THEME-9

Kings and Chronicles

The Mughal Courts

(c. sixteenth- seventeenth centuries)

Kings and Chronicles

• The Mughal kings commissioned court historians to write accounts.
• These accounts recorded the events of the emperor’s time.
• In addition, their writers collected vast

amounts of information from the

regions of the subcontinent to help the rulers govern their domain.

• Modern historians writing in English

have termed this genre of texts

chronicles, as they present a continuous chronological record of events.

• Chronicles are an indispensable source

for any scholar wishing to write a history of the Mughals.

The Mughals and Their Empire

• The name Mughal derives from Mongol. Though today the term evokes the grandeur of an empire, it was not the name the rulers of the dynasty chose for themselves.
• They referred to themselves as Timurids, as descendants of the Turkish ruler Timur on the paternal side. Babur, the first Mughal ruler, was related to Ghenghiz Khan from his mother’s side. He spoke Turkish and referred derisively to the Mongols as barbaric hordes.
• During the 16^th century, Europeans used the term Mughal to describe the Indian rulers of this branch of the family.

The Mughals and Their Empire

• Zahiruddin Muhammed, popularly known as Baber, founded the Mughal Empire in 1526 by defeating Ibrahim Lodi, the last Lodi Sulthan.
• His successor, Nasiruddin Humayun

(1530-40, 1555-56) expanded the frontiers of the empire, but lost it to the Afghan leader Sher Shah Sur, who drove him into exile. Humayun took refuge in the court of the Safavid ruler of Iran.

• In 1555 Humayun defeated the Surs, but died a year later.

The Mughals and Their Empire

• Jalaluddin Akbar (1556-1605) was the greatest of all the Mughal emperors and he expanded and consolidated the empire.
• Akbar had three fairly able successors in Jahangir (1605-27), Shah Jahan (1628-58) and Aurangzeb (1658-1707), much as their characters varied.
• Under them the territorial expansion continued, though at a much reduced pace.

The Mughals and Their Empire

• During the 16^th and 17^th centuries the institutions of an imperial structure were created. These included effective methods of administration and taxation.
• After 1707, following the death of Aurangzeb, the power of the dynasty diminished.
• In place of the vast apparatus of empire controlled from Delhi, Agra or Lahore – the different capital cities – regional power acquired greater autonomy.
• Yet symbolically the prestige of the Mughal ruler did not lose its aura. In 1857 the last scion of this dynasty, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was overthrown by the British.

The Production of Chronicles

• Chronicles commissioned by the Mughal emperors are an important source for studying the empire and its court.
• The authors of Mughal chronicles were invariably courtiers. The histories they wrote focused on events centred on the ruler, his family, the court and nobles, wars and administrative arrangements.
• Their titles, such as the Akbar Nama, Shahjahan Nama, Alamgir Nama, that is, the story of Akbar, Shah Jahan and Alamgir (a title of the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb), suggest that in the eyes of their authors the history of the empire and the court was synonymous with that of the emperor.

From Turkish to Persian

• Mughal court chronicles were written in Persian. Under the Sultans of Delhi it flourished as a language of the court and of literary writings.
• As the Mughals were Chaghtai Turks by origin, Turkish was their mother tongue. Their first ruler Babur wrote poetry and his memoirs in this language.

From Turkish to Persian

• It was Akbar who consciously set out to make Persian the leading language of the Mughal court. Cultural and intellectual contacts with Iran, as well as a regular stream of Iranian and Central Asian migrants seeking positions at the Mughal court, might have motivated the emperor to adopt the language.
• Persian was elevated to a language of empire. It was spoken by the king, the royal household and the elite at court. Further, it became the language of administration at all levels so that accountants, clerks and other functionaries also learnt it.

From Turkish to Persian

• Since the people using Persian in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries came from many different regions of the subcontinent and spoke other Indian languages, Persian too became Indianised by absorbing local idioms.
• A new language, Urdu, sprang from the interaction of Persian with Hindavi.

From Turkish to Persian

• Mughal chronicles such as the Akbar Nama were written in Persian, others, like Babur’s memoirs, were translated

from the Turkish into the Persian Babur

Nama.

• Translations of Sanskrit texts such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana into Persian were commissioned by the Mughal emperors.
• The Mahabharata was translated as the

Razmnama (Book of Wars).

The making of Manuscripts

• All books in Mughal India were manuscripts, that is, they were handwritten. The centre of manuscript production was the imperial kitabkhana. Although kitabkhana can be translated as library, it was a scriptorium, that is, a place where the emperor’s collection of manuscripts was kept and new manuscripts were produced.
• The creation of a manuscript involved a number of people performing a variety of tasks. Paper makers were needed to prepare the folios of the manuscript, scribes or calligraphers to copy the text, gilders to illuminate the pages, painters to illustrate scenes from the text, bookbinders to gather the individual folios and set them within ornamental covers.

The making of Manuscripts

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• The finished manuscript was seen as a precious object, a work of intellectual wealth and beauty. It exemplified the power of its patron, the Mugh emperor, to bring such beauty into being.
• At the same time some of the people involved in the actual production of the manuscript also got recognition in the form of titles and awards.
• Of these, calligraphers and painters held a high social standing while others, such as paper makers or bookbinders, have remained anonymous artisans.
• Calligraphy, the art of handwriting, was considered a skill of great importance. It was practised using different styles.

The Painted Image

• Chronicles narrating the events of a Mughal emperor’s reign contained, alongside the written text, images that described an event in visual form. When scenes or themes in a book were to be given visual expression, the scribe left blank spaces on nearby pages; paintings, executed separately by artists, were inserted to accompany what was described in words.
• Paintings served not only to enhance the beauty of a book, but were believed to possess special powers of communicating ideas about the kingdom and the power of kings in ways that the written medium could not.
• The historian Abu’l Fazl described painting as a “magical art”: in his view it had the power to make inanimate objects look as if they possessed life.

Mughal Paintings

The Painted Image

• The production of paintings portraying the emperor, his court and the people was a source of constant tension between rulers and representatives of the Muslim orthodoxy, the ulama.
• They believed that depiction of living beings in a naturalistic manner is forbidden as it would suggest that the artist was seeking to appropriate the power of creation. This was a function that was believed to belong exclusively to God.
• Yet interpretations of the shari‘a changed with time. Muslim rulers in many Asian regions during centuries of empire building regularly commissioned artists to paint their portraits and scenes of life in their kingdoms.
• The Safavid kings of Iran, for example, patronised the finest artists, who were trained in workshops set up at court.

Mughal Paintings

The Painted Image

• Artists from Iran also made their way to Mughal India. Some were brought to the Mughal court, as in the case of Mir Sayyid Ali and Abdus Samad, who were made to accompany Emperor Humayun to Delhi. Others migrated in search of opportunities to win patronage and prestige.
• A conflict between the emperor and the spokesmen of orthodox Muslim opinion on the question of visual representations of living beings was a source of tension at the Mughal court.
• Akbar’s court historian Abu’l Fazl cites the emperor as saying: “There are many that hate painting, but such men I dislike. It appears to me that an artist has a unique way of recognising God when he must come to feel that he cannot bestow life on his work ...”

Mughal Paintings

The Akbar Nama and the Badshah Nama

• Among the important illustrated Mughal chronicles the Akbar Nama and Badshah Nama (The Chronicle of a King) are the most well known. Each manuscript contained an average of 150 full- or double-page paintings of battles, sieges, hunts, building construction, court scenes, etc.
• The author of the Akbar Nama, Abu’l Fazl grew up in the Mughal capital of Agra. He was widely read in Arabic, Persian, Greek philosophy and Sufism. Moreover, he was a forceful debater and independent thinker who consistently opposed the views of the conservative ulama.
• These qualities impressed Akbar who found Abu’l Fazl ideally suited as an adviser and a spokesperson for his policies. One major objective of the emperor was to free the state from the control of religious orthodoxy.
• In his role as court historian, Abu’l Fazl both shaped and articulated the ideas associated with the reign of Akbar.

The Akbar Nama

• Beginning in 1589, Abu’l Fazl worked on the Akbar Nama for thirteen years, repeatedly revising the draft.
• The chronicle is based on a range of sources, including actual records of events (waqai), official documents and oral testimonies of knowledgeable persons.
• The Akbar Nama is divided into three books of which the first two are chronicles. The third book is the Ain-i Akbari.

The Akbar Nama

• The first volume contains the history of mankind from Adam to one celestial cycle of Akbar’s life (30 years). The second volume closes in the 46^th regnal year (1601) of Akbar.
• The very next year Abu’l Fazl fell victim to a conspiracy hatched by Prince Salim, and was murdered by his accomplice, Bir Singh Bundela.

The Akbar Nama

• The Akbar Nama was written to provide a detailed description of Akbar’s reign in the traditional diachronic sense of recording politically significant events across time, as well as in the more novel sense of giving a synchronic picture of all aspects of Akbar’s empire – geographic, social, administrative and cultural – without reference to chronology.
• In the Ain-i Akbari the Mughal Empire is presented as having a diverse population consisting of Hindus, Jainas, Buddhists and Muslims and a composite culture.
• Abu’l Fazl wrote in a language that was ornate and which attached importance to diction and rhythm, as texts were often read aloud. This Indo- Persian style was patronised at court, and there were a large number of writers who wanted to write like Abu’l Fazl.

Badsha Nama

• A pupil of Abu’l Fazl, Abdul Hamid Lahori is known as the author of the Badshah Nama. Emperor Shah Jahan, hearing of his talents, commissioned him to write a history of his reign modelled on the Akbar Nama.
• The Badshah Nama is this official history in three volumes (daftars) of ten lunar years each. Lahori wrote the first and second daftars comprising the first two decades of the emperor’s rule (1627-47); these volumes were later revised by Sadullah Khan, Shah Jahan’s wazir.
• Infirmities of old age prevented Lahori from proceeding with the third decade which was then chronicled by the historian Waris.

The Akbar Nama and Badsha Nama

• During the colonial period, British administrators began to study Indian history and to create an archive of knowledge about the subcontinent to help them better understand the people and the cultures of the empire they sought to rule.
• The Asiatic Society of Bengal, founded by Sir William Jones in 1784, undertook the editing, printing and translation of many Indian manuscripts.
• Edited versions of the Akbar Nama and Badshah Nama were first published by the Asiatic Society in the nineteenth century. In the early twentieth century the Akbar Nama was translated into English by Henry Beveridge after years of hard labour.
• Only excerpts of the Badshah Nama have been translated into English to date; the text in its entirety still awaits translation.

The Ideal Kingdom

• Court chroniclers drew upon many sources to show that the power of the Mughal kings came directly from God.
• One of the legends they narrated was that of the Mongol queen Alanqua, who was impregnated by a ray of sunshine while resting in her tent. The offspring she bore carried this Divine Light and passed it on from generation to generation.
• According to this idea the Divine Light was transmitted to the king who then became the source of spiritual guidance for his subjects.

The Ideal Kingdom

• Mughal Paintings transmitted these ideas in a way that left a lasting impression on the minds of viewers.
• Mughal artists, from the 17^th C onwards, began to portray emperors wearing the halo, which they saw on European paintings of Christ and the Virgin Mary to symbolise the light of God.

A unifying force

• Mughal chronicles present the empire as comprising many different ethnic and religious communities – Hindus, Jainas, Zoroastrians and Muslims.
• As the source of all peace and stability the emperor stood above all religious and ethnic groups, mediated among them, and ensured that justice and peace prevailed.
• Abu’l Fazl describes the ideal of sulh-i kul (absolute peace) as the cornerstone of enlightened rule. In sulh-i kul all religions and schools of thought had freedom of expression but on condition that they did not undermine the authority of the state or fight among themselves.

A unifying force

• The ideal of sulh-i kul was implemented through state policies – the nobility under the Mughals was a composite one comprising Iranis, Turanis, Afghans, Rajputs, Deccanis – all of whom were given positions and awards purely on the basis of their service and loyalty to the king.
• Further, Akbar abolished the tax on pilgrimage in 1563 and

jizya in 1564 as the two were based on religious discrimination.

• Instructions were sent to officers of the empire to follow the precept of sulh-i kul in administration.

A unifying force

• All Mughal emperors gave grants to support the building and maintenance of places of worship.
• Even when temples were destroyed during war, grants were later issued for their repair – as we know from the reigns of Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb.
• However, during the reign of the Aurengazeb, the jizya

was reimposed on non-Muslim subjects.

Sovereignty as social contract

• Abu’l Fazl defined sovereignty as a social contract: the emperor protects the four essences of his subjects, namely;
• life (jan)
• property (mal)
• honour (namus)
• faith (din)

and in return demands obedience and a share of resources.

Capitals and Courts

Capital cities

• The heart of the Mughal Empire was its capital city, where the court assembled. The capital cities of the Mughals frequently shifted during the 16^th and 17^th centuries.
• Babur took over the Lodi capital of Agra, though during the four years of his reign the court was frequently on the move.
• During the 1560s Akbar had the fort of Agra constructed with red sandstone quarried from the adjoining regions.

Capital Cities

• In the 1570s he decided to build a new capital, Fatehpur Sikri.
• One of the reasons prompting this may have been that Sikri was located on the direct road to Ajmer, where the dargah of Shaikh Muinuddin Chishti had become an important pilgrimage centre.

Fathepur Sikri

Capital Cities

• The enormous arched gateway (Buland Darwaza) was meant to remind visitors of the Mughal victory in Gujarat.
• In 1585 the capital was transferred to Lahore to bring the north-west under greater control.

Capital Cities

• ShaJahan pursued sound fiscal policies and accumulated enough money to indulge his passion for building.
• In 1648 the court, army and household moved from Agra to the newly completed imperial capital, Shahjahanabad.
• It was a new addition to the old residential city of Delhi, with the Red Fort, the Jama Masjid, a tree-lined esplanade with bazaars (Chandni Chowk) and spacious homes for the nobility.

The Mughal Court

• The emperor began his day at sunrise with personal religious devotions or prayers, and then appeared on a small balcony, the jharoka, facing the east. Below, a crowd of people (soldiers, merchants, craftspersons, peasants, women with sick children) waited for a view, darshan, of the emperor.
• Jharoka darshan was introduced by Akbar with the objective of broadening the acceptance of the imperial authority as part of popular faith.
• After spending an hour at the jharoka, the emperor walked to the public hall of audience (diwan-i am) to conduct the primary business of his government. State officials presented reports and made requests.
• Two hours later, the emperor was in the diwan-i khas to hold private audiences and discuss confidential matters. High ministers of state placed their petitions before him and tax officials presented their accounts.

DIWAN-E-AM

DIWAN-I-KHAS

The Mughal Court

• On special occasions such as the anniversary of accession to the throne, Id, Shab-i barat (full moon day of Shab-in 14, 8^th month of Hijra Era) and Holi, the court was full of life.
• The Mughal kings celebrated three major festivals a year: the solar and lunar birthdays of the monarch and Nauroz, the Iranian New Year on the vernal equinox.
• On his birthdays, the monarch was weighed against various commodities which were then distributed in charity.

Titles and gifts

• Grand titles were adopted by the Mughal emperors at the time of coronation or after a victory over an enemy.
• The granting of titles to men of merit was an important aspect of Mughal polity.

The Imperial Household

• The term “harem” is frequently used to refer to the domestic world of the Mughals. It originates in the Persian word haram, meaning a sacred place.
• The Mughal household consisted of the emperor’s wives and concubines, his near and distant relatives (mother, step- and foster-mothers, sisters, daughters, daughters-in-law, aunts, children, etc.), and female servants and slaves.
• Polygamy was practised widely in the Indian subcontinent, especially among the ruling groups.

The Imperial Household

• Both for the Rajput clans as well as the Mughals marriage was a way of cementing political relationships and forging alliances.
• The gift of territory was often accompanied by the gift of a daughter in marriage. This ensured a continuing hierarchical relationship between ruling groups.
• It was through the link of marriage and the relationships that developed as a result that the Mughals were able to form a vast kinship network that linked them to important groups and helped to hold a vast empire together.

The Imperial Household

• In the Mughal household a distinction was maintained between wives who came from royal families (begams), and other wives (aghas) who were not of noble birth.
• The begams, married after receiving huge amounts of cash and valuables as dower (mahr), naturally received a higher status and greater attention from their husbands than did aghas.
• Apart from wives, numerous male and female slaves populated the Mughal household.

The Imperial Household

• After Nur Jahan, Mughal queens and princesses began to control significant financial resources.
• Shah Jahan’s daughters Jahanara and Roshanara enjoyed an annual income often equal to that of high imperial mansabdars.
• Jahanara, in addition, received revenues from the port city of Surat, which was a lucrative centre of overseas trade.
• Jahanara participated in many architectural projects of Shah Jahan’s new capital, Shahjahanabad (Delhi). The bazaar of Chandni Chowk was designed by Jahanara.

The Imperial Household

• An interesting book giving us a glimpse into the domestic world of the Mughals is the Humayun Nama written by Gulbadan Begum. Gulbadan was the daughter of Babur and Humayun’s sister.
• Gulbadan could write fluently in Turkish and Persian.
• She described in great detail the conflicts and tensions among the princes and kings and the important mediating role elderly women of the family played in resolving some of these conflicts.

The Imperial Officials

Recruitment and rank

• One important pillar of the Mughal state was its corps of officers.
• In Akbar’s imperial service, Turani and Iranian nobles were present from the earliest phase of carving out a political dominion. Many had accompanied Humayun; others migrated later to the Mughal court.
• Two ruling groups of Indian origin entered the imperial service from 1560 onwards: the Rajputs an the Indian Muslims (Shaikhzadas).
• The first to join was a Rajput chief, Raja Bharmal of Amber, to whose daughter Akbar got married.
• Members of Hindu castes inclined towards education and accountancy were also promoted, a famous example being Akbar’s finance minister, Raja Todar Mal.

The Imperial Officials

• Iranians gained high offices under Jahangir, whose politically influential queen, Nur Jahan, was an Iranian.

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• The keeping of exact and detailed records was a major concern of the Mughal administration. The mirbakhshi supervised the corps of court writers (waqianawis) who recorded all applications and documents presented to the court, and all imperial orders.
• News reports and important official documents travelled across the length and breadth of the regions under Mughal rule by imperial post.
• Round-the-clock relays of foot-runners (qasid or pathmar ) carried papers rolled up in bamboo containers. The emperor received reports from even distant provincial capitals within a few days.

Provincial Administration

• The division of functions established at the centre was replicated in the provinces (subas) where the ministers had their corresponding subordinates (diwan, bakhshi and sadr). The head of the provincial administration was the governor (subadar) who reported directly to the emperor.
• The sarkars, into which each suba was divided, often overlapped with the jurisdiction of faujdars (commandants) who were deployed with contingents of heavy cavalry and musketeers in districts.
• The local administration was looked after at the level of the pargana (sub-district) by three semi-hereditary officers, the qanungo (keeper of revenue records), the chaudhuri (in charge of revenue collection) and the qazi.

Provincial Administration

• Each department of administration maintained a large support staff of clerks, accountants, auditors, messengers, and other functionaries who were technically qualified officials, functioning in accordance with standardised rules and procedures, and generating copious written orders and records.
• Persian was made the language of administration throughout, but local languages were used for village accounts.
• The relationship between local landed magnates, the zamindars, and the representatives of the Mughal emperor was sometimes marked by conflicts over authority and a share of the resources. The zamindars often succeeded in mobilising peasant support against the state.

BEYOND THE FRONTIERS (Diplomatic relations)

• Contemporary historians provide accounts of diplomatic relationships and conflicts with neighbouring political powers.
• These reflect some tension and political rivalry arising from competing regional interests.
• The Safavids and Qandahar.
• The Ottomans: Pilgrimage and Trade.
• Jesuits at the Mughal Court.

Questioning Formal Religion

• Akbar’s quest for religious knowledge led to interfaith debates in the ibadat khana at Fatehpur Sikri between learned Muslims, Hindus, Jainas, Parsis and Christians.
• Akbar’s religious views matured as he queried scholars of different religions and sects and gathered knowledge about their doctrines.
• His interaction with various religious theologians had convinced him that despite their differences, all religions had several good practices, which he sought to combine into a new religious movement known as Din-i –ilahi.

SOME MAJOR MUGHAL CHRONICLES AND MEMOIRS

• 1530 : Manuscript of Babur’s memoirs in Turkish – saved from a storm

– becomes part of the family collection of the Timurids

• 1587 : Gulbadan Begum begins to write the Humayun Nama
• 1589 : Babur’s memoirs translated into Persian as Babur Nama
• 1589-1602 : Abu’l Fazl works on the Akbar Nama
• 1605-22 : Jahangir writes his memoirs, the Jahangir Nama
• 1639-47 : Lahori composes the first two daftars of the Badshah Nama
• 1650 : Muhammad Waris begins to chronicle the third decade of Shah Jahan’s reign
• 1668 : Alamgir Nama, a history of the first ten years of Aurangzeb’s reign compiled by Muhammmad Kazim.

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