( fl 1580s–c. 1609). Indian miniature painter. Although he was not included in Abu’l Fazl’s list of 17 leading painters of the workshop of the Mughal emperor Akbar (reg 1556–1605), starting as a colourist in the 1580s he matured into a top-class painter, producing many superb miniatures in the last decade of the 16th century. He worked as a colourist to Kesav Das in a miniature of the Harivamsa volume of the Razmnama (‘Book of wars’; c. 1586; Jaipur, Maharaja Sawai Man Singh II Mus.). In the companion volume of the Ramayana (1589), also in Jaipur, he assisted Basawan in two miniatures and Lal in one. The painting illustrating the abduction of Sita in the Ramayana composed by Basawan and completed by Dharm Das is one of the finest of this period. Basawan took him as assistant for Nizami’s Khamsa (Pontresina, Kier priv. col.), the Akbarnama (London, V&A) and the dispersed copy of the Babarnama believed to be the imperial copy. In the first he was associated with Farrukh Beg and in the second with Kesav Das. He was given the charge of illustrating as many as seven miniatures for the Darabnama (‘Story of Darab’; London, BL) and the Timurnama (‘History of Timur’; Bankipur, Patna, Khuda Bakhsh Lib.) completed in the same decade.