UKPSC Prelims 2025 Q60: Who were the famous painters at Jahangir’s court? 1.

Q: What is the answer to UKPSC Prelims 2025 Q60?

B. Correct — B, **Only 2, 3, 4**. The three names the key keeps — Manohar, Bishun Das and Mansur — are the painters whose reputations were made in Jahangir's studio. Manohar, who signed as Basawan's son, worked for Jahangir on portraits and court scenes. Bishun Das, usually written Bishandas, travelled with Jahangir's embassy to Iran and brought back a likeness of the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas taken from life. Mansur, given the title Nadir-ul-Asr, painted the birds, beasts and flowers Jahangir wanted recorded. Item 1 is what decides the question. **Basawan is an Akbar-atelier name** — Abul Fazl's Ain-i-Akbari places him among the leading painters of Akbar's establishment — so an option that keeps him cannot be a list of Jahangir's court, and that single test separates B from a, c and d.

UKPSC Prelims 2025 General Studies Paper-I · Question 60 of 149

Verified against the official question booklet. Answer as per UKPSC's provisional answer key.

Answers from UKPSC's provisional answer key. The Commission publishes a provisional key for UKPSC Prelims 2025 and invites objections before issuing a final key. Every answer shown here is the Commission's own provisional answer (key PDF), not our derivation. If the final key changes an answer, this page is updated to match.

Who were the famous painters at Jahangir’s court? 1. Basawan 2. Manohar 3. Bishun Das 4. Mansur

(a)Only 1, 2, 4
(b)Only 2, 3, 4
(c)Only 1, 3, 4
(d)All 1, 2, 3 and 4

Answer

Why

Correct — B, Only 2, 3, 4.

The three names the key keeps — Manohar, Bishun Das and Mansur — are the painters whose reputations were made in Jahangir's studio. Manohar, who signed as Basawan's son, worked for Jahangir on portraits and court scenes.

Bishun Das, usually written Bishandas, travelled with Jahangir's embassy to Iran and brought back a likeness of the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas taken from life. Mansur, given the title Nadir-ul-Asr, painted the birds, beasts and flowers Jahangir wanted recorded.

Item 1 is what decides the question. Basawan is an Akbar-atelier name — Abul Fazl's Ain-i-Akbari places him among the leading painters of Akbar's establishment — so an option that keeps him cannot be a list of Jahangir's court, and that single test separates B from a, c and d.

Why the others are wrong

(a)
Only 1, 2, 4 — This option goes wrong twice: it admits Basawan, who belongs to Akbar's reign, and it drops Bishun Das, who belongs to Jahangir's.
Bishandas is the man Jahangir's memoirs single out for taking likenesses, and he is the answer to who took Shah Abbas's portrait from life in Iran for Jahangir. A Jahangir roster without him is short a name.
(c)
Only 1, 3, 4 — This keeps the father and drops the son, which is the reverse of the true position. Manohar is the one who made portraits and durbar scenes for Jahangir; his father Basawan is the one whose fame rests on the previous reign.
Basawan is the name to give when a stem asks about Akbar's painting atelier, where the Ain-i-Akbari ranks him with the masters.
(d)
All 1, 2, 3 and 4 — Nothing in the list is invented — the four are Mughal painters — so the sweep fails only on the reign the stem specifies. Basawan's career and reputation sit in Akbar's studio.
Lower the precision of the stem by one step, to which of these were painters of the Mughal atelier, and 'all four' becomes right. The stem names Jahangir's court, so Basawan drops out.

Concept

Mughal painting is organised by imperial atelier, and each emperor's karkhana has a recognisable roster and a recognisable taste.

Akbar's studio is remembered for big illustrated manuscripts worked by large teams — the Hamzanama, the Razmnama, the Akbarnama — with Daswanth and Basawan among the names Abul Fazl records.

Jahangir's studio turns towards the single page: portraits, natural-history studies and album folios by named masters such as Abu'l Hasan, Mansur, Bishandas and Manohar.

So placing a painter means placing the reign whose taste his work serves.

This sits in the art-and-culture part of general studies, where the Mughal school is the hinge between its Persian Safavid antecedents and the later Rajput and Pahari schools.

Jahangir's own memoirs, the Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, are a primary source here: they record the emperor's interest in birds, animals and flowers, and the painters he set to record them.

Because several careers run across two reigns, the useful skill is attributing a painter to the court his work is identified with.

Key facts

Abul Fazl's Ain-i-Akbari names Basawan among the leading painters of Akbar's imperial atelier, praising his backgrounds, colouring and drawing of features.
Manohar was Basawan's son and signed his work as such; he painted portraits and court scenes for Jahangir.
Jahangir sent Bishandas with his embassy to Iran to take the likeness of the Safavid ruler Shah Abbas.
Jahangir's memoirs praise Bishandas for his skill in taking likenesses.
Jahangir conferred the title Nadir-ul-Asr on Ustad Mansur and the title Nadir-uz-Zaman on the painter Abu'l Hasan.
Mansur's subjects for Jahangir included the turkey-cock brought from Goa and flowers the emperor saw in Kashmir.
Akbar's atelier produced the large illustrated manuscripts — Hamzanama, Razmnama, Akbarnama — worked by teams of painters.
Jahangir's taste ran more to single-page portraits, natural-history studies and album (muraqqa) folios than to long narrative manuscripts.
The allegorical painting of Jahangir embracing Shah Abbas is generally attributed to Abu'l Hasan.

Which reign each of the four names belongs to

1. Basawan→Akbar's atelier — praised in the Ain-i-Akbari

2. Manohar→Jahangir's court — Basawan's son, portraits

3. Bishun Das (Bishandas)→Jahangir's court — Shah Abbas likeness, taken in Iran

4. Mansur→Jahangir's court — birds, beasts, flowers; Nadir-ul-Asr

Manohar, Bishun Das and Mansur are the Jahangir names; Basawan, highlighted, is the Akbar name, and he is the item that settles the option.

Study next

Akbar's atelier — Daswanth, Basawan, Mir Sayyid Ali, Abd as-Samad, and the Hamzanama, Razmnama and Akbarnama projectsJahangir's atelier — Abu'l Hasan, Ustad Mansur, Bishandas, Manohar, Aqa Riza, Govardhan, and the album folioTuzuk-i-Jahangiri as a source on painting and natural historyEuropean influence on Mughal painting — Jesuit prints, the halo, modelling and perspectivePainting under Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, and the movement of artists to Rajput and Pahari courtsPersian antecedents of the Mughal school — Bihzad and the Safavid workshops

Common traps

Item 1 is the whole question: Basawan appears in options a, c and d, so checking only that Mansur and Bishandas are Jahangir's men still leaves three options alive.
Father and son split the reigns — Basawan is Akbar's painter, Manohar is his son and Jahangir's. Treating 'Manohar' as a variant of the father loses the mark.
Two Shah Abbas pictures: Bishandas took the Safavid ruler's likeness from life in Iran, while the allegory of Jahangir embracing Shah Abbas is generally attributed to Abu'l Hasan.
The two Jahangiri titles are easy to swap — Nadir-ul-Asr is Mansur's, Nadir-uz-Zaman is Abu'l Hasan's.
Careers straddle reigns, so the safe reading of such a stem is the court each painter's reputation is identified with, not a stray folio dated on either side of 1605.

The idea comes up as reign-attribution. That can be a pair-matching set (painter : emperor), a 'which of the following served at X's court' list like this one, or a single-attribution item about one famous picture — the turkey-cock from Goa for Mansur, the Shah Abbas likeness for Bishandas.

A second route is through Jahangir's titles, Nadir-ul-Asr and Nadir-uz-Zaman, which tie a painter to the emperor who conferred them.

A third is through the manuscript: naming the Hamzanama, Razmnama or Akbarnama in the stem points to Akbar's studio rather than Jahangir's.

Related PYQs

HPSC_2023_PRE_GSII_Q582023

The same painter-to-emperor mapping, and it puts the very names this stem turns on into pairs — Basawan against Akbar and Daswant against Jahangir. What differs is the form and the work: that item asks how many of three pairs match, so it tests one reign attribution per pair, while ours asks which of four names sat in a single court.

HPSC_2021_MAINS_GSI_Q42021

Draws on the same cast — Basawan in one option, Manohar and Bishun Das in another — and on the same Akbar-to-Jahangir studio history. It differs in what it wants: the leadership of one manuscript project, the Hamzanama under Akbar, rather than membership of an emperor's atelier.

CDS_GK_2020_I_Q592020

Shares Bishandas and the Jahangir–Shah Abbas connection that makes him a Jahangir-court name. It differs in level: it asks who painted one specific allegorical picture of the two rulers embracing, whereas Bishandas's own documented Safavid work is the life likeness he took in Iran.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Jahangir conferred the title 'Nadir-ul-Asr' on which one of the following painters?
- (a)Abu'l Hasan
- (b)Ustad Mansur
- (c)Bishandas
- (d)Manohar
Answerb — Nadir-ul-Asr, 'Wonder of the Age', is the title recorded for Ustad Mansur, the painter of Jahangir's birds, beasts and flowers.
(a) swaps the pair: Abu'l Hasan's title from Jahangir is Nadir-uz-Zaman. (c) Bishandas is remembered for the likeness of Shah Abbas he took in Iran, and (d) Manohar for portraits and court scenes as Basawan's son.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which painter did Jahangir send with his embassy to Iran to take the likeness of Shah Abbas?
- (a)Abd as-Samad
- (b)Bishandas
- (c)Daswanth
- (d)Govardhan
Answerb — Bishandas travelled to the Safavid court with Jahangir's embassy and returned with the portrait; Jahangir's memoirs praise his skill at likenesses.
(a) Abd as-Samad came the other way, from Iran into Mughal service in Humayun's time. (c) Daswanth belongs to Akbar's atelier, a generation earlier. (d) Govardhan worked in the Mughal studio, but the Persian mission is Bishandas's.
practice — not a real PYQ
Basawan, praised in the Ain-i-Akbari for his backgrounds, colouring and drawing of features, worked in the atelier of which Mughal emperor?
- (a)Humayun
- (b)Akbar
- (c)Jahangir
- (d)Shah Jahan
Answerb — the Ain-i-Akbari is Abul Fazl's account of Akbar's administration and establishments, and it lists Basawan among the leading painters of Akbar's studio.
(a) Humayun's painters were Mir Sayyid Ali and Abd as-Samad, brought from Iran. (c) Jahangir's court is where Basawan's son Manohar rose. (d) Shah Jahan's atelier is a later generation again.
practice — not a real PYQ
Which one of the following pairs is correctly matched?
- (a)Ustad Mansur : natural-history studies for Jahangir
- (b)Daswanth : chief portraitist of Jahangir's court
- (c)Bishandas : illustrator of Akbar's Hamzanama
- (d)Manohar : son of Abd as-Samad
Answera — Mansur is the painter of Jahangir's birds, animals and flowers, including the turkey-cock brought from Goa, and Jahangir titled him Nadir-ul-Asr.
(b) Daswanth is an Akbar-atelier painter, not Jahangir's. (c) Bishandas is identified with Jahangir's court and the Shah Abbas likeness, while the Hamzanama is an Akbar-period project. (d) Manohar signed as the son of Basawan.