Emperor Jahangir and Shah Abbas literally bestride the world like colossi

WATCHING THE RECENT SPECTACLE OF THOSE latter-day emperors President Xi of China and India's Narendra Modi hugging each other at the summit in Tianjin, my mind cast back to an earlier image of a pan-Asian summit.

- Michael Wood

There’s a wonderful painting from 1618 of the Mughal emperor Jahangir embracing Shah Abbas of Iran one of several such pictures painted for the Indian ruler. These heads of two superpowers were in fact not bosom buddies but intense geopolitical rivals, especially in the Kandahar region of southwest Afghani- stan, then under Mughal control. Framed by a huge golden halo, in an image of peace, one stands on a lamb, the other on a lion, both on a globe whose surface extends from the strait of Gibraltar to the South China Sea: they literally be- stride the world like colossi. In the foreground of the map, a product of the new science of cartography, are shown north Africa, India and southeast Asia, with the Nile, the Ganges and the Yangtze accurately depicted. The painting is allegorical; the hoped-for meeting never actually took place. But the timing, and the details, have much to tell us.