Empire of the Sikhs (25 page)

Creation is my obsession. Whatever is not giving birth is for me dead.

HENRY MILLER

Although much has been written about his conquests and military genius, little is known about Ranjit Singh's other contributions towards making Punjab one of India's most progressive states. Whether it was in developing Punjab's crafts and their exports, patronage to the arts, creating a unique coinage, sustaining Punjab's environment or giving its citizens a sense of security and ensuring the safety of travellers on its highways, nothing escaped his attention.

Ranjit Singh's court attracted many talented artists from the Punjab hills, Jammu, Kangra and Kulu. Under Rajput rulers these artists had developed a distinctive style of painting in miniature form. These miniatures were smaller than those of Mughal and Rajasthani artists and concentrated more on stylization, on detail, line and colour. Although the Kangra school was most highly developed, there were many other important centres in the region – Guler, Basholi, Mandi and Bilaspur. After Ranjit Singh's conquest of Kangra, where miniature painting had flourished under Raja Sansar Chand, it received a fresh impetus on making its appearance at the Lahore Durbar. The years 1810 to 1830 saw
increasing interest in hill paintings on the part of Sikh patrons.

A charming example of Ranjit Singh's personal patronage of the hill artists is provided by W.G. Archer in
Paintings of the Sikhs:
‘Besides the Gurus, other Sikh characters were portrayed, and among them, a local person famous for his Sikh affiliations. Amar Singh “Darhiwala”, a connection of the Kotla family, had so impressed Ranjit Singh with his stupendously long beard, that he was given a monthly stipend with which to cultivate it.'

Archer also pays handsome tribute to the courtesy and considerateness with which Desa Singh Majithia – appointed governor of Kangra after the region was taken over by the Sikhs – treated the people of Kangra, Guler, Nurpur and other centres of hill paintings.

Tactful, affable and generous by nature, he had become warmly attached to the Kangra Hills. When not residing at the Kangra Fort or visiting other states, he lived in Guler and mingled with the local people. He also expressed his love for the area by marrying a hill woman who bore him a son, Ran-jodh Singh. His gentle courtesy may well have mollified the embittered [raja] Bhup Singh and, perhaps as a result, Guler artists began to shed their reliance on Rajput subjects and experiment with paintings for the Sikhs.

For Sikhs … Kangra painters devised a new kind of picture … the leading Kangra style had been passionate and poetic, interpreting the moods of ideal lovers, the romance of Radha and Krishna and the courtly conventions of Rajput feudal life. So long as these subjects were Rajput, their pictures had little appeal to Sikhs. Yet their basic themes – the charms of courtly love, the need of graceful women for handsome lovers – touched the Sikh imagination … Kangra pictures flattered their pride and by portraying Sikhs as aristocrats and lovers testified to their success.
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The ties with Kangra were also strengthened in 1838 when Ranjit Singh married two of the hill raja Sansar Chand's daughters.

He was painted on horseback, with his right side showing and an umbrella over his head – a sign of royalty. Sometimes his head was depicted with a halo around it. Ranjit Singh's portraits by Guler and Kangra painters show three stages. ‘In the first they painted the likeness of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, with due deference to his blind eye. In the second stage after 1840 they took the liberty of depicting him in one or two paintings from the front. But in the third stage the cycle of their work comes full circle, as the myth of Maharaja Ranjit Singh finds its articulation in a decked-up horse, golden canopy, and the radiant halo.'
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The popular theme in this form of miniature art was Ranjit Singh holding court, with his sons, ministers, courtiers and foreign dignitaries. The hill artists preferred painting the grandeur of the court in all its glory to realistic portrayal. Among the Durbar figures depicted were the Fakir Brothers, Jamadar Kushal Singh, Hari Singh Nalwa, Diwan Mulraj and Dina Nath.

It was natural that portraits of the Gurus should be in demand in Punjab, but few such early paintings seem to have survived. Those that do are from the early eighteenth century. The miniaturists and other painters had to rely on their own imagery. Guru Nanak was depicted seated under a tree, with his two followers Bala and Mardana, with other holy men or surrounded by nine other Gurus. Guru Gobind Singh was mostly depicted riding his horse with a falcon in his hand. The other Gurus were invariably seated, with an audience around them and an attendant with a fly whisk. A series of miniatures was done in a late Mughal style – some beautifully painted, with an eye for detail and in brilliant colours, often gilded in pure gold. Scenes from Hindu mythology and gods and goddesses were also in great demand. Pahari artists from the Rajol school came to the Lahore court and flourished under the patronage of Maharaja Ranjit Singh and his family.
Among the well-known artists were Nikka, Gokal, Harkhu, Chhajju and Damodar.

The art of wall painting which can be seen through the centuries in many parts of India was practised in a more popular form in Punjab. Maharaja Ranjit Singh commissioned a Kangra artist to paint a mural with Guru Gobind Singh inside the Harmandir Sahib. He is depicted in strong and vibrant colours on horseback with his attendants. Since he was known for his love of falconry, two of them are shown holding his falcons. This fresco is the only one of its kind inside the Harmandir. Gurdwaras had portions of their walls, panels, arches and roofs painted to immortalize the Gurus, and the stories of their lives were told in bold, living colour and life-size. Parts of the walls were decorated as acts of dedication by the faithful, who donated money for the murals.

Ranjit Singh himself had religious themes painted in his palaces. According to Baron Hugel, the walls at Wazirabad Palace built by him had life-size paintings of all the Gurus, even though this goes against the Sikh ethic, as is discussed later in this chapter. Lieutenant William Barr describes frescoes in the Royal Palace at Lahore: ‘The Maharaja in the presence of Baba Nanak, the founder of the Sikh sect: the holy father being most splendidly robed in a suit of embroidered gold, and sitting; whilst his disciple [Ranjit Singh], who has done so much to extend the domains of his followers, is dressed in bright green silk, and standing, with his hands joined in a supplicatory manner.'
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Ranjit Singh's interview with the governor-general at Ropar was also depicted, with both parties on opposite sides inside a large tent with the key figures, the Lion of Punjab and Lord William Bentinck, in the middle and Lady Bentinck seated behind her husband. According to Barr, such paintings, done in oils, were of a ‘very extravagant description'.

Murals in the houses of Generals Allard and Ventura represented the Maharaja's court. Over a thousand figures were depicted, including
many detailed studies of courtiers. Many portraits, some from life and others based on imagination, mostly depicting nineteenth-century Sikh royalty and aristocracy, are to be seen among the extant wall paintings throughout the Punjab. In addition, in written records there are references to portraits which no longer survive.
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Ranjit Singh also had the Durbar Sahib, the holiest of Sikh shrines, encased in gold and marble. After taking Amritsar in 1802, he wanted the Harmandir Sahib and the Akal Takht, which had been so badly desecrated by the Durranis, to be once again a magnetic draw for the Sikhs, befitting their revered place in all Sikh hearts. Master craftsmen were commissioned to lay carefully chosen slabs of marble not only around the Harmandir but on the walls as well.

One of the present writers has published the following description of this work:

Once the choice of marble and gold as the principal materials for the Harmandir had been made, work was begun to face its lower storeys with marble panels. These were inlaid with a wide range of exuberant and often whimsical designs and motifs – from geometrics and abstracts to arabesques, flowers, foliage, fish, animals and a few human figures. Onyx, mother-of-pearl, lapis lazuli, red carnelian and other semi-precious and coloured stones were used for the inlays. The most eloquent testimonial to the quality of this pietra dura work, and the skills of the craftsmen who executed it, is the way in which these mosaics on the outside walls of the Harmandir have survived for almost 150 years. Their colours, clarity and visual appeal remain undiminished. This technique of inlaying coloured stones in marble is known as
jaratkari
in India.
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While the walls of the Harmandir were encased in marble, copper panels covered in gold, exquisitely embossed, adorned the upper stories. Above the entrance, in bas relief and blessing all
those who enter, are the figures of Guru Nanak, seated with Bala and Mardana, and Guru Gobind Singh on horseback. Over the main door is a panel inscribed with written testimony of the help given by Ranjit Singh to the Golden Temple.

Despite the patronage extended to artists, miniaturists, wall painters and others, it must be emphasized that artistic depiction of the Gurus is against the Sikh ethic, and here Sikh art has eroded a fundamental principle of Sikhism, which rejects idol worship and emphasizes the enduring importance of respecting the life-given form of fellow humans; the collective wisdom and philosophical vigour of the Gurus is what must be looked up to by all Sikhs, not their mythical or idolized forms. The life-supporting sense of direction can come only through the Sikh scriptures, the Granth Sahib, not through idolatory.

Ranjit Singh disliked sitting for portraits. Conscious of his scarred face and blind left eye, he constantly put off the British traveller G.T. Vigne who was keen to paint him. Finally, according to an eyewitness account, ‘Vigne Sahib … showed to the Maharaja his portrait, which he said he would take to his own country as a gift and a souvenir. The Maharaja was pleased to have a look at it. Then the said Sahib presented a map of the country of the Punjab which the Maharaja studied very closely.'
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Although he was ill at the time, he let Lord Auckland's sister, Emily Eden, do a sketch of him at Lahore in December 1838. The focus in this sketch is on the left profile. The surviving images of the Lion of Punjab in his later years usually show his right profile. The Durbar scene and its glamour and pomp fascinated Emily, but even more so she was fascinated by Ranjit Singh. ‘He retained a perfect simplicity or rather plainness of appearance, while his chiefs and courtiers around him wore the most brilliant draperies and a rich profusion of jewels. His manners were always quiet …
He had a curious and constant trick, while sitting and engaged in conversation, of raising one of his legs under him on the chair … he had the use only of one eye, which age and a hard life of exposure and excesses had dimmed at the period now spoken of, but it still retained the traces of the vigour and penetration for which he was remarkable.'
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Emily Eden also sketched several members of Ranjit Singh's family – and his court – including his son Sher Singh, grandson Partap Singh and Hira Singh Dogra.

Another European artist, the Hungarian August Schoefft, arrived in Lahore in 1841, during Sher Singh's reign, and was very impressed with the pomp and splendour of the court. Although remembered for his magnificent oil painting of Maharaja Sher Singh, he did two paintings in which Ranjit Singh is also portrayed:
The Court of Lahore
and
Ranjit Singh Listening to the Guru Granth Sahib at the Golden Temple.
These were large canvases with Ranjit Singh's likeness reproduced with the help of other paintings or through how people remembered him. Schoefft also painted Rani Jindan, the mother of Ranjit Singh's youngest son Dalip Singh, reclining on a bolster and also young Prince Dalip Singh. ‘Of all the numerous enduring images of the peacock splendour of the Sikh Durbar,' one art historian has written, ‘none – not even the contemporary miniature paintings of that period, nor the pen-portraits left behind by gifted writers such as William Osborne or his aunt, Miss Emily Eden, or G.T. Vigne or Dr Martin Honigberger – can match the sweeping flourish with which the painter August Theodor Schoefft (1809-88) brought to life on a single canvas [The
Court of Lahore]
the hierarchy which was responsible for the establishment of the Sikh State in the Punjab, and also for its ultimate disintegration.'
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