IMAGES FOR INSTRUCTION: A MULTILINGUAL ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY SULTANATE INDIA

This article focuses on the Miftāḥ al-Fużalāʾ (Key of the Learned) of Muhammad ibn Muhammad Da ʾ ud Shadiyabadi (ca. 1490). The Miftāḥ is an illustrated dictionary made in the central Indian sultanate of Malwa, based in Mandu. Although the Miftāḥ ’s only illustrated copy (British Library Or 3299) contains quadruple the number of illustrations as Mandu’s famed Niʿmatnāmah (Book of Delights) and is a unicum within the arts of the Islamicate and South Asian book, it has received minimal scholarly attention. The definitions in this manuscript encompass nearly every facet of Indo-Islamicate art history. The Miftāḥ provides a vocabulary for subjects including textiles, metalwork, jewelry, arms and armor, architecture, and musical instruments. The information transmitted by the Miftāḥ is not limited to the Persian, Hindavi, Turki, and Arabic language of the text, but also includes the visual knowledge depicted in paintings. Through an analysis of this manuscript as a whole, this study proposes that the Miftāḥ ’s manuscript was an object of instruction for younger members of society and utilizes wonder as a didactic tool.

teenth-century manuscripts.1 Turki, or Chaghatai, is a Turkic literary language of Central Asia from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries that was vernacularized in India.2 This period witnessed a rise in the importance of Chaghatai across regions. For example, in Khurasan's Timurid capital Herat, ʿAli Shir Nava ʾi (d. 1501) and Sultan Husayn Bayqara Mirza (d. 1506) promoted Chaghatai. 3 Both Hindavi and Turki words are widespread in fifteenth-century Persian dictionaries from India.
In its interplay between the verbal and visual, the Miftāḥ serves as a model of sophisticated bookmaking. With a total of 306 folios, it contains 179 illustrations. Not every definition is illustrated, but the non-illustrated definitions relate to entries with paintings. Dictionary entries often include multiple definitions and meanings, and the illustrations of the Miftāḥ sometimes conflate the multiple meanings of a single word as a playful visual pun.4 A single illustration can also depict multiple adjacent entries simultaneously.5 Illustrations frequently transcend textual definitions, inspiring reinterpretations of the text. Some entries establish synonyms that are both textual and visual and demonstrate that artists were involved in a range of philological processes, such as making equivalences. For instance, there are two different lemmas and corresponding illustrations for the definitions of turtle, porcupine, monkey, animal den, and yawn. 6 While previous scholarship has emphasized the significance of the Persian farhang for understanding poetry and its authorship, I show how the Miftāḥ leads its readers to manuscript genres beyond the realm of poetry. 7 In searching for manuscript genres related to the Miftāḥ, I have found that cosmographies exhibit several formal similarities. Like late fifteenth-century Persian cosmographies, the Miftāḥ's illustrations are inserted adjacent to the entries to which they correspond.8 Executed on the same paper as the text, the paintings are placed within rectangular boxes of minimal ruling in black ink, and their sizes vary considerably. Certain court scenes stretch across a page, whereas animals tend to occupy less space (figs. 1, 2).9 Occasionally illustrations flow into the margins. Although the same layout is also used for books besides the wonders-of-creation cosmography ( fig. 3), such as the bestiary or pharmacopeia, the sheer diversity of illustration types within cosmographies provides the closest analogy to the scope and themes of illustrations found in the Miftāḥ. In the final section of this article, I explain ways in which the Miftāḥ's text and images point to a clear relationship to the cosmography and wonder (ʿajab).
Containing visual puns, illustrations of toys and games, musical instruments, and teaching and learning, the Miftāḥ appears to have been made with the intention of delivering a pleasurable education. The combination of its illustrated themes and the large, well-spaced text would have aided readers in mastering these words. This leads me to hypothesize that the Miftāḥ was an entry-level text that would have primed its readers to understand a range of literary and visual languages. An older member of society, such as a teacher, may have used the work as an object of instruction for pupils. As an initial study of the Miftāḥ, this article reconstructs the history of the manuscript and its context, and appraises its written text and illustrations, laying the foundation for future studies. At the end, I pursue an interpretation of a few illustrations, particularly of crafts, that reveals the significance of wonder for understanding the Miftāḥ.

HISTORY OF THE MANUSCRIPT
Although it is cited in most surveys of sultanate arts of the book, the Miftāḥ has never been the subject of an extended critical study heretofore.10 It is addressed in two articles, the first by Norah Titley in 1964-65, and the second by A. Jan Qaisar and Som Prakash Verma in 2002.11 In both cases, these scholars adopted a thematic approach to the definitions and focused primarily on the paintings. Titley's initial study of the manuscript estab-lished the following categories of entries: animals; terms for hunting; musical instruments; occupations; trades and crafts; food; costumes; and children's toys. After her publication of Mandu's famed Niʿmatnāmah (Book of Delights, ca. 1495-1500), Titley was keen to work on the Miftāḥ as her next project, yet the only products of that endeavor are her short article and a few handwritten notes.12 Dilorom Karomat, whose concerns were textual, examined the presence of the Turki and Hindavi vernaculars in Persian lexicons such as the Miftāḥ. 13 At the end of this article, I provide a table of all the illustrations contained in manuscript, having verified these definitions against several lexicons, which I cite where appropriate.
In a preface, Shadiyabadi states that he completed the text in 873 (1468- 69), and names the dictionary the Miftāḥ al-Fużalāʾ. 14 The manuscript of the work in the British Library (BL Or 3299) has been dated to 1490 based on its close similarity to dated Persian manuscripts of this decade. 15 What occurred in the centuries between the production of the Miftāḥ and the registration of this manuscript in the British Museum in 1887 is unclear. It appears that the British diplomat Sidney John Alexander Churchill  sold the manuscript to the British Museum in 1886, as the end flyleaf bears the note "Bt. of Sidney Churchill, 10 May 1886." Churchill worked in the Telegraph Department (India Office) from 1880 to 1886, before embarking on a career in Iran that lasted until 1895. 16 Apart from BL Or 3299, an unillustrated manuscript in the Majlis Library in Tehran (IR-10-37320) survives as the only other known extant copy of the Miftāḥ ( fig.  4). Based on a preliminary analysis, this undated manuscript appears to postdate the British Library copy by a few centuries and was likely produced in the eighteenth or nineteenth century. The Tehran copy varies considerably from the British Library manuscript and appears to be a textual exercise of deciphering and editing an older text rather than a book with an explicit didactic aim for its time. The Tehran copy nevertheless allows us to salvage missing folios of BL Or 3299 and clarifies some definitions in cases where there is textual variance. From here onward, when referring to the fifteenth-century cal idiom with cosmopolitan trends.20 Mandu is one of the few early Indian sultanates with a relatively distinct corpus of illustrated manuscripts, but these have yet to be studied as a group. Two Jain Kalpasūtra manuscripts (ca. 1439 and 1470) are among the early works that attest to the production of local artists.21 Because both the Niʿmatnāmah and the Miftāḥ contain several Indic words, they also reveal a connection with the local vernacular culture. Yet the presence of the Būstān (1502-3) links Mandu's book culture to the broader terrain of shared Persian cultural practices-the Persian cosmopolis-as do the illustrations of the Miftāḥ. 22 One can also imagine a dynamic school in which Mandu's books were taught. In ʿAli bin Mahmud al-Kirmani Shihab Hakim's Ma ʾās̠ ir-i Maḥmūdshāhī (Traditions of Mahmud Shah, 1468), he describes a madrasa in Mandu, Bām-i Bihisht (Heavenly Vault), and notes the presence of various kinds of decoration on the madrasa's walls that are not extant today: "colored stones such as red carnelian, green, striped, and dark blue jasper, yellow Stone of Mary (sang-i Maryam), white alabaster, black marble, and so forth in the manner that inlaid woodworkers (khātambandān) produce ivory and ebony decoration."23 Shihab Hakim writes that artisans (pīshvarān) and possessors of skill (hunarmandān) from the kingdoms of Khurasan (comprising presentday eastern Iran, southern Turkmenistan, and western Afghanistan) and the cities of Hindustan (northern India) were involved in the construction of the madrasa. 24 In light of this impressive description, the madra-sa was likely built to attract fine scholars from near and far.
Given Shihab Hakim's fulsome praise, the calligraphy decorating the madrasa must have also been a marvel. His description invokes several masters of Islamic calligraphy, and in turn fashions Mandu as a cosmopolitan center: Persian workers, who are knights in the arena of art, decorated the sides of the lofty dome with tilework (kāshī kārī) inscription in thuluth and muḥaqqaq scripts of such Shihab Hakim's praise has implications for understanding the calligraphy shared by manuscripts and monuments. On its face, this is a conventional literary description of calligraphic practice. But it demonstrates an awareness of the prevailing benchmarks in calligraphic excellence that must have also played a role in the art of the book. Although the madrasa only survives in fragments today ( fig. 6), this description reflects achievements in Mandu's manuscript culture. 26 The madrasa formed a central part of an early fifteenth-century complex of buildings in Mandu that integrated a congregational mosque and the monumental tomb of Sultan Hushang Shah (r. 1406-35).27 As the Miftāḥ was a wholly original text written in Mandu, the Bam-i Bihisht madrasa would have been an ideal space for Shadiyabadi to study and compile his work. Just as Mandu's Hinḍolā Maḥal displays architectural connections to both north and south, the Bam-i Bihisht madrasa would have participated in intellectual dialogue with other centers from Delhi to the Deccan, and beyond. 28 Madrasas in neighboring cities include those of Chand-eri29 (Malwa) and Bidar (Deccan).

Lexicography
In contrast with detailed references to architectural commissions, the historical record is comparatively silent about the manuscripts of Mandu.30 Shadiyabadi's preface to the Miftāḥ is only three folios long and conveys few facts about the dictionary.31 He classifies the text as a farhangnāmah (lexicon) and states that he uti-lized Pahlavi, Dari, Turki, Hebrew, Greek, and Chaghatai dictionaries.32 He also cites the work of Persian poets such as Khaqani, Muʿizzi, Anvari, Nizami, Zahir, Safahani, and Saʿdi as inspirations.33 Extant copies of Shadiyabadi's commentaries on the oeuvre of Khaqani (d. Tabriz, 1186-99) attest to his close engagement with this poet's work. 34 Unlike other farhangs of its time, the Miftāḥ does not quote from poetry. It does, however, illustrate several poetic tropes and figures from the Shāhnāmah (Book of Kings) of Firdawsi and from the Khusraw and Shirin romance ( fig. 7).35 In addition to portraying poetic dramatis personae, the Miftāḥ gives form to words in Persian poetry that are often used in figurative contexts. For example, the moth (parvānah) that self-immolates in the flame of a candle, symbolizing the lover burning with desire for the beloved, is depicted simply as six fluttering multi-colored moths ( fig. 8).36 While Shadiyabadi's textual definition describes the moth's attraction to flames, it does not fully explain the allusion to the ubi quitous trope of the lover-beloved. Rather, it allows readers to apply their own literary acumen to deciphering the meaning attached to the moth. The teacher may have pointed to the parvānah and gūr and extemporaneously recited a poem containing those tropes.
Shadiyabadi's definition of gūr is another poetic example. He defines gūr as a wild ass, a sepulcher, and part of the name of Bahram-i Gur, the Sasanian king who features prominently in the Shāhnāmah ( fig. 9).37 The accompanying illustration shows a man sitting with arms upturned in front of a textile-covered cenotaph, and an onager in mid-gallop below. This is a literal depiction of two out of the three definitions in the text, if we do not take the seated figure to be Bahram-i Gur himself. The definition, ten words in total, does not explain that gūr is one of the most common words utilized in Classical Persian puns, particularly when it comes to the figure of Bahram-i Gur;38 rather, this is left for the new learner to apprehend from other sources.
The illustrated definitions of the gūr and parvānah would have struck immediate resonance with any fifteenth-century Persian poet, but Shadiyabadi's redaction of poetic quotations implies that this farhang served purposes other than helping poets choose words with appropriate end-vowels. The definitions of parvānah and gūr capture the Miftāḥ's playfulness, as both rely on the reader to fill in the gaps based on its combination of word and image. The concept of playfulness remains undertheorized within Islamicate contexts, but in the Miftāḥ, playfulness appears to correspond to a poetics of anticipation, similar to how the lover-beloved trope is anticipated from the image of fluttering butterflies. 39 We can thus envision an elder or tutor (atalīq) using the manuscript as a teaching device, where the images would render lessons easier to comprehend.
The active scholarly environment of Mandu suggests that its intelligentsia and the teachers and students of its madrasa had access to many books.40 One indicator of manuscript circulation and production in Mandu are the several sources named by Shadiyabadi in his preface that inscribe the Miftāḥ within an intellectual genealogy. Shadiyabadi lists the Three out of these seven works are known medieval Persian dictionaries written in India, two are unidentified, one is no longer extant, and one is of Khurasani provenance.
The first work Shadiyabadi cites, the Farhang-i Qavvās (or Fakhr-i Qavvās), was compiled by the poet Fakhr al-Din Mubarak Shah Qavvas Ghaznavi around 1300.45 Containing 1,341 entries, it is the first known Persian dictionary completed in India. This citation attests to Shadiyabadi's awareness of the farhang tradition in India that preceded his work by at least a century. In its organization, Farhang-i Qavvās follows the cosmographical tradition, with sections devoted to: (1) celestial creations; (2) earthly creations; (3) plants; (4) animals; and (5) manmade creations.46 The fifth section, on manmade creations (dar nām-i chīzhā kih az kār-i ādamī), is full of terminology related to architecture, decorative objects, food, clothing, textiles, and arms and armor. This section remains an unmined treasure trove for historians of medieval and early-modern Islamicate and Indian material culture.47 Apropos of the name of this journal, the Miftāḥ follows the Farhang-i Qavvās in defining the honeycomb vault or muqarnas.48 The date of the Farhang-i Qavvās (around 1300) is roughly a century after the emergence of the Persian and Arabic wonders-of-creation illustrated manuscript genre. We can understand this in one of two ways. It either implies a parallel impulse towards codifying these genres (cosmography and farhang). Or, it suggests that Qavvas may have been inspired directly by circulating cosmographies or ideas about the cosmic order.
The second Persian dictionary known to have been composed in India is also included in Shadiyabadi's list. This is the Dastūr al-Fażāʿil, which was written in Delhi by Hajib-i Khayrat Rafiʿ Dihlavi in 1342.49 In fact, the Farhang-i Qavvās served as the basis for the Dastūr al-Fażāʿil, showing how Shadiyabadi creates a chain of transmission (silsilah). Shadiyabadi's final source, the Lisān al-Shuʿarāʾ, is a Persian dictionary that was also composed in India by the author ʿAshiq between 1352 and 1388 during the time of Firuz Shah Tughluq.50 Absent from Shadiyabadi's list is the Farhang-i Zafāngūyā u Jahānpūyā (Dictionary of the Polyglot and World Traveler) completed in 1433 by Badr al-Din Ibrahim in Mandu itself.51 Another agent of inter-court relations, Badr al-Din left Jaunpur (located in modernday Uttar Pradesh, northern India) in 1409 or 1419 for the patronage of Dilavar Khan in Malwa.52 Although the Farhang-i Zafāngūyā was an authoritative example of lexicography (according to Solomon Baevskiĭ), it either did not impress Shadiyabadi enough to cite it in his preface, or he may have never consulted it.53 One possible reason for Shadiyabadi's omission of the Farhang-i Zafāngūyā is its philosophical difference from the Farhang-i Qavvās. While the Farhang-i Qavvās is organized according to God's creations, the seven parts of the Farhang-i Zafāngūyā are ordered etymologically; the first four parts are devoted to Arabic, Aramaic, Greek, and Turkish, and the last three parts are divided according to Persian simple words, complex words, and infinitives.54 The Farhang-i Zafāngūyā surely served as a practical dictionary for poets, whereas the Farhang-i Qavvās and the Miftāḥ concentrate on broader, cosmographic knowledge. This is not to say that poets did not think cosmographically when seeking words to fit their end-rhymes. It is entirely possible that poets searched for words based on their celestial or worldly meanings and could easily find the desired rhyming syllable within these themes. Nevertheless, the number of definitions Shadiyabadi lifts verbatim from the Farhang-i Qavvās shows his appreciation of the work. While the Farhang-i Zafāngūyā may have been avail-able to Shadiyabadi, he clearly preferred the farhang that spotlighted the wonders of God's creation, the Farhang-i Qavvās. And yet, for the makers of the Miftāḥ manuscript, their sources were not only textual. They were poetic images, several of which carried multiple allusive meanings.
Whether or not Shadiyabadi read Persian encyclopedias in Mandu itself is unknown. He could have traveled to the libraries in Jaunpur, Delhi, Bidar, or Gwalior to access these books. Shadiyabadi's name suggests that he was from Shadiyabad/Mandu or at least was descended from a lineage attached to the city. Considering that two extraordinary lexica, the Farhang-i Zafāngūyā u Jahānpūyā and the Miftāḥ, were produced in Malwa, it is safe to assume that Mandu's libraries were stocked with abundant intellectual resources.
In addition to the Farhang-i Zafāngūyā u Jahānpūyā, another noteworthy absence from Shadiyabadi's sources is any Hindavi source text. It is likely that Hindavi sources would have been filtered through other Persian dictionaries produced in India, supporting what Stefano Pellò has designated as the "provincialization of Persian" in fifteenth-century Persian lexicography.55 Indeed, Persian farhangs written in India negotiated the cosmopolitanism and vernacularization of Persian in India.
The Miftāḥ itself attests to the existence and knowledge of many other books in fifteenth-century Mandu. One book serves as an index of many more. In other words, the production of farhangs in Mandu suggests the presence of particular books that would have been read and written with the aid of these farhangs. Given the Miftāḥ's linguistic diversity, one can imagine that many scientific texts and works of belles-lettres in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Indic languages were composed in Mandu. The Miftāḥ would have allowed readers to enjoy a range of texts written in these languages, and to create new works using a rich vocabulary. The Miftāḥ is thus critical to reconstructing the contours of the manuscripts that may have circulated in fifteenth-century India. What is now just a few dispersed fragments can transform into a full-fledged library of the sultanate arts of the book by investigating the associations of each entry in this dictionary. Skelton's searing insight about the significance of the Miftāḥ's allusions thus acquires further power.

The Written Text
The calligraphers who inscribed the Miftāḥ must have been allowed some degree of agency in determining a suitable design for an illustrated farhang. As far as we know, this was a textual genre that had never before been copied with such resources. The ʿunvān (headpiece) of the Miftāḥ is executed in black and blue inks, with gold and silver, and its pattern is dominated by split palmettes ( fig. 10). Its ruling (inner to outer) consists of five lines of black, thick gold, black, black, and lapis. Organized alphabetically, the manuscript's chapter (bāb) headings are mostly inscribed in a thick gold naskh script, sometimes with black outlines. These are occasionally placed within a gold and black-ruled text box ( fig. 11). The end-letter (ḥarf) of the lemma further subdivides the bāb.56 The ḥarf headings are written in thick blue naskh script similar to the bābs ( fig. 12). Like a modern-day tab for a filing folder or binder, the corresponding letter of chapter headings helpfully appear in matching ink and script in the manuscript's outer margin.57 This is a practice that also occurs in Mandu's Niʿmatnāmah. For the ḥarf headings, the corresponding letter is placed in its adjacent marginal area like the bābs. Of the 394 total ḥarf headings,58 24 either lack complete text boxes or do not have them at all. The tabs in the margins are still legible in most cases. The logic and clarity of the Miftāḥ's paleography further emphasize its didactic purpose. The fact that its Hindavi words are sensitively rendered in nastaʿlīq with adjusted lettering allows readers to pronounce these words correctly. To my knowledge, such adjustments were not made for sounds unique to Chaghatai. Unlike the relatively close affiliation between the syllabaries of Arabic and Persian, Hindi and Sanskrit contain a number of sounds that are absent from Arabic and Persian. In the Miftāḥ, short vowels and diacritics (ḥarakāt) are only utilized for the lemmas in red and for the corresponding Hindavi word in black if it is given. In two definitions of toys, the scribe found solutions for several non-Perso-Arabic sounds. The presence of Hindavi equivalents in the definitions for hobbyhorse and spinning top is likely because such toys were part of the  13).59 Three dots are not utilized for these particular letters in Persian or Arabic scripts; rather, this is an adjustment used to signal a letter foreign to the script.
Another example of how the scribe made an adjustment in Persian for an Indic syllable-and likely heard its doubling-is the doubled retroflex syllable in the Hindavi word laṭṭū, which denotes a spinning top. This word appears in the Persian illustrated entry for farmūk, "top" (fig. 14).60 The scribe identified the doubled ṭa retroflex syllable by means of three dots below the Perso-Arabic tāʾ. The scribe found a creative analogue for the doubled syllable with the application of a shaddah over the letter. For the synonymous non-illustrated Persian word pahnah, which is also included in the lexicon, the three dots that had previously indicated a retroflex syllable in the word laṭṭū inexplicably do not appear.61 The inconsistency lies primarily in the number of dots. For the illustrated farmūk, Shadiyabadi specifies that laṭṭū (inscribed with three dots) is how the word is said (gūyand) in Hindavi, whereas for the non-illustrated pahnah, he states that laṭṭū (without dots) is how the people of Hind (ahl-i Hind) read or recite it (khvānand). This inconsistency suggests that the representation of Indic retroflex syllables in nastaʿlīq was not a standard scribal practice. That the Hindavi words are given any special attention at all further supports Karomat's argument that the Miftāḥ functioned as a Hindavi manual for Persian readers. In the absence of any text that clarifies Hindavi sounds for the Persian reader, a teacher may have had to explain to the new learner why the word laṭṭū was inscribed with three dots.
The inclusion of Hindavi words in the Miftāḥ represents a rare case of early Hindavi in nastaʿlīq. In particular, it differs from how the words are written in Mandu's Niʿmatnāmah and the genre of the Hindavi Chāndāyan. Since the Niʿmatnāmah is a book of recipes with instructions on how to prepare the sultan Nasir al-Din Shah's favorite dishes and other pleasures, its Persian is peppered with many colloquial Hindavi words such as those for local ingredients.62 In this case, the scribe deemed it worthwhile to apply diacritics and short vowels to all words in the text regardless of language. The Niʿmat nāmah is written in black naskh (red headings) with large swooping nūn ligatures and dramatically elongated kāf letters ( fig. 16).63 These kinds of nūns and kāfs are typical of the sultanate Bihārī script and its miniaturized form of naskhī-dīvānī, but this script overall is clearly closer to naskh. The presence of these features in the Niʿmatnāmah suggests the scribe's possible mastery of these other scripts. 64 In contrast to the Niʿmatnāmah, the sultanate manuscripts of the Hindavi Chāndāyan, which are sometimes written in a naskhī-dīvānī script, use ḥarakāt or diacritics sparingly.65 The notable ab-sence of ḥarakāt, even for the Hindavi words within the Persian headings of the Chāndāyan manuscripts, implies that readers would have inferred these vowels with little guidance. As the poetry of the Chāndāyan is in metered rhymed verse, short vowels in the naskhī-dīvānī would have been quite useful: their absence presumes a knowing reader, or a reading context of oral recitation. This variety of strategies for inscribing Hindavi words in Perso-Arabic scripts in the sultanate context suggests a diversity of audiences for this vernacular languagefrom the new learners of the Miftāḥ to the poetry connoisseurs (rasikas) enjoying the Chāndāyan.
An appraisal of the text's contents also reveals that it does not survive in its original form. Of the 22 total chapters in the Miftāḥ, the final two chapter headings for the letters hāʾ and yāʾ are missing. The first missing bāb heading is between folios 295b and 296a, and the second is between folios 301b and 302a. Between folios 295b and 296a, it is possible that the original text jumped from the final section of Ḥarf al-Hāʾ to Jīm-i Pārsī (The Persian jīm, or cha sound). If this is true, then there would be no losses between these two folios. However, in the second case, a lack of correspondence between the catchword on folio 301b (bi-vāv) and the first word of folio 302a (kunad) implies a loss of folios.
Textual evidence also suggests that the manuscript suffered losses. In his preface, Shadiyabadi states that "twenty-two chapters were arranged after [this lexicon] was composed and accepted" (va bīst u du bāb ittifāq uftād baʿd-i malḥūẓ u manẓūr shudan). 66 It is unclear whether this phrase refers to his text in general, or to Or 3299 as a manuscript. Although the later Tehran manuscript differs from the much earlier Miftāḥ in its ordering and language, it preserves several entries that would have been located on the missing folios of Bāb-i Jīm-i Pārsī. 67 In other words, there are clearly some missing folios in the British Library's Miftāḥ, but whether or not Shadiyabadi was present to witness these problems in two chapters of the manuscript remains an open question. The folios could have gone missing if the manuscript's quires of quaternions were ever unbound from its current leather binding. Because of the high ratio of illustrations to folios (179:306), the fact that some pages have been lost allows us to hypothesize that certain unknown illustrations are also missing from the manuscript.

Style of Illustrations
The Miftāḥ's illustrations closely relate to the Turkmen painting practice. 68 In the latter half of the fifteenth century, the main center of this style was the southwestern Iranian city of Shiraz. The spread of the Aq Qoyunlu Dynasty (White Sheep Turkmens) to areas in western Iran, eastern Anatolia, and Iraq led to the establishment of new sites for the mass production of Turkmen manuscripts.69 B. W. Robinson describes this style as follows: "the figures are stocky and child-like, and the background is either pale with small tufts or lush green with large masses of vegetation."70 The paintings of the Miftāḥ make clear that this style was practiced in India as well. Yet we will likely never know if the painters responsible for the Miftāḥ were trained in this style in In-dia, Iran, or elsewhere before the Miftāḥ was made in Mandu. 71 A comparison with Shirazi paintings in dated manuscripts brings the Miftāḥ's paintings into sharper focus. A close Shirazi counterpart to the Miftāḥ is a manuscript of ʿAttar's Manṭiq al-Ṭayr (Conference of the Birds) made in 1493.72 An opening illustration shows the mythical bird, the sīmurgh, supervising all of the other vibrantly feathered birds in a dense green thicket ( fig. 15). The artist rendered the shrubbery by painting thin strokes of a dense verdigris base and adding lighter, more dilute green and yellow highlights above. Circular gold flowers in clusters are placed above the greenery. This pattern of thicket is widely used in at least two of the known Mandu manuscripts, the Miftāḥ and the Niʿmatnāmah ( fig. 16). 73 The second element of the Miftāḥ that closely resembles a Shirazi painting practice is an arrangement of green plants against a pale blue ground. 74 The manuscript isolates these plants in its illustration of jullah, "plants / mushrooms" (fig. 17).75 This unique example suggests that artists may have had a specific plant in mind when painting the common decorative feature. A Shāhnāmah made in Shiraz one year after the Manṭiq al-Ṭayr in 1494 shows a similar plant: in the scene of Isfandiyar being interviewed before his father, the hill is painted in a pale blue ground with interspersed flowering plants ( fig. 18).76 This image uses the two main background elements of Turkmen paintings. The skies in these paintings are also often executed in gold with a semi-circular horizon line. 77 The connections between Shirazi and sultanate manuscript cultures transcend the features of this painting style. It is well established that over the course of the fifteenth century, that the arts of the book in sultanate India witnessed several archaisms. Éloïse Brac de la Perrière has demonstrated how one of the clearest inspirations was from fourteenth-century Injuid manuscripts from southern Iran. 78 The intertwined careers of Iranian intellectuals indicate the longstanding networks in which artists participated and in which books played a major role. For example, Jalal al-Din Davani, a fifteenth-century Shirazi intellectual, never migrated to India, but in 1468 he dedicated one of his works to the Bahmani governor Mahmud Gavan (d. 1481) of Bidar and gifted another text to the sultan Mahmud Begarh of Gujarat (r. 1458-1511).79 Considering the migration trends   of artists and intellectuals in tandem strengthens our knowledge of cultural flows during the fifteenth century. 80 It is probable that many artists from this period were like Jalal al-Din Davani: they may have maintained relations with patrons based in South Asia but never left their homes in Iran. In cases such as the Miftāḥ, it is best to think of Shirazi and sultanate manuscript cultures as part of the shared cosmopolitan Persian ecumene.81

THE FUNCTION OF THE MIFTĀḤ: AN ENTRY-LEVEL TExT FOR NEW STUDENTS
A close look at the Miftāḥ reveals the possible function of the manuscript as an entry-level text for teaching new or young students. If we had only the Tehran manuscript and not the British Library copy, it would be impossible to suggest this. However, the preponderance of illustrations in the Miftāḥ that depict learning or allude to play and upbringing allows us to think of it as a book for instructing new learners. The clear and well-spaced calligraphy coupled with the fact that lexica were, by their very nature, consultative books used to teach the mean-ings of new words inform my view that the manuscript was specifically intended for a young member of society or someone responsible for cultivating youth, such as a tutor.82 Although we lack a social history of early development or upbringing in the Indo-Islamicate world, I hope that the preliminary analysis below will serve as a gateway for further work on this important and neglected topic.83 Illustrations germane to a younger age group include images of figures playing with toys. The Miftāḥ contains two illustrated definitions of dolls, two yo-yos, one spinning top, a hobbyhorse, and a swing (figs. 13,14).84 While such pleasures are not necessarily exclusive to youth, the dolls are rather explicit examples. In the illustrated definition of bādajan ("dolls"), we see a young girl putting her three dolls to bed on a carpet ( fig. 19). The definition of lahfatān, a synonym for dolls, multiplies the illustration of the bādajan, showing two veiled girls putting their male and female dolls to bed on a carpet and pillow ( fig. 20). 85 We can imagine these illustrations being used to teach young learners the names of playthings. Adults can appreciate these illustrated definitions of toys as well, but their peculiar recurrences in the Miftāḥ raises the important question of the manuscript's intended audience.
In addition to the toys featured in the Miftāḥ, it is fruitful to pursue a close reading of one example of early didacticism depicted in the work and its resonances throughout the Miftāḥ. The primary entry of concern is that of the new student, or naw āmūz. Shadiyabadi provides the following definition: "The New Student: with two Persian letter vāvs; a youth (kūdakī) whose education begins at school; and a leopard or hunting bird that is fed with bāvūlī to learn hunting" (naw āmūz: bi-vāv-i duvvum-i bārsī; kūdakī kih ānrā āghāz dar dabistān andākhtah bāshand; va yūz va shikarah kih ānrā ibtidā bāvulī dihand). 86 Illustrations appear above and below this text ( fig. 21). Above, a herd of six young goats follows a leader through a thicket; and below, a class is underway. A teacher instructs from a gold pulpit and gazes towards his six students seated on the ground. 87 The new students read from their tablets and books. Within the painting, the students' text is none other than the definition in the manuscript itself, which makes the illustration a mise en abyme and characterizes the classroom as a suitable space for reading the Miftāḥ. The two students, one female and the other male, in front of the teacher may depict royal youth, as the male wears a small crown on his head.
Apart from this definition of the new student, one finds many other entries in the Miftāḥ that establish the parallelism between animal and human upbringing and development. From the animal kingdom, the reader encounters a range of dictionary entries defining infant animals that resonate with the young goats following their leader. The Miftāḥ provides two illustrated definitions of baby chicks, a tame ram used for children, and a foal.88 From the human world, the Miftāḥ illustrates several images pertaining specifically to children. It shows the gift given to a child after finishing the Qurʾan. 89 We might think of this as the reward children receive after they graduate from primary school. The Miftāḥ also devotes illustrated definitions to zād, "son," and the mixed language of a child, or kazhmazh ( fig. 22). 90 In the illustration of kazhmazh, an onomatopoetic word, a woman, probably the mother, speaks to her son, who is comparatively much smaller.
In concert with the full-page definition of the new student, the preponderance of definitions that empha-size upbringing and are deemed worthy of an accompanying illustration provides some evidence as to how the Miftāḥ was intended to teach. On its own, the illustrated definition of the new student offers a visual analogy that clarifies the meaning of the word naw āmūz. But when taken together with all the other images of animal and human education and development, the illustration of the naw āmūz appears to be no accident. Rather, it directly informs us that the Miftāḥ was intended as a tool for teachers to lead and instruct students in a sultanate society.

DIDACTIC IMAGES OF WONDERS AND CRAFTS
Scattered clues allow us to speculate that Shadiyabadi and the makers of the Miftāḥ had Islamicate cosmographies and wonder in mind when compiling this work. The clearest evidence for Shadiyabadi's interest in cosmography is his heavy reliance on the cosmographically ordered Farhang-i Qavvās. Moreover, the only other surviving manuscript linked with Shadiyabadi's authorship is the ʿAjāʾib al-Ṣanāʿī, a Persian adaptation of al-Jazari's twelfth-century book of wondrous automata. Shadiyabadi thus may have had a penchant for wonders-oriented literature. 91 The layout and organization of the Miftāḥ's manuscript also show significant overlaps with the cosmographical genre writ large. Both genres, the cosmography and farhang, are catalogue-like books used for consultation. Like the Islamicate cosmography, the Miftāḥ appears to be concerned with widespread tropes about the universe rather than discursive science.
While we can never truly know the intentions of Shadiyabadi or the Miftāḥ's artists, it is generative to analyze the manuscript through the lens of cosmographies and wonder. Here, I argue that the Miftāḥ conveys the aesthetics of ʿajab. Instead of serving as a cosmography, it teaches its readers how to grapple with the unstable reality of wonder through the enjoyment of acquiring new knowledge.92 I pursue this analysis by focusing primarily on the Miftāḥ's illustrations of crafts. I also take into account the transcultural context of sultanate India in my interpretation of their ʿajab. Before moving on to crafts, however, a few words on the cosmography are in order. Cosmographies, such as Ahmad-i Tusi's twelfth-century Persian text and Zakariyya ʾ al-Qazwini's (d. 1283) thirteenth-century work, begin with sections on cosmic creations and end with worldly phenomena. 93 The Miftāḥ does not follow a thematic order in this way, although it draws heavily on an earlier dictionary that does. In her study of medieval wonders-of-creation compendia, Persis Berlekamp has demonstrated how the images in these manuscripts codified tropes and fulfilled iconic, narrative, penumbral, and talismanic purposes.94 These categories are fairly self-evident. Iconic images call for the viewer's focused contemplation on wonders that may have been familiar tropes (figs. 2,17). Narrative images tell stories ( fig. 7). Penumbral visions refer to matters that cannot be fully envisioned or apprehended. Talismanic pictures are protective. The majority of the Miftāḥ's images are iconic or narrative. I have yet to dis-cover penumbral or talismanic images within the manuscript. Yet one feature that unifies all of these categories is their didacticism. The Miftāḥ's most Qazvini-esque images are of natural phenomena such as standalone animals and trees (figs. 2,17). The manuscript, however, peculiarly elides images of the celestial cosmos. Instead, these wonders are relegated to textual definitions alone.
Some of the Miftāḥ's illustrations of crafts also demonstrate that wonder was central to its function. The illustrated definition of a vessel in the form an animal, the takūk, is a primary example.95 Shadiyabadi defines takūk as "a vessel in the form of an animal" (ṣurāḥī bar ṣūrat-i jānvar).96 A word with etymological roots in old Persian (Pahlavi), the takūk first appeared as an entry in a fourteenth-century Persian lexicon from India as well in as a few earlier dictionaries.97 It is useful to return to the first known Persian dictionary composed in India around 1300, the Farhang-i Qavvās, where one also finds the word takūk in a section dedicated to pots, pans, and other vessels (āvandhā).98 In fact, Shadiyabadi quotes his definition of takūk from the Farhang-i Qavvās verbatim. Unlike the Miftāḥ, the Farhang-i Qavvās cites a verse from the Persian poet Rudaki (d. 941) to illustrate the usage of the word takūk. It reads, "the wine-drinker sips from the royal takūk; drink happily in the new spring" (may kashān andar takūk-i shāhvār / khūr bishādī rūzgār-i navbahār). Rudaki's verse implies the takūk's function as a drinking vessel. The later Tehran manuscript of the Miftāḥ clarifies: "A vessel of pottery or gold or an animal in porcelain, also made in the form of an ox or fish" (ṣurāḥī-yi sufālīn va yā zarrīn va yā bahīmīn bar chīnī va bi-ṣūrat-i gāv va māhī sāzand). 99 Modern dictionaries also corroborate that the word takūk denotes zoomorphic vessel. 100 The painting of the takūks in the Miftāḥ emphasizes that they are objects to behold and contemplate. It shows two goose-shaped objects seated in a green pasture ( fig. 23).101 The geese are painted dark brown, but their stylized wings and beaks are gold. Although the swelling bellies imply their hollowness as vessels, the river in the bottom left corner of the painting conjures an outdoor rather than indoor setting. The takūks' feet, also gold, are not the typical webbed feet of geese, but rather form a cylindrical base, which are common supports for freestanding objects.102 Next to the two vessels is a human figure with one arm on his chest and the other hand pointing to the geese in a gesture that conveys engagement or fascination with the objects. Adjacent to takūk in the Miftāḥ are definitions of birds, although none of these textual entries matches the depiction of birds in the takūk painting. The adjacent birdrelated lemmas include the pheasant (turtak), wagtail (Pers. tarandak, Hind. mammolā), and baby pheasant (tūrang).103 Also unlike other, more realistic paintings of birds in the Miftāḥ ( fig. 24),104 these illustrated geese command the gaze of a human who beholds the takūks' wonder.
The interpretation of these goose-shaped vessels as wondrous is the product of a transcultural materiality. On one hand, the work of A. S. Melikian-Chirvani and Melanie Gibson has accounted for the survival of several Persian takūks. 105 In fact, a blue and white glazed ceramic, bearing a possible attribution to Nishapur, is dated 897 (1491-92) ( fig. 25).106 This date is within a decade of when the Miftāḥ was likely produced. Similar to the painting of takūks in the Miftāḥ, this object has a footed base and a stylized wing. On the other hand, in the context of Mandu, the Miftāḥ's painted takūk also evokes the haṃsa (goose, gander), the Hindu lord Brahma's vehicle (vāhana), which served as a common emblem for the Hoysala (1026-1343) and Vijayanagara empires (1343-1565) of the Deccan (fig. 26). 107 Although countless examples survive in stone sculpture, the representation of the haṃsa in metalwork from the Deccan sultanates establishes connections  between the Miftāḥ's painting and a concurrent material phenomenon ( fig. 27).108 From monumental leogryphshaped cannons to small steel doorknockers, Deccan metal objects similar to this exemplary silvered-brass haṃsa aquamanile (ca. fifteenth-sixteenth century) now in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, blend Indic and Islamicate forms in a distinctively Islamicate method of metalworking.109 Although Shadiyabadi's chosen word, takūk, stems from old Persian and lacks an Indic etymology, it is nevertheless possible that takūk forms adopted local animal typologies depending on context. Like the Miftāḥ's painting of takūk, the Boston ewer has an elongated neck with a stylized wing ( fig. 27). The painting also appears to depict a metal object, like the Boston ewer and quite unlike the Nishapur vessel. However, the Boston ewer features additional details: a crocodile-headed spout at the front and a flared handle. Three bands divide the ewer's neck, accentuating its length. These decorative features may have been added at a later point, given that there are layers of brass repairs on the object. Its two separate holes, one for pouring in, and the other for decanting water, show that it was meant to hold liquid. 110 In spite of their visual differences from the illustrated takūk, the existence of objects such as the Nishapur and Boston ewers supports the idea that the Miftāḥ and the earlier Farhang-i Qavvās were depicting a real, observed world, and not one that was purely fictional. The illustrated definition of the takūk merges the animal qualities of a manmade craft with its status as a marvelous object. The existence of both the Nishapuri and Boston takūks suggests that this illustrated definition may have addressed audiences from multiple cultural orientations. The reader of the Miftāḥ beholds the takūks' wonder just as the figure in the illustration does ( fig. 23). In this illustration, the takūks are liminal objects. Although they are set within a natural environment, they have one clear trait, their cylindrical base, that uncovers their status as a manmade craft. The liminality of the takūk-its ability to evoke the natural and be manmade-would have added to its wonder.111 Whether channeling water as an ewer, exhaling smoke as an incense burner, or firing a cannon ball as artillery, animal vessels like the takūk could come to life, purify water, and ward off evil.
A web of interrelated texts, images, and definitions within the Miftāḥ also led readers to comprehend   (fig. 28).112 This is one example of an illustration that is illuminated by other images in the Miftāḥ. For the chapdār Shadiyabadi provides a rather terse definition: "feet-coverings that are also called jurmūq."113 Both chapdār and jurmūq are absent from the Farhang-i Qavvās, despite the fact that they would have naturally fit the sub-chapter on clothing.114 The illustration shows a bearded male in a luxurious blue robe with gold-thread embroidery whose his right hand is pointing directly at the stockings. Under a golden sky, he sits on the ground between a tree and a river as if encountering the stockings in a natural environment. This depiction of encountering a craft in nature aligns with the illustration of the takūk. The two stockings that illustrate chapdār are exquisite. With a point at their tip and a tooth at their rear, the curved outlines of these shoes are calligraphic. Within the stocking, there are swirls of gold illumination with highlights of green, yellow, and dark pink, recalling bookbinding decorations. None of the fanciness of these chapdār is specified in the definition. Here, the artist took the liberty of depicting the fabulously designed surface of clothing that inspires wonder. The way in which the Miftāḥ defines other kinds of shoes informs our understanding of the chapdār as well (fig. 29). The golden shoes, or zarīnah kafsh, are defined as a kind of royal shoe made of gold and brocade, and with the exception of the pādshāh (king), no one else wears them. 115 The painting illustrates a ruler seated on a golden throne extending his foot as a servant hands him a pair of pointed golden shoes. The dense gold of the ruler's throne lends the whole scene a sumptuous tone. Unlike the chapdār, these foot-coverings are simply rendered in gold with darkened points.116 In contrast to the chapdār, which are observed within nature, the golden shoes are featured within the pageantry of a court. Other shoe-related words are not depicted in the Miftāḥ at all. The khārkafsh, or boot covering, is defined as "a foot-covering that the Arabs call a jurmūq."117 The lack of illustration for this word may in turn highlight the outstanding visual qualities of the chapdār.
The path to interpreting these stockings as wonderinducing is not straightforward. It is not merely one, but several other images in the Miftāḥ that guide the reader towards construing the illustrated chapdār as represent-ing more than high-quality design. A close reading of these other definitions gives us greater insight into this single entry. In what follows, I propose that one way of interpreting the chapdār is through their Abū qalamūn quality-that is, their multicolor, unstable surface and ability to change color. By reading several medieval sources, including Nasir-i Khusraw's eleventh-century Safarnāmah (Book of Travels) and Ibn Manzur's thirteenth-century Lisān al-ʿArab (The Tongue of Arabs), Matthew Saba arrives at a definition of būqalamūn or Abū qalamūn that encompasses two distinct meanings. The first is that of a multi-colored textile or silk cloth, the colors of which transform as they move; and the second is a bird that can change color.118 He also demonstrates the importance of Nasir-i Khusraw's definition of būqalamūn as a type of pottery with an iridescent sheen.119 This wonder-inducing quality of visual instability is perceivable in the illustration of chapdār.
The readers of the Miftāḥ likely had knowledge of the two meanings of Abū qalamūn. For instance, the Persian poet Saʿdi (d. 1291), whose works were widely read in India, used būqalamūn to mean iridescent.120 Qavvas includes this word his dictionary and states that "it is a Rumi (Anatolian) cloak of [seven] colors" (jāmah īst rūmī, [haft] rang).121 The first Mughal Emperor Babur (r. 1526-30) describes his encounter with a colorful bird known as būqalamūn.122 Muhammad al-Mufti al-Balkhi's Majmaʿ al-gharāʾib (Collection of Oddities), commissioned in 1555 and presented to Pir Muhammad Khan of Balkh, which was copied and illustrated multiple times in seventeenth-century India, opens with a quatrain that describes the world as būqalamūn, or everchanging.123 By the eighteenth century, the South Asian philologist Azad Bilgrami even innovated a poetic device that he classified as Abū qalamūn. Writing in Arabic, he defines this device as follows, "It is language that is like a woolen cloak saturated with colors. Such vibrancy is called 'Abū qalamūn' and it is marked by a shared word between two or more languages."124 Azad indicates that Amir Khusraw (d. 1325) specialized in a version of Abū qalamūn in which "the speaker uses Arabic, but the essence (qalb) of his speech is Persian, or the speaker uses Persian, but the essence of his speech is Arabic."125 The fact that Abū qalamūn was utilized to denote a shapeshifting multilingual punning device indicates a strong association between būqalamūn and the qualities of polyvalence and instability.
With regard to the ornithological meaning of būqalamūn, the dictionary illustrates the shavālak, or bustard, as a multicolored bird ( fig. 24).126 Shadiyabadi defines the shavālak as "a bird, that is red, and it is said that it is a bird that always changes color. The Arabs call it būburāqsh" (parandah īst, surkh, va gūyand murghī ast kih har zamān rang bigardānad va ʿarab ānrā būburāqsh gūyand). 127 Modern dictionaries state that būburāqsh is synonymous with būqalamūn. 128 The illustration shows the multicolored bird alone in a thicket; its wings are red and gold, its long plume is blue, and its head is pink. Shadiyabadi's definition of shavālak thus would make the reader aware of this bird's fabulous qualities. 129 With regard to the textile-related definition of būqalamūn, a number of illustrations in the Miftāḥ pre-pare a student to be enchanted by the surface of the chapdār. The Miftāḥ features at least seven illustrations related to the process of producing cotton and silk textiles. These include the wooden instrument used for separating cotton from its pod, the bow used by a cotton dresser, a cage spool, the reed used by weavers (syphon), the foot treadle ( fig. 11), and the dyer.130 Specific plants used for textiles are illustrated as well. 131 The audience of the Miftāḥ would thus be equipped with the tools needed to fathom the distinct stages of textile production, and to appreciate when textiles were made as būqalamūn. It is also worth bearing in mind that fifteenth-century Malwa was the site of much cotton harvesting and weaving, which suggests a practical application for such knowledge. 132 The world of fifteenth-and sixteenth-century Indian textiles was a markedly transcultural one, and none of the cotton farmers and weavers were high-class Muslims. The Miftāḥ nevertheless depicts articles of clothing commonly worn by figures beyond the court. For example, Shadiyabadi defines the Turkic word chūkhā as a robe worn by yogis ( fig. 30). 133 The illustration shows a stumpy barefooted figure whose face and headgear have been smudged. The yogi wears a long pale blue robe with a red collar. His right sleeve is lengthened, a common sartorial signifier of a Sufi. Thus, the reader becomes aware of the valences of Indo-Islamicate cultures of dress. While obtaining expertise in textiles and dress, the reader would also become immersed in their transculturation. One can imagine that the readers of the Miftāḥ may have needed such language to communicate their sartorial needs or desires to artisans, or to incorporate these experiences into their poetry.
The visual knowledge of these ornithological and textile definitions read in tandem with the circulating literary allusions to būqalamūn would have facilitated a sophisticated and informed interpretation of the illustrated definition of chapdār. With all of these associations, a well-taught student would be more sensitive to the wonderfully designed surface of this apparel.
The illustrations of the takūk and chapdār as crafts set in a natural landscape beheld by a viewer emphasizes wonder as a key theme within the Miftāḥ's illustrations. One function of the Miftāḥ was clearly to inspire a state of wonder (taʿjjub) and contemplation of new words. These illustrations of crafts, in addition to the more obvious wonders-of-creation illustrations and the other evidence outlined above, suggest that Shadiyabadi and the makers of the Miftāḥ had cosmographies and wonder in mind when conceiving the Miftāḥ.
A FINAL ExAMPLE: WONDER FOR A YOUTH I close this article with one final illustrated definition that conflates a youth (bachah, kūdak) and wonder. Shadiyabadi defines the dīv-kulūch as "a human child who is changed (possessed) by the demon" (bachah-i mardum kih dīv badal kardah bāshad). 134 Steingass defines dīv-kulūch as "an epileptic boy."135 In the Miftāḥ's illustration, a young boy extends his hand as if speaking and sits across a river from a larger figure, a bare-chested and horned demon. The painting occupies the entire width of the page, indicating that the calligrapher or painter regarded the image as significant enough to be allocated this amount of space ( fig. 31). A similar scene occurs in the definition for kakh-jhandah ( fig. 32), a synonym of dīv. 136 Here, the young boy's hand points away from the other figure-a large, dark, horned demon who appears to be speaking. Again, the painting fills the entire width of the page, and the meta-didactic image of the bookstand (kīrakh) appears in the illustration below. Here, the dark dīv extends his left arm as if teaching: the student receives knowledge from this otherworldly creature.
These two illustrations suggest that dīvs, in spite of their supposed fearfulness, may have served as companions for children. The similarity of the boy's clothing in both illustrations-a mustard-colored robe and blue hat-may indicate that he is a stock figure of a student. Whereas the definition of dīv-kulūch concerns children specifically and thus a child is naturally expected to appear in the illustration, in the case of kakh-jhandah the textual definition does not require the depiction of the child.137 Since monsters such as dīvs were stock characters in Firdawsi's Shāhnāmah, their inclusion here was likely intended to aid a new student's reading of this text. To my knowledge, however, the dīv-kulūch and the kakh-jhandah are not figures that appear in the Shāhnāmah. As an otherworldly beast, the dīv-kulūch would most likely strike fear into the heart of a child. In fact, the dīv-kulūch's text suggests that the youth is crazed, wonderstruck, and perhaps even driven into an epileptic seizure by the dīv. However, the illustration does not depict this. It shows a seemingly friendly interaction between the dīv and boy. The dīv in this case may even serve as a companion for the youth. These two nearly identical images of dīvs and children would thus be points of entry for the viewer, perhaps a youth, or someone reading to a child, into the world of wonder.
CONCLUSION Through a study of British Library Or 3299, we have seen that the Miftāḥ employs wonder to educate new students. Images, and not only texts, transmitted knowledge. The form and function of the Miftāḥ also lead us to reflect on what it meant to shape this entirely new genre of manuscript in sultanate India. We may describe a number of books as a vade mecum (Latin: "go with me"), but they adhere to the category of handbook or manual in different ways. Cosmographies can capture a tropology for a given book culture, not necessarily in terms of text, but frequently in painting. Albums (muraqqaʿs)-collections of various paintings, calligraphies, etc. that became popular in the fifteenth century-may represent a particular artistic worldview and can be taken as a guide to comprehending the concerns of a cultural habitus.138 Anthologies, by their nature, also aggregate and canonize materials for a given milieu. They can thus be taken as a guide to gaining a clearer understanding of the main concerns of an artistic or intellectual context. It is for this reason that David Roxburgh once called the anthologies of Iskandar Sultan (d. 1415) prime examples of the vade mecum.139 As its title suggests, the Miftāḥ is indeed a key for the learned. In terms of styles and provenance of its contents, it does not contain the same diversity as albums or anthologies, which can provide a clearer view of how distinct artistic practices may have been valued at a particular historical moment. But this article demonstrates how the Miftāḥ guides us through the little-understood dynamism of the sultanate visual world. Like the cosmography, the Miftāḥ codifies tropes. Like the album or anthology, there appears to have been a considerable amount of collecting and curating agency involved in the creation of the Miftāḥ. Whereas in the album this agency belonged to a book artisan selecting various paintings or calligraphies, or to an intellectual choosing verses from both the past and present to anthologize, in the Miftāḥ the agency may be assigned to the artists or intellectuals at the moment of conception and making. This individual had to choose which entries required paintings and which did not, and how the idea of a particular word could best be captured and codified in a single image as a trope.
In light of its implications for medieval and early modern material culture, the Miftāḥ must now join the shelves of other select texts that historians of Islamic and South Asian art keep within close reach. The manuscript's illustrated and non-illustrated definitions shed light on dozens of material artifacts, particularly from the sixteenth-century Deccan sultanates. I believe that this is no accident. Because of its central location, Mandu's material culture was a fulcrum for other contemporary and later courts. While it may have only flourished for roughly a century, it likely established certain models of material culture that crystallized later.
In the final analysis, this article calls attention to the significance of combining art historical with philological study in establishing word-image relationships and assigning names and meanings to premodern images and objects. The illustrated definitions must be understood as a close synthesis of text and image: one did not follow from the other. Images are recognizable as definitions that fulfill a clear didactic purpose. The artists of this manuscript were likely rather sophisticated or had an intellectual guide to help them plan the illustrations. Shadiyabadi might have even supervised the making of the manuscript. Shadiyabadi and the artists of the Miftāḥ innovated a manual for their times. As Skelton reminded me, the Miftāḥ contains traces of the many more now-lost sultanate manuscripts. Although fifteenthcentury Mandu may seem to be a faraway imagined place, reactivating the Miftāḥ affords us the immediate pleasure of becoming new students ourselves.