ABSTRACT
If one takes a broad view of the arts made for the royal courts of South Asia, one finds, on the one hand, that certain themes appear again and again regardless of the time period or place: splendor as an expression of wealth, military prowess, loyalty to the ruler, the ruler as a father to his people, and the linking of earthly power with spiritual power. On the other hand, one also finds instances when the prevalent courtly culture exhibited a sharpened focus around a few specific themes or ideals. It might have been focused, for example, on the beliefs of a particular religious order coinciding with the development of a new architectural type, or on a specific genre of poetry leading to a flourishing of illustrated manuscripts, or on a finite set of characteristics defining the ideal courtier, visually expressed through palace construction and portraiture. During these periods, there also seems to have been a symbiotic relationship between those members of the court whose power was on the rise and who patronized these flourishing art forms. That is, their positions of power or access to those in power allowed them to shape the direction of courtly culture and, at the same time, their ability to be at the forefront of new artistic and cultural developments augmented their status at court.
