The Majālis-i Jahāngīrī (1608-11): Dialogue and Asiatic Otherness at the Mughal Court
In: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the OrientSearch for other papers by Corinne Lefèvre in
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Abstract
Building on the literary traditions of munāẓara (disputation) and malfūẓāt (teachings of a Sufi master), the Majālis-i Jahāngīrī (Assemblies of Jahāngīr) constitute a fundamentally dialogical work, in form as well as function. An account of the night-time sessions presided over by Emperor Jahāngīr from 1608 to 1611, this source highlights the Mughals’ will to assert their power on a Eurasian scale and the central role played by Iran, Central Asia, and Hindustan in the elaboration of imperial ideology and identity. It thus opens a new window into the mental representations and hierarchies that underlay the much celebrated Mughal cosmopolitanism.
S’ancrant dans la double tradition littéraire des munāẓara (disputation) et des malfūẓāt (conversations d’un maître soufi), les Majālis-i Jahāngīrī (Assemblées de Jahāngīr) constituent une œuvre fondamentalement dialogique, tant dans sa forme que dans son fonctionnement. Récit des séances nocturnes présidées par l’empereur Jahāngīr entre 1608 et 1611, ce texte donne à voir la volonté des Moghols d’affirmer leur pouvoir à une échelle eurasiatique et le rôle central joué par l’Iran, l’Asie centrale et l’Hindustan dans l’élaboration de l’idéologie et de l’identité impériale. Il permet, ce faisant, de mettre à jour les représentations mentales et les hiérarchies sous-tendant le cosmopolitisme tant célébré des Moghols.
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See, e.g., E. Koch, Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology: Collected Essays (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001); S. Ramaswamy, “Conceit of the Globe in Mughal Visual Practice,” Comparative Studies in History and Society 49/4 (2007): 751-82; R. Skelton, “Imperial Symbolism in Mughal Painting,” in Content and Context of Visual Arts in the Islamic World, ed. P. Soucek (London and University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988): 24-30.
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See, e.g., R.C. Foltz, Mughal India and Central Asia (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2001): 7-8. When viewed from the vantage point of the area of circulation formed by the early modern Asian-Islamic ecumene, several regions are conspicuous by their absence from the Majālis-i Jahāngīrī: the nearest being the independent Deccan sultanates—Ahmadnagar, Bijapur, and Golconda are mentioned only once, in connection with the Mughal campaigns launched in their direction—and the most remote being the Ottoman empire and the Indonesian polities.
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M. Alam, “The Culture and Politics of Persian in Precolonial Hindustan,” in Literary Cultures in History. Reconstructions from South Asia, ed. S. Pollock (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003): 131-98.
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F.W. Buckler, “A New Interpretation of Akbar’s ‘Infallibility’ Decree of 1579,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, new ser. 56/4 (1924): 591-608; and Moin, Islam and the Millennium.
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49)
On which, see S. Bashir, “Shah Ismaʿil and the Qizilbash: Cannibalism in the Religious History of Early Safavid Iran,” History of Religions 45/3 (2006): 248-50; and W. Floor, “The Khalifeh al-kholafa of the Safavid Sufi Order,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 153/1 (2003): 63-4.
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60)
C. Lefèvre, “Recovering a Missing Voice from Mughal India: The Imperial Discourse of Jahāngīr (r. 1605-1627),” JESHO 50/4 (2007): 466-8; C. Lefèvre, “In the Name of the Fathers: Mughal Genealogical Strategies from Bābur to Shāh Jahān,” Religions of South Asia (Genealogy and History in South Asia, ed. S. Brodbeck and J. Hegarty) 5/1-2 (2011): 409-42.
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64)
I. Bangha, “Rekhta: Poetry in Mixed Language. The Emergence of Khari Boli Literature in North India,” in Before the Divide: Hindi and Urdu Literary Culture, ed. F. Orsini (Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2010): 21-83; A. Busch, “Riti and Register. Lexical Variation in Courtly Braj Bhasha Texts,” in Before the Divide: Hindi and Urdu Literary Culture, ed. F. Orsini (Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2010): 84-120; and A. Busch, “Hidden in Plain View: Brajbhasha Poets at the Mughal Court,” Modern Asian Studies 44/2 (2010): 267-309.
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66)
M. Alam and S. Subrahmanyam, “The Making of a Munshi,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 24/2 (2004): 61-72; M. Alam and S. Subrahmanyam, “Witnesses and Agents of Empire: Eighteenth-Century Historiography and the World of the Mughal Munshī,” JESHO 53 (2010): 393-423; Kinra, “Secretary-poets”; R.K. Kinra, “Master and Munshī: A Brahman Secretary’s Guide to Mughal Governance,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 47/4 (2010): 527-61.
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76)
C.W. Ernst, “Muslim Studies of Hinduism? A Reconsideration of Arabic and Persian Translations from Indian Languages,” Iranian Studies 36/2 (2003): 174.
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77)
M.C. Beach, The Grand Mogul: Imperial Painting in India (1600-1660) (Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1978): 40-1.
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96)
C.A. Bayly, Origins of Nationality in South Asia. Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998).
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97)
M. Athar Ali, “The Perception of India in Akbar and Abūʾl Faẓl,” in Akbar and his India, ed. I. Habib (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997): 218-9; A. Anooshahr, “Mughal Historians and the Memory of the Islamic Conquest of India,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 43/3 2006): 275-300, and his contribution in the present volume; Kumar, The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate: 355-7.
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The Majālis-i Jahāngīrī (1608-11): Dialogue and Asiatic Otherness at the Mughal Court
In: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the OrientSearch for other papers by Corinne Lefèvre in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Building on the literary traditions of munāẓara (disputation) and malfūẓāt (teachings of a Sufi master), the Majālis-i Jahāngīrī (Assemblies of Jahāngīr) constitute a fundamentally dialogical work, in form as well as function. An account of the night-time sessions presided over by Emperor Jahāngīr from 1608 to 1611, this source highlights the Mughals’ will to assert their power on a Eurasian scale and the central role played by Iran, Central Asia, and Hindustan in the elaboration of imperial ideology and identity. It thus opens a new window into the mental representations and hierarchies that underlay the much celebrated Mughal cosmopolitanism.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 611 | 103 | 11 |
| Full Text Views | 320 | 26 | 4 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 234 | 63 | 7 |