excellent reliefe; which may be placed among the best productions of
Fig. 91.
.Bu d d h a .
Fig. 92.
art. The following drawing of a colossal
head of Buddha [91]214 in a volcanic stone,
now in the Glyptothec of Munich, may
give an idea of the elegance and feminine
character of those sculptures.
The great bulk of the idols, in the collection
of the British Museum, of the
East India House, and of king Louis at
Munich, belong to another style, which
We call the florid style, characterized in
its best specimens by an elaborate elegance,
and often by affectation of sweetness,
with a profusion of ornaments which
encumbers the figures. Fig. 92, from a
bronze of the British Museum, representing Lakshmi, the Goddess
of Beauty, or Hindoo Venus, is a fair specimen
of this style; which belongs to the XVth and
XVIth century of our era, and is still imitated by
the modern artists of India. There are some rude
figures, of an entirely different style, in some
of the Museums of Europe ; and again others
evidently archaic in their type: still, all of them
are characterized by the same long pointed nose,
the same mild eye, and the same sweetness of
expression in the oval face,—which form still the
distinctive marks of the high castes of Hindostán.
It is peculiarly interesting to see a school of
art, so eminently feminine, apply itself to the service
of a more martial race; trying to represent
the features and the court-life of the Turanian Dynasties,' established
in the XVII—X V lilth century all over the peninsula. The minia-
ture-paintings of the time of Shah Jehán, Jehángír, Akbar, and Au-
rengzeb, are really admirable. Whether they represent the splendor
of a gorgeous court, or portray scenes of domestic life; there is such a
gentle delieaey of feeling displayed in them, such a modest grace in
the attitudes, and such a charm, especially in the female forms, that
they are as pleasing, even to European taste, as the tales of the Arabian
Nights. And yet there is no perspective to be met with in those
paintings; the manner of shading the figures is unnatural; the costume
is strange, and the grouping somewhat awkward. All this is
214 Ot h m a r F r a n k , Ind. Mythologie; a n d S ir S tam fo r d R a f f l e s , J a v a .
eminently Hindoo ; but the features of the persons represented mark
their foreign origin. The likeness of a prince
of the house of Timùr [92], probably Darab
Fig. 92.,
the brother of Aurengzeb, on a sardonyx-
cameo of my collection, shows a Turanian
cast of features.
Four portraits of Mohammedan princes and
statesmen in India, of the time of Aurengzeb
I n m a n P r i n c e , (P u l e z k y Co ll.)
Fig. 93.
(1658-1707),—selected from a large collection
of likenesses painted by contemporary
Hindoo artists and now adorning my
Indian Museum—are most remarkable for
their excellent characterization of the different
races of the Muslim aristocracy.in India,
during the XVHth century. Shah JehI n
[93], the Grand Mogul of Delhi, from 1628
to 1658, is the grandson of Akbar the Great, who was grandson to
Babur, — founder of the dynasty of the Moguls,
which gave an uninterrupted succession
of six great rulers to India, from 1494 to
1707. Babur, a Turkoman from Ferghàna,
was the fourth in descent from Timùr-leng;
and, though promiscuous polygamy is apt to
destroy the national type of any race, we still
behold, in this portrait of Shah Jehàn, the
old Turanian character, resembling the portraits
of the Parthian kings.
KhIn Khanna, the General-in-Chief of the
Sultan of Beejapoore in the Dekhàn, is a Ta-
S h a h J e h à n .
mul convert to IsIàm. [See his portrait, slightly enlarged, tinted to
give the color of his skin, in Gliddon’s “ Ethnographic Tableau” (No.
46, Hindoo,) at the end of this volume.] He represents the aboriginal
negroid (Dravidian) race of the southern table-lands of Hindostàn ; not
to be confounded with the Brahman race of the Gangetic valley—
which is not aboriginal, but a conquering race coming originally from
beyond the Hindoo Kush, and closely allied to the Arians of Persia.
Khàn Khànna’s Chief, Mahmòod Àdil Shah [94], of Beejapoore,
claimed descent from the present Osmanlees. His ancestor, Yussùf
Khàn (1501), founder of the empire of Beejapoore, having been
the son of Sultan Amurath H., of Anatolia, his round Turanian skull
is still more characteristic than that of Shah Jehàn.
Shah Mieza [as such he stands in the “ Ethnographic Tableau,”
(No. 23, Uzbek Tatar)], the Chancellor of the kingdom of Golconda,
is an Uzbek Tartar: and Mollah PuUKHA [95], his chief clerk, cannot