Dd "uoyBulysem ‘uoMASsU] UeuOsYANWUS, ‘hayes Jeppes Wanyuy PAWL J2y}eus ANOH nepuey Aury sepreH euren ‘Ausensoo'N'8 seynbsey e>1550¢ yosed2q weqoy arddeu> hoy saudorsuy ayy ewius3 MOH 4@ SNOLLNGIXLNOD HIM ‘Appey us uowi6uls HEN Jen's udesor uosumew sawer ysuig “MED sieas | erewe, UOIeUUOJSUeLL jo yy sul puowriq eigeqAshram and Math 4a, Shiva Blesses Yogis on Kailash yan anistinthe fst generation ater Manat Ind, Pris ls, 780-1800 (paque naeao angen pape, 215% 198m 4B Female Guru and Disciple Ina, Mughal dmasty ca. 650 (paque natecoior ana golaon paper: 375 «254m page, 12 78m pining) Museum RetberaZoncn F987" aac Three Women Present a Young Git toaged Ascetic Ina Mughal desta 670-80 (Spanvevaecoa god and ikon pace: 385.275cm folowth does 219.148. (paring nour borers) ‘ie Tustees ofthe Chester Beat Libra, Dutt 733 1D Babur and His Retinue Visiting Gor Khatri Foto 226 tom te Babe (Book of Babs) naa Mughal ast 5905, (Opanue watrecoe goa an ikon sper 32 21m W596" ME. ‘Maharana Sangram Singh of Mewar Visiting Savina Khera Math ME ‘Maharana Sangram Singh ll Visiting Gosain Nilakanthj after Tiger Hunt na, alan, Mew ca. 1725, Opaque waercoranagolson paper 65 48.5em National Caller of Veta Melboume, Australia, “Toccorrectly perceive realty, the voos practitioner must fist setite the body. ‘The Bhagavad Gita describes how con- centrating the mind begins “on a clean spot where the yoal] builds for himself ‘afer seat, neither too high nor too Low, covered with cloth, deer-skin orkusha ‘9r8s5"* Though yoais might establish their seats anywhere, the inherent power of certain places was understood to Increase the ruts of practice. Among the ‘most perennially potent were mountain peaks, the confluence of rivers, remote caves, isolated huts (kuti), verdant hermitages (ashrams), and cremation ‘grounds. Before the mid-sixteenth century, South Asian sculptors and painters only schematically represented spatial, contexts. focusing their attention on the human or divine body. But in the Mughal atelier under Emperor Akbar (reigned 1556-1605), painters began to represent believable, at times speci places asthe stages for human activ- ties’ As the new interest spread to other cours, artists increasingly depicted yogis within detaled and symbolically charged settings. These pictorial imaginings of place are typically tranquil and verdant More unusual are images ofthe large, bustting monastic communities in which ‘many yools spent some time or tied: the Icy landscapes of Himalayan pilgrimage: and the bone-strewn charnel grounds of Tantric practice (see cats, 153-d, cat 16). Here, we consider how court painters envisioned the communal spaces of her- rmitage (ashram) and monastery (math) Inthe early modern period (sixteenth to nineteenth century Ashrams are the archetypal refuges for study and contemplation. Their ‘acted campfires (dhuni, straw-roofed huts, and fecund natural settings entered the visual record as early asthe first century CE® A magical painting (at. 14a) from a small Hindu court in the Himalayan foothills depicts yoois teaving thelr ashram and ascending Mount Kailash to honor Shiva as Yogeshwvara {the lord of yous) and his wife Parvati under a brilliantly starry sky. The ash- white Shiva, whose entourage includes celestial beauties and animal-headed ‘musicians rendered with visionary clay, affectionately gazes toward the sages for whom he isthe yoaic archetype. The three ascetics who eagerly lean for- ‘ward with flower-gartand and leaf-cup offerings organically connect the ashram Inthe tower valley with the clearing in hich the gods appear, emphasizing that ittoo is suffused withthe sacred. Nestled between a gold sky and silvery river. the verdant ashram in ‘2 Mughal painting (cat. 14b) invokes the Lush riverside locations that were ‘extolled in literature and inscriptions as particularly suited to expanding con sciousness. In the clearing, an aged ‘female guru sits on an antelope skin that befits her senior status and quietly converses with a disciple wearing jata wrapped neatly atop her head, ‘Ashrams were and are often seq- rated by gender, and Mughal paintings ff women's ashrams are unusual” In contrast, male ascetics were a popu lar subject for imperial painters, who often represented Mughal princes and princesses visiting Hindu yoots in sylvan settings. Many were lighty tinted drawings that enabled artists to display their facity in rendering anatomy, asin the deticately shaded and sepia-toned ‘bodies of three ascetics on the right of 2 seventeenth-centuty composition (at. 4c). The youngest, a disciple, charmn= ingly peers out from 2 doorway of what ‘seems to be small monastic complex. By he siteenth century pilgrimage ‘and trade networks provided monaster les with wealth, political power, and trans regional visibility. Akbar’s fascination with yogis underlies 3 pictorial interpretation of his grandfather Babur's 1519 vist to Gurknattr (cat 14d), a math outside Peshawar (Pakistan), as described in the latter's memoirs." The painting,produced in the imperial workshops of the late sixteenth century, is agloss on Babur’s disappointing visit, when he encountered no youis and saw only “a small, dark chamber like a monk's cel with heaps of hair that devotees had offered for religious merit” Deviating from Babur's account, Akbar's painters depicted Gurknatt teeming with yoass. Inan open courtyard, ash-blue and scantily clad yoais companionably await theirdinner, as the math’s corpulent abbot converses with Babu, his royal quest, on araised platform. Babur's ret inue gesture excitedly as they approach the ascetic community. Politics and intellectual curiosity at Akbar's court infuse the painting's artistic expansion of Babur's penned narrative, ‘The emperor was inqustive, respectful of Hindu knowledge, and acutely aware (of the challenges of creating broad suppor in a diverse empire, Throughout his reign, he sought out accomplished sages for personal audiences, provided material support to yoa's, and had Sanstrit tex translated into Persian (the language of the court) and beautifully llustrated”" With a meeting between the dynasty’s founder and a holy man at its center, the Image seems to project Akbar's engagements with Hindu tradi= ons, practices, and communities rather than Babur's actual visit. The painting probably reflects the significance of the ‘math in Akbar's time, when the Nath ascetic ofder was starting to formalize. Most of the yogis haveno sectarian markings, but one (on the lef, with outstreched hands and a red toincioth) wears the deer-horn whistle of a Nath ‘around his neck’ Two impressively large early eighteenth-century paintings fram Mewar a Hindu kingdom (in present-day Rajasthan), document the visits of Its king, Maharana Sangram Singh (reigned 1716-34) to the monastery ‘uru, a Shaiva sannyasi ascetic). Known ofhis as Savina Khera Math, the monastery ‘was constructed in the frst decade of the eighteenth century, when the Mewar ruler 10) Rana Amar Singh Il (reigned 1700 endowed its fst two abbots (gos