The Making of a Visual Language To surmise which Mughal artist belonged to which of the pictorial antecedents cited above might have appeared a fruitless exercise a few years ago. It is not so now on account of the wealth of new material on the subject. John Seyller has produced evidences of stages and layers of past practices that the artists were engaged in retaining and 0 transforming, during the onset of the Mughal experiment. The infra-red studies reveal older versions of Cbandayana^nd Chaurapanchashika modes covered under overpainted folios of the (Cleveland) Tutinama.^ Considering indications from Mughal records of painters hailing from places as geographically disparate as Gwalior and Lahore, Kashmir and Gujarat, it can be averred that they belonged to traditions not only diverse but also itinerant. At any rate, these were traditions not averse to traversal and re-rooting, while retaining a strong regional base. Not unlike the contemporary bo/j and bhasha literatures in Avadhi, Malawi, Khadiboli, Hindawi, etc. of the northern belt, which functioned in constant interaction with each other, and with the analogous though diverse streams of Sanskrit and Prakrit, Farsi, Turki and Arabi, the pre-Mughal visual paramparas shared and exchanged modes, motifs and imagery .r1 In fact this process of interaction cut across the peripheries of visual, literary and performing practices. Text accompanied visual image, which in turn took cues from dance or theatre. Such overlaps, even interdependence (a strategy for survival ?) left little room for notions of 'purity' and necessitated resilience and response to change. Contrary to a prevalent view, it can be observed that the general practice of collective work—within or without a guild—did not seem to obliterate individual inclinations either. It is not difficult to detect unmistakably individual hands atworkin the different sets of the Kalpasutrasw Chandayanas despite absence of colophonic 'signatures'. In some cases differences can be discerned within a single set. The Chaurapanchashika hand, for instance, is quite obviously individualistic (Illustration I).6 It mightbe further argued that the artists, being the formulators of the vision, were in a position to choose and articulate and even effect changes m the representation of traditionally transmitted imagery. Change was perforce necessitated because of the psycho-social mediation of the times they belonged to. In that sense, every 'archetypal' tale conveyed by convention came to be located in a specific historical time and space of the artist. This would invite remodelling or refashioning of the imagery, marginally or substantially, according to the circumstances and initiatives available. For instance, the rendering of the image of the Sahi king and Saka chief in the Illus 1: Bilahana and Champavati, Chaurapanchashika, Uttar Pradesh or Western India, c. 1550-60, N C. Mehta collection. Culture Centre, Ahmedabad.