A group of yogis, India, Mughal, circa 1610-20

The depiction of yogis became popular in Mughal art in the early seventeenth century. This was in part due to Jahangir's fascination with ascetics and in particular Gosain Jadrup, the famous Hindu saint represented in an early seventeenth Jahangirnama painting by Govardhan in the Musee Guimet in Paris (Thackston 1999, p.312). Jahangir visited Jadrup at his cave near Ujjain and then again when he moved to Mathura. Jahangir said of Jadrup "He is truly a great resource, and one can enjoy and derive much benefit from sitting with him." (ibid.)

The current drawing relates closely to an study of a group of ascetics from the end of Akbar's reign by the artist Shankar (Galloway 2008, no.4). Other drawings of ascetics from the early seventeenth century are found in the Richard Johnson album in the British Library (Falk and Archer 1981 nos.25-27, 45, 46, 145) and a drawing by Daswant from circa 1600 from the Royal Library (Hannam 2018, no.4).