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India / Iran / Pakistan: Sassanid Prince Bahram Gur in the Sandalwood Pavilion. Lahore, late 16th century

Bahram V (Persian: بهرام‎) was the fourteenth Sassanid King of Persia (421–438). Also called Bahram Gur or Bahramgur (Persian: بهرام گور‎), he was a son of Yazdegerd I (399–421), after whose sudden death (or assassination) he gained the crown against the opposition of the grandees by the help of Mundhir, the Arab dynast of al-Hirah.

The poem was illustrated in a manuscript probably produced in Lahore in the late sixteenth which is associated with the patronage of Akbar (r. 1556-1605).

Sandalwood is the name of a class of fragrant woods from trees in the genus Santalum. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and unlike many other aromatic woods they retain their fragrance for decades. As well as using the harvested and cut wood in-situ, essential oils are also extracted from the woods for use. Both the wood and the oil produce a distinctive fragrance that has been highly valued for centuries.