KASHI or KASI, formerly the Persian word for all glazed and enamelled pottery irrespectively; now the accepted term for certain kinds of enamelled tile-work, including brick-work and tile-mosaic work, manufactured in Persia and part? of Moham medan India, chiefly during the 16th and I 7th centuries.
Undoubtedly originating in the Semitic word for glass, kas, it is quite possible that the name kashi is immediately derived from Kashan, a town in Persia noted for its faience. This ancient pot tery site, in turn, probably receives its name from the old-time industry ; as a "city of the plain" it would obviously have no claim to the farther-eastern suffix span, meaning a mountain.
Kashi work consisted of two kinds: (a) Enamel-faced tiles and bricks of strongly fired red earthenware, or terra-cotta; (b) enamel-faced tiles and tesserae of lightly fired "lime-mortar," or sandstone. Tile-mosaic work is described by some authorities as the true kashi. From examination of figured tile-mosaic patterns, it would appear that, in some instances, the shaped tesserae had been cut out of enamelled slabs or tiles after firing; in other ex amples to have been cut into shape before receiving their facing of coloured enamel. Conventional representations of foliage, flowers, fruit, intricate geometrical figures, interlacing arabesques and decorative calligraphy—inscriptions in Arabic and Per sian—constitute the ordinary kashi designs. The colours chiefly used were cobalt blue, copper blue (turquoise colour), lead-anti moniate yellow (mustard colour), manganese purple, iron brown and tin white. A colour-scheme, popular with Mogul and contem
porary Persian kashigars, was the design, in cobalt blue and copper blue, reserved on a ground of deep mustard yellow.
In India the finest examples of kashi work are in the Punjab and Sind provinces. At Lahore, amongst many beautiful struc tures, the most notable are the mosque of Wazir Khan (A.D. 1634) and the gateways of three famous pleasure gardens, the Shalamar Bagh (A.D. 1637), the Gulabi Bagh (A.D. 1640), and the Charburji (c. A.D. 1665). At Tatta the Jami Masjid, built by Shah Jahan (c. A.D. 1645), is a splendid illustration; whilst in that "vast cemetery of six square miles" on the adjacent Malki plateau are numerous Mohammedan tombs (A.D. 1570-164o) with extraordi nary kashi ornamentation. Delhi, Multan, Jullundur, Shandara, Lahore cantonment, Agra and Hyderabad (Sind), all possess ex cellent monuments of the best period, viz., those erected during the reigns of Akbar and Jahangir (A.D. 1556-1628).
In Persia at Isfahan, Kashan, Meshed and Kerman are a few buildings and ruins showing the old kashi work; the palace of Chehel Sitim in Isfahan, built during the reign of Shah Abbas I. (c. A.D. 1600), is a magnificent specimen of this art.
Occasional revivals of the manufacture have taken place both in India and Persia. Mohammed Sharif, a potter of Jullundur in the Punjab, reproduced the Mogul enamelled tile-work in 1885, and there is a manuscript record of a certain Ustad Ali Mahom med, of Isfahan, who revived the Persian processes in 1887.