Tutinama
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''Tutinama'' (), literal meaning "Tales of a Parrot", is a 14th-century series of 52 stories in Persian. The work remains well-known largely because of a number of lavishly illustrated manuscripts, especially a version containing 250 miniature paintings commissioned by the
Mughal Emperor The emperors of the Mughal Empire, who were all members of the Timurid dynasty (House of Babur), ruled the empire from its inception on 21 April 1526 to its dissolution on 21 September 1857. They were supreme monarchs of the Mughal Empire in ...
Akbar Akbar (Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar, – ), popularly known as Akbar the Great, was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expa ...
in the 1550s. The Persian text used was edited in the 14th century from an earlier anthology 'Seventy Tales of the Parrot' in
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
compiled under the title Śukasaptati (a part of ''katha'' literature) dated to the 12th century. In India, parrots (in light of their purported conversational abilities) are popular as storytellers in works of fiction. The adventure stories narrated by a parrot, night after night, for 52 successive nights, are moralistic stories to persuade his female owner Khojasta not to commit any adulterous act with any lover, in the absence of her husband. She is always on the point of leaving the house to meet her lover, until the loyal parrot detains her by a fascinating story. Several illustrated manuscript copies survive, the most famous made for the Mughal Emperor Akbar over the five years after he ascended the throne in 1556, by two Persian artists named
Mir Sayyid Ali Mir Sayyid Ali (, Tabriz, 1510 – 1572) was a Persian miniature painter who was a leading artist of Persian miniatures before working under the Mughal dynasty in India, where he became one of the artists responsible for developing the style of ...
and Abdus Samad working in the court workshop.Beach (1992), 28-29 This is almost entirely in the
Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...
. A second version made for Akbar is now dispersed among several museums, but with the largest part in the
Chester Beatty Library The Chester Beatty Library, now known as the Chester Beatty, is a museum and library in Dublin. It was established in Ireland in 1953, to house the collections of mining magnate, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty. The present museum, on the grounds of ...
in
Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...
; this is thought to date to about 1580.


Text

The authorship of the text of the ''Tutinama'' is credited to Ziya'al-Din Nakhshabi or just
Nakhshabi Ziya' al-Din Nakhshabi was a 14th-century Persian physician and Sufi living in India. He died in 1350. According to a statement in a manuscript now at The National Library of Medicine, Nakhshabi himself transcribed and illustrated a Persian tran ...
, a
Persia Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
n physician and a
Sufi Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...
saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...
who had migrated to
Badayun Budaun (romanised: Badāʾūn or Badāyūn, ) is a medieval city and headquarters of Budaun district, in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is located about a mile east of the Sot river, and 27 km north of the Ganges, in the Rohilkhand ...
,
Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh ( ; UP) is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. With over 241 million inhabitants, it is the List of states and union territories of India by population, most populated state in In ...
in India in the 14th century, who wrote in the
Persian language Persian ( ), also known by its endonym and exonym, endonym Farsi (, Fārsī ), is a Western Iranian languages, Western Iranian language belonging to the Iranian languages, Iranian branch of the Indo-Iranian languages, Indo-Iranian subdivision ...
. He had translated and/or edited a classical Sanskrit version of the stories similar to ''Tutinama'' into Persian, around 1335 AD. It is conjectured that this small book of short stories, moralistic in theme, influenced Akbar during his formative years. It is also inferred that since Akbar had a
harem A harem is a domestic space that is reserved for the women of the house in a Muslim family. A harem may house a man's wife or wives, their pre-pubescent male children, unmarried daughters, female domestic Domestic worker, servants, and other un ...
(of women siblings, wives and women servants), the moralistic stories had specific orientation towards the control of women.


Akbar's first version

The two artists
Mir Sayyid Ali Mir Sayyid Ali (, Tabriz, 1510 – 1572) was a Persian miniature painter who was a leading artist of Persian miniatures before working under the Mughal dynasty in India, where he became one of the artists responsible for developing the style of ...
and Abd al-Samad were invited by
Humayun Nasir al-Din Muhammad (6 March 1508 – 27 January 1556), commonly known by his regnal name Humayun (), was the second Mughal emperor, who ruled over territory in what is now Eastern Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Northern India, and Pakistan from ...
around 1530–40 to teach this art to himself and to his son Akbar. Initially, the artists came to
Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...
with Humayun (where he was in exile) and in later years shifted to
Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...
when he won back his empire from the Suri Dynasty. The artists then moved to
Fatehpur Sikri Fatehpur Sikri () is a town in the Agra District of Uttar Pradesh, India. Situated from the district headquarters of Agra, Fatehpur Sikri itself was founded as the capital of the Mughal Empire in 1571 by Mughal emperors, Emperor Akbar, servin ...
with the Mughal Emperor Akbar, where a huge workshop of artists were engaged in producing miniatures. This type of painting came to be known as
Mughal painting Mughal painting is a South Asian style of painting on paper made in to miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums (muraqqa), originating from the territory of the Mughal Empire in the Indian subcontinent. It ...
, during Akbar's reign from 1556 to 1605 (when under Emperor Akbar's leadership the Mughal empire became most powerful). Akbar provided personal patronage to promote this form of miniature paintings, not only through Iranian artists but also involved a large number of Indian artists who were also well versed in local styles of such miniature paintings that were produced in the imperial workshops. It thus developed as a unique blend of Indian,
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and Islamic styles. Most of the paintings are now in the
Cleveland Museum of Art The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. Located in the Wade Park District of University Circle, the museum is internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian art, Asian and Art of anc ...
; some are also in the
British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...
. This became the precursor for many more refined forms of Mughal miniature painting portfolios such as the Hamzanama (Adventures of Amir Hamza),
Akbarnama The ''Akbarnama (; )'', is the official chronicle of the reign of Akbar, the third Mughal Emperor (), commissioned by Akbar himself and written by his court historian and biographer, Abul Fazl. It was written in Persian, which was the literary l ...
(Book of Akbar), Jahangirnama (Tuzk-e-Jahangiri an autobiography of
Mughal emperor The emperors of the Mughal Empire, who were all members of the Timurid dynasty (House of Babur), ruled the empire from its inception on 21 April 1526 to its dissolution on 21 September 1857. They were supreme monarchs of the Mughal Empire in ...
Jahangir Nur-ud-din Muhammad Salim (31 August 1569 – 28 October 1627), known by his imperial name Jahangir (; ), was List of emperors of the Mughal Empire, Emperor of Hindustan from 1605 until his death in 1627, and the fourth Mughal emperors, Mughal ...
) and so forth, which were created during the reign of subsequent Moghul rulers (16th century to 19th century) as Mughal paintings, but also with distinct Indian,
Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...
, Jain and
Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...
influences. The Mughal style covered mainly portraits of Mughal emperors, Queens, court scenes, hunting scenes, special ceremonies, battle scenes, love scenes and various activities of royal rulers. This format of miniatures was also widely adopted by
Rajput Rājpūt (, from Sanskrit ''rājaputra'' meaning "son of a king"), also called Thākur (), is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating fro ...
and
Malwa Malwa () is a historical region, historical list of regions in India, region of west-central India occupying a plateau of volcanic origin. Geologically, the Malwa Plateau generally refers to the volcanic plateau, volcanic upland north of the ...
rulers. In one miniature the figure of the king in the story is the earliest known portrait of Akbar.


Theme of the story

The main narrator of the 52 stories of ''Tutinama'' is a parrot, who tells stories to his owner, a woman called Khojasta, in order to prevent her from committing any illicit affair while her husband (a merchant by the name Maimunis) is away on business. The merchant had gone on his business trip leaving behind his wife in the company of a
mynah The mynas (; also spelled mynah) are a group of birds in the starling family (Sturnidae). This is a group of passerine birds which are native to Iran and Southern Asia, especially Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lank ...
and a parrot. The wife strangles the mynah for advising her not to indulge in any illicit affair. The parrot, realising the gravity of the situation, adopts a more indirect approach of narrating fascinating stories over the next fifty-two nights. The stories are narrated every successive night for 52 nights as an entertaining episode to keep Khojasta's attention and distract her from going out. ;One story A particular tale narrated by the parrot to rivet the attention of his mistress, as she is about to leave the house in the night, is also depicted in the 35th to 37th paintings in the illustrated version of the Tutinama. The story related by the parrot is of a
Brahmin Brahmin (; ) is a ''Varna (Hinduism), varna'' (theoretical social classes) within Hindu society. The other three varnas are the ''Kshatriya'' (rulers and warriors), ''Vaishya'' (traders, merchants, and farmers), and ''Shudra'' (labourers). Th ...
boy falling in love with a princess, considered a fated (doomed) situation. But a solution to this is provided by a magician friend of the Brahmin in the form of magic beads to help his friend to turn into a beautiful woman to seek entry into the palace to be with his loved one. The magician further facilitates the meeting of his friend with the king's daughter by telling the King that the girl in question was his daughter-in-law. On seeking entry into the palace the Brahmin discloses his true identity to his adored princess. But a twist is introduced into the tale with the King's son beholding a beautiful girl (the Brahmin in disguise) while taking bath in a pond falls in love with her. To avoid discovery of his true identity, the Brahmin runs away with the King's daughter. The magician then appears before the King seeking return of his daughter-in-law. But the King realising the true state of the two missing girls, compensates the magician with rich gifts. The gifts are passed on by the magician to his Brahmin friend and his wife to enable them to lead a happy life. The parrot concludes the narration, towards day break, with the advice to Kojasta that she should also have everything in life including her husband.Beach (1987), 53


Style of paintings

It is said that the text of the Tutinama was written in Nasta'liq calligraphy style. But each of the paintings seen in various libraries across the world focus on a single topic or episode of the stories. The straightforwardness of expressions seen in the paintings is attributed to the influence of pre-Mughal paintings. Several portfolios of Tutinama are also stated to be similar to the
Malwa Malwa () is a historical region, historical list of regions in India, region of west-central India occupying a plateau of volcanic origin. Geologically, the Malwa Plateau generally refers to the volcanic plateau, volcanic upland north of the ...
manuscripts with illustrations (dated to 1439 AD) but with distinct perfection. The difference is traced to the tasteful colours in Tutinama paintings, which make it rich in colours with graded quality. The popular dance form of
Kathak ''Kathak'' is one of the eight major forms of Classical Indian dance, Indian classical dance. Its origin is attributed to the traveling bards in ancient northern India known as ''Kathakar'' ("storyteller"), who communicated stories from the ...
, considered a combination of Indian and Persian forms, got a medium for display in the paintings of the Tutinama, the Akbarnama and the Tarrikh-e-Khandan-e-Timuria. In these paintings, men and women are shown wearing long flowing robes and high conical caps in standing positions. Even some paintings depicted two different groups of dancers. It is stated that 350 dancers, who were brought to Akbar's court from Iran by force, probably represented the ancient traditions of dances of Iran. It is inferred that over the years, assimilation of the Persian and the Indian people took place and provided the backdrop for the present Kathak dance style in India.


See also

*
Sindbad-Nameh The ''Seven Wise Masters'' (also called the ''Seven Sages'' or ''Seven Wise Men'') is a cycle of stories of Sanskrit, Persian or Hebrew origins. Frame Narrative The Sultan sends his son, the young Prince, to be educated away from the court in t ...


Notes


References

* Beach, Milo Cleveland (1992), ''Mughal and Rajput painting'', Part 1, Volume 3, Cambridge University Press, 1992 (pp. 21–38)
google books
* Beach, Milo Cleveland (1987), ''Early Mughal painting'', Harvard University Press, 1987 (pp. 51–54),
google books
*Losty, J. P. Roy, Malini (eds), ''Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire'', 2013, British Library, , 9780712358705 * Stephen, A. Condie, and Z̤iyāʼ al-Dīn Nakhshabī. ''Fairy Tales of a Parrot''. London: E. Nister, 1892.


External links

* Tutinamah,
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
. {{Authority control Mughal art Persian-language literature Islamic illuminated manuscripts British Library oriental manuscripts 16th-century illuminated manuscripts Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art Indian literature Indian manuscripts Indian folklore Indian fairy tales 16th-century Indian books Indian short story collections Fantasy anthologies Collections of fairy tales Indian legends Erotic short story collections Erotic literature Sexuality in India 14th-century Persian books