New Delhi, May 31 -- A temporary exhibition at the Sunder Nursery plaza is attracting the curiosity of many Delhiwalas on their evening stroll, who find themselves veering from their straight-angled walking paths towards a set of 18 panels that draw a historic connection not known to many. Sample this: A 19th-century painting depicting the Hindu god of death and justice Yama is juxtaposed with a 17th or 18th century illustration of Yima or Jamshid, a king from Iranian folklore, who is said to have built a refuge known as "the Vara of Jamkard to preserve selected humans, animals, and plants from a devastating winter." The Mahabharata, interestingly, also describes Yama's hall, as a place free from suffering, sorrow, hunger, or thirst. The exhibition titled "Shared Epic Worlds", depicts the literary, artistic, and cultural connections between Iran and India through comparisons of the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, and the Persian epic Shahnameh, written by poet Ferdows between 977 and 1010 CE. Each panel offers a visual delight: paintings from the Mughal-era as well as calligraphy displays and works made during the Safavid-era in Iran, depicting scenes from the Shahnameh. "The message of both Shahnameh and the Mahabharata, the country's respective greatest epics, is also similar, as it focuses on ethics, identity, loyalty, love, and suffering. However, the exhibition is not only about the manuscripts and paintings. It depicts shared stories and ideas across historical civilizations, showing how India and Iran are not connected only by trade and politics, but also by morals, and the shared questions we have asked," said Shahab Khajeh Piri, the exhibition curator and deputy director of the Noor International Microfilm Centre, which organized the exhibition in collaboration with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Iran Culture House. The idea, Piri said at the launch of the exhibition last week, was to highlight multiple similarities between two epics, and thus point to deep cultural connection between Indian and Iran. For instance, both Mahabharata and Shahnameh have mythical birds that serve as symbols of liberation and devotion - celestial bird king Garuda, and the life-saving bird Simurgh. In another panel, we see similarities in epic heroes, Rustam from the Shahnameh and Arjuna from the Mahabharata, both of whom undergo difficult trials for the fulfillment of a higher duty....