Thus the dying Inayat Khan is covered with a sheet that carries a shoddy imitation of the masterpiece 'The Death of Saint Francis' by Giotto. In a world where the importance of events and historical objects has been equalized without regard to their individuality, mechanical reproduction brings the past and the present, the high and the low, and the East and the West together. . It serves my purposes well that the Orient and the West can be brought into such proximity. The crux that holds these unlikely elements and peoples together in my work is their shared struggle to survive and their posture in the face of death.
Here, Inayat Khan is being compared with Saint Francis. What might appear to be an irregularity to most, is to me a valid comparison. Saint Francis' life is, as the legends go, a lesson that life can be more than a mere rehearsal for death. Legends also testify that Francis, at the end of a period of prayer and meditation, received the stigmata; symbolic wounds representing his identification with Christ. Earlier medieval representations of Saint Francis emphasized on his mystical aspect. Giotto reverses the emphasis and shows the saint to be more human and corporeal. Giotto's touch of humanism is a tribute to the saint who had a great humanizing influence himself. I draws the image of the dead saint into the loop and juxtaposes it with that of the dying Inayat Khan the latter years of whose life were nothing more than a mere rehearsal for death. But there is dignity in Inayat Khan's acquiescent wait for death. A favorite courtier of Jehangir, he has brought on an untimely death unto himself by his addiction to opium. And now he reclines pensive – his body tattered while his face is resolute – looking death in the face and patiently waiting for it to take him into its fold. The figure of Inayat Khan is an allegory for the reign of Jehangir, famous for its artistic outburst as well as for its decadence. Though not a very successful administrator, Jehangir was a true connoisseur of art. He encouraged the artists from the imperial atelier to record the pomp and colour of the court, their hunts, battle, elephants, women, generals and slaves. As an irony of fate, Jehangir himself, in his later years, would become addicted to wine laced with opium. His slip into debauchery would mark his lapse into a failed administrator. The latter years of his life would become an allegory for the state of the Mughal Empire which would ultimately fall apart.
Significantly, the figure of Inayat Khan is also an allegory for the conception the East has of death. Death is often equated with glory in the Middle East, and with liberation in the Far East. These traditions also equate life with misery. In India, this belief owes largely to the concept of life negation, initially brought up by Buddhism, and later assimilated into Brahmanism. By medieval times, centuries of inculturation with the Indian way of life and the impact of Sufi thought had infused into the Indian Muslim psyche a romantic acceptance of death as the liberator. Inayat Khan’s stoned eyes stare death in the face, but he looks placid and resigned to his fate.
.jpg)
