ILLUMINATING AN EMPIRE: SOLAR SYMBOLISMS IN MUGHAL ART AND ARCHITECTURE

2021-9-2
Thomas, Robin
Studies on Mughal art and architecture and studies on the solar symbolisms and sacred kingship separately constitute established routes in academia and continue to inform our understanding of both the topics with established points of convergence and divergence. However, these two lines of scholarly analysis have seldom interacted and converged. Within this framework, in order to attempt to bridge this gap, the thesis aims to contextualize the characteristics of solar symbolisms that had developed and evolved throughout the reign of the Mughal dynasty. Considering that solar symbolisms rose to prominence in the mid sixteenth century and started its decline from late seventeenth century, the study firstly aims to understand what caused the rise and decline of solar symbolisms and its association with sacred kingship in the Mughal Empire. Additionally, the thesis also examines how solar symbolisms had shaped and informed Mughal art and architecture through analysing the many instances of its appearance in both fields. In doing so, the study also attempts to offer a coherent narrative on the sparse literature on solar symbolisms and add to the grand corpus of research on Mughal art and architecture.

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Citation Formats
R. Thomas, “ILLUMINATING AN EMPIRE: SOLAR SYMBOLISMS IN MUGHAL ART AND ARCHITECTURE,” M.A. - Master of Arts, Middle East Technical University, 2021.