File:Tasawir 3.jpg

English: Detail of portrait showing an elephant with its feet chained to a rock. It also has a ring in its ear and a bell hanging from a chain tied round its stomach. This Tasawir, or Collection of Portraits, dates to the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century and was donated to Edinburgh University by the linguist and collector Robert Blair Munro Binning (1814-1891), of the Madras Civil service. The Collection comprises of a total of nineteen portraits and seven specimens of calligraphy. The images have been pasted onto gold-sprinkled paper and with the exception of two of the portraits, which have Persian stylistic features, are by Indian Artists. Their subjects include many well-known figures, such as a number of Moghul Emperors and Princes and the Empress Mumtaz Muhal (for whom the famous Taj Mahal was erected), as well as saints and several Hindu Deities. Source: Hukk, M (1925), A descriptive catalogue of the Arabic and Persian manuscripts in Edinburgh University Library, Hertford.