Mughal Glass: Read an exclusive excerpt from the book by Tara Desjardins
Why is there so little known about these exquisite artefacts? How far back can they be traced? Answers begin to take shape, in an excerpt from the introduction.
The history of Indian glass is, in fact, two histories: that of glass’ evolution within the history of glass production, and the other, the history of the Indian subcontinent during the early modern period. The first explores the experimentation of glass recipes and how these impacted production and industry, while the other examines the greater socio-political transformation of Mughal India during the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Both histories develop in parallel until they collide in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, at precisely the point where the development of new glass mixtures, the importation of foreign goods, and the increase in European hegemony in India intersects with the decline in Mughal power, the rise in concentrated wealth circulating around autonomous courts, and the development of a new class of wealthy individuals eager to commission and consume glass.
Prior to embarking on this subject, very little had been written on glass from Mughal India with even less documented in the primary sources dated to the period. Early Mughal chronicles such as the Ain-i Akbari (the Institutes of Akbar) attest to the existence of glass in several North Indian provinces, while contemporaneous accounts from East India Company ledgers confirm English glass imports into India. Both records substantiate the circulation of glass within Mughal provinces and courts during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. However, these sources remain silent on details such as techniques and traditions of glass working, or the scale and function of any industry. No further mention of glass production has been found in any other Mughal chronicles compiled between the reigns of emperors Akbar and Alamgir (1556–1707). In the eighteenth century, India Office Records – collection of documents relating to the administration of India from 1600 to 1947 – begin to mention the import of English glass (cullet, lump glass and ingots) in the private papers of British East India Company officers arriving into the Bay of Bengal and Madras (modern day Chennai). It is only a century later, in 1807, however, that the earliest known description of glass blowing emerges from a British Industrial Survey. This account describes the use of recycled European glass in the manufacture of blown glass vessels in Patna City, Bihar, a practice which, by the late nineteenth century, had become widespread across much of northern India in the Hoshiarpur districts of the Punjab, the United Provinces, Madras, the Bombay Presidency, and Bengal.
Several scholars have helped pave the way for the study of glass in Mughal India – the most notable amongst these being Moreshwar Dikshit, Simon Digby, Stephen Markel and Stefano Carboni. Much of their research has formed the foundation upon which other scholars have since based their assertions and arguments…
Glassworkers, like most craft specialists, were generally organized by family or tribe and, like all craft traditions, once established, were very conservative with regards to experimentation. This notion was only reinforced by the fact that no surviving tools (molds, blow pipes, furnaces, etc.) or drawings exist from the sixteenth to eighteenth century to support the possibility of a glass industry operating during this period. It is therefore predominantly within museum and exhibition catalogues that discussions on Mughal glass have appeared; however, even these sources present the examples as decorative objects, catalogued broadly as ‘Mughal, eighteenth century’…
A long tradition of glass manufacture exists in the Indian subcontinent, historically in the form of small, vitreous objects such as beads, bangles, and tile glazes. The Indian subcontinent has also been in contact with glass-blowing civilizations and cultures since the ancient times: the site of Arikamedu, north of Pondicherry on the eastern coast of India, represents a Roman-period trading town that yielded excavated remains of blown glass vessels dated to the first century BCE, shortly after the invention of glass blowing; while other samples have been excavated at various sites in the north western regions of the Punjab, most notably the site of Taxila. Such finds attest to the subcontinent having been exposed to blown glass objects, and possibly even the technique, for centuries prior to the visual, archival, and material evidence of glass vessels that appear much later in the Mughal period. Why did the same traditional methods of glass making, namely wrapping, molding, and glazing, continue unchanged for centuries despite an established familiarity with the material? Why was the technique of glass blowing not transferred earlier? If, in fact, evidence is lacking, is it merely a question of recovering and reporting; or rather, examining local traditions, social perceptions, and external influences. Despite the enormous strides made in understanding the objects presented in this Catalogue, much more research remains. This publication has attempted to address some of these questions as best possible, recognizing that many theories put forth are subject to criticism and will no doubt, over time, evolve as more information comes to light.
(Excerpted with permission from Mughal Glass: A History of Glassmaking in India by Tara Desjardins, published by Roli Books; 2024)
