On the first day of the Maharashtrian new year, I offer you Shah Jahan's spectacular Shamsa. The shamsa, or sun, was an auspicious way to begin a Mughal manuscript. The sun was an important metaphor in use at the court and resonated as a symbol of power and divine kingship across the subcontinent.

The Shamsa from the beginning is dazzling, with the profuse use of gold in the rosette and on the folio. Artists have created a sense of three-dimensionality with the clever working of scalloped arches, which mimic the spreading rays of the sun (or petals of a rose), and colours. Lapis, blue, yellow, and red are used with great skill and intricately to create a radiating pattern. Real and fantastic birds are drawn to the shamsa, placing the rosette, and its patron at the centre of several realms.

Like this colourful shamsa, may our year be full of beauty and magnificence.