Two folios from a copy of the Kitab-i Navras (the Book of Nine Rasas) by the Sultan of Bijapur...

Ibrahim Adil Shah II (1570 – 12 September 1627) was king of the Sultanate of Bijapur and a member of the Adil Shahi dynasty. Under his reign the dynasty had its greatest period as he extended its frontier as far south as Mysore. He was a skillful administrator, artist, poet and a generous patron of the arts. Ibrahim II wrote the Kitab-e-Navras, a collection of 59 poems and 17 couplets to introduce the theory of nine Rasas, which occupies an important place in Indian aesthetics and to acquaint people who knew only the Persian ethos. The book opens with a prayer to Sarasvati, the Goddess of learning and there are also verses in praise of the Sultan’s own wife Chand Sultan, mother Bari Sahib, favourite elephant Atash Khan, and his tambur, which he had named Moti Khan. Ibrahim was deeply devoted to music and was himself a dhrupad-singer and the player of a stringed lute-like instrument called tambur.

The manuscript throws light on Ibrahim’s personality and the deeply multicultural ethos of his court. 

The Kitab-i-Nauras is known from some ten manuscripts in different libraries that were copied between 1582 and 1618. Most of these are powerfully calligraphed but are not elaborately illuminated. Six folios of a Kitab-i-Nauras in the National Museum, New Delhi, India along with another known folio in a private collection, are part of an important copy by the Royal calligrapher Khalilullah. So pleased was Ibrahim with Khalilullah’s version of the Kitab, that he dubbed him badshah-i-qalam (“king of the pen”) and made him sit on the throne as a reward. The folios in the present lot with their beautifully marbled ground and gold floral tracing were undoubtedly made for a notable or someone who aspired to create a copy fit for the Sultan himself.