describes his government,  his revenue system, his army etc. It also talks about the customs and religion of different communities in India.  It is a storehouse of information for Akbar period.
        Akbar assigned its illustration to his best painters. This painting is one of the best work done by Basawan,  the great Mughal painter.
         Hawai was a difficult elephant to master. But Akbar not only mounted him, but made him fight with the strongest elephant,  Ran Bhag. Here we see Hawai chase Ran Bhag across a bridge of boats on the Yamuna river. As the two elephants run, as the 'mahawat' (driver) of Ran Bhag falls, the boats creak under the weight of the animals. On the top we see a boatman desperately trying to avoid collision with the other boats. The painting is full of action. It has caught the feverish pitch of the moment.  It is, indeed,  one of the finest paintings of Akbarnama.

The Foppish Dervish Rebuked

The Foppish Dervish Rebuked

by Basawan

Akbar Period

Late 16th century AD

        Under Akbar the second generation of artists emerged after the period of Mir Sayyid'Ali. Many of these artists were Hindu who brought the Hindu aesthetics and merged with the idioms of Persian miniature paintings.  As in other aspects of culture, the Mughal artists reflected a fusion of Hindu and Islamic cultures.
        This is one of the finest paintings by Basawan. He has taken a sufi theme of the foolish dervish busy in sewing his robe, and placed it in indian setting. The Pipal tree, the suckling kid and the goat, the peacock,  the slanted 'chajjhha' of the building are all elements of indian art.
         The theme is typically Islamic The Dervish is lost in repairing his robe. He is rebuked by a holy sufi, Abu'l Abbas Qacab. The sufi scolds the dervish and tells him that "the robe is his God". We are so lost in our outward appearance that we forget to locate God inside us.
        The two rivers of Hindu civilization and  Muslim civilization have  mingled to form the civilization of Hindustan