Two Groups of Ascetics Battling Lot n° 26

A miniature by Kailash Raj, a contemporary artist engaged in reviving India’s universally celebrated miniature art style, in characteristic Mughal idiom of the Akbar’s period, bringing back to canvas the Akbar’s court artists Basawan’s strokes of brush and Tara Kalan’s fine and sensitive colouring, represents two groups of ascetics engaged in fierce battle calling for intervention of royal forces that could control them but not without further shedding some blood. Specifications: From the Akbarnama Water Color Painting on Paper Artist: Kailash Raj 12 inch x 20 inch Illustrated realistically, the battle has turned so fierce that not only that the bodies of many senior ascetics have been torn but even the intervening Mughal forces appear to be the part of the ongoing battle. Unlike the depiction of a symbolic battle where dismembered bodies lie scattered, severed heads thrown here, and arms there, in the painting the agitated, anguished faces full of wrath, are intact and as in a real battle swords and other weapons have just torn their bodies inflicting deaths or injuries, no one having any time to mutilate any. Not apparently compartmentalized, the folio illustrates the event in three parts. The bottom half on the obverse side of the green hill, its descent, valley and the plain beyond, portrays two groups of ascetics with swords, shields, bows, arrows … in hands engaged in fierce fighting. Except a few figures with swords and shields in hands, Mughalia turbans on their heads, in full sleeved tunics and with waist-bands-like sashes around waists – obviously, the intervening Mughal soldiers seeking to control the situation, almost all other fighting figures have on their foreheads identical Vaishnava ‘tilak-marks’ revealing their Vaishnava identity. They are most powerfully gesticulated, each face revealing wrath, dauntlessness and anguish. Only partially clad, in mere loincloths or low