When I first learned of Dr Brijen Goswamy, he was located in Chandigarh. I lived in Lahore. Physically, we were less than 250 kilometres apart, as the crow flies. But in those days, and I am talking about the mid-1960s, only crows could fly unhindered across the border that separated the two Punjabs.

The 1965 war between India and Pakistan had just ended. The Tashkent Declaration, engineered by the Soviet Union and signed in January 1966 by Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan, sought to bring the two nations closer together. Although the two governments resumed their dialogue, their peoples remained divided by a common border.

At that time, I was working in an honorary capacity at the Lahore Museum, cataloguing its collection of over 700 miniature paintings. The collection had been painstakingly assembled over the previous fifty years or so. Its original purpose had been to provide students at the adjacent Mayo School of Arts (now the National College of Arts) with examples of paintings that they could draw upon to supplement their theoretical knowledge. Every period of painting was represented, from the earliest Jaina manuscripts of the Kalpa Sutra to modernists like Amrita Sher-Gil, and born-again traditionalists like Ustad Allah Bakhsh and Abdur Rahman Chughtai.

The bulge in the collection came from a cache of miniatures from the Pahari or Hill States of the Punjab. This was hardly surprising considering Lahore’s proximity to them and its popularity as a winter capital. The ruler of Chamba, for example, had built a large mansion for himself in an exclusive enclave near Lawrence Gardens. Sons of the princely states studied at the prestigious Aitchison College, where in its revered Old Building the coats of arms of states such as Bilaspur, Chamba, Mandi, Suket and Tehri-Garhwal were (and are still) on display.

Following the partition of the Punjab in August 1947, the collection of the Lahore Museum (it being a provincial museum) was similarly divided. One third was sent to Indian Punjab. It now forms the core collection of the Government Museum and Art Gallery at Chandigarh. Two-thirds remained at Lahore. The selection of what had to be sent to India and what should remain in Pakistan was left to the judgement of a former Curator, Mr Samarendranath Gupta. His credentials were indisputable. Twenty-five years earlier, in 1922, he had compiled and published a catalogue of all the paintings on display in the Museum’s cavernous galleries.  Gupta approached his assignment therefore with more knowledge than Cyril Radcliffe possessed when he drew his pencil so controversially across the map of the Punjab.

Gupta’s bifurcation, bloodless by comparison, nevertheless paralleled in many ways the impact Radcliffe’s decision had on both property and families. Complete series such as the Devi Mahatmya series of illustrations painted in 1781 at Guler were broken up. The pages honouring the avatars of Vishnu that formed the invocation to the Basohli Gita Govinda of 1730 were apportioned. The ten Sikh Gurus from a Guler set were separated – four were dispatched to India, and the other six remained in Pakistan. Even the families of artists were not spared. The artist Pandit Seu had to migrate to India, with his eldest son Manaku and grandson Khushala. He left behind at Lahore four other grandsons - Kama, Gaudhu, Nikka and Ram Lal – all the children of Nainsukh, his second son. Nainsukh, meanwhile, had already found his way before 1947 to the Indian Museum in Kolkata.

The six months I spent at the Lahore Museum sifting through the paintings could not have been lonelier. I had to educate myself on the history and the social milieu in which these paintings had been commissioned and created.  I traced bibliographical references from the published researches of W.G. Archer, M.S. Randhawa, and Karl Khandalavala (to name just a few). I taught myself the iconography of Hindu gods and goddesses, learned to identify the distinguishing characteristics of demons and asuras, to memorise the features of rajas, to trace their genealogies, and to acquaint myself with individual styles so that the paintings could be re-classified into some sort of sensible order.

Research in Indian miniatures until then, perhaps subconsciously, followed the route Bernhard Berenson had used in the 1890s when he adopted a regional classification of Italian paintings of the Renaissance. He began with the Venetian painters (1894), then the Florentine ones (1896), those from Central Italy (1897), and finally those from the North of Italy (1907).  Confronted by literally thousands of often unsigned works, Berenson used not only manuscript records or letters that he could unearth, but also clues contained within the paintings themselves: iconography, composition, technique, the handling of colour, mannerisms - anything that would bring him close to an identification of either the artist or the patron, preferably both. Berenson knew how important the role of the patron was in early Italianate art. Patrons could survive without artists; artists would have starved without patrons. 

Berenson summed up his approach with the pithy observation that the visual arts were ‘a compromise between what we see and what we know.’[1]  He supplemented what he knew with what he could see, and what he saw on every canvas was a coalescence of four elements – patronage, piety, portraiture, and pageantry. Each played a part – some more than others – in a painting and provided valuable clues for making reliable attributions.   

I discovered during my researches that each of these four elements undulated into prominence over the centuries that miniature painting was practiced in the subcontinent. In the early Jaina illustrated manuscripts, for example, piety and patronage went hand in hand. The Mughals regarded portraiture and pageantry as inseparable. The Rajput courts in Rajasthan and in the Hill States began with piety and descended into portraiture, gilded (if the patron could afford it) by pageantry. The challenge lay in determining the true mix in each picture. Fortunately, adherence to tradition and conformity with convention by generations of artists provided some sort of a Thesean thread, enabling me to trace influences, identify connections, and hopefully make defensible attributions.

The Museum was fortunate in having in its collection paintings that were used by many scholars as pivots in the determination of the styles that could be associated with different states. The Basohli Gita Govinda series of 150 illustrations, for example, bore a colophon that revealed that it had been completed in Vikram Samvat 1787, i.e.  1730 AD.  Archer had used the painting of Balwant Singh listening to musicians that contained the Vikram Samvat date 1805 / 1748 AD in his pioneering study Indian Painting in the Punjab Hills (1952). The Devi Mahatmya series had been painted in Guler in VS 1838/ 1781 AD. One would have thought that such inscriptions would have been welcomed in a field of research in which reliable inscriptions were rare. Instead, they proved to be thorns that drew blood. The inscription on the Gita Govinda series, for instance, contained the words ‘Manaku’ and ‘Malini’, and all of a sudden a debate started amongst scholars across continents on whether the artist was male (Manaku) or female (Malini). The apparently unambiguous inscription on the Balwant Singh picture of 1748 too released a flood of arguments. Was the painting done of Balwant Singh at Jasrota, or did it portray Balwant Singh of Jasrota?

I had no intention of entering into the fray. However, two pictures of Raja Balwant Singh (or Dev) in the Lahore Museum intrigued me.  One bore the inscription sri raja jasrotia balwant dev and the other sri raja jasrotia balwant dey.[2]   My knowledge of the history of the Pahari ruling families had been derived from Hutchison and Vogel’s invaluable two volume compilation: History of the Panjab Hill States. It explained that Rajput families carried their clan name as a suffix - Guleria for Guler, Katochia for Kangra, Kahluria for Bilaspur, Jamuval for Jammu. It seemed logical therefore that where inscriptions identified the raja as being a ‘Jasrotia’, they must refer to his clan and not to his place of residence.

Meanwhile, in 1968, Brijen published his trail-blazing essay ‘Pahari Painting: The Family as a Basis of Style’ in Marg magazine. In it, using field research into land records and the entries in bahis at Hardwar, he was able to trace the movements and migrations of key artists like Nainsukh and their families from state to state.   

It would be ten years, though, before I could discuss my doubts about Balwant Singh’s patrimony face to face with Brijen Goswamy. During these years, I knew of him.  I heard about him from common friends. I admired his scholarship and benefited long distance from his research. We met finally in September 1977, at a Colloquium on Pahari Painting, organised by Dr Pratapaditya Pal at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Brijen and I stood on a staircase in the Museum, I remember, and while all the other participants were having cocktails one evening, we discussed why, notwithstanding the attributions I had made in my catalogue of the Lahore Museum collection published earlier that year, Balwant Singh had to be a raja from Jasrota and not the Jamuval raja Balwant Singh, the fourth son of Raja Dhrub Dev.

Since 1977, almost thirty-five years have passed. We have met in London, in Patiala, in Chandigarh, but never in Lahore. I regret that, for it would have been an unalloyed pleasure to have sat with him and discussed the miniatures that he and I have used separately – he in Chandigarh, and I in Lahore - as the base for our own researches. For me, Dr Brijen Goswamy stands pre-eminent amongst Indian scholars in the field. On the occasion of this his 80^th birthday, I cannot pay purer homage to him than to discuss two personalities who initially brought us together - our common friends, Raja Balwant Singh and his inspired artist-friend Nainsukh, to view them through the prism of Brijen’s own researches.

No minor personage in the history of Indian miniature painting has been as assiduously documented as Raja Balwant Singh Jasrotia. Our first introduction to him is when he is eighteen years old and beardless.  We know his age from the inscription in the margin above the painting. The inscription reads: [trans.] ‘Sri Maharaja Balwant Singh-ji. (His) age those days was eighteen years, this painting was painted in those days. The (Vikrama) samvat was seventeen hundred ninety-eight (A.D. 1742); the month was Chaitra (March-April)’.[3]     

A companion portrait of the same raja contains no name but it does yield a date ‘In the month of Jyestha (May-June) of the (Pahari) Samvat 18 (A.D. 1742)’.[4]  It is in fact a reverse image of the earlier portrait of the beardless Balwant Singh. He is dressed in a jama, sports a similar plume in his turban, has the same sheathed sword beside him, and he holds the stem of his favourite fluted hookah.

A third picture (formerly in the Lahore Museum) is unequivocal in its identification. It is of ‘Sri Maharaje Sri Balwant Singhji’. The inscription translated continues: ‘On this day this picture was painted his age was twenty years, the month was Phagun (February-March). The (Vikram) Samvat was 1800 (A.D. 1744).’[5]

All three conform to the stereotype of late Mughal portraiture. The sitter is shown in profile, seated on a rectangular carpet, and supported by a bolster. Rub out the features and it could be of any Mughal notable or prince. This would indicate that if these paintings were in fact done by Nainsukh, he must have been exposed to the iconography of late Mughal paintings, if not trained to imitate their style. And that training could only have come from his father Pandit Seu, the head of the family.

Why, I wondered, should the young beardless unimportant Balwant Singh be referred to as ‘Sri Maharaja’?  And why should the inscription always use the past tense when recording his age? The exaggerated generosity of the title would seem to indicate that it was not intended derisively. Quite the reverse. It carries a warm whiff of affection, the affection an indulgent father or older relation might have towards a younger favourite in the family. The inscriptions indicate that they were not written when the painting was completed. They were added at some later date, when someone needed to be recall how old Balwant Singh was when that particular portrait was made. Could they have been made after his death? One must remember that Balwant Singh died in 1763 (perhaps prematurely) when he was only thirty-nine years old. 

These three pictures and another of Balwant Singh belong together stylistically. This fourth related picture is a portrait of Balwant Singh carrying a hawk on his wrist and holding the hilt of a sword with the other. It bears the inscription: [trans.] ‘Shri Maharaja Shri Balwant Singhji. In these days that this painting has been made, the Samvat was three years of age (i.e. had gone three years= 1803? = 1746 A.D.; the month was Vaisakha (April-May). Written/ painted by Nainsukh.’[6]  Again, the format is late Mughal, a standard figure shown in profile. If, as the inscription suggests, it was executed by Nainsukh, then he had still not outgrown his Mughal style training. It is conceivable that Nainsukh may have only written the inscription, again as an aide memoire.

Only one other inscription refers to Balwant Singh as ‘Sri Maharaja’ and that is the later painting, dated c. 1755-60 by Dr Goswamy, in which Balwant Singh, bearded but with his head shaved, is depicted worshipping the sacred Shaligrama or immortal stone.[7]  No date is given and no signature. But then, none is needed. The workmanship is unquestionably Nainsukh’s.   

The most famous of Balwant Singh’s early portraits is the one of him, sitting at ease on a verandah, enjoying a performance by some female singers and their musicians one night. The inscription above the picture reads: [trans.] ‘It was Vikramjit (i.e.Vikrami) Samvat 1805 (AD 1748); the month was Jyeshtha (May-June); those days this painting was made. Those days (at that time) the age of Shri Balwant Singh was 24 years.  Then this painting was painted by Nainsukh at Jasrota.  In those days Mir Mannu had come to Lahore, having won a victory over the Pathans in battle. (Words of a song) ‘To your entreaties, my lady friend, I shall pay heed no more.’[8]

Again, the past tense is employed in the inscription, and again a need felt to record Balwant Singh’s age at the time the portrait was completed, and a specific reference to Nainsukh – all in the third person. What intrigues is why that particular occasion – one of many such musical sessions, but obviously an unforgettable one – should have held such an inordinate significance, why someone wished to be reminded of it, and why the romantic lyrics needed to be recalled? 

This painting is crucial in the study of Nainsukh’s work for it shows the point of flight, when Nainsukh sheds his apprentice’s training as a Mughal-style artist and gives wings to his own genius. Every painting of Balwant Singh after the 1748 music scene one is yet another example of Nainsukh’s growing and fertile virtuosity. He draws Balwant Singh stalking a duck. Instead of concentrating on the raja, his eye is distracted by the sheen on the hide of the buffalo that the hunter uses as a shield.[9]  He depicts Balwant Singh writing letters, performing puja, receiving accounts from his overseer, inspecting a building under construction, standing on the parapet of a completed one and watching the rain clouds. He accompanies Balwant Singh as he goes riding and hawking and hunting. Nainsukh obviously has access to the raja’s household. He depicts the raja with his children. He catches the raja having his beard trimmed. He is the modest 18th century version of a White House photographer, chronicling the hourly activities of a President.

Like every courtier, Nainsukh knew his place and remained within the boundaries of his position in the hierarchy of the court. In all the innumerable paintings he did of Raja Balwant Singh over the thirty years or so of their association, once - and only once does Nainsukh allow himself to intrude into his compositions. That composition is a masterpiece of self-effacing understatement.[10]  Nainsukh  appears, full-length, standing behind an enthroned Balwant Singh as the latter examines a painting of Krishna, handed to him perhaps moments earlier. Nainsukh has no compunction in depicting himself in an ingratiating posture, his hands folded in supplication, his body bent in respect, his body-language a study of heightened expectation as he waits for a precious word of appreciation, a public token of acknowledgement from his master and patron. Only an artist of Nainsukh’s confidence would stoop like that, because he knew that in the end his talent would conquer.        

Examining Nainsukh’s prolific output – and there must be now more than seventy-five known paintings and ink sketches of Balwant Singh alone – one cannot but be amazed at the sheer range of his skill and his fecundity. It is clear that he was a fast worker. Small sketches would not have taken him long to produce. More ambitious works must have taken longer. How long? One can only conjecture. A painting a week, one a month?  What impresses us today is Nainsukh’s remarkable dexterity in being able to handle grand compositions such as the one of Raja Balwant Singh brandishing a sword form his howdah when a mountain lion attacks his elephant,[11] while with the same hand executing miniscule likenesses of the Raja, hardly visible atop a towering white palace.[12]

When appreciating Nainsukh’s inimitable genius, one thinks of another master craftsman who lived in England two centuries before this innocuous Pahari painter. The Bard of Avon (some call him the Stratford man) is regarded as the person who wrote over 135 plays, composed 154 sonnets and created at least two lengthy epic poems. Could such a man have then bequeathed his ‘second best bed’ to his wife but said not a word in his will about the copyright of his works?  Was William Shakespeare in fact a phenomenally gifted playwright but from the lower orders, or was he the articulate, seasoned aristocrat Edward de Vere (Earl of Oxford) who could be expected to reproduce the language of kings and commoners, Caesars and pharaohs?  

Whoever it was – the Stratford man or the Earl of Oxford – he has left a tantalising challenge for historians in the lines of one of his sonnets:

Every word doth almost tell my name,

Showing their birth and where did they proceed?[13]

Could any lines be more apt when considering the enormous body of work by that shy, self-effacing artist Nainsukh, whose every painting ‘doth almost tell’ his name?

The genius of Dr Brijen Goswamy as an art-historian has been to trace with skill, tenacity, and deep understanding the work not only of Nainsukh but of numerous other Pahari painters. He has delineated the genealogy of the Pandit Seu family, traced their migrations and relocations, and identified their work through almost forensic research. Had this been all that Brijen had done in his career so far, it would have been more than enough. Instead, he expanded his authorship to a number of other fields, some related, others uncharted, all innovative.  The bibliography of Brijen Goswamy’s publications are longer than a pandit’s bahi. They chronicle his lifetime of authoritative scholarship.

The number of persons across the continents – scholars and students alike – who have benefited from Brijen’s inexhaustible labours will remain limitless because whatever he has written and published so far will endure to inform and educate others, as yet unborn.  Brijen has demonstrated that scholarship knows no boundaries. I for one, living on the other side of a man-made border, feel privileged to have been his long-distance student, on all too rare occasions his colleague, but always his admirer and friend.

Brijen Goswamy has turned eighty. The Japanese painter Hokusai had once written about himself: ‘When I was 50 I had published a universe of designs. But all I have done before the age of 70 is not worth bothering with. At 75, I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am 80, you will see real progress. At 90, I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At 100, I shall be a marvellous artist. At 110, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age. I used to call myself Hokusai, but today I sign myself 'The Old Man Mad about Drawing.’’

Brijen, may you live as long as Hokusai planned on doing. May everything you write in the years ahead always ‘jump to life’, as your previous researches have done.  By God’s grace, you are still young enough, a young man mad about scholarship. 

© F.S. AIJAZUDDIN

[Published in Indian Painting: Themes, Histories, Interpretations. Essays in Honour of B.N. Goswamy, Mapin Publishing, Ahmedabad, 2013, pp.17-21.]