The Ashtapada Carpet and a Cosmopolitan Society.

While researching the murky subject of the Timurid carpets, I came across what was in the 1990s claimed to be one such specimen. It seemed to fall within  the taxonomy of a group of Timurid carpets developed by Amy Briggs. The attribution was chiefly based on the presence of the kufesque border and the allover geometric-like design.

Finally it received a thorough analysis by Michael Franses, a radiocarbon test adding a scientific dating with mean range of  early 15th- early 17th.

While its pattern was meticulously compared with the International Style as represented in 15th century Spanish, Anatolian, Syrian and Persian exemplars, essential  technical facts proved it to be an Indian rug. Stylistic and historical details, in turn, suggested an origin in the Bahmid Sultanate of the Deccan, woven during  the reign of Ahmad Shahi Wali  (1422-1436).

Two designs gained much of our interest, the octagonal medallion and the gaming board above it.

The first belongs to an early Anatolian tradition, descending from the Domes and  Squinches design of the 14th century through the Large Pattern Holbeins of the 15th-16th century.
The second, in turn, gives witness to an ancient Hindu tradition, having been recognized as a Vedic version of the chess game, called ashtapada. While having disappeared in the 10th century, it survived in the South of India till the end of the 16th.

1 - Medallion silk rug, Deccan, 15th (?)

2 - Octagonal medallion and chess board

4 - 'Domes and Squinches' rug, Anatolia, 14th 

3 - Large Pattern Holbein, 15th-16th

Curiously enough, the origin for the third element - the field motif - appears to have not yet been investigated. It was, in fact, loosely related to period Spanish armorial designs and early Chinese silks. The design is composed by a repeat 'S' ending with an inverted leaf/flower.
Some further investigation offers  interesting clues for a new attribution, prompting  a possibly more proper historical context for this piece.

Three may be the plausible sources - the Persian/Timurid art, the Jain and the Mughal, all of which share a floral meandering vine in their vocabularies.

5 - Ashtapada field design

The first source was under the eyes of the weavers, being depicted in the Timurid  inspired royal building of Bidar, the Bahmid capital. 

6 - Fort Bidar, Timurid inspired decoration, floral vine, 15th-16th

The second source was widely diffused  in the Gujarat, north of Deccan, and Vijayanagar, south of it. Although likely borrowed from foreign models, it appears translated and definitely appropriated by a specific local style.

In the Gujarat Jain painting of the 14th and 15th century the motif is used both as a floral meander framing sacred scenes and a cut stem ending with an inverted flower decorating fine clothing.

7 - Kalpasutra manuscript, late 14th, detail of the divan design

8 - Jain text, Gujarat, 1411

9 - Jain manuscript, cover, 16th

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The inverted stem appears  also as architectural finials or depicting plants.

10 - Wall painting, Ajanta Caves, Jain style, 16th (?)

A similar usage of  small repeat floral designs has been outlined by John Guy in the Vijayanagar block-painted clothes. He attested as well to the weavers' skill with creating new motifs from the given one. Interestingly enough, this very fact falls also within the taxonomy Steven Cohen tentatively proposed, creating a corpus of Deccani rugs.

Eventually, the same meander commonly performs in the Deccan paintings from the early 17th century gracing clothes (plate 11) and rugs (plate 12).

11 - Rumal, painted cotton, Golconda, 1640-50

12 - Deccani painting, 18th

A crucial fact for an attribution to a local decorative vocabulary appears to be a design found in a traditional artifact from Bidar, the bidriware. Supposed to have been originated during the early Bahmid reign, this inlay metal work soon became a typical manufacture of the Deccan. Unluckily, the earliest extant bidriwares date to the mid 17th century.

Meandering vines are among the most common designs, often seen with Mughal inspired flowers.

13 -  Bidriware, hookah base,  late17th

14 - Bidriware, dish, 17th, second half

As seen in plate 13 and 14 the flower has lost its 'local/Hindu' look (see plate 7) in favour of a more realistic shape surely influenced by Mughal models, where the floral meandering vine was one of the traditional border design too.

15 - Mughal niche rug, 17th

In this perspective the Ashatapada motif can be plausibly claimed to be part of a Deccan decorative style as a result of different influences (Persian, Hindu and Mughal). The classical 15th century aesthetic seen in the border and medallion harmoniously works with this distinctive feature.

The realistic style of the flower with five petals suggests  a later dating - possibly the turn of the 17th century -  when an already ripe Mughal style could have been seen at the Deccan courts. Two paintings made by the same artist working for both the Mughal and the Bijapur Sultan attest to the connection between the two courts and the circulation of models  (plate 16, 17). 

The bidriware design as well matches this period.

17 -  Ibrahim Adil Shah, Farruk Begh, 1590-95

16 - Babur, Farruk Begh, 1589

At this time the Bahmid reign was already dissolved. In the end  of the 15th century the locals finally rebelled against the absolutist Persian imprint of culture and society imposed by the court. 

The reign split into Sultanates, one of the richest and flourishing being Bijapur, whose cultural peak was achieved during Ibrahim Adil Shah II's reign (1580-1627). Inspired patron of arts, close adept to Hindu religion and customs, the Adilshahi dynasty wanted to be recorded in the official chronicle as direct descendant of the Ottoman dynasty, in contrast to the Bahmid habits. Whether true or not is of no importance, yet the symbolic meaning is.

The Ottoman connection with Deccan dates to the 15th century and was certainly growing during the 'Ottoman Age of Exploration' (1513 - 1589). Ottomans had great influence on Bijapur's wealth serving as architects, engineers, soldiers, administrators, noblemen, generals, governors and merchants. It is no wonder Turkish art entered in the cosmopolitan culture of the day.

18 - Ottoman explorations in the 16th

In such historical context the Ashtapada rug seems indeed to highlight two elements of the new Adilshahi cultural program. First, the reassessment of the Hindu tradition, as attested by the chess board and the 'bidri-type' decoration; second, a homage to the Ottoman world via the Holbein medallion. The kufesque border, although typical of the Persian/Timurid rugs of the 14th and 15th century, is as well the distinguishing frame of  some Turkish carpets in the 15th and 16th century  among which is the Large Pattern Holbein type.

Moreover, the gorgeous palette is consistent with the Bijapur opulent painting  - the alternating colours in the field create a chromatic vibration throughout the carpet (comparable to the chromatic sensitivity in the cloth, plate 19), while the gold and blue kufesque border recalls the lavish miniature frames.

19 - Ibrahim Adil Shah, Bijapur, 1595 (detail of the cloth)

Impossible to know  who was the owner of the rug, we like to imagine him in the same way as the Mughal ruler Jahangir sitting  on a Timurid carpet, appropriate only for him due to his noble lineage.

20 - Jahangir in audience, Mughal  painting, 1605-6

                                                                 
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The rare Turkish inspired rugs of the Deccan should be viewed within the context of the cosmopolitan culture and society to which the Turkish ethnic group greatly contributed.
These rugs are seemingly reminiscent of the original inflections of the sourcing models, at times well disguised by the local design pool. One good instance is the silk medallion rug (21) where the weaver was apparently influenced by original Ushak patterns, but rearranged in the local aesthetic canons.

21 - The Frauenknecht Indian fragment, Holbein type, 16th (?)

22 - Small medallion silk rug, Deccan, 18th

23 -  Small medallionrug, detail

24 - Small medallion Ushak, detail, late 16th

54 - Ushak variant, 15th-16th

26 - Ushak variant, late 16th

                                         

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Image credits

Hali, 167, 2011; The Louvre Museum, Paris; The David Collection, Copenhagen; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York;  The Museum of Islamic Art, Doha; The Vakiflar Museum, Istanbul; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Geknupfte Kunst - Teppiche des Museums fur Islamische Kunst, Berlin; Walker, D., Flower Underfoot,1997; The Peaceful Liberators of India, Thames and Hudson, 1994; The Sultans of the South-Arts of India's Deccan Courts, 1323-1687, The Metropolitan, Symposia, 2011; The Christie's Sales.

Bibliographic references

Briggs, A., Timurid Carpets, Ars Islamica 1940, 1946.

Cary Welch, S.,India: Art and Culture, 1300-1900, The Metropolitan Museum of art, 1985.

Casale, G., The Ottoman Age of Exploration, 2010.

Cohen, S., Deccani Carpets: Creating a Group in Sultan of the South....

Eaton, Richard M.  A social and historical Introduction to the Deccan in Sultans of the South.... 

Eskenazi, J., The Conoisseur's choice: the Vakiflar domes and squinches carpet, in Hali 8, iv/32, 1986.

Farooqui, S. A., A Comprehensive History of Medieval India: From Twelfth to the Mid-Eighteenth Century, Dorling Kindersley, 2011.

Fiorentino, F., I tappeti timuridi - dalle orde mongole ai tappeti miniati, Ghereh No. 51.
Franses, M., Ashtapada, Hali 167, 2011.
Guy, J., One Thing Leads to Another in Interwoven Globe, The Metropolitan, 2013.

Lentz T. and Lowry G., Timur and the Princely Vision. Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1989.

Levi, A., Architectural Motifs in Early Turkish Rugs - Domes and Squinches, OCTS, Volume 5, Part 1.

Lewis, B., From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East, 2013.
Sultan of the South. Arts of India's Deccan Courts, 1323-1687, The Metropolitan, Symposia, 2011.

The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art of India, Thames and Hudson, 1994.

Thompson,J., Silk, XIII to XVIII Centuries, Treasures from the Islamic Museum of Qatar, 2004, pp. 88-89, National Council of Culture, Arts and Heritage, Doha.

Varija R. Bolar, International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanity Studies, Turks in Karnataka,  International Journal of Social Sciences and Humanity Studies, Vol 4-online. 

Walker, D., Flowers Underfoot, 1997.