Ludi's Travels

“India’s Great Mughals” Exhibit Celebrates Creative Output, Spans a Century!

“India’s Great Mughals: Art, Power, and Opulence,” on display at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond (VMFA) — on the 500-year milestone of the Mughal Empire’s founding — offers valuable lessons in history and art and evidence of cross-cultural collaboration while celebrating the extraordinary creative output of the period. Before Richmond, the exhibit was in London and Hong Kong; it goes next to Nashville, Tennessee in early 2027, but (alas) not to India!

Expertly organized and curated by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (from where it derives most of its pieces), it has also drawn from the VMFA’s own compilation of South Asian art and from thirty-plus other collections — among them, the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, the al-Sabah Collection in Kuwait, and the Museum of Islamic Art in Qatar. It includes more than two hundred art objects in a wide range of material from paper to porcelain, cloth, wood, metal, ivory, and marble. And, best of all, it includes rarely shown paintings, illustrated manuscripts, and calligraphy not seen for a generation.

At its peak, the Moghul Empire was one of the world’s richest and most progressive, encompassing most of subcontinental India, and far outstripping the contemporary Islamic empires of the Safavids and Ottomans. Although its history is long and complex — the first emperor (Babur) a descendant of Timur and Genghis Khan, ascended the throne in 1526, and the last (Bahadur Shah Zafar), was deposed by the British more than three centuries later — the exhibition concentrates only on three: Akbar (1556–1605), Jahangir (1605–27), and Shah Jahan (1628– 58). Their greatness derives not only from their patronage of art but also their openness towards other faiths and cultures.

The historical reference timeline provided is significant. The artistic golden age of the Moghuls started decades before the founding of Jamestown in Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas! In 1607, two years after Jahangir ascended the throne, the Virginia Company established Jamestown; two years later, Captain William Hawkins (an Englishman) arrived at Jahangir's court to negotiate a trade agreement for the East India Company. Although the three emperors are roughly contemporary with British monarchs Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I, the Mughals were already a byword for luxury, magnificence, and power whereas England (at the time) had just begun to entertain dreams of empire.

Each room is filled with exceptional artwork: sandstone jalis (stone screen windows), huqqa (water pipe) bases, ewers, chalices, salvers, divination rings, and braziers made of bronze and copper, manuscript pages illustrated with gold leaf from Akbar’s Kitabkhana (House of Books), mother-of-pearl cabinets, jeweled swords, scabbards, punch daggers, and natural history paintings (demonstrating the courts’ attention to science and reason), and marble balustrades inlaid with jasper, carnelian, and topaz. There is also spinel, diamonds, emeralds, and sapphires including a red royal spinel inscribed with the names of six rulers, and a Colombian emerald (110 carat) pendant carved with a flower motif — all once part of the emperor’s throne. There is so much to see, my favorite watercolors nearly got overlooked!

Legitimacy and Cross-Cultural Influences

The majority of the 100 million people (Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Zoroastrians, and Christians) being governed by the Moghuls shared neither the religion, language, nor ancestry of the rulers. To unite a diverse and sprawling empire, the Mughals used language as their most significant cultural tool. When they arrived, Persian was already the language of the court and the language of scholars from Central Asia to the Deccan. The Mughals took this further by employing Persian-proficient administrators across communities — Afghan, Rajput Hindu, Safavid, and Indian Muslim — to create a court elite (rather like a civil service) whose identity was defined not by ethnic or religious origin but by a shared language and culture.

While Persian became the language of every imperial decree and land revenue record, at Akbar’s Maktab Khana (translation house) in Fatehpur Sikri, scholars translated major Sanskrit texts (the Mahabharata, Ramayana, and Upanishads) into Persian, thereby signaling to the Hindu population that their religious and intellectual heritage and philosophical traditions had a place in the Mughal court.

Trade in products, ideas, and people brought an abundance of influences into and out of the empire which thrived in the cosmopolitan court and a multiethnic population. This unprecedented cross-cultural collaboration welcomed Hindu and Muslim artists, Iranian painters, calligraphers, and architects using skills, imagery, techniques, and materials from around the world.

Watercolors of court scenes are displayed alongside delicate textiles, brilliantly colored carpets, canopies, and fine objects made of rock crystal, jade, and precious metals. Of particular note is the hybrid art created in court workshops by Iranian and Hindustani artists and craftsmen and explores the influence of European art brought by Christian missionaries, foreign ambassadors, and merchants as well as the impact on Moghul painting of Christian iconography including figures of Jesus and Mary painted by local Hindu and Muslim artists.

Religious Tolerance

The three emperors embraced religious complexity and did not expect the Hindu population to convert to Islam. In fact, they were attracted to Hindu mythology and mystics. In a painting called A Muslim Pilgrim Learns a Lesson in Piety from a Brahman (see below image), the pilgrim walks through an Indian landscape where he encounters a Hindu lying in the road and learns a valuable lesson in spiritual humility!

The Mughals were also attracted to the mystic Islamic Sufi movement represented here (see pics below) by Sufi-inscribed tiles from a now-vanished mosque in Lahore and a Sufi dervish’s horn (for drinking wine and collecting alms).

Religious tolerance (the norm under Akbar) shifted gradually from active pluralism to a more traditional, orthodox Islamic state policy while maintaining overall administrative tolerance. Each emperor balanced personal beliefs with the practical need to govern a vast, multi-religious population.

Akbar championed the philosophy of Sulh-i-Kul (universal peace and tolerance), treating all religious communities as equal. He abolished the discriminatory jizya tax on non-Muslims as well as pilgrim taxes. He hosted an Interfaith Dialogue at the Ibadat Khana (House of Worship) in Fatehpur Sikri with Muslims, Hindus, Parsis, Jains, and Christians — and created the Din-i Ilahi (Divine Faith), an ethical system blending various religious teachings centering on kindness — which did not catch on.

Jahangir maintained his father's framework of religious freedom allowing public festival celebrations and Hindu participation in the administration. Despite appeasing Muslim fanatics by executing Sikh Guru Arjan Dev for political reasons, he continued to welcome Jesuit priests, Hindu ascetics, and Jain scholars to court for debate.

Under Shah Jahan, there was a visible shift towards a more orthodox Islamic tone. Religious tolerance remained the baseline, Hindu nobles still held high military and administrative ranks, and major Hindu pilgrimages continued. But he banned Hindu-Muslim marriages and the construction of new temples in contested areas.

Akbar

Akbar combined military might with a love of art and culture that his successors would share. The court painting style he began combines closely observed reality with fantasy.

In the 1570s, he commissioned the Hamza-Nama (Book of Hamza) — one of the earliest examples of Mughal painting chronicling the exploits of Muslim hero Hamza and his followers as they battle demons, giants, and supernatural forces. These works demonstrate the new and distinctively Mughal style of painting that combined Safavid Iranian conventions with the very different pictorial traditions of local Hindu and Muslim artists.

The focus on artisans is evident alongside Karkhanas (ateliers, workshops) and Kitabkhanas (libraries) — all the more important given that Akbar could neither read nor write despite being a keen patron of learning. A superb selection of folios from 16th-century imperial manuscripts of the Qur’an, Hamza-Nama, Akbar-Nama and Ramayana line the walls, accompanied by texts and framed calligraphy.

To rule a multi-ethnic empire, Akbar commissioned artworks connecting his Persian origin to local Hindu traditions. For example, a manuscript of the Persian translation of the Ramayana, the ancient Hindu epic, was produced during his reign, with a seal indicating that this piece had once been kept in Akbar’s mother’s library. At the same time, European styles, too, were absorbed into court art via prints and artworks brought by Christian missionaries and foreign envoys.

Jahangir

Inheriting a wealthy and stable kingdom, Jahangir continued his father’s legacy of efficient administration and artistic patronage, encouraging his artists to innovate and refine. The themes of multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism are further expanded. His lifestyle and enduring interest in nature are the theme of the next most elaborate section of the exhibition.

The collaboration with European artists is evident in a painting of Jahangir on a throne designed for him by a French goldsmith from Bordeaux. There are also botanical engravings by Flemish artisans and examples of the way these were adapted in the Mughal world for both decoration and utility. Relations with China are highlighted by a Mughal collection of white, blue, and imperial yellow porcelain, and with the Safavid and Armenian world by decorative metal objects of copper and bronze.

Word of the opulence of Jahangir’s court had spread far. According to the explanatory notes, “the dazzling appearance of the court inspired England’s ambassador Sir Thomas Roe, to describe it in a 1616 letter to the future King Charles I as ‘the treasury of the world.’”

Moghul art absorbed influences from Persia to Renaissance Europe. Portuguese merchants are depicted visiting the court and, mysteriously, speaking with angels as court artists try to make sense of their Christian religion! Cultural exchanges went both ways. A Mughal round shield, covered in mother of pearl patterns and pictures — which entered the collection of the Medici family in the 1590s — is on display, on loan from the Bargello Museum in Florence.

Shah Jahan

Under Shah Jahan, the empire’s territories were expanded and its wealth greatly increased. He had a passion for building, including, the Red Fort, Jama Masjid, and his best known construction, the Taj Mahal, perhaps India’s most famous monument.

Accompanied by a short video clip of the Taj Mahal, the exhibition showcases architectural components to demonstrate construction designs during his reign, including inlaid marble, painted tiles, and a pierced marble screen mounted on a gallery wall.

Inspired by the Taj Mahal, floral motifs replaced other traditional patterns and were carved in stone, jade and crystal, woven on textiles, painted on manuscripts, and enameled on objets d’art — evoking an ideal world untouched by death, disease, or poverty. The aim was to project an image of the Emperor as a wise and just monarch who ruled over a garden of paradise as described by 13th-century Sufi poet Amir Khusrow:

“If there is paradise on earth, it is this, it is this, it is this.” (In Persian: “Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast, hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast”).

The couplet — which is famously inscribed in gold calligraphy on the walls of the Diwan-i-Khas (Hall of Private Audience) at the Red Fort in Delhi — is also displayed prominently in the Shah Jahan section of the exhibition.

At the peak of Shah Jahan’s reign, the concept of the cultivated paradisal garden had evolved into a metaphor for peace under imperial rule. Khusrow speaks not only to the decadence that defined the artistic tastes of a wealthy court, but also, perhaps, to the moment of religious and cultural pluralism that was cultivated by the three Mughal rulers featured here, long before European colonization and the divisions it wrought and solidified.

Provenance and Sourcing

Given the scaling back and reduction of Mughal (and Delhi Sultanate) history in Indian school textbooks and the constant vilification of the country’s medieval Muslim rulers, it is disappointing — but unsurprising — that this exhibition will not be seen in India.

What is surprising though is the failure to address inevitable questions about the provenance of objects which arise from the history of colonial and post-colonial looting and thievery. The principal American museums have done a much better job of identifying and returning stolen art than the U.K!

Also striking is that none of these outstanding samples of Mughal culture came from South Asia whose museums have a surfeit of them, as I recall! With the exception of some relatively new Middle Eastern collections (Kuwait, Qatar), all the exhibits here have been sourced — entirely — from European and North American institutions!

However, such quibbles (even if legit) do not detract from or diminish the show which captures the interest of those encountering Mughals for the first time while also providing audiences (more familiar with Mughal history) a welcome opportunity to enjoy — at leisure, and in one location — a landmark collection of exhibits that are otherwise dispersed around the world and are rarely so well displayed. Thank you, VMFA!

Cultural Appropriation

The multiculturalism of the exhibit also exposes the idea of cultural appropriation in art and religion as nonsensical! The Mughal court appropriated anything and everything, then improved, enhanced, and experimented with it! (2)

One of the fun paintings is of a turkey, sent from North America to the Mughal court along with other “exotic” animals. A trumpeting elephant was a common everyday sight for the Indian Moghuls, not so much a gobbling turkey!

Notes

(1) Later Moghuls, such as Aurangzeb, the son of Shah Jahan, abandoned tolerance in favor of religious persecution. He no longer allowed the Hindu community to live under their own laws and customs, but imposed Sharia law (Islamic law) over the whole empire.

Thousands of Hindu temples and shrines were torn down and a punitive tax on Hindu subjects was re-imposed. The Naqshbandi order, known for its strict adherence to Islamic revivalism , made an appearance at the tail end of Shah Jahan’s reign.

(2) Buddhism kept changing and being influenced by local cultures, the further east it travelled. It’s natural for religions to evolve but we don’t call that cultural appropriation!

Ludi Joseph

Richmond, VA

August 10, 2026