A painting of Akbar in a drunken brawl is a history lesson in manliness and kingship
The miniature from ‘Akbarnama’ deviates from the text of the biography to present a badshah who has control over the body physic and politic.
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In a library in Dublin lies a 17th-century painting with a scene that will be all too familiar to any pub goer in 21-century India: a drunken brawl. In it, Mughal emperor Abu’l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar can be seen fighting with Man Singh, the maharaja of Amber, surrounded by more than two dozen courtiers watching in horror as one tries to break them up.
The miniature, self-explanatorily titled Akbar fights Man Singh of Amber at a drinking party (circa 1603-1605 CE), is part of an illustrated Akbarnama. How does its depiction of an ostensibly undignified episode speak to the articulation of Shahenshah Akbar’s Mughal persona as patriarch and sovereign? What might be the political dynamic that the painting alludes to? And what are the interrelated Akbari codes of manliness and kingliness it reveals to us?
Before answering these questions, it is essential to understand what supposedly happened at the party from the great Mughal’s biographer Abu’l Fazl.
During his campaign to conquer Surat in 1573, the emperor was at a drinking party engaged in conversation with his courtiers. A group of Rajput noblemen boasted that their bravery was such that feuds were settled by both the warring rivals running towards a double-headed spear. Apparently inspired, likely drunk (Abu’l Fazl...
