painting which forms the starting point. This style is no longer the
Turkman style of Shiraz but a later style--a local version of Safavid
painting as current in Khurasan. With its lively and delicate naturalism
it not only corresponded to certain predilections of the emperor Akbar
himself, but seems also to have appealed to Indian artists recruited to
the colony. Its representational finesse made it an ideal medium for
transcribing the Indian scene and the appearance at the court of European
miniatures, themselves highly naturalistic, stimulated this character
still further. The result was the sudden rise in India, between 1570 and
1605, of a huge new school of painting, exquisitely representational in
manner and committed to a new kind of Indian naturalism. Such a school,
the creation of an alien Muslim dynasty, would at first sight seem
unlikely to produce illustrations of Hindu religion. Its main function was
to illustrate works of literature, science and contemporary history--a
function which resulted in such grandiose productions as the _Akbarnama_
or Annals of Akbar, now preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum.[74]
None the less there are two ways in which Mughal painting, as developed
under Akbar, contributed to the Krishna story. Akbar, although a Muslim by
birth, was keenly interested in all religions and in his dealings with the
Rajputs had shown himself markedly tolerant. He desired to minimise the
hatred of Muslims for Hindus and believing it to arise from mutual
ignorance, ordained that certain Hindu texts should be translated into
Persian and thus rendered more accessible. The texts chosen were the two
epics, the _Ramayana_ and the _Mahabharata_, and of these Persian
abridgements were duly prepared. The abridgement of the _Mahabharata_,
known as the _Razmnama_, was probably completed in 1588 but illustrated
copies, including the great folios now in the palace library at Jaipur,
were probably not completed before 1595. As part of the project, its
appendix, the _Harivansa_ was also summarized and a separate volume with
fourteen illustrations all concerned with Krishna is part of the great