the hybrid Mogul school and was practically unaffected by its influence.

For a fuller acquaintance with the native art we must turn to the publications of Dr Coomaraswamy. This author's account of 'Rajput' painting is now pretty generally accepted, as the production of Hindu painters, from the 15th to the 19th centuries, in Rajputana and the Panjab Himalayas.' There is still no quite satisfactory explanation of the complete gap between the Ajanta frescoes of the 7th century and Rajput paintings on paper of the 15th. We can only surmise that the medieval wall-paintings have all been destroyed, and that the Indians were slow to adopt the practice of painting on paper. It is important, however, to note that the Rajput paintings are not, like the Persian, illustrations to MSS, and have not the character of miniatures. Technically, they derive from the ancient methods of Asiatic fresco, and in their inspiration they hark back to the traditions of Ajanta. Their subjectmatter is profoundly Indian, not the life of courts and palaces, but the life of the people with its old, popular tales and romances, and its pervading delight in the legend of Krishna, the divine cowherd.

Take, for example, the painting which Dr Coomaraswamy reproduced in colours in the 'Burlington Magazine for March 1912. Its theme is Krishna's Quelling of the Serpent. The serpent, a semi-human Naga king, dwelt in a whirlpool of the Jumna. Krishna leapt in to fight with him, while his companions on the bank cried and wailed in fear. Krishna overpowers the serpent, and the serpent's wives, mermaid figures with human bodies and fishy tails, come round him in the water, supplicating for the life of their lord. This is the moment represented. Although to eyes trained on European art the similarity of general conventions in Oriental painting may at first deceive, even a brief study of such an example as this will convince any one that it is in essentials a whole world apart from any Persian painting; it is quite different in character from even any Mogul work. It is extremely animated; it lacks the repose of the finest Persian design; and, though the colour has passages of great beauty, it has not the Persian gem-like harmonies of richness. But the main thing to note is the entire

absorption of the artist in his theme, and in making each figure expressive of the emotions within. We are reminded at once of the Ajanta frescoes; for here, on a small scale and with more delicacy of outline, we find the same genius for seizing the expressive movements and gestures of the body, the same thoroughly Indian types and attitudes, the same suppleness, gentleness and animation. Of especial charm are the sinuous supplicating forms of the Serpent-king's wives, floating and bending forward with outstretched hands in absolute abandonment to their emotion. Here is a beauty not of the senses, but of the spirit; or rather of the spirit through the senses.

The productions of the Rajput schools are as yet little known in Europe, and are still often confused with Mogul paintings. Dr Coomaraswamy has proposed a classification of them according to their provenance; placing in one group the paintings from Rajputana, the chief centre of which was the city of Jaipur, and in another group, which he would call the Pahari or Hill-Country school, those produced in the Himalayan valleys of the Panjab. While the colouring of these paintings is often of great charm, sometimes schemed in pale and tender tones, and sometimes of a vigorous depth and lustre, we find numbers that have been left in outline only. In these outline drawings the peculiar quality of the art is even more delightfully disengaged.

Dr Coomaraswamy has reproduced a series of these Pahari drawings, which make us hope that more will be brought to light. They are characterised by a fluent and continuous rhythm of line, such as we never find in drawings of the Mogul school. The sweetness of the gestures of the supple forms lends itself to this love of sinuous containing lines, and prevents it from becoming too obvious a mannerism. If the new Calcutta school, which now seeks to turn its back on the imported academics of Europe, and to revive native traditions, can learn to recapture the secret of this happy and spontaneous art, then indeed it will have done a great thing.

Art. 12.-THE SULTANATE OF EGYPT.

ON July 4, 1261, Beybars, Sultan of Egypt, rode forth from Cairo in great state, attended by all the Court, to a marquee which had been set up in a spacious garden without the walls. Here had been brought the insignia by which the Caliph signified his confirmation of the royal title. Arrayed in these-a turban of black and gold, a long purple tunic, and a collar and chain of gold -the Sultan displayed himself to the people. The investiture was complete. There remained only the reading of the diploma. Ibn Lokman, the chancellor or chief archivist, ascended a lectern and recited the formal document which he had composed to the admiration of all future exponents of oriental diplomatic.

After praise to God and the Prophet, the orator came quickly to the point-an unstinted panegyric of the virtues and exploits of the new Sultan, among which he signalised the restoration of the Abbasid Caliphate, lately overthrown by the Mongols. His concluding paragraphs, shorn of much rhetorical ornament, may be paraphrased as follows:

O Prince, the Commander of the Faithful testifies his gratitude by making you Sovran of Egypt, Syria, the Hijaz, the Yemen, and the banks of the Euphrates, and all lands, plains or mountains, which you may henceforth subdue, not excepting a single town or fortress or anything great or small. Watch therefore over the welfare of the people. Shun ambition and the lure of worldly goods, which are but fleeting shadows. Do justice and mercy, for happy is the man who ensues justice; his days will be brighter than festivals and shine like the star on a charger's brow, more sparkling than jewels on the neck of beauty. Keep a watch over your men in authority, for whose acts you will be accountable at the last day. Choose good officers, who will dispense the law with mildness and moderation, and will use impartiality and treat all men as brothers; for to a Muslim, be he ever so much a Sultan, all other Muslims are brethren. Reform the late abuses and exactions. Wealth unjustly gained is but a load on the prince's back, for which he must one day account; and a treasury thus filled, even to bursting, is really destitute. Let his Highness elevate himself by lightening the burdens of his subjects. Let him fight in God's

way, and above all let him guard the frontiers of Egypt. God has granted you all the success you could desire, and endowed you with the gift of foresight. By you he has restored vanished hopes and dispersed gloom from all hearts. He has led you in the path of justice, and has set your duty before you. He will not cease to bless you with his protection and fill you with gratitude for his grace: for gratitude is the corollary of grace.

After hearing this pronouncement, signally memorable at the present moment, the Sultan mounted a white horse, caparisoned in Abbasid black, and with standards waving over his head and the diploma of investiture borne before him by the Master of the Household, rode under the old Bab en-Nasr into Cairo. The city was en fête, the streets festooned, the Sultan's path strewn with costly carpets. Amid the acclamations of the crowd Beybars traversed the city to the Bab Zuweyla, and so regained his palace in the Citadel.

Thus was a Sultan of Egypt invested with his dignity six and a half centuries ago, two generations before Orkhan, the son of Black Othman, planted the Ottoman flag on Brusa in 1326, and assumed the same title. Beybars, however, was not the first Sultan of Egypt. Originally the title, which is merely the Arabic for 'might,' and hence authority' (and, it may be added, is feminine as well as masculine-there is no such word as 'Sultana' in the East), did not imply any of the majesty which accrued to it in later times, but, as Burton said, could be applied indifferently to a village sheykh or the ruler of an empire. Some early historians give the Caliphs of Baghdad the title of Sultan; and it has been argued that it was applied also to the Captain of the Caliphs' Turkish bodyguard so early as the 9th century. It was a favourite style with the Turks, in preference to the respectable old title of Melik, and was not adopted by the numerous Persian dynasts who sprang up on the weakening of the Caliphs' temporal power. The Turk Mahmud of Ghazna, the first of Muhammadan rulers who invaded Hindustan, is generally credited with being also the first to style himself Sultan; but he did not use the title on the most authoritative of all official documents, his coins. His later successors, however, did

so use it, probably in emulation of the Turkman Seljuks, who made the name of Sultan respected from the borders of Afghanistan to the Mediterranean coast, and familiar to Roman writers. By the influence of the imperial Seljuks in the 11th and 12th centuries the title attained its full significance, and rose to the level of Cæsar.

Saladin, one of the few oriental rulers whose name, Salah-ed-din, has been familiarised in a European spelling, was undoubtedly the first to be styled Sultan in Egypt. Though not a Turk himself, he had been brought up under the Seljuk system and adopted their military and civil organisation. That he should also adopt their title, after he had acquired independent sovereignty in Egypt and Syria, was natural. His contemporary biographers, who were in his personal service, refer to him throughout as the Sultan'; and as such he was well known all over Europe. In the Romance of Richard Cœur de Lion' he is called 'the cheff Sawdon of Hethenysse'; and we are told 'How Kyng Richard, the noble man, encounteryd with the Sawdan.' It is clear that he was the Sultan of the third Crusade. The curious thing is that he did not himself use the title on his coinage. The three points to which a Muhammadan ruler attached the greatest importance in the Middle Ages were, first, the formal diploma of investiture sent by the Caliph of Baghdad by a special ambassador; secondly, the insertion of his own name and style, after the Caliph's, in the khutba or bidding prayer which formed an impressive feature in the Friday office in the mosques of his dominion; and thirdly, the right of sikka, or issuing a coinage impressed with his name and title. The Abbasid Caliph certainly sent Saladin the insignia of investiture, whether as Sultan or Melik; but the testimony of the coins, that he styled himself Melik and not Sultan, is conclusive.* Probably his unassuming character made him indifferent to mere titles. His sons and collaterals who succeeded him in Egypt followed his example. All

* The only exception is a copper coin struck at Damascus in 1191 (A.H. 587), when Saladin was absent from Damascus, busily engaged in repelling Richard I in Palestine; and it names him Sultan el-Muslimin, 'Sultan of the Muslims,' not as his chief title (which is still el-Melik enNasir on this coin) but as an appendage to the others, obviously with a topical reference to the Jihad or Holy War, then in an acute stage.