After the Mughal Emperor Akbar (r. 11 Feb 1556- 27 Oct 1605) conquered the port city of Surat on the west coast of India in 1573 he was brought into close contact with European traders who were operating in the city and further down the coast in Goa. Akbar made contact with the Portuguese viceroy at Goa and asked him to facilitate the travel of Christian religious scholars to India so that he could learn about their faith. When Jesuit fathers arrived at the Mughal courts, they frequently bought paintings and prints with them as gifts for the emperor. Akbar and his son, Prince Salim (later known as Jahangir) commissioned many copies of the European paintings and prints. In fact, it even became popular for paintings, like this one, to be made with ink and slight hints of colour to imitate the handmade and generally monochromatic prints.1.

Portraits of the royal ruler and his associates were among the most popular of all Indian painting commissions. Under Mughal patronage, painters developed the form of the noble and devout ruler, depicting him at prayer and in moments of solemn meditation. This form had many similarities with depictions of other religious figures from Islamic theology and Muslim holy men such as the Sufi saints who spread a form of mystical Islam to other parts of Asia. In fact, some Sufi saints and their tombs were the subjects of veneration among Hindus. Likewise, as is the case with this painting, Hindu holy men and yogis were sometimes the venerated subjects of Mughal paintings. The Kanphata yogis depicted here are worshippers of the Hindu god Shiva and can be identified by the large earrings that pierce the hallow of their ears.

1. Kavita Singh, Real birds in imagined gardens. Mughal paintings between Persia and Europe, Getty Research Institute Council Lecture, 2017, pp 21- 26.