The Early Modern in South Asia

Did modernity arrive in South Asia with British colonialism? Or was South Asia
already modern by then? What might have that modernity looked like?
The Early Modern in South Asia engages with these questions. It brings together
ten chapters, which collectively trace the contours of South Asia’s early modernity
between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. They do this by examining the
nature of historical change in various domains, including philosophy, warfare, law,
environment, politics, violence, religion, and society. The chapters argue that in all
these fields, there were noticeable developments during this period, marking a shift
from the medieval to the early modern. The introductory chapter contextualizes
this by analysing the politics of periodization in history-writing across the world.
It discusses the meanings of the relatively new concept of early modernity and the
implications of its use for how we understand historical change and continuity in
South Asia.
Meena Bhargava teaches history at Indraprastha College for Women, University of
Delhi, India. She is a historian of medieval and early modern South Asia. The areas
of her research include Mughal history, environmental history, history of narcotics
and drugs, agrarian history, and land rights in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
India. Her most recent publication is Understanding Mughal India: Sixteenth to
Eighteenth Centuries (2019).
Pratyay Nath teaches history at Ashoka University, Sonipat, India. He is a
historian of early-modern South Asia. The areas of his research include military
history, environmental history, imperial history, and history of the historical
discipline. His most recent publication is Climate of Conquest: War, Environment,
and Empire in Mughal North India (2019).

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Published online by Cambridge University Press
 The Early Modern in South Asia
Querying Modernity, Periodization, and History

Edited by
Meena Bhargava
Pratyay Nath

Published online by Cambridge University Press

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 In memory of
Professor Rajat Datta
1956–2021

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Published online by Cambridge University Press
 Contents

Acknowledgements ix

1. Introduction: History and the Politics of Periodization 1

Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

I. Religion, Ideology, Identity

2. Locating the Early Modern in South Asian Sufism 43

Kashshaf Ghani
3. Beginnings of Modernity in South Asia: Natural Philosophy in
Persianate Islam 64
Charles Ramsey
4. Contestations and Negotiations: Early Modern Individualism in
Jain Heterodoxy, c. 1470–c. 1770 83
Shalin Jain
II. Economy, Environment, Society
5. Early Modernity and South Asian Economic History: Problematic,
Periodization, Processes, and Possibilities 103
Rajat Datta
6. Markers of the Early Modern: Ecology, State, and Society in Rajasthan 124
Mayank Kumar
7. Through the Prism of Environmental History: Defining the
Early Modern in South Asia 141
Meena Bhargava

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 viiiContents

8. The Early Modern Conundrum: Peninsular India and the Idea of

Periodization in a ‘Regional’ Perspective 161
Ranjeeta Dutta
III. Politics, Law, War
9. Fidalgos, Soldados, Arrenegados: Portuguese Adventurers in
Hugli and Early Modern Politics 183
Radhika Chadha
10. Law, Empire, and the New Julfan Armenians: The Early Modern
in the Indian Ocean World 203
Santanu Sengupta
11. Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern? 224
Pratyay Nath

About the Contributors 247

Index 250

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 Acknowledgements

In November 2015, Rajat Datta co-organized a two-day conference titled ‘Configuring

Early Modern South Asia’ at the Institute of Advanced Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. This was probably the first conference held in India to
unpack some of the theoretical aspects of the category of early modernity. It initiated
conversations that challenged some of the long-established and jealously guarded
methodological orthodoxies of South Asian history-writing. The continuation of
these conversations eventually precipitated another conference. Titled ‘Debating the
Early Modern in South Asian History’, this was held at Ashoka University, Sonipat,
in February 2018. Most of the chapters of the present volume were initially presented
there. As one of the most vocal advocates of the category of early modernity among
academics based in India, Datta delivered the keynote address at this conference. He
also agreed to co-edit the proceedings afterwards; however, his busy schedule did not
allow that. Nevertheless, he continued to be actively involved in the preparation of
this volume. But just as we were about to submit the final manuscript to the press,
he suddenly passed away on 30 October 2021. Published in this volume, his keynote
address from the conference is one of his last publications. It serves as a constant
reminder of his absence in a project that he had helped germinate. This volume is
dedicated to his memory.
The conference at Ashoka University was supported by the funds generously granted
by the then Vice Chancellor, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, and the then Dean of Faculty and
Research, Malabika Sarkar. The conference was hosted by the Department of History.
Aside from the authors of the chapters this volume carries, we are also thankful to
Anubhuti Maurya, Aparna Vaidik, Mahesh Gopalan, Nayanjot Lahiri, Pankaj Jha,
Priyanka Khanna, Ranabir Chakravarti, Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Shivangini Tandon,
Sraman Mukherjee, and Tanuja Kothiyal for participating in this conference in various
capacities. Tanika Sarkar delivered the plenary address. Finally, the staff and students
at Ashoka University made sure that the conference ran smoothly. We extend our
heartfelt gratitude to each one of these individuals for their contribution in making
the conference a success. We only wish that all the papers presented there could be
accommodated in this volume.

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 xAcknowledgements

Soon after this second conference, the process of converting some of the ideas
presented there into something more durable began. Here, we were fortunate to have
a remarkable group of contributors who supported us through an arduous journey
of four years. We are thankful to them for submitting their drafts on time, putting up
with our numerous requests for alterations and revisions, and participating in the two
workshops we arranged. The volume would not have been possible without their active
and wholehearted involvement. We are also grateful to Tanika Sarkar, Shinjini Das,
and Akash Bhattacharya, who read an early draft of the introduction and gave us their
valuable feedback. Finally, we would like to thank the staff of Cambridge University
Press, whose patience, efficiency, and guidance brought this volume to fruition.
Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

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 1
Introduction
History and the Politics of Periodization

Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

In concluding the second volume of The History of Bengal, the doyen of Indian
historians, Sir Jadunath Sarkar, lyrically wrote about the demise of the independent
Nawabi of Bengal and the emergence of Company rule. As the final episode of
Mughal rule in the province, Nawabi rule had brought only misery all around, he
argued. As the ruling class indulged in debauchery, factionalism, sadism, and the
pursuit of self-interest, the common people had been plunged into ‘deepest poverty,
ignorance and moral degradation’.1 Articulating textbook pro-British sentiments,
he went on to say that the victory of the English East India Company had released
‘the rational progressive spirit of Europe’ upon this ‘hopelessly decadent society’.2
Through the gradual establishment of British civil administration, military power,
economic structures, and general stabilization of law and order, the region had
begun to flourish. This had ushered in an era of rejuvenation of every sphere of
social, cultural, and political life. Sarkar argued:

It was truly a Renaissance, wider, deeper, and more revolutionary than that of
Europe after the fall of Constantinople … under the impact of the British civilization
it [Bengal] became a pathfinder and a light-bringer to the rest of India…. In this new
Bengal originated every good and great thing of the modern world that passed on to
the other provinces of India.3

Published in 1948, these lines echoed what another historian Susobhan Sarkar
had put down just two years back in a political pamphlet for leftist activists
operating in Bengal against the backdrop of the impending partition of India.
Here he had outlined his thesis about the ‘Bengal Renaissance’ – a term he had
used to designate what he saw as a religious, intellectual, cultural, and political
reawakening in nineteenth-century Bengal. For him, it had been produced by the
‘impact of British rule, bourgeois economy and modern western culture’ and had
heralded the advent of modernity in and the beginning of modernization of India.4
What Susobhan Sarkar wrote for a non-academic readership, Jadunath Sarkar

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 2 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

articulated for an academic one. Together, their arguments represent some of the
early interpretations of a set of historical processes that had engulfed Bengal for
most of the nineteenth century. These arguments eventually became something
of a canon as the idea of this Renaissance as the harbinger of Indian modernity
grew roots in academic circles and broader society alike, especially in the decades
immediately following India’s independence.
Since the 1970s, however, this idea of the Bengal Renaissance came to be fiercely
critiqued, mainly by Marxist historians. For instance, Sumit Sarkar criticized its
strong elitist orientation. He argued that as a part of the Hindu social elite seeking
in British colonial government its deliverance from the ostensible tyranny of
Muslim rule, they had facilitated the transformation of South Asia’s pre-capitalist
society towards a weak and distorted version of colonial, bourgeois modernity in
course of the nineteenth century. Patronized by this social group, the scope of the
so-called Bengal Renaissance had remained limited to a small elite Hindu social
circle and a colonial intellectual framework, and it had failed to make any enduring
contribution towards genuine social transformation.5
By the beginning of the 1990s, scholars informed by postcolonial theory
started analysing the nature of colonial power and the meanings of nationalism.
In turn, this led to the problematization of the very idea of the modernity that
the Bengal Renaissance was supposed to have inaugurated. Moving away from the
Enlightenment optimism about modernity, alternate perspectives about the rise
of modernity in South Asia began to emerge around this time. Partha Chatterjee’s
work from these years, for example, focuses on how the emergent Indian elite
of the early nineteenth century started fashioning a new modern self for the
nation, one that was modern and non-Western at the same time. They did this
by bifurcating the sociocultural world into two realms – the ‘material’ and the
‘spiritual’. While the former related to the public domain where Indian political,
military, and economic institutions had already yielded to Western superiority,
the latter comprised a private sanctum where traditional forms of Indian culture
and spirituality thrived in isolation from Western influence.6 Chatterjee developed
these ideas further subsequently to argue against the idea of there being one
universal modernity; instead, he suggested that it is more historically accurate to
think in terms of multiple modernities, themselves produced by the geographical,
political, and cultural specificities of different societies.7
These new histories of colonial India problematized the earlier notion of
modernity as a progressive, beneficial, civilizational advancement that had arrived
in South Asia through British colonialism. As a result, the haloed idea of the
Bengal Renaissance heralding a new age of rationality and modernization also

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 Introduction3

ended up being sharply critiqued. Yet what went unchallenged in these revisionist
histories of modernity in the Indian subcontinent is the temporal association of
the emergence of modernity in this part of the world with the onset of British
colonialism – something that itself is an inheritance of the colonial discourse.
This association was finally broken in the late 1990s with the introduction of the
category of early modernity, not by historians of colonial South Asia, but by those
researching an earlier period.
In two articles published separately in 1997, John Richards and Sanjay
Subrahmanyam redefined the idea of South Asian modernity by introducing a
new category – early modern – to designate roughly the sixteenth through the
eighteenth centuries. Richards argued that in keeping with the tendencies visible
in other parts of the world, the Indian subcontinent too experienced an increase
in the pace and magnitude of historical change during this period. The category of
the early modern, he argued, represents and captures the materiality of the speedy
and colossal changes in the way humans organized themselves and interacted with
other humans and the natural world.8 Subrahmanyam, on the other hand, focused
more on ideological, religious, and cultural processes that manifested across the
world during this period. South Asia, he argued, was an integral part of these global
processes.9 We will have an opportunity to discuss these ideas in greater detail soon.
For several years following these interventions, historians of South Asia –
especially those employed in universities within the subcontinent – remained
sceptical about the category of early modernity. The sixteenth through eighteenth
centuries, after all, had long been considered an integral part – the pinnacle even –
of the South Asian medieval. However, the last decade has seen an explosion of
research that deploys this category to study this segment of South Asian history. In
part, this has been a response to global historical scholarship, where the category
of the early modern has become firmly established in course of the last three
decades and has opened entirely new analytical pathways. It also has to do with the
transformation of our understanding of the idea of modernity itself in the last few
decades as well as when and how exactly it emerged in South Asia and, indeed, the
whole world. Finally, it also emanates from a postcolonial critique of the meanings
of modernity, colonialism, and the discipline of history, in particular the politics
of periodization.
This recent intellectual ferment makes this an opportune moment to pause
and reflect on the meanings and implication of the category of early modernity.
Many of the works that have used it in studying South Asian history have done
so merely as a convenient shorthand to refer to a particular time period; few have
gone into teasing out the theoretical aspects of the nature of the early modern

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 4 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

condition itself. What did early modernity mean and entail exactly? What was
the nature of the historical processes that set this period of South Asian history
apart from the times before or after so as to justify the use of this new category? If
modernity emerged in South Asia in the sixteenth century as early modernity, then
how was this modernity different from what was ushered in by colonial rule in the
nineteenth century? The present volume is one of the first collaborative ventures
to directly address these theoretical questions. It brings together 10 chapters
that investigate various spheres of the South Asian historical experience roughly
between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The themes range from religion
to law, warfare to economy, environment to violence, and philosophy to politics.
The chapters are bound together by their common quest to define the meanings
of early modernity in the individual fields they investigate.
In this introduction, we chart out the wider historiographical context of this
intervention and set a new intellectual agenda for South Asian historiography,
one that contributes to the process of decolonizing historical periodization and
rewriting the history of this part of the world. Since the sixteenth through the
eighteenth centuries have traditionally formed a part of the South Asian medieval,
exploring the meanings of early modernity must begin by unpacking the category
of the medieval itself and by analysing what all it means in this historical context.
This is what the first three sections are dedicated to. The first explores the origins
of the category in European historical thinking, the second studies its myriad uses
in other parts of the world, and the third focuses on the career of the category
in South Asian historiography. Next, we turn to the question of modernity in
the fourth section, since this is an issue the category of early modernity directly
connects with. In the fifth and sixth sections, we shift our focus to the category of
early modernity, explore in some detail its various meanings in different contexts,
and address some of the scepticisms surrounding it. The final section lays down
the structure of the volume, introduces the 10 chapters, and outlines the broader
intellectual agenda. Overall, this introduction is a journey to understand the idea
of early modernity in relation to questions of historical periodization and the
changing politics of history-writing.

European Origins of the Medieval

In the introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern
Studies, John Dagenais and Margaret Greer explore the relation between the rise
of the category of the Middle Ages and the development of western European
modernity.10 Focusing on the writings of Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374), the
authors argue that the category of the medieval emerged in the fourteenth century

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 Introduction5

as a by-product of the rise of a new modern consciousness. They argue that it

was Petrarca who introduced the basics of the idea of the medieval, which were
expounded by other scholars subsequently – a dark and depressed period that
occupied a linear stretch of time between Roman Antiquity and his own times.11
This can be seen as the beginning of the process of ‘temporalization (Verzeitlichung)
of history’ that Reinhart Koselleck argues comprised a key intellectual process
that heralded modernity.12 It was at this moment of the emergence of Humanism
in western Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries that the tripartite
division of European history was conceptualized for the first time.13 Between
the glorious Classical Age and a so-called modern reawakening, a thousand
years of ‘darkness’, ‘squalor’, ‘barbarism’, and ‘primitiveness’ were identified.14
Incidentally – as Dagenais and Greer point out – these adjectives were similar to
those used to characterize the indigenes of the various lands western European
armies started making forays into since the late fifteenth century.15 This is revealing
of how the colonized other was perceived as being similar to people living in a
different temporality – the non-modern or pre-modern – and were hence relegated
by the white man to the status of the primitive. At the same time, the association
of the category of the medieval with all similar sorts of negative attributes meant
that for western Europe, this time period gradually emerged as what Carol Symes
calls a ‘penal colony’, where all things that did not fit within the mainstream
idea of the emergent modern would be relegated.16 The medieval thus became a
temporal and cultural other that contained everything that new-age Europeans
found repugnant, regressive, and backward – ‘systemic persecution, witch-hunts,
irrationality, torture, “radical” Islam’.17 The subsequent colonization of territory
across the world by Europe – a process that unfolded rapidly since the early sixteenth
century – was accompanied by this simultaneous colonization of the past.18
In the fifteenth century, various humanist scholars contributed to this idea of a
dark Middle Age. Leonardo Bruni (1370–1444) and Flavio Biondo (1392–1463),
for instance, portrayed it as a dark era that followed the demise of the Western
Roman Empire at the hands of barbarian invasions.19 However, as Timothy Reuter
points out, the idea of the medieval was initially more a part of passing cultural and
aesthetic judgement on the preceding centuries than a device of periodization of
history. It was in course of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries that this idea
of a dark age, separating a glorious ancient past and a revived modern era, gradually
crystallized into a schema of periodization that was increasingly favoured in the
writing of academic history, which itself gradually emerged as a distinct intellectual
field during this period. The key figure there was the German scholar Christoph
Cellarius (1638–1707), who articulated this schema in his Historia Medii Aevi

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 6 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

in 1688.20 Drawing upon several already existing ideas, Cellarius conceptualized

history in terms of an ancient (historia antiqua) that stretched up to the fourth
century, a modern (historia nova) that commenced at the fall of Constantinople
in 1453, and a medieval (historia mediii aevi) that separated the two.21 According
to Koselleck, it was around this time, or shortly afterwards, that a second decisive
intellectual shift occurred in conceptualizing historical time. He argues that by
this juncture (late seventeenth century), scholars had started gaining some distance
and perspective on the first moment of rupture in thinking about historical
time – symbolized by the reflections of Petrarca in the fourteenth century on
the novelty of his own times and the backwardness of the medieval. The whole
process between these two historical moments comprised what Koselleck calls the
‘temporalization of history’.22 ‘Since then,’ he writes, ‘one has lived in Modernity
and been conscious of so doing.’23
Over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this tripartite schema of
periodization emerged as the dominant one in historical thinking in much of
western Europe.24 Scholars who played key roles in the process include Edward
Gibbon (1737–1794) in the eighteenth century and Jacob Burckhardt (1818–
1897), Jules Michelet (1798–1874), and Lord Acton (1834–1902) in the
nineteenth.25 However, something else of enormous significance happened around
this time. In his Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Burckhardt propounded
the thesis of the Renaissance as a revolutionary cultural movement that first
unfolded in Italy in the fifteenth century and then spread northward from there to
other parts of western Europe. Within such a framework, the historical processes
designated as the Renaissance were recognized to bring about a decisive break
between the medieval and the modern.26 In effect, this argument by Burckhardt
signified the arrival of the modern man of the nineteenth century – well after the
era of Koselleck’s ‘temporalization’ – who looked back at the time of Petrarca
and interpreted that now-distant moment of early humanism as the point of
commencement of his own time. This idea of the Renaissance was the final step in the
conceptualization of the medieval in the context of the history of western Europe.

Writing the Medieval outside Europe

As modern academic history-writing was coming of its own from older discourses
about the past in western Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
European nation-states were also founding new colonies across the world. It was
through the violent process of European colonization that the discipline of history
as well as the notion of the medieval reached most non-European parts of the world.
Along with territory, western European civilization thus also came to colonize the

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 Introduction7

pasts of these regions and their peoples. Since then, the dissemination of the idea
of the medieval has produced curious results in different places. In China, for
instance, the concept failed to take roots. Timothy Brook and T. H. Barrett argue
that the idea of the medieval as a dark intermediate phase of the past has simply not
worked in case of Chinese history.27
In contrast, the tripartite division of history as well as the equivalence of the
medieval with a dark age struck roots quickly in Japan, although the country was
never colonized by Europeans. Yet, as Thomas Keirstead points out, the imagery of
the gloom of the medieval being followed by the light of modern civilization was
used by Japanese historians of the early twentieth century in the service of Japanese
nationalism. Faced by the racial disdain of the Europeans, Japanese nationalist
historians used history-writing as a means of proclaiming their national glory and
a status equal to that of the Europeans.28 In the process, they discovered multiple
parallels between aspects of the European and Japanese medievals, including
foreign invasions, an ostensible loss of masculinity of a society, and the subsequent
emergence of a class of warriors. Not unlike Europe, in Japan too, the medieval
emerged as the ‘penal colony’ Symes talks about; everything that did not fit the
nationalist narrative of the rise of a modern Japanese nation was dumped there.
By discursively producing a Japanese medieval that neatly matched the European
medieval, these histories claimed that if Europe could proceed from its dark Middle
Ages to the dawn of modernity and progress, then so could Japan.29
Iran presents yet another interesting case. Here, some chroniclers and historians
appropriated the idea of the ‘medieval’ to a limited degree to argue a case for a
pre-Islamic ‘golden age’ in Iran, one that was brought to a close by Arab Muslim
conquest in the seventh century. The middling period in such a formulation
occupied the position between the fall of the Sassanid dynasty to the Arab armies
in the seventh century on the one hand and the recent times on the other. Although
not exactly a dark age, this intermediate phase has been sometimes portrayed as one
where the glorious pre-Islamic ancient civilization of Iran was subverted to the
will of the barbaric Arabs. The meanings associated with this phase once again
finds remarkable similarity with the European idea of the medieval – foreign
invasions and domination, suppression of indigenous culture and values, and the
loss of a golden era. In recent times, such an interpretation of Iranian history has
fuelled certain nationalist sentiments and has sometimes inspired a push towards a
de-Arabization of the Iranian language and culture. Yet, since it was the Arab
conquerors who brought Islam to Iran and since the country continues to be
an Islamic republic at present, it finds it impossible to completely disavow of its
Islamic past or vilify the post-Sassanid period as an unqualified dark age. The result,

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 8 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

as Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi argues, is a cultural and historical schizophrenia in

thinking about the so-called medieval past of Iran.30
In the case of South Asia, the idea of the medieval has been a loaded and
contested one. The first academic histories of the subcontinent were written
by Orientalists, British scholars, and colonial officials since the early nineteenth
century. Their work reflected a prejudice against the pre-colonial period. Here,
periodization remained garbed in a religious-civilizational framework, which
divided the historical time of South Asia between a Hindu classical antiquity and a
Mohammedan dark age that preceded the British period – divided by civilizational
boundaries that are statist, essentialist, and rigid in nature. The tripartite division
time was expounded first by the Scottish historian James Mill (1773–1836) in his
The History of British India (1817). He interpreted the South Asian past as per the
interests of British imperialism. The glorious golden age of South Asian antiquity,
he maintained, had been interrupted by Muslim invasions. Mill defined the pre-
colonial period of the Indian sub-continent not simply in terms of the religion
of the ruling dynasties but also in terms of a new idiom for imperial control –
oriental despotism. Implicit in this was a denial of any sense of history, rationality,
and modernity for South Asia. For him, it was only the civilizing mission of the
British that could liberate and modernize the Indian subcontinent.31 Thus, in the
early nineteenth century itself, the so-called Mohammedan period of the South
Asian past – middling as it was between the so-called Hindu and British periods –
was conceptualized as a dark age. It was imbued with the familiar tropes – foreign
invasions, subjugation of indigenous society, and cultural, intellectual, and moral
decay – that have characterized the medieval not only in Europe but also in several
other parts of the world. In the garb of the Mohammedan period, the creation of
the idea of a dark medieval period in South Asian history prepared the perfect stage
for justifying British imperialism and for projecting colonial rule as the harbinger
of modernity.

Politics of the Medieval in Twentieth-Century South Asia

Following its uses within the colonialist-imperialist intellectual framework
of the nineteenth century, the category of the medieval yielded itself to new
historiographical and political approaches in the twentieth. This section explores
three of them.
Around the beginning of the twentieth century, British historians like Stanley
Lane-Poole started using the terms ‘ancient’, ‘medieval’, and ‘modern’ to revise
the nomenclature of the nineteenth-century tripartite schema of periodization
as Hindu, Mohammedan, and British, respectively. This was one more step in

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 Introduction9

using the European prism of history-writing to study the South Asian past. By
the early twentieth century, the first generation of professional Indian historians
embraced this new terminology of periodization.32 While politically they moved
away from the early British historians, these Indian historians – despite their best
intentions – were not able to undo the colonization of the South Asian past that
had started a century back. Even as they gradually moved away from the Hindu–
Mohammedan–British nomenclature in favour of the ostensibly more secular
ancient–medieval–modern format, the original cultural and political baggage
associated with each of three temporal categories remained.
To be fair, there was hardly any escape in sight. By this time, the modern western
European discourse of History had delegitimized all the other forms of historical
traditions and had established itself as the sole legitimate, scientific discourse about
the past. As practitioners of the discipline, Indian nationalist historians bought into
this colonial discourse and operated within it. The first generations of nationalist
historians dedicated their lives to revising the racist colonial interpretation of South
Asia’s past. In their writings, the medieval emerged as a site for a liberal nationalist
struggle to reclaim South Asia’s past from colonial hegemony. For the nationalists,
the medieval was not a time when Muslim rule forced Hindu civilization into a
dark age, but rather one where enlightened Muslim rulers like Akbar brought
various communities together to forge something like a united nation. By locating
the birth of the nation in the pre-colonial period, the nationalists thus denied their
colonial masters the agency they claimed in creating a nation out of the South
Asians through their administrative measures and technological innovations.
A second major shift in the understanding of the South Asian medieval
unfolded over the 1950s through the 1970s. Under the influence of the Marxian
framework of analysis, the medieval emerged as a site of heated scholarly debates
over how well it fit the scheme of Karl Marx’s historical materialism. The thrust
of historical inquiries in these debates remained squarely on the nature of political
economy. One major topic of the heated arguments was whether or not medieval
South Asia had experienced feudalism.33 The other main intervention was to go
beyond the debates about the regressive or progressive nature of Muslim rule
and understand the dynamics of medieval South Asia in terms of the surplus-
extraction by agrarian-bureaucratic states, the exploitation of the peasantry by
a revenue-hungry parasitical class of warrior-aristocrats, and the class struggle –
in the form of insurgencies – waged by peasants against their politico-economic
oppressors.34 Through their writings, Marxist historians like Irfan Habib,
R. S. Sharma, and Harbans Mukhia challenged the cultural stereotype of an
unchanging, static pre-colonial South Asian society subservient to autocratic

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 10 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

despots – ideas that were as much enshrined in colonial ideologies of power as

Marx’s idea of the Asiatic mode of production and Karl Wittfogel’s notion of
oriental despotism. Collectively, the social and economic histories produced by
these Marxist scholars and some of their non-Marxist colleagues changed many of
the basic assumptions about the South Asian medieval and recast the period by
introducing entirely new questions and categories of historical analysis.
Since the 1980s, a third interpretation of the medieval increasingly emerged in
India’s public domain, largely outside the realm of professional history-writing.
The politically ascendant Hindu right in India went back to the colonial discourse
of the association of the medieval with the notion of Muslim rulers oppressing
the Hindu majority of the Indian nation. Resurrecting colonial discursive tropes,
this political rhetoric focused on identifying Muslims – and to a lesser degree
the British – as foreign invaders of the subcontinent. Similar to the Iranian
idea of reviving the lost pre-Islamic golden age by a national movement and­
de-Arabization of Iranian culture, the political right in India started advocating a
national awakening and empowerment of the Hindus as a means for restoring the
ancient golden era and ending the dark times they believe to have set in with the
so-called Muslim invasions during the medieval period.35
Emanating from radically different political positions, these three major
approaches to the South Asian past have revised the colonial imagination of the
Mohammedan or medieval period in many ways. Yet, at the end of the day, there
is an element of commonality among all these positions towards the idea of the
medieval – they all find the category useful in pursuing their presentist goals.
For the liberal-nationalists, the medieval signifies the site where the modern
harmonious nation of Hindus and Muslims – something they want to see in the
present India – was forged through the benevolent, tolerant, and inclusive reign
of Muslim sovereigns like Akbar. Marxist historians put the South Asian medieval
to the litmus test of historical materialism at a juncture of the twentieth century
when leftist politicians and intellectuals were debating the nature of the dominant
mode of production of postcolonial India and the prospects of transforming its
society and economy through political action. Finally, for the Hindu right, the
medieval conjures an image of a dark age of oppression of the Hindus by tyrannical
Muslim rulers. While these three positions represent radically different political
orientations and hence offer very different interpretations of the medieval, the
fact that they all use the category validates and perpetuates the colonization of the
Indian past. At the end of the day, all these different versions of the South Asian
medieval are little more than what Partha Chatterjee calls ‘derivative discourse’, the
terms of which were set by the colonial order of knowledge.36

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 Introduction11

It is true that as long as we write academically about the South Asian past
within the modern European discipline of History, we too perpetuate the
colonization of this past. No escape from this is in sight. Especially at a time when
across the world, authoritarian states are seeking to rewrite the histories of their
nations to promote their intolerant regimes, historians seem to have no choice but
to uphold their disciplinary rigour more vocally than ever. But at the same time,
the editors of this volume also see some merit in continuing to engage with and
revise certain historical categories of the discipline that were introduced by the
colonial order of knowledge.
The decolonization of the medieval offers one such prospect. The first step
towards this, as John Dagenais and Margaret Greer put it, is to recognize that
European colonial powers not only colonized the space of the colonized but also
their time; we ought to realize that the ‘Middle Ages is a colonised region within the
history of Modernity’.37 Next, we must look for elements of dynamism and change
to demolish the stereotypical image of the ‘medieval’ as a stagnant and primitive
space of the pre-modern.38 Much of this has already been achieved for South Asia by
generations of historians, especially since the mid-twentieth century. Their work has
taught us much about the dynamics of the British colonization of the Indian past.
We have also known for a while now that contrary to the interpretation of British
imperialist histories, the so-called medieval period of South Asian history was a time
of vibrant commerce, technological innovation, tolerant political regimes, cultural
cosmopolitanism, religious heterodoxy, intimate contacts with the outside world, as
well as the constant circulation of people, objects, and knowledge.39
In the last three decades, the idea of the medieval in South Asia has been
challenged in one more way – by redefining the temporal and historical associations
of the category itself. This involves rethinking the long-standing association of the
medieval with the political dominance of South Asia by Islamicate polities – itself
a product of the early twentieth-century rechristening of Mill’s Mohammedan
period as medieval. There have been two main episodes in this process of the
redefinition of the medieval, both of which showed alternate conceptual
possibilities of history-writing.
The first unravelled during the 1960s through the 1980s, as historians of various
shades fervently debated the nature of political economy in the period between the
fragmentation of the Gupta Empire in the sixth century and the rise of the Delhi
Sultanate in the thirteenth. What emerged out of these debates was the category
of the early medieval, which was canonized by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya in his
The Making of Early Medieval India (1994). Eschewing arguments in favour
of viewing this period as an extended part of the ancient period, he persuasively

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 12 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

reasoned in favour of recognizing this as a separate historical period in its own

right, one that anticipated some historical tendencies of the medieval period.40
Chattopadhyaya’s arguments ended the enduring association of the category of
medieval with the period of Islamicate political dominance of South Asia; through
the category of the early medieval, he extended the scope of the medieval backward
in time to include around six centuries prior to the invasion of North India by
Islamicate powers.
The second episode of rethinking the category of the medieval started shortly
after the publication of Chattopadhyaya’s book. As mentioned earlier, the articles
of Richards and Subrahmanyam from 1997 recast a big portion of the so-called
medieval period as early modern. Looking back at this moment today, one cannot
fail to recognize it as yet another important step towards decolonizing the South
Asian Middle Ages. As Daud Ali points out, several trends in history-writing since
the 1980s led to the development of this new category. These include new histories
of the Mughals that sought to situate the empire in a broader global context,
new research on South India and the Indian Ocean that generated fresh studies
about coastal societies and their interactions with European traders, and, finally,
a systematic revision of the image of the eighteenth century as an era of decline
and ruin.41 Starting from the close of the twentieth century, historians increasingly
started locating the emergence of some forms of modernity in South Asia as early
as the sixteenth century. This effectively limited the scope of the medieval to the
thirteenth through fifteenth centuries, alarming South Asianists who had long
played self-assigned custodians of medieval Indian history and its Islamicate heritage.
Alongside this, a set of essays published in the Medieval History Journal in
1998 unpacked and problematized the category of the medieval itself, not only
for South Asia but also for other parts of the world. All this engendered a serious
rethinking of the meanings of the medieval in South Asian history. Yet it is not
only the idea of the medieval has com came to be revised through this intellectual
churning of the last two decades of the twentieth century; the introduction of the
category of early modernity also has serious implications for our understanding of
the emergence of modernity. However, in order for us to approach that subject,
we have to first consider what historians understand by modernity itself, both in
general and in the context of South Asian history.

The Idea of Modernity

What is modernity? Is it something specifically European or essentially global? Is
there only one modernity or many? These are ideologically laden and politically
charged questions. As Dorothy Ross points out, interpretations of modernity

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 Introduction13

could be radically different from one commentator to another, depending on

one’s politics and worldview. For the liberals, it is something good, marked by the
benefits of parliamentary democracy, capitalist development, individual liberty,
and technological progress. But at the same time, Ross points out that ‘there were
numerous fellow travellers on the road of historical advance – republican, romantic,
modernist, and socialist – who deplored many of its consequences and formed
alternative models’.42 Given the vast range and the diversity of interpretations of
modernity, we touch upon only a few ideas here and focus on the arguments we
find most relevant for our discussion about South Asian history.
Let us start with Jack Goldstone. He is of particular importance to us for
being one of the fiercest critics of the category of early modernity. Goldstone
points out that modernity carries different meanings in different fields. In art and
architecture, for instance, modern refers to a specific stylistic break with older
times: ‘departing from classically-inspired [sic] representational art in painting and
sculpture, and from traditional proportions, ornamentation, and concealment
of functional structures in architecture’.43 In this form, it comprises a period of a
little less than a hundred years, stretching from the late nineteenth century to the
1970s.44 Sociologically, it stands for a period commencing in the late eighteenth
century, one of the weakening of religion as a sociocultural force, dominance of
scientific and rational thinking, widespread use of fossil fuel and electricity, large-
scale production and consumption of consumer goods, driving of transport by
mechanical engines, and democratic forms of government. Essentially, such
an approach is similar to the conceptualization of modernity as progress or
improvement of human civilizational conditions.45 The Marxian paradigm takes
a more materialist approach, where the advent of modernity is equated with
the replacement of the feudal mode of production with a capitalist one and the
emergence of labour as a commodity.46
Commentators who have written after Goldstone have expanded the ambit
of the category further. Sudipta Kaviraj, for instance, lays down the following
list of interrelated processes: capitalist industrialization, increasing centrality of
the state in the social order (Michel Foucault’s ‘governmentality’), urbanization,
sociological individuation, secularization in politics and ethics, creation of a new
order of knowledge, vast changes in the organization of family and intimacy, and
changes in the fields of artistic and literary culture.47 In formulations like this, what
gets emphasized are not only the elements of tangible socio-economic and political
change but – informed by the critique of modernity by scholars like Foucault –
also the rise of disciplinary and classificatory mechanisms, regimes of surveillance,
as well as new systems of the formation and accumulation of knowledge through

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 14 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

which novel forms of power operate and govern citizen bodies. On these lines,
Chatterjee adds:

The regime of power in the modern societies prefers to work not through the
commands of a supreme sovereign but through the disciplinary practices that each
individual imposes on his or her own behavior on the basis of the dictates of reason….
The burden of reason, dreams of freedom; the desire for power, resistance to power:
all these are elements of modernity. There is no promised land of modernity outside
the networks of power.48

From a slightly different perspective, Dipesh Chakrabarty breaks the list of the
various processes thought to comprise modernity into two broad heads. In the first
category, he puts the advent of changes in the outside world – ‘the institutions (from
parliamentary and legal institution to roads, capitalist businesses, and factories)’.49
This he terms as ‘modernization’. This is accompanied by what he calls ‘modernity’ –
ferments in the intellectual realm, involving ‘the development of a degree of
reflective, judgmental thinking about these processes [of modernization]’.50
In recent years, this intellectual dimension of modernity has received a lot
of attention. Wolfgang Reinhard, for instance, discusses it by focusing on the
figure of René Descartes. Reinhard argues that Descartes’s The Discourse on the
Method (1637) marked a work of scholarship that was nothing like intellectual
contributions by the humanists or Christian reformists of the fifteenth or
sixteenth centuries. Reinhard further suggests that while these people essentially
wanted to revive the scholarship of older times, Descartes did not want to revive
anything. Instead, he wanted to begin from scratch by establishing the basics of
a new scientific method. This eventually ushered in a new era of human well-
being through scientific application and innovation. Discussing the role of
other scientists and philosophers, Reinhard concludes that ‘it was this alliance of
philosophy and science that initiated that permanent change which became our
fate up to the present day. And the modernity of the “modern period” consists in
nothing else but the consistent acceptance of this change’.51
Several scholars have challenged such conceptualizations of modernity. Björn
Wittrock, for instance, points out that many of the categories through which the
idea of modernity is often understood – ‘broad notions as the nation-state or
the constitutional republic, and of such mediating concepts as the public sphere
and civil society’ – are overwhelmingly derived from the European historical
experience.52 Within such a framework, modernity is conceptualized as something
that emerged in Europe and then disseminated to the rest of the world. Admittedly,
recent scholars have moved far away from the nineteenth-century understanding

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 Introduction15

of this dissemination as a glorious outward march of progress and civilization from

Europe. Many scholars have highlighted how the ‘spread of modernity’ transpired
through extremely violent processes of conquest, colonization, genocide, and
cultural hegemony. Yet the conviction in the European origins of ‘modernity’
remains strong among many social scientists.
Japanologist Carol Gluck is one of the scholars who have critiqued this
Eurocentrism very sharply. She points out that given the nature of the world
around us, the standard characteristics drawn from the European experience –
‘rationality, secularization, democracy’ – can no longer be seen as strict attributes
of modernity.53 She forwards a revised list of attributes that includes the dominance
of the nation-state as the unit of political or territorial organization, large-scale
political participation of nations, economic dominance of capital and industry,
co-option into the global geopolitical framework of power, and social
transformations in urban spaces.54 She asserts that under these circumstances, no
rhetoric of a march towards progress can reinforce the idea that one day modernity
will arrive and usher in an irreversible process of civilizational improvement.55 As the
workings of power gives rise to new regimes of violence and exploitation as well as
social and national inequalities, different places in the same modern world continue
to be considerably heterogeneous in terms of politics, society, and economy.56
This resonates with Kaviraj’s arguments, who also suggests that the production
of a huge body of knowledge about the histories of different non-European
societies has created a crisis of social theory in recent years. This, he points out, is
because the major premises, instances, and arguments of mainstream social theory
conventionally derive from the historical specificities of Europe.57 Fitting all the
new empirical evidence from non-European societies into this overwhelmingly
Eurocentric theoretical framework has proved to be extremely challenging. Kaviraj
suggests that the only way around this is to nuance existing social theory by moving
away from its European origins and informing it with the experiences of other
societies. This, he argues, will help us understand the diverse and heterogeneous
development of modernity in different parts of the world.58
Following these arguments, if we agree to eschew the idea of modernity as
something that developed exclusively in Europe and spread outward from there,
then the next question is how else we can think of this category. How do we explain
the multiplicity of forms in which we find modernity all around us today? Once
again, responses to such questions vary. Given the paucity of space, we consider
two. In order to make sense of this complex history of the modern world, Gluck
propounds the concept of ‘blended modernities’. She explains that ‘according to
the metaphor of historical blending, no version of the modern is merely imitative

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 16 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

of or inferior to another one, because by definition each inflection of modernity

emerged as a new blend in a separate (metaphorical) space’.59 She argues that the
merit of this metaphor is that it frees the various modernities across the world
from the shackles of being judged and understood against the standards of modern
Europe.60 She adds that the metaphor also enables us to comprehend the shared
features of our modern societies while allowing us to appreciate the absence of
any absolute and universal qualities, since the blends are different by definition.61
She concludes by stressing that ‘[H]istory, in short, offers no abstract model of
the modern, only embedded real modernities produced by creative blending that
never reaches an end’.62
Kaviraj makes a slightly different case. He argues that the different processes that
comprise modernity did not experience a ‘symmetrical’ simultaneous development
over time. Instead, he suggests, they went through a phase of ‘sequential’ ‘braiding’,
where each process shaped the subsequent processes. He explains that the nature
of modernity in a particular society depends on the ‘precise sequence in which
constituent processes of [its] modernity appears’.63 In such a framework, the
ways in which modernity evolves in a particular society is moulded by the original
conditions within which modern processes and institutions emerge. The principal
merit of such an argument, Kaviraj points out, is that it allows us to understand
modernity as a highly contingent process deriving from the historical specificities
of a particular region and not as a uniform condition that developed in the same
way everywhere.64
Such a way of thinking about modernity resonates with Subrahmanyam’s
argument about it being a ‘global and conjunctural phenomenon, not a virus
that spreads from one place to another’.65 Charting a broader context for the
historical emergence of modernity, he locates it in myriad processes that fostered
increasing contact between different parts of the world. For him, these processes
comprise ‘the Mongol dream of world conquest, European voyages of exploration,
activities of Indian textile traders in the diaspora, the “globalization of microbes”
that historians of the 1960s were fond of discussing, and so on’.66 He explains that
precisely because these processes were uneven over time and space as well as were
deeply rooted in local historical contexts, modernity also evolved as a heterogeneous
and conjunctural global condition.67
The editors of this volume find merit in conceptualizing modernity in these
ways. We agree that modernity is not something that developed only in Europe;
it is rather a global phenomenon that appeared in an increasingly connected
world and was generated by what Kaviraj looks upon as a sequential braiding of
different historical processes. Drawing upon Chatterjee, one can argue that there

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 Introduction17

have been at least three different forms of modernity in our immediate context of
South Asia. First, there were certain processes and experiences that emerged from
the fifteenth century onwards and that bore strong trans-continental connections
with other contemporary societies, while being deeply rooted in the South Asian
historical experience. This is what Chatterjee calls early modernity. Next, he argues
that the 1830s onwards, this early modernity – at once indigenous and shared –
was derailed by the arrival and growing hegemony of colonial modernity. This is
when indigenous forms of modernity were increasingly transformed through a
violent process of war and conquest in favour of the colonization of the economy,
transformation of the political system with Britain acquiring a paramount position,
and the dissemination of colonial education that created both servile clerks and
ardent nationalists.68 Finally, starting in the mid-twentieth century, we find a
postcolonial modernity following the independence and partition of South Asia.
This postcolonial modernity has been shaped not only by the enduring legacies
of early modernity and colonial modernity, but also by the forces, impulses, and
imperatives of postcolonial nation-building and global politics.69

What Is Early Modernity?

Finally, we arrive at the question that lies at the heart of this volume – what is
early modernity? Justus Nipperdey points out that the initial use of the category
of early modernity occurred in North American universities during the interwar
period. At that time, the mainstream idea in the Anglophone academia was that
modernity had emerged around the time of the Renaissance and had continued
unabated ever since. As a critique of this understanding, some American
historians started using the category of early modernity for the sixteenth through
eighteenth centuries more in the sense of a non-modern time than the early phase
of modernity – a meaning it would eventually assume. By projecting the early
modern period as a phase divorced from modernity, these historians pushed the
origins of modernity closer to their own times – between the mid-seventeenth
and late eighteenth centuries. At the same time, there were others who looked
upon the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries as indeed being imbued with a
form of modernity, albeit one that was only the preliminary form of what would
appear after the eighteenth century.70 Both the groups, in their own different ways,
reconceptualized a part of history that had conventionally been considered to be an
integral part of European modernity in the Anglophone academia. The category
spread to the other side of the Atlantic by the 1950s.71 Moshe Sluhovsky points
out that it saw widespread currency during the 1960s and 1970s, when it emerged
as a way for historians to bridge the gap between the medieval and the modern

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 18 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

periods of European history, one that advocated a gradual transition to the later
stages of the medieval to early forms of modernity without any dramatic breaks.72
One of the most important interventions around this time came from
Koselleck. He propounded the notion of the ‘temporalization of history’ – a
process that unfolded roughly between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries,
and decisively created a discursive modernity in Europe. Koselleck mainly explores
the transformations in the domain of ideas while tracing this history. Focusing on
two historical figures – Martin Luther (1483–1546) and Maximilien Robespierre
(1758–1794), he argues that between the times of these two men, there came
about a profound change in the way Europeans thought about time and, more
specifically, the future. In the seventeenth century, Koselleck argues, strategic and
political considerations of emergent nation-states replaced Christian eschatology
as the dominant ideology shaping these thoughts.73 However, in the following
century, one more change came about – ideas of temporal change and progress
became imbued with ideas of ‘rational prediction and salvational expectation’.74
For Koselleck, this moment in the eighteenth century marked the decisive shift
into modernity. However, he firmly emphasizes that it was the changes over the
past three centuries that made this final shift possible. 75
Sluhovsky suggests that this understanding changed since the 1980s; instead
of an early yet distinct phase of modernity, early modernity increasingly came
to be seen as an extension of the medieval. This was done by a new tendency of
ascribing to the sixteenth and the first half of the seventeenth centuries certain
negative attributes conventionally associated with the medieval and by locating the
inception of modernity in the mid-seventeenth century or later.76 On the one hand,
some scholars conceptualized this inception in terms of a major shift in the realm of
science and philosophy, where the medieval tendency of understanding the world
through similarities was replaced by a new ontological paradigm of classifications
that privileged the idea of difference. On the other hand, some others imagined
the same process in terms of the emergence of the self-conscious and self-reflexive
modern individual and bourgeois subjectivity, which replaced the medieval
notion of selfhood that centred on community, kin, and religion. In both cases,
the cultural, social, and intellectual reverberations of the Protestant reformation
were considered to have played a central role in facilitating these processes.77
Together, they led to the new conceptualization of modernity that, according to
Sluhovsky, was ‘masculine, both Protestant and secular at the same time, rational,
stable, cerebral, and introspective, as opposed to premodernity that was Catholic,
exterior, irrational, unstable, feminine, and corporeal’.78 It was in this process,
dominant especially during the 1980s and 1990s, that the conceptualization of

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 Introduction19

early modernity as a preliminary form of modernity in Europe – epitomized in

some writings of Koselleck – got jeopardized.
Yet, around the same time, the global turn in history-writing breathed new life
into this category. By the 1990s, it started gaining increasing currency in histories
of non-European parts of the world. This process helped the category break out
of the European context, where it had remained trapped for almost a century as a
part of what Luke Clossey calls the ‘deductive approach’ of tracing the prehistory
of European modernity. Instead, what now emerged with the globalization of the
category revealed an ‘inductive approach’, whereby scholars started exploring the
new historical tendencies that engulfed different parts of the world during the
sixteenth through eighteenth centuries.79 We will discuss this expanding body of
literature mainly with reference to the case of South Asia.
Here, we must return to the interventions by Richards and Subrahmanyam,
whose articles from 1997 set the ball rolling for the historiography of this part
of the world. Richards argues that six major processes defined the world in the
sixteenth through eighteenth centuries and hence can be seen to be the main
characteristics of early modernity. These were the establishment of global oceanic
routes, emergence of the first global economy, rise of large and stable states and
empires, steady growth of population across the world, agrarian expansion, and
dissemination of new technologies and biological species. Having delineated these
processes, Richards argues that each of these processes characterized the South
Asian past during this period as well. He thus makes a strong case for using this
category rather than phrases like ‘Mughal India’ or ‘Late Medieval India’ or ‘Late
Pre-Colonial India’ while writing South Asian history.80 Subrahmanyam adds
that this was also the time of geographical explorations redefining the frontiers of
the known world, heightened struggle between sedentary and pastoral societies,
spectacular proclamations of universal sovereignty by a large numbers of monarchs,
and the widespread currency of millenarian beliefs.81
More recently, Rosalind O’Hanlon has added to the list of features of early
modernity. She highlights the tendency of big empires across the globe to promote
the circulation and migration of elite personnel – bureaucrats, ambassadors,
military professionals, artisans, and men of letters. This was accompanied by the rise
of a scribal culture and the emergence of new scribal elites. This, in turn, triggered
the emergence of novel and transformative discourses in various intellectual and
technological fields. It was accompanied by disenchantment about and distancing
from earlier forms of knowledge. There was also a strong emergence of vernacular
languages and cultures, in turn bolstering the process of the rise of strong regional
identities. Artistic genres produced distinct and self-conscious voices of the

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 20 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

individual, be it in fiction, autobiographies, or travelogues. Helped by the large-

scale adoption of new technologies like print and paper, these fostered the growth
of thriving public spheres.82
In the last few years, other scholars have shed further light on the dynamics of
historical processes in South Asia between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries,
and have thereby added substantially to our understanding of the meanings of
early modernity in this part of the world. For Velcheru Narayana Rao, David
Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, early modernity in South India stands for brilliant
literary expressions of historical consciousness across various genres and languages.
They argue that unlike the evolution of history in western Europe as a distinct
intellectual domain with a formal style, method, and structure, early modernity
in South Indian historical consciousness was marked by fluidity, flexibility, and
multiplicity in terms of form, content, and genre. Thus, they point out that while
both Europe and South India shared one characteristic of early modernity – the
heightening of historical consciousness – the contours of this consciousness
were different owing to the cultural specificities of the individual sociocultural
milieus.83
In more recent years, these scholars have carried forward their ideas about
the sixteenth century marking the dawn of a new era in South Asia. Shulman,
for instance, argues that in South India, the sixteenth century inaugurated a new
paradigm of cultural sensibilities, oriented more than ever towards realism and
empiricism. Through a study of various texts in Sanskrit as well as South Indian
vernaculars like Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu, Shulman shows how the literary
imagination of the time got entangled with emerging scientific discourses like plant
sciences, chemical sciences, and medical sciences. In the process, contemporary
authors harnessed the knowledge provided by their predecessors, but they also
created radically original forms of knowledge in response to the rapidly changing
sociocultural conditions around them.84
Elaine Fisher highlights another important difference between South Asia and
western Europe – unlike the latter, the former did not witness any major public
figure rejecting devotion and advocating atheism. For Fisher, the essence of South
Asian early modernity lay in an opposite tendency – ‘an embrace rather than a
rejection of religion in public space’.85 This took the form of intense theological
debates leading to the sharpening of sectarian religious identities. According to
Fisher, all of this played out in the emergence of ‘public theologies’ – a pluralistic
public sphere marked by intense publicization of religious ideas and dialogues.86
Jonardon Ganeri similarly argues that although philosophical thought in
South Asia underwent a paradigmatic change in the sixteenth and seventeenth

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 Introduction21

centuries, once again its trajectories were very different in comparison with what
transpired in western Europe. He sees South Asian philosophical early modernity
as being squarely based in ‘logical form and linguistic practice’ rather than the close
association with observations about the natural world that characterized the early
modern philosophical developments in western Europe.87 Yet, he argues, the early
modernities in both the regions shared a common trait – in both cases, philosophers
increasingly developed a keen criticality towards ancient texts, whereby rather than
being deferential and subservient to them like their predecessors, they engaged
with them meaningfully based on the new knowledge and experience they had
gathered in their present.88
For Shankar Nair, early modernity in South Asia refers to intellectual
exuberance in Sanskrit, Arabic, and Persian philosophical domains. Nair points
out that traditionally, the practitioners of the Islamic or Arabic and the Hindu
or Sanskritic traditions had treaded parallel intellectual pathways and rarely had
the intellectual and linguistic resources to engage each other directly in informed
intellectual dialogue. Under such circumstances, a new paradigm emerged in
course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as Mughal patronage of a group
of Hindu and Muslim scholars for the translation of Sanskrit texts led to the
emergence of Persian as some sort of an intellectual lingua franca. Its merit lay
in its accessibility for both the philosophical communities and its amenability for
facilitating cross-cultural philosophical dialogue.89
Nile Green locates early modernity in an epistemological shift at the close of
the sixteenth century, whereby the documentation and transmission of knowledge
underwent a profound transformation because of an expansion in cultures of
record-keeping and historiography, accompanied by the emergence of robust
bureaucratic and scribal cultures. Green argues that while this tendency resonated
with the experience in other parts of the world, in South Asia this ascendancy of
texts as the new ‘conceptual and practical locations of knowledge’ transpired even
without the proliferation of print culture during this period, quite in contrast to
the picture in regions like western Europe or Japan.90
Based on the scholarship on other parts of the world, it is possible to add more
points to this already detailed and rather lengthy list. Shared historical processes
and long-term currents that accelerated in this period had a deep impact on the
rapidly moving anthropogenic change – human-induced environmental change
or the collective human action on the world’s ecosystems – during the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries. Trends that began to gather fundamental constituents
of modern agrarian environments were perceptible in the sixteenth century. Early
modernity can be associated with increasing engagements with firearms, a growing

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 22 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

preoccupation with cartography to aid increasingly intrusive and bureaucratic

states govern and project their power beyond their immediate realms, a vigorous
pursuit and circulation of ‘exotic’ items as a part of an expanding gift-economy, the
increasing politicization of the oceanic space and the rise of European naval power
therein, and the development of a new strategic consciousness among empires
and nation-states. Empirical research has firmly established that these various
processes characterized most parts of the world – including South Asia – during
the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Together, they also characterized the
early modern condition.
Within a specific region, the way these processes unfolded remained strictly
contingent on the historical specificities and context of that region. As such, it
was entirely possible that some of the processes of one region did not appear in
another. For instance, while most powerful states and empires invested in charting
the realms through cartography since the sixteenth century, the rise of Mughal
power in South Asia was not accompanied by any imperial venture to visually map
its territories.91 In fact, the first major cartographic initiative was undertaken only
in 1647 at a sub-imperial level.92 Similarly, while many states imposed an increasing
monopoly over the means of violence in many parts of the world, the specificities
of social, military, and environmental conditions ensured that nothing of the sort
occurred in the Mughal Empire. A large part of the subject population of the
empire, in fact, remained perpetually armed and belligerent. Finally, the gradual
separation of the church and the state – one of the defining historical processes
of Europe of this period – never occurred in South Asia; religion and statecraft
remained fairly intertwined. This shows that while a particular region could share
many common global processes, there was no one-to-one correspondence between
different regions because of their historical specificities.
Among the various processes, some – like engagements with firearms,
circulation of elite personnel, global commerce, and the rise of the vernaculars
– continued well after the eighteenth century. Hence, in regions like South
Asia, they also contributed to the making of colonial modernity. But some –
like the political ideology of universal sovereignty and circulation of millenarian
belief – did not. They remained specifically early modern tendencies. In such a
conceptualization, the early modern no longer remains a chronological category
that simply designates a period of time before the advent of colonial modernity.
By virtue of recognizing multiple modernities in the world and at least three
successive varieties of modernity in South Asia, early modernity can be seen as a
form of modernity in its own right, one that was at once shared and indigenous,
one which was derailed in a large measure by the emergence of colonial modernity

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 Introduction23

in the nineteenth century. As such, the term early modernity attains the status
of a descriptive category, signifying specific local as well as global processes that
happened to be rampant in a certain period of time.

In Defence of the Early Modern

Having described the contours of early modernity, it is now time to consider some
of the criticisms against this category. The most detailed critique comes from
Goldstone. His allegations are primarily twofold. He writes: ‘“Early Modern”
derives from a particular sociological theory of history that privileges modes of
production in characterizing and powering history, not from any “natural”
historical periodization.’93 He argues that it primarily serves to fill up the historical
void between the demise of feudalism – a process complete by the early sixteenth
century – and the rise of industrial capitalism in the late eighteenth. The other
objection is that by virtue of being the time-filler following the end of the feudal
mode of production, the category of early modernity is based squarely on the
European historical experience, since there was no socio-economic formation
similar to feudalism anywhere else in the world.94
Goldstone says that given this context, one of two things happen when we
apply the category of early modernity to a non-European society. The first
possibility is that we empty out the category of all historical meaning and use it
simply as a signifier for the period between 1500 and 1800, irrespective of whether
or not these particular years or the entire period have any historical significance
in these different societies.95 The second possibility is that we imbue the category
with meaning drawn from the European historical experience and then apply it to
the rest of the world. This is disastrous, argues Goldstone, because it is Eurocentric
and does not reflect the reality of historical change and continuity in various parts
of the non-European world.96
These are substantial criticisms. We would like to club our responses in two
principal points. First, it is true that in many instances, the initial ideas of early
modernity were developed to explain the shift from feudalism to capitalism.
However, we have come a long way from that. In recent times, the idea has become
greatly nuanced and eclectic. In Koselleck’s formulation of early modernity in
terms of the ‘temporalization of history’, for instance, the sociological definition of
modernity takes a back seat. Here, the period is explained in terms of an ideological
and cultural shift in how societies looked at their past. In such a formulation, the
idea of early modernity no longer remains intertwined with the institution of
feudalism. Hence, there does not remain any problem in applying the category
to non-European historical contexts, whether or not they experienced feudalism.

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 24 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

Second, in the recent historical research that uses the category of the early
modern, neither is the category expunged of all meaning and rendered a hollow
chronological marker nor is it filled with meaning derived from the European
historical experience. As we have argued earlier, one way of delinking the category
from its European origins has been to stop thinking of modernity itself in terms
of something that originated only in Europe. As Subrahmanyam, Richards,
O’Hanlon, and Chatterjee argue, modernity needs to be conceptualized as
a global condition that emerged in different parts of the world from very
different circumstances. What we see in the period between the sixteenth and
eighteenth centuries is the near-simultaneous rise of various forms of indigenous
modernities that shared many global characteristics, but were also rooted in their
diverse historical contexts and, consequently, had their own peculiarities. In
such an approach, the early modern condition refers to all these various forms
of modernity. However, in course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, one
of these multiple forms of modernity – one that had developed in north-western
Europe – emerged as the dominant form of modernity throughout the world
through the violent processes of war, diplomacy, and colonization. This form of
western modernity unfolded in constant negotiation with indigenous forms of
modernity. Eventually, in parts of the world like South Asia, decolonization began
at one point, and the new liberated nation-states took these negotiations in new
directions and moulded them further with the imperatives of the postcolonial
condition. The result is the kind of ‘blended modernities’ of today’s world that
Gluck has explained.
Randolph Starn has argued that the early modern period has no standard
timeline.97 This is, however, nothing new for historical periods. Initially
conceptualized to study the European past, standard historical periodization has
always displayed variation when applied to a non-European context. However, this
does not mean that they needed to be immediately discarded or that their use has
not enabled any comparative study or academic dialogue across regions. In fact,
compared to the categories of ancient and medieval, there seems to be more surety
among historians about the temporal span of the early modern – the sixteenth
through eighteenth centuries. Obviously, there are some variations in terms of a
specific process or region, but there is a growing consensus among scholars about
these centuries being associated with the category. There are not many voices that
have extended it too far beyond this in either direction of the timeline.
Starn has also asserted that early modern is a teleological category because it
anticipates the advent of modernity.98 In response, it is possible to refer to some
arguments made by Sheldon Pollock. He argues that though the notion of early

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 Introduction25

modern has been a matter of dispute among scholars both regionalists and
generalists with regard to its teleological connotation, it needs to be urged that the
period between 1500 and 1800 cannot be assigned any shared structure or content
a priori ‘let alone to insist on finding in it western modernity in embryonic form’.99
He reiterates the importance of historical synchronicity, in which there is no space
for definitional consistency or conceptual symmetry. The period, he stipulates,
constituted an entirely reasonable periodization for intellectual history and can be
called early modern in the sense of a ‘threshold, where potentially different futures
may have been arrested or retained only as masala for that dominant form’.100 He
further writes that the category is teleological in the sense that we are familiar with
the modern world of today and we wish to know how human societies ended up
here.101 Furthermore, we know that the emergence of colonial modernity in the
nineteenth century jeopardized previously existing forms of modernity in South
Asia, and we wish to explore the nature of these pre-colonial forms of modernity.
But precisely because the indigenous early modernity was short-circuited – and
in a large measure discontinued – by the advent of colonial modernity, early
modernity does not represent the initial phase of an uninterrupted journey of
modernity. In other words, much of the forms of indigenous early modernity
did not lead anywhere after the close of the eighteenth century; they were mostly
derailed. Hence, the idea of teleology does not hold beyond allowing us a glimpse
into what lay before that derailment occurred.
Chakrabarty has critiqued the idea of early modernity by suggesting that when
we find evidence of historical processes similar to those that unfolded in Europe
in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries and move to use the category of the
early modern to analyse this evidence, we express certain conscious choices. He
suggests that this is triggered by a revolt against the earlier tendency of looking at
the West as the harbinger of modernity and a desire to see different parts of the
world as equals in terms of their historical trajectories.102 He argues that while
this displays a presentist political commitment towards the principle of ‘equal
opportunity’, it does not do justice to the real processes of the past.103 ‘The
sentiment is entirely laudable,’ he concludes, ‘but it speaks mainly of the moral
preferences that most historians share today. But they are, after all, preferences –
axioms of our age.’104
Chakrabarty’s critique is valid to some extent. After all, our use of the category
of the early modern for South Asian history is partially informed by our politics of
decolonizing the Middle Ages and reviewing the origins of modernity. However,
one wonders if there is anything at all in the historical profession that is not
ideologically laden and not a product of the historian’s politics or preferences.

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 26 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

Starting from formulating research questions, selecting which sources to consult,

negotiating the sources while trying to answer the questions, framing a narrative
on the basis of the findings, and making arguments about the past – is every single
action among these not a product of the historian’s preferences, not deeply shaped
by the ‘axioms of our age’? Of course, using the category of the early modern
to study a part of the past of South Asia – and, in fact, the whole world – is an
ideological project. The entire framework of historical periodization, in fact, is an
act of power and a product of ideology. Right now, we do not see an escape from it.
Chakrabarty voices one more concern. As mentioned previously, he divides
the idea of the modern into two components – ‘modernization’ in the outer
world and ‘modernity’ in the intellectual realm. He implies that sometimes
historians label a particular period of South Asian history early modern simply
because they find elements of ‘modernization’ there. According to Chakrabarty,
this is problematic. He urges historians to go a step further and find out if the
region also experienced an advent of modernity in the intellectual domain – one
of the fundamental assumptions about what defined the advent of modernity
in Europe.105 Contrary to the allegation levied by others that the category of
early modernity is Eurocentric, Chakrabarty’s argument thus implies the
opposite – in its failure to demonstrate that what characterized the inception
of modernity in western Europe also appeared in other parts of the world, the
uses of the category does not uphold European standards to a satisfactory extent.
As we have already argued, the premise of this entire line of argument too is
the assumption that modernity is something essentially European. By arguing
in favour of a different way of thinking about modernity, it is possible to be
free from judging the rest of the world in terms of European standards. Hence,
while historians must look for whether South Asia participated in various global
processes, they have no liability to try to investigate if something that transpired
in Europe happened there too.
In comparison to the possible shortfalls, the benefits of the category of early
modernity seem vastly greater.106 O’Hanlon points out that while thinking in
terms of the traditional equivalence between modernity and colonial rule for
South Asia, one difficulty that emerges is the nature of transition from a pre-
modern society to a modern one. Any idea of an abrupt transformation with the
onset of colonial rule betrays a lack of appreciation for the capability of change and
dynamism within South Asian society. O’Hanlon argues that thinking in terms of
an early modern period is helpful in this respect, because it allows us to see how
South Asia responded to and participated in new shared global tendencies much
before the age of colonialism. She stresses that recognizing the pre-colonial forms

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 Introduction27

of modernity in South Asia helps us problematize traditional binaries between

pre-modern or pre-colonial one the one hand and the false equivalence between
modern and colonial on the other.107
Pollock argues that designating the three centuries leading up to the violent
global spread of European modernity in the nineteenth century as early modern
makes it possible to comprehend the history of a world where societies ‘began
to participate in a world economy, to live in vaster and more complex states, to
confront a demographic explosion, a diffusion of unprecedented technology, and
larger movements of people in a newly unified or at least unifying world’.108 Doing
so, it liberates modernity from the monopoly of Europe and thereby nullifies the
European imperialist claim of bringing modernity to the rest of the world. As
O’Hanlon points out, it recognizes that different forms of shared modernity arose
in different corners of the world independent of Europe’s agency.109 It helps us
acknowledge the existence of a connected, dynamic, and changing modern world
much before the nineteenth century.
Finally, recognizing the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries as early
modern has another importance for South Asian historiography. By taking out the
entire history of the rise and fall of the Mughal Empire – the most powerful and
enduring Islamicate polity of South Asia – from the domain of the medieval, the
colonial association of the medieval with the political dominance of South Asia by
Islamicate states can be negated.110 This complements the work of the proponents
of the category of early medieval, which had a similar effect on the conceptualization
of the medieval period for South Asia. In the process, we contribute towards the
efforts to the decolonization of the South Asian Middle Ages.

The Intellectual Project of This Volume

Against the backdrop of this discussion, let us spell out in a little more detail
what exactly this volume does. The main question that it addresses is around
the meanings and forms of early modernity in various domains of the South
Asian history between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries vis-à-vis historical
tendencies of change and continuity. Already during the last decade there has
been an explosion of books – both monographs and edited volumes – on South
Asia that focus on the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries and use the phrase
‘early modern’ in their titles to designate this period.111 Many of these volumes
are collections of essays, representing collective efforts by groups of scholars to
shed light on the nature of historical processes that constituted early modernity
in South Asia.112 Most of these volumes set specific tasks for themselves. For
Thomas de Bruijn and Allison Busch, for instance, the point of departure is the

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 28 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

argument that the South Asian early modernity comprised heightened forms
of mobility and circulation. They argue that this has been usually understood
in terms of the mobility of material objects – commercial traffic, transregional
trade, better communication, and transmission of technologies. In contrast,
they bring together a group of essays to explore the nature of cross-fertilization
of literary texts and traditions, and the mobility of ideas and languages.113 In
another volume, O’Hanlon and David Washbrook begin by highlighting the
familiar ideas about early modernity engendering heightened interactions of
South Asia with the outside world, increasing volume of all sorts of mobility,
and the emergence of paper regimes of documentation. Against this backdrop,
they bring together a collection of articles to argue that the changing nature of
religious culture and intellectual exchanges in South Asia between the sixteenth
and eighteenth centuries marked a critical stage in the transition of the medieval
to the modern.114
Over the last decade or so, such works have contributed immensely to our
understanding of what early modernity comprised in different spheres of the South
Asian historical experience. In a sense, the current volume represents a maturation
of many of the arguments and theorizations offered by these earlier works. Taking
forward some of the earlier investigations and branching out into new directions,
our work signifies yet another step in the increasing expansion and consolidation
of the field. We do this by addressing two main areas of lacuna that characterizes
the existing corpus literature on the subject.
First, most existing works engage with the meanings of the conceptual category
of early modernity only cursorily. They mostly focus on the dynamics of historical
processes between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, having assumed
that this is the period that comprised the early modern era. What remains largely
unaddressed is any exploration about the nature of continuity and discontinuity
of South Asian historical processes and the intellectual need to identify a specific
period as early modern. The question of what changes between medieval and early
modern on the one hand as well as between early modern and colonial modern
on the other often remains implicit in these writings. In contrast, the chapters
of the current volume foreground the nature of such changes. Instead of taking
early modernity as a given category, they probe into why this category needs to be
used at all in different fields. In doing this, they dedicate themselves specifically to
understanding the nature of historical continuity and discontinuity – something
that is at the heart of the exercise of periodization – in these fields.
At the same time, this volume contributes to our understanding of the precise
characteristics of historical processes across the board that we designate as early

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 Introduction29

modern. In contrast to the fact that most existing monographs and edited volumes
are built around specific themes – religious practices, textual traditions, or literary
cultures – the present volume addresses a wide range of themes. In fact, a noticeable
feature of the existing literature on the dynamics of early modernity in South Asia
is a strong orientation towards textual and cultural analysis – itself reflective of the
current dominance of field by historians trained or employed in the United States
academia and that of a culturalist perspective among them. This orientation has
resulted in an overwhelming focus on literary tendencies, textual traditions, scribal
cultures, philosophical ideas, and religious interactions. In the process, this has
resulted in the marginalization of themes like economy, infrastructure, statecraft,
warfare, or environment. In contrast, the fact that the present volume is built
around a general question rather than a specific theme enables it to offer analysis
of a range of themes, both cultural and material.
The volume has three parts. With three chapters, the first part explores the
realm of religion, ideology, and identity. Here, Kashshaf Ghani’s chapter focuses
on the specific developments in the domain of South Asian Sufism between
the early sixteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He argues that three specific
dimensions set Sufi processes of this period away from the times before or after – a
redefinition of the relationship between mystical Islam and political Islam, new
forms of philosophical expression including the increasing use of vernacular
languages, and the emergence of reformist movements. This discussion of the early
modern condition in terms of the history of Sufism is complemented by Charles
Ramsey’s chapter on new tendencies that appeared in Islamic natural philosophy
mainly during the seventeenth century. It focuses on the ideas of two individuals –
Mulla Sadra of Persia and Shaykh Sirhindi of India, whose intellectual interventions
signified fresh engagements with theological questions in the Persianate world.
Ramsey interprets the rise of these new intellectual tendencies in the context of the
larger millenarian religious climate of the times. Shalin Jain’s chapter enriches this
discussion on the changing intellectual landscape of South Asia by extending the
investigation into the Jain community. Like Ramsey, Jain’s study too is based on
an analysis of two individuals – in this case a fifteenth-century lay preacher named
Lonka Shah and a seventeenth-century merchant named Banarsidas. Through a
critical analysis of their ideas, he argues that what marked the emergence of early
modernity in Jainism was the rise and proliferation of a humanistic rationality and
new notions of individual agency, alongside a tendency of challenging established
social norms and an irreverent scepticism towards religious orthodoxy.
The second part of the book comprises four chapters. Here, we move from
issues of the intellectual realm to more material questions of economy, society,

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 30 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

and ecology. Rajat Datta’s chapter deals with the field of political economy
within a comparative global historical framework. For him, early modernity raises
the notion of multipolar and convergent modernities. In the field of economy,
he defines early modernity in terms of heightening of production processes, rise
of military-fiscalism in states, diversification of trading enterprises, increasing
sophistication of primary and secondary production, a thriving cash nexus, and
tremendous overall economic growth in South Asia. The next two chapters, by
Mayank Kumar and Meena Bhargava, engage with the nature of the early modern
condition in terms of human engagements with the natural environment. Kumar
defines the category for Rajasthan in the seventeenth through eighteenth centuries
in terms of heightened efforts by the state to document and control environmental
resources. To this end, the state deployed new officials, invested in creating
irrigational infrastructure, sought to bypass intermediaries in interacting with
rural communities, imposed taxes on community uses of natural resources, and
tried to control the domestic realm through social and legal means. In contrast to
Kumar’s focused study of Rajasthan, Bhargava provides a more holistic analysis of
the changing relationships between humans and the environment in South Asia.
She argues that here the features of early modernity comprised a steep rise in human
population, leading to the expansion of the agrarian frontier and the heightening
of anthropogenic impact on the environment, the ripples of which were felt in
land-use patterns, engagements with non-agricultural lands, and management of
ecological resources. Finally, Ranjeeta Dutta’s chapter highlights the usefulness
of the category of early modernity in fostering new forms of historical inquiry
about peninsular idea, in taking historiographical treatment of the region beyond
the conventional analytical frames that are derived largely from the historical
experience of North India. Against this backdrop, Dutta characterizes the early
modern condition in South India in terms of heightened interactions between
fertile wet zones and dry upland areas, the emergence of new warrior groups
and agrarian aristocracy, and greater transregional migration by professional and
religious groups.
The third part of the book presents three chapters that explore political
processes, legal procedures, and military violence. Radhika Chadha focuses on
the Portuguese traders, pirates, renegades, and freebooters on the Bengal coast in
eastern India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to search for a typology
of early modern politics. She argues in favour of a new, expanding, fluid political
spectrum where both settled empires and enterprising, independent political actors
could negotiate each other, exploiting the myriad overlaps of political spheres.
This is followed by a chapter on maritime law by Santanu Sengupta. It looks at

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 Introduction31

the changing legal culture of the Indian Ocean during the seventeenth through
early nineteenth centuries. Sengupta argues that the early modern legal world of
maritime commerce was marked by legal plurality and hybridity, something that
allowed a diasporic mercantile community like the Armenians to deftly negotiate
and adapt to a variety of circumstances. He points out that although the early
colonial government accommodated itself within this heterogeneous early modern
legal world, by the second quarter of the nineteenth century, this hybridity was
increasingly replaced by the legal hegemony of British colonial power. The final
chapter by Pratyay Nath takes us into the world of war, by asking what qualifies
Mughal warfare to be designated as early modern. Nath argues that the answer
lies in four major tendencies – an enhanced ability of armies to adapt to myriad
fighting conditions, a centralizing military organization, a heightened efficiency
in the management of war, and a culture of war centred on the imperial cult
and the legitimation of violence in terms of justice. It were these tendencies
that characterized military early modernity for South Asia, something that was
jettisoned since the mid-eighteenth century by the rise of European military
techniques, administration, and culture.
An important argument that runs through almost all these chapters is that
the tendencies that marked the early modern condition roughly between the
sixteenth through eighteenth centuries did not emerge overnight. Rather, most
of these tendencies themselves signified the maturation of historical processes
of earlier times. Ramsey, for instance, explains that the new questions that were
raised by Sirhindi and Mulla Sadra in the seventeenth century were rooted in
the criticality that had characterized Islamic natural philosophy in the earlier
centuries. Similarly, Nath points out that Akbar’s centralizing reforms in Mughal
military administration drew upon earlier traditions prevalent in the armies of the
Delhi Sultanate as well as Turko-Mongol polities. In this outlook, the preceding
centuries – especially the medieval period – does not remain Symes’ ‘penal colony
of history’, the other of everything that the modern represents; rather, it emerges
as the period that bore the roots of modernity itself, from which early modernity
emerged organically without any dramatic historical breaks.
At the other end of the spectrum, several of our contributors indicate that
fresh tendencies that appeared in the sixteenth through seventeenth centuries
sometimes stretched right into the nineteenth century. This was true, for example,
of the reformist ideas that Ghani argues characterized Sufi Islam in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries as well as the increasing state-control that Kumar argues
the kingdoms of modern Rajasthan began asserting on the natural environment
since the sixteenth century. This indicates that as much as we do not envision early

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 32 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

modernity simply as the introductory phase of South Asian modernity, we also

do not envision early modernity as something completely divorced from colonial
modernity. Rather, in our perspective, colonial modernity itself was something
hybrid, built on the derailment of some of the historical characteristics of South
Asian early modernity, the appropriation, reformulation, and continuation of
some others, and, finally, the import of many tendencies of western European
modernity.
Yet, these historical continuities notwithstanding, the image of early modernity
that emerges from our chapters is that of a distinct historical period of the evolution
of South Asian society, one that engendered new developments across almost all
domains of human activity. As a historical condition, it was at once local and
global, a product of both indigenous developments and transregional processes,
and as much peculiar to this region in some ways as shared across the world in
others. This kind of a conceptualization of early modernity – itself a maturation
of the intellectual contributions of several scholars who have written before us – is
subversive, creative, and liberative at the same time. On the first count, it subverts
the conventional periodization of South Asian history and contributes to the
decolonization of the South Asian past. In doing so, we join forces with historians
advocating similar revisionist schemes of periodization like the early medieval,
and invite others to rethink more of the categories that have framed the writing
of South Asian history till now. Second, this conceptualization of early modernity
creates increasing possibilities for comparative historical studies that can help us
understand the historical experience through its comparison with that of various
other parts of the world that were undergoing similar churnings. It is perhaps for
this reason that out of the various historical periods, it is the early modern period
has seen the greatest explosion of transregional histories in its various forms –
comparative history, connected history, and global history – in the last two decades.
We hope that by facilitating the writing of more such histories in years to come, the
category of early modernity will contribute towards the breaking of the isolation
in which South Asian history was mostly written till the close of the twentieth
century. Finally, this conceptualization of early modernity liberates modernity
from what Terence Cave calls ‘Eurocentric claustrophobia’.115 Instead, it envisions
the early forms of modernity as a hybrid, shared historical condition, produced in
various parts of the world around the same time through a conjuncture of shared
and specific processes. In doing so, we wish to engage in dialogue other scholars
who are interested in unpacking the meanings, politics, and violences of the idea
of modernity. For us, that is the essence of inhabiting the modern and attempting
to go beyond it.

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 Introduction33

Notes
1. Jadunath Sarkar (ed.), The History of Bengal, vol. 2: Muslim Period 1200–1757
(Dacca: University of Dacca, 2006 [1948]), 497.
2. J. Sarkar, History of Bengal, 497.
3. J. Sarkar, History of Bengal, 498.
4. Susobhan Sarkar, ‘Notes on the Bengal Renaissance’, in Susobhan Sarkar, On
the Bengal Renaissance, 13–68 (Calcutta: Papyrus, 1979), see 13.
5. Sumit Sarkar, ‘Rammohun Roy and the Break with the Past’, in Rammohun Roy
and the Process of Modernization in India, ed. V. C. Joshi, 46–68 (New Delhi:
Vikas, 1975).
6. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial
Histories (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995 [1993]), 3–13.
7. Partha Chatterjee, Our Modernity (Rotterdam and Dakar: SEPHIS
CODESRIA, 1997), 9.
8. John F. Richards, ‘Early Modern India and World History’, Journal of World
History 8, no. 2 (1997): 197–209.
9. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected Histories: Notes towards a Reconfiguration
of Early Modern Eurasia’, Modern Asian Studies 31, no. 2 (1997): 735–762.
10. John Dagenais and Margaret R. Greer, ‘Decolonizing the Middle Ages:
Introduction’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30, no. 3 (2000):
431–448.
11. Dagenais and Greer, ‘Decolonizing the Middle Ages’, 432–434.
12. Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, translated
and with an introduction by Keith Tribe (New York: Columbia University
Press, 2004 [1979]), 9–25. For a brief history of the emergence of the category of
the medieval, see Timothy Reuter, ‘Medieval: Another Tyrannous Construct?’
Medieval History Journal 1, no. 1 (1998): 25–45.
13. Koselleck, Futures Past, 17.
14. Dagenais and Greer, ‘Decolonizing the Middle Ages’, 434.
15. Dagenais and Greer, ‘Decolonizing the Middle Ages’, 434–435.
16. Dagenais and Greer, ‘Decolonizing the Middle Ages’.
17. Carol Symes, ‘When We Talk about Modernity’, American Historical Review,
116, no. 3 (2011): 715–726, see 721.
18. Dagenais and Greer, ‘Decolonizing the Middle Ages’.
19. William A. Green, ‘Periodization in European and World History’, Journal of
World History 3, no. 1 (1992): 13–53, see 19.
20. Reuter, ‘Medieval’, 26–27.
21. Harbans Mukhia, ‘“Medieval India”: An Alien Conceptual Hegemony?’,
Medieval History Journal 1, no. 1 (1998): 91–105, see 99.
22. Koselleck, Futures Past, 11.

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 34 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

23. Koselleck, Futures Past, 17.

24. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there emerged in France and
then other romance-language countries an alternate fourfold division of time
into the ancient, medieval, modern, and contemporary periods, with 1789 as
the division between the last two. The tripartite division remained mainstream
in English, German, and North American academia.
25. Green, ‘Periodization’, 23–29.
26. Green, ‘Periodization’, 25. Merry Wiesner-Hanks points out that the term
‘Renaissance’ was first used by Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) to refer to the rebirth
of Classical art in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century western Europe. This marks a
contrast with Burckhardt, who used it in a civilizational and temporal sense, as a
bridge between the medieval and the modern. Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, What
Is Early Modern History? (Cambridge and Malden: Polity Press, 2021).
27. Timothy Brook, ‘Medievality and the Chinese Sense of History’, Medieval
History Journal 1, no. 1 (1998): 145–164; T. H. Barrett, ‘China and the
Redundancy of the Medieval’, Medieval History Journal 1, no. 1 (1998):
73–89.
28. Thomas Keirstead, ‘Inventing Medieval Japan: The History and Politics of
National Identity’, Medieval History Journal 1, no. 1 (1998): 47–71.
29. Keirstead, ‘Inventing Medieval Japan’.
30. Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, ‘Contested Memories of Pre-Islamic Iran’, Medieval
History Journal 2, no. 2 (1999): 245–275.
31. This rhetoric itself underwent several shifts and turns over the nineteenth
century. For instance, the initial idea of restoring South Asia to its glory lost to
the invading Muslims in the Middle Ages was replaced at one point of time by
a drive to civilize and enlighten an essentially non-modern space. For details, see
Thomas R. Metcalf, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 3.4: Ideologies of
the Raj (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
32. Mukhia, ‘“Medieval India”’, 99–102; Daud Ali, ‘The Historiography of the
Medieval in South Asia’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 22, no. 1 (2012):
7–12, see 7–8; Daud Ali, ‘The Idea of the Medieval in the Writing of South
Asian History: Contexts, Methods and Politics’, Social History 39, no. 3 (2014):
382–407, see 384–385.
33. Ali, ‘Idea of the Medieval’, 387–389. For some of the important interventions
in this debate, see Harbans Mukhia (ed.), The Feudalism Debate (New Delhi:
Manohar, 1999).
34. Ali, ‘Idea of the Medieval’, 394–395.
35. For an analysis of this line of thinking about the past, see Neeladri Bhattacharya,
‘Predicaments of Secular Histories’, Public Culture 20, no. 1 (2008): 57–73.
36. For a similar point for Japanese history, see Keirstead, ‘Inventing Medieval
Japan’, 51. It is to be noted that notwithstanding the various scholarly

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 Introduction35

reinterpretations of the medieval, it still continues to be the ‘penal colony’ of

public historical imagination. Even now, it remains the place where all negative
attributes – like superstition, violence against women, lack of infrastructure,
and violence of the caste system – that do not fit into different visions of a
modern India are relegated. For a typical example, see Aparajita Banerjee,
‘A Medieval India in a Modern Era’, The Hindu, 13 June 2016, https://
www.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/a-medieval-india-in-a-modern-era/
article4302422.ece (accessed on 4 August 2018).
37. Dagenais and Greer, ‘Decolonizing the Middle Ages’, 438.
38. Dagenais and Greer, ‘Decolonizing the Middle Ages’, 438.
39. In fact, Catherine Asher and Cynthia Talbot argue that the entire period
between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries – designated traditionally as
the South Asian medieval – heralded the ‘highly pluralistic human landscape’
of modern South Asia. Catherine B. Asher and Cynthia Talbot, India before
Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
40. Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya, The Making of Early Medieval India (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2005 [1994]). Also see Ali, ‘Historiography of the
Medieval’, 8–10; Ali, ‘Idea of the Medieval’, 387–389.
41. Ali, ‘Historiography of the Medieval’, 10–12; Ali, ‘Idea of the Medieval’, 397–407.
42. Dorothy Ross, ‘American Modernities, Past and Present’, American Historical
Review 116, no. 3 (2011): 702–714, see 702.
43. Jack Goldstone, ‘The Problem of the “Early Modern” World’, Journal of the
Economic and Social History of the Orient 41, no. 3 (1998): 249–284, see 250.
44. Goldstone, ‘Problem of the “Early Modern” World’, 250.
45. Goldstone, ‘Problem of the “Early Modern” World’, 250–252.
46. This, as Goldstone rightly points out, was a long-drawn process that stretched
roughly from 1500 to 1850, which is said to have been characterized by
‘proto-industrialization’ – a process comprising a slow shift in socio-economic
processes between the economy of a relatively static feudal setup and a market-
and profit-oriented society. We explore the implications of this formulation
for the conceptualization of early modernity in the next section. Goldstone,
‘Problem of the “Early Modern” World’, 252–253.
47. Sudipta Kaviraj, ‘An Outline of a Revisionist Theory of Modernity’, European
Journal of Sociology 46, no. 3 (2005): 497–526, see 508–509.
48. Chatterjee, Our Modernity, 19.
49. Dipesh Chakrabarty, ‘The Muddle of Modernity’, American Historical Review
116, no. 3 (2011): 663–675, see 669.
50. Chakrabarty, ‘Muddle of Modernity’, 669.
51. Wolfgand Reinhard, ‘The Idea of Early Modern History’, in Companion
to Historiography, ed. Michael Bentley, 268–279 (London and New York:
Routledge, 1997), 271.

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 36 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

52. Björn Wittrock, ‘Early Modernities: Varieties and Transitions’, Daedalus 127,
no. 3 (1998): 19–40, see 19.
53. Carol Gluck, ‘The End of Elsewhere: Writing Modernity Now’, American
Historical Review 116, no. 3 (2011): 676–687, see 677.
54. Gluck, ‘End of Elsewhere’, 676–677.
55. Gluck, ‘End of Elsewhere’, 676–677.
56. Gluck, ‘End of Elsewhere’, 676–677.
57. Kaviraj, ‘An Outline of a Revisionist Theory of Modernity’, 525–526.
58. Kaviraj, ‘An Outline of a Revisionist Theory of Modernity’, 525–526.
59. Gluck, ‘End of Elsewhere’, see 686.
60. Gluck, ‘End of Elsewhere’, 686.
61. Gluck, ‘End of Elsewhere’, 686.
62. Gluck, ‘End of Elsewhere’, 686.
63. Kaviraj, ‘An Outline of a Revisionist Theory of Modernity’, 514, 516.
64. Kaviraj, ‘An Outline of a Revisionist Theory of Modernity’, 514, 516.
65. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Hearing Voices: Vignettes of Early Modernity in South
Asia, 1400–1750’, Daedalus 127, no. 3 (1998): 75–104, see 99–100.
66. Subrahmanyam, ‘Hearing Voices’, 99–100.
67. Subrahmanyam, ‘Hearing Voices’, 99–100.
68. Partha Chatterjee and Raziuddin Aquil (eds.), History in the Vernacular
(Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2008), 7–8. In the recent years, some scholars have
argued against the idea of colonial rule bringing about a profound historical
rupture. Instead, they have highlighted the continuities between early modernity
and colonial modernity, especially in the intellectual realm. See, for instance, C. A.
Bayly, Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Milinda Banerjee, ‘“All This
Is Indeed Brahman”: Rammohun Roy and a “Global” History of the Rights-
Bearing Self’, Asian Review of World Histories 3, no. 1 (2015): 81–112; Caleb
Simmons, Devotional Sovereignty: Kingship and Religion in India (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2020). Some of the contributors of the present volume
too emphasize this element of continuity. While certain continuities may indeed
have existed, the editors of this volume argue that they could not diminish the
fundamentally transforming quality of colonial rule.
69. Kaveh Yazdani offers an alternate perspective to this multi-phase evolution of
modernity. Locating the origins of modernity in what is traditionally seen as
the High Middle Ages with respect to European history, he argues that versions
of modernity emerged in different poly-centric core areas of Afro-Eurasia, as
a result of both indigenous historical processes and exchanges across regions.
He breaks down the historical development of modernity into several phases –
‘early modernity’ between the tenth and fifteenth centuries, ‘middle modernity’

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 Introduction37

during the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, ‘saddle period’ roughly

between 1770 and 1830, and finally ‘late modernity’ since around 1830. Kaveh
Yazdani, India, Modernity and the Great Divergence: Mysore and Gujarat
(17th to 19th C.) (Leiden: Brill, 2017).
70. Justus Nipperdey, ‘The Pitfalls of Terminology: Uncovering the Paradoxical
Roots of Early Modern History in American Historiography’, Chronologics:
Periodisation in a Global Context, Hypotheses, 2018, https://chronolog.
hypotheses.org/798#_ftnref22 (accessed on 25 June 2021).
71. Terence Cave, ‘Locating the Early Modern’, Paragraph 29, no. 1 (2006): 12–26,
see 12.
72. Moshe Sluhovsky, ‘Discernment of Difference, the Introspective Subject, and
the Birth of Modernity’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 36, no.
1 (2006), 169–199, see 171–173.
73. Koselleck, Futures Past, 12–21.
74. Koselleck, Futures Past, 21.
75. At the same time, other historians highlight some of the other changes that
transpired simultaneously in Europe with Koselleck’s ‘temporalization of
history’ and hence can be associated with the idea of early modernity. Wittrock
breaks them down into three phases. The first, he argues, entailed the separation
of religious and temporal authorities in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
This established the prospect of the coexistence of a multiplicity of political,
social, and cultural domains. This was followed by the rise of absolutist regimes
of national kingships, the breakup of the confessional unity of Christendom,
an era of bloody religious conflict, and the rise of vernacular cultures. In the
third and final phase, Europe saw the emergence of a thriving and dynamic
public sphere, new types of political organizations in the form of republican
governments, and new modes of collective identities. Wittrock, ‘Early
Modernities’, 22–23, 25–27, 37–38.
76. Sluhovsky, ‘Discernment of Difference’, 174–178.
77. Sluhovsky, ‘Discernment of Difference’, 174–178.
78. Sluhovsky, ‘Discernment of Difference’, 174.
79. Luke Clossey, ‘Early Modern World’, in The Berkshire Encyclopedia of World
History, ed. William H. McNeill, Jerry H. Bentley, David Christian, Ralph C.
Croizier, J. R. McNeill, Heidi Roupp, and Judith P. Zinsser, 592–598 (Great
Barrington, MA: Berkshire Publishing Group, 2005), 593–595.
80. Richards, ‘Early Modern India and World History’.
81. Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected Histories’, 737–739, 746–754.
82. Rosalind O’Hanlon, ‘Contested Conjunctures: Brahman Continuities and
“Early Modernity” in India’, American Historical Review 118, no. 3 (2013):
765–787, see 771, 786–787.

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 38 Meena Bhargava and Pratyay Nath

83. Velcheru Narayana Rao, David Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Textures
of Time: Writing History in South India 1600–1800 (New York: Other Press,
2003).
84. David Shulman, More than Real: A History of the Imagination in South India
(Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press, 2012).
85. Elaine M. Fisher, Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early
Modern South Asia (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017), 22.
86. Fisher, Hindu Pluralism.
87. Jonardon Ganeri, The Lost Age of Reason: Philosophy in Early Modern India
1450–1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 6.
88. Ganeri, Lost Age of Reason.
89. Shankar Nair, Translating Wisdom: Hindu–Muslim Intellectual Interactions in
Early Modern South Asia (Oakland: University of California Press, 2020).
90. Nile Green, Making Space: Sufis and Settlers in Early Modern India
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012), 226.
91. The Mughals, however, did use cartography extensively in the first half of the
seventeenth century in imperial portraiture as a tool of political propaganda.
Ebba Koch, ‘The Symbolic Possession of the World: European Cartography
in Mughal Allegory and History Painting’, Journal of the Economic and Social
History of the Orient 55, nos. 2–3 (2012): 547–580.
92. Irfan Habib, ‘Cartography in Mughal India’, in Medieval India: A Miscellany,
ed. Irfan Habib, 122–134 (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1977).
93. Goldstone, ‘Problem of the “Early Modern” World’, 253–254.
94. Goldstone, ‘Problem of the “Early Modern” World’, 253–254.
95. Goldstone, ‘Problem of the “Early Modern” World’, 254–255.
96. Goldstone, ‘Problem of the “Early Modern” World’, 255–261.
97. Randolph Starn, ‘The Early Modern Muddle’, Journal of Early Modern History
6, no. 3 (2002): 296–307.
98. Starn, ‘Early Modern Muddle’, 299.
99. Sheldon Pollock (ed.), Forms of Knowledge in Early Modern Asia: Explorations
in the Intellectual History of India and Tibet, 1500–1800 (Durham and London:
Duke University Press, 2011), 4.
100. Pollock, Forms of Knowledge, 3
101. Pollock, Forms of Knowledge, 2–3. Also see Sheldon Pollock, ‘India in the
Vernacular Millennium: Literary Culture and Polity, 1000–1500’, Daedalus
127, no. 3 (1998): 41–74.
102. Chakrabarty, ‘Muddle of Modernity’, 672.
103. Chakrabarty, ‘Muddle of Modernity’, 672.
104. Chakrabarty, ‘Muddle of Modernity’, 672.
105. Chakrabarty, ‘Muddle of Modernity’, 674–675.

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 Introduction39

106. For the arguments of this paragraph, we are indebted to Tanika Sarkar, who
discussed some of these ideas in her Plenary Address in the ‘Debating the
“Early Modern” in South Asian History’ conference held at Ashoka University,
Sonipat, Haryana, on 9–10 February 2018.
107. O’Hanlon, ‘Contested Conjunctures’, 767.
108. Pollock, Forms of Knowledge, 4.
109. O’Hanlon, ‘Contested Conjunctures’, 770.
110. This was pointed out by Sarkar in her Plenary Address at the conference
‘Debating the “Early Modern” in South Asia’.
111. In contrast to the increasingly warm welcome that the idea of early modernity
has received in the last two decades from historians working on this period, the
category has been greeted with reluctance and scepticism from scholars working
on the colonial period. The few scholars who use this category mostly do so to
refer to the eighteenth century – and in some rare cases the seventeenth century
– to talk about the demise of Mughal imperial power, the rise of regional states,
and the rise of British colonial commercial-political power. In this sense, early
modernity is reduced to the last phase of South Asia’s pre-colonial history and
the dawn of colonialism. In other words, early modernity is conceptualized as a
brief phase of transition from the pre-colonial times to the colonial condition.
Kaushik Roy, War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia, 1740–1849
(London and New York: Routledge, 2011); Philip J. Stern, The Company-State:
Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundation of the British Empire in
India (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Tirthankar Roy, An Economic
History of Early Modern India (London and New York: Routledge, 2013).
112. See, for instance, Pollock, Forms of Knowledge; Rosalind O’Hanlon and David
Washbrook, Religious Cultures in Early Modern India: New Perspectives
(London and New York: Routledge, 2014); Thomas de Bruijn and Allison
Busch (eds.), Culture and Circulation: Literature in Motion in Early Modern
India (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2014); Rosalind O’Hanlon, Christopher
Minkowski, and Anand Venkatkrishnan (eds.), Scholar Intellectuals in Early
Modern India: Discipline, Sect, Lineage and Community (London and New
York: Routledge, 2017); Tyler Williams, Anshu Malhotra, and John Stratton
Hawley (eds.), Text and Tradition in Early Modern North India (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2018); Raziuddin Aquil and Tilottama Mukherjee
(eds.), An Earthly Paradise: Trade, Politics and Culture in Early Modern Bengal
(London and New York: Routledge, 2020).
113. de Bruijn and Busch, Culture and Circulation, 1–20.
114. O’Hanlon and Washbrook, Religious Cultures in Early Modern India.
115. Cave, ‘Locating the Early Modern’, 15.

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 part i
RELIGION, IDEOLOGY,
IDENTITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press
 2
Locating the Early Modern in South Asian Sufism
Kashshaf Ghani

What constitutes the ‘early modern’ for South Asia is a question that has engaged a
large number of scholars in recent times. The earliest traces of modernity for South
Asia have been argued to have emerged around the sixteenth century as much
from the impact of global processes as from developments within the region. The
following discussion will explore the nature of this early modernity in the Indian
subcontinent with regard to Sufi traditions.
The history of Sufism in this region has been rich and diverse, but most
importantly continuous, alongside the rise and fall of political dynasties. This
connection between institutionalized Sufi orders and Muslim political authority
has deep roots that can be traced to Central Asia and Iran, where state ideology
and Sufism have a long history of borrowing from each other.1 In this tradition,
the rise and fall of rulers was intertwined with the idea of sainthood (wilayat) in
the Persian tradition, where Sufi saints, believed to exercise spiritual sovereignty
in God’s earthly domain, leased out political authority to rulers over specific
territories (sultanat). The worldly authority (walayat) of a Sufi was demarcated
amongst masters of the same or different orders (tariqa), and after the death of
the master it was conferred on his spiritual successor (khalifa). Following such a
notion, it is not surprising therefore that the rise and decline of political orders
came to be linked with the rise of Sufi orders under living saints or the passing
away of influential Sufi masters.2
Sufism in South Asia merits a historical analysis not as a monolithic, inward-
looking spiritual tradition, but rather as a socio-religious practice deeply embedded
in the doctrines of Islamic philosophy while at the same time having strong
local connections with the state and society through intellectual and cultural
production. While trying to understand what could have constituted early
modernity for Sufism in this region within such a dynamic history, what can be
treated as a point of departure is how Sufism participated in some of the broader
trends identified with early modernity. In the period between the sixteenth and
eighteenth centuries, early modernity in Sufi activities can be read in terms of

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 44 Kashshaf Ghani

three distinct but complementary tendencies. First, there was intense engagement
of Sufi orders – regional as well as transregional, old and new, minor and major –
with the Mughal state. In an interesting departure from earlier – medieval – times,
such new forms of interaction often penetrated both Sufi orders and the imperial
household. Members of the royalty became active patrons, and members of Sufi
orders were incorporated as courtiers and imperial servants. Second, we see during
this period the expansion of Sufi orders and practices, the arrival of new orders,
the formation of suborders that led to regional networks, and the emergence of
rich cultural production. Finally, the latter part of this period was marked by
the rise of reformist traditions that reinterpreted prevailing spiritual discourses,
the emergence of new knowledge and practice, and the advent and adoption of
European technology, like print. I will explore these three themes in the following
three sections.

New Relationships between Sufi Orders and the State

Sufism arrived in South Asia at the close of the twelfth century, around the same
time as the Ghurid invasions. As the sultans of Delhi consolidated their authority
over the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, their relationship with the Sufi masters
became increasingly complex. While the Suhrawardis showed willingness to accept
state patronage and take up public offices, Chishti saints avoided association with
temporal authority. Consequently, the relationship between successive Sufi masters
and the Delhi sultans can be characterized as ambivalent at best and antagonistic
at worst. Even when the Tughlaq sultans extended patronage to the shrine of Baba
Fariduddin (d. 1265) in Pakpattan during much of the fourteenth century, they
showed distrust and hostility towards his living successors like Nizamuddin Awliya
(d. 1325) and Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dehli (d. 1356).3 Relationships between the
royal authority and Sufi orders improved to some extent in the fifteenth century.
However, it was really in the sixteenth century that a paradigmatic shift came
about in this respect. This was directly related to the advent of the Mughals in
South Asia in 1526 and their building of an empire of subcontinental proportions
in this part of the world. In terms of the patronage Mughal emperors extended to
Sufis across various mystical orders, the employment that many Sufis enjoyed at
the Mughal court and the deep mutual interest of the Mughal elite and the Sufi
orders in each other set the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries in contrast
with the antecedent period. This section looks into the nature of this evolving
relationship between Mughal power and Sufi authority in course of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries.
Roots of the close relationship between Sufis and the Mughals can be
traced back to the Timurid ancestors of the latter in Central Asia, where during

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 Locating the Early Modern in South Asian Sufism45

the fifteenth century many Timurid princes were drawn towards the order of
Naqshbandi Sufis, particularly their famous master Khwaja Nasiruddin Abdullah
Ahrar (d. 1490). Babur was initiated under Ahrar at the time of his birth. He later
versified sections of Ahrar’s Risala-i Walidiyya into Turkish (1528–1529). After
taking control of Kabul in 1504, Babur patronized the descendants of Ahrar, even
offering one of his daughters in marriage to a Naqshbandi shaikh. Later, Mughal
royal women like Bakshi Banu Begum, the sister of Akbar, was married to one of
the grandsons of Khwaja Nura, himself the grandson of Ahrar.4 Having relocated
to North India, both Babur and his son Humayun recognized the presence of
multiple Sufi orders there and engaged closely with many. This was especially true
for popular Sufi orders like the Shattaris and Chishtis, who had strong roots in
the region. Babur was familiar with the Timurid practice of shrine visits (ziyarat).
Immediately upon conquering Delhi, he visited the revered Chishti shrines of
Nizamuddin Awliya and Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki (d. 1235) in Delhi.5 Later that
year, Shaikh Muhammad Ghaus Shattari (d. 1562), a premier saint of the Shattari
order, helped Babur capture the fort of Gwalior. These events were the earliest
instances of Mughal interaction with Sufi groups other than the Naqshbandis. In
the years to come, Humayun aligned himself closely with two Shattari brothers
– Shaikh Phul (d. 1562) and Shaikh Muhammad Ghaus. Azfar Moin argues that
this relationship helped the emperor create a new form of kingship that drew
heavily on astrology and mysticism. All this invited sharp criticism from the larger
Timurid kin, who were dismayed at the neglect of the eminent Naqshbandis in
favour of local ostensibly pseudo-Sufi orders.6
Under Humayun’s son Akbar, imperial patronage shifted again – this time
towards the Chishti order. In course of the 1560s and 1570s, Akbar made 17
pilgrimages to the shrine of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti (d. 1236) in Ajmer and
displayed great veneration for the living Sufi master Salim Chishti (d. 1572).
Mughal accounts attribute the birth of Akbar’s son and heir Prince Salim (later
Emperor Jahangir) in 1569 to the living grace of Salim Chishti, an event that
reinforced the belief of the emperor on Chishti spirituality. Out of reverence, the
emperor built a marble mausoleum with lattice screens on the tomb of the saint at
Sikri and his new capital city Fatehpur around it. By choosing this living Chishti
saint as his object of devotion, the emperor connected himself on the one hand
to the saint’s predecessor, the renowned Chishti master Baba Fariduddin, and
on the other to the nearby shrine of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti in Ajmer.7 The
attachment was deepened when Akbar built a mosque within the Ajmer shrine in
1571 and embellished the mausoleum in 1579.
In the early seventeenth century, Jahangir introduced spiritual competition
for the Chishtis with the revival of the Central Asian Naqshbandis under the

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 46 Kashshaf Ghani

charismatic leadership of Khwaja Baqi Billah (d. 1603). In this contested zone of Sufi
activities in Mughal North India, the last major transregional Sufi order to emerge
was the Qadiri order. Jahangir’s son Shah Jahan reverted back to his grandfather’s
practice of patronizing Chishti Sufis, especially through Muinuddin’s shrine at
Ajmer. The pendulum swung again with the succession of his son Aurangzeb.
Being a strict conformist to sharia norms, he forbade imperial women from
visiting Sufi shrines for pilgrimage, making structural additions covering tombs,
and lime-washing of the sepulchre. However, dissociating himself from shrine
practices of his predecessors was easier said than done. In his search for legitimacy
after killing his brothers in the race to the throne, Aurangzeb ironically had to take
recourse to those very practices of routine visitations and donations to important
Sufi shrines in North India as well as in the Deccan. He made customary visits
and donations to Ajmer after victory over Dara Shukoh in 1659.8 In course of his
subsequent campaigns in the Deccan, he also paid multiple visits and donations to
the shrine of Gesudaraz (d. 1422) in Gulbarga. While Dara’s eclectic outlook based
on wujudi principles9 invoked the ire of the conservative Naqshbandis like Khwaja
Muhammad Masum (d. 1668), the son of Sirhindi (d. 1624), Aurangzeb’s image
as the orthodox prince and strict upholder of sharia norms garnered support from
these very Naqshbandis who saw in the Mughal ruler the promise to uphold the
interests of Islam.
Deep association between Sufi orders and the emperors also found their way
into the employment of Sufis at the imperial court. Alongside the occasional
matrimonial alliance, Naqshbandi shaikhs were inducted in the Mughal
bureaucracy through appointments in religious offices, thereby creating an
‘informal aristocratic Naqshbandi lobby at the Mughal court’.10 Akbar’s
administration had individuals linked to famous Chishti saints. Abdul Nabi (d.
1584), the sadr-i sudur and the first official in charge of charitable trusts under
Akbar, traced his family back to the lineage of Abdul Quddus Gangohi (d. 1537).
Abul Fazl’s father Shaikh Mubarak traced his family lineage to Sufi Hamiduddin
Suwali Nagauri (d. 1274), the spiritual successor of Muinuddin Chishti. The
Mughal general and subadar of Bengal, Islam Khan Chishti (d. 1613) was the
grandchild of Salim Chishti. In a sharp departure from the measured indifference
of early Chishti saints for political appointments and largesse, these descendants
threw themselves into the royal court, thereby cementing the relation of some
Chishti branches with the state through imperial service.11 This signified a major
departure in terms of Sufi–state relationship in comparison with antecedent times.
The devotion that the Mughal elite showed towards Sufis often took the form
of the practice of ziyarat Akbar’s attachment to Chishti Sufism carried a strong

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 Locating the Early Modern in South Asian Sufism47

performative dimension. Beginning in 1562, this assumed the form of regular

ziyarat to the shrine of Muinuddin in Ajmer, sometimes during urs12 celebrations,
visits to the living Sufi saint Salim Chishti, and occasional visits to the tombs
of other Chishti masters like Nizamuddin Awliya, Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki,
Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dehli, Hamiduddin Nagauri, and Baba Fariduddin.13 Later
Mughal emperors – Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb, as well as members of
the royal household Dara Shukoh and Jahanara – kept up this practice of shrine
visits and patronizing construction projects at shrines.
The Qadiri order was single-handedly responsible for attracting members of
the Mughal household into a spiritual bond. Mulla Shah (d. 1661), the disciple
of the famous Qadiri Sufi Miyan Mir (d. 1635) of seventeenth-century Punjab,
was the murshid of the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh.14 Though Dara was deeply
drawn towards the five leading Sufi orders in South Asia – Chishti, Suhrawardi,
Qadiri, Naqshbandi, and Kubrawi – his primary affiliation however was with the
Qadiris. Dara’s engagement with Sufism is evident through a series of treatises –
both literary and spiritual – he left behind.15 Dara’s sister Jahanara was a devotee
of both Chishti and Qadiri Sufis. She had to her credit two Sufi biographies, one
titled Risala-i Sahibiyya (1641) on her Qadiri Sufi teacher Mulla Shah Badakshi
and the other titled Munis al Arwah (1639) on Muinuddin Chishti. Regular visits
to Ajmer and Kashmir made Jahanara experience the sublime feelings of a pir–
murid (master–disciple) relationship, through both her immediate Qadiri masters
Miyan Mir and Mulla Shah and the hallowed memory of Khwaja Muinuddin. Her
attachment to Sufi saints – living and deceased – imparted to her personality a
degree of dynamism drawn directly from a sense of deep spiritual devotion that
was almost unprecedented in the Mughal harem.16
As much as Sufi orders flourished by attracting the devotion and patronage of
the imperial elite, Mughal sovereignty itself also came to be shaped by Sufi charisma
and based on the appropriation of Sufi attributes of authority. The construction
of Mughal sacred kingship based on Sufi attributes of spiritual authority became
visible from the reign of Humayun, reaching a climax under Akbar. When
Humayun succeeded Babur, his reverence for the Shattaris led to their steady
elevation at the court. Shaikh Phul and his brother Shaikh Muhammad Ghaus
became the spiritual mentors of the emperor. The Shattari brothers were widely
known for their knowledge of magic and the sciences of planets. Shaikh Phul is
believed to have been endowed with the remarkable ability to gather the spirit
powers of planets through miraculous Shattari techniques of invoking the Divine
names (dawat al asma-i husna). Humayun’s interest in occult and astronomical
sciences could be the primary reason why he bonded well with the Shattari

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 48 Kashshaf Ghani

brothers. Under the influence of the Shattaris, he organized his court rituals on a
cosmological basis, reflected in the way he divided his courtly audience through a
combination of augury and auspicious planetary positions. On the same principle,
the court society was divided into 12 ranks. Lastly, the emperor also connected
the powers of planets to his own body by choosing to clothe himself each day
depending on planetary positions and colours associated with planets.17
While the sudden death of Humayun in 1556 halted the Shattari rise at the
Mughal court, the career of Akbar saw the most effective utilization of Sufi authority
and charisma for political ends. Akbar’s cosmopolitan vision of empire projected
through the principle of justice (adl) and social harmony among his diverse subject
population brought him closer to the Chishtis, who carried a long legacy of cultural
adaptation and popularity across a wide cross-section of the South Asian society.
Contrary to the politically influential and wealthy Naqshbandis of Central Asia
and the Suhrawardis closer home, Chishti spirituality from its inception rested on
practices of frugality and asceticism, as well as the avoidance of government service,
royal company, grants, and donations. Chishti ideology was deeply influenced by
the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud (unity of existence),18 which, when applied to
the sociocultural diversity of South Asia, facilitated a dynamic exercise of social
dialogue and cultural synthesis. By the time Akbar assumed office, this practice
came to be voiced strongly in contemporary Chishti literature: ‘The whole world
is the manifestation of love (ishq), and we see everything as perfect … there is no
precedence of one religion over the other … you can see His Grace present both in a
kafir and a Muslim.’19 In the Chishti outlook, the emperor saw a strong vindication
of his own projection of sovereignty. Submission to Chishti authority helped him
create a form of Islamic kingship during the 1560s and 1570s. Interestingly, this
was followed by the development of Mughal millenarian kingship – one that
attained its most hyperbolic phase during the second half of Akbar’s rule as well
as the reign of Jahangir – by borrowing markers of Sufi charisma and mystical
authority.20
This brief survey of the intimate involvement of the Mughal emperors and
the Sufi orders in South Asia in course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
demonstrates the paradigmatic shift that engulfed the relationship between
temporal power and mystical authority during this period. My arguments here
match those of Azfar Moin, who has recently pointed out that Sufi shrines grew
drastically in importance in the post-Mongol world. His work shows that in its
patronage of Sufi orders and shrines, the Mughal Empire displayed tendencies
comparable to the Safavid and Ottoman Empires, although there were also
certain differences between these three major Asiatic Islamicate empires.21 As a

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 Locating the Early Modern in South Asian Sufism49

characteristic of early modernity in the realm of Sufism, this radically heightened

intermingling of temporal power and Sufi authority was, hence, rooted in the
specifics of the developments in South Asia, together with being a part of a shared
historical condition.

Expanding Networks, Vernacular Languages, Heightened

Engagements
Away from the imperial cities of Agra, Lahore, and Delhi, one important tendency
characterized the mystical realm of Sufism in the regional centres in the second half
of the sixteenth century.22 Complementing the changing relations of the Sufis with
the state, this new tendency manifested in three ways. First, there was a remarkable
geographical expansion of Sufi orders, resulting from the formation of suborders
through training and spiritual practice under important masters. Second, cultural
productions in regional languages like Hindavi, Dakhni, and Punjabi made
increasing appearances during this period. Finally, we find noticeable examples of
vigorous engagements with Indic – particularly Brahmanical – as well as foreign
devotional and philosophical traditions. These are the historical processes that the
present section studies.
The proliferation of Sufi suborders occurred primarily around charismatic
personalities who on many occasions combined multiple chains of spiritual
training through either their family background or multiple initiations. For
instance, in the face of the growing importance of the Naqshbandis at the Mughal
imperial court in particular and South Asia in general since the early seventeenth
century, two important suborders of the Chishtis grew in strength – the Chishti–
Nizami and the Chishti–Sabiri, which traced their origins to Nizamuddin Awliya
and Alauddin Ali Sabir (d. 1291), respectively – both notable disciples of Baba
Fariduddin. Within these sub-orders, the core Chishti practices of sama and dhikr
came to be supplanted during this period by the primacy of mystical thought
(irfan), invocation of a sacred lineage (nasl), remembering the model behaviour
of Prophet Muhammad (sunnah), and advocacy of Muslim learning (ilm). These
suborders spread across regional centres in North India, Gujarat, and the Deccan.
The revival of the Chishti order in North India is credited to Shah Kalimullah
Jahanabadi (d. 1729), whose Kashkul-i Kalimi (Alms-bowl of Kalimullah)
was an important manual for spiritual training, and his successor Nizamuddin
Awrangabadi (d. 1730). This spiritual legacy can be traced back to the Chishti
master Nasiruddin Chiragh-i Dehli. A disciple of the latter, Kamaluddin Allama
(d. 1355) was responsible for establishing the lesser-known Gujarat branch of the
Chishti–Nizami order. Kalimullah was initiated into this branch by his master

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 50 Kashshaf Ghani

Shaikh Yahya Madni (d. 1689), the disciple of the reputed Muhammad Chishti
(d. 1630) from the Gujarat line. Though he was initially trained under eminent
scholars like Shaikh Abu Rida (d. 1690), the famous Naqshbandi saint and uncle
of Shah Waliullah (d. 1762), the spiritual brilliance of Kalimullah allowed him
to be initiated into the Qadiri, Suhrawardi, Naqshbandi, and Shattari orders as
well. Representative of an important development, such non-exclusive approach
to spiritual initiation upheld an eclectic tradition which allowed engagements
with multiple techniques of spiritual practice rather than isolated experiences.
Nizamuddin Awrangabadi from Kakori near Lucknow left behind the treatise
Nizam al-Qulub (Harmonic Order of Hearts, 1891–1892), which, a century
later, inspired the meditative manual Zia al-Qulub (Brilliance of Hearts, 1866) by
Haji Imdadullah (d. 1899), a master from the Sabiri sub-order of the Chishtis.23
Preserving the inspiration from their founder-master Alauddin Ali Sabir, the
Sabiri Chishtis engaged with meditative (breath control) and bodily techniques
based on yoga traditions on a scale unmatched by any branch of the Chishtis.24
While Mughal emperors continued to offer regular patronage to important
shrines of the Deccan, in and around Khuldabad, it is equally rewarding to explore
lesser-known Sufi personalities like Mahmud Khwush Dahan (d. 1617) from
Bijapur. Even though these saints do not match up to the charismatic Nizamuddin
Awliya and Muhammad Gesudaraz, their writings and practices throw light on
unique facets of Sufi activity, like cross-order initiation and training, as seen
earlier. Khwush Dahan belonged to a well-known Qadiri family in Bidar but was
interestingly trained under a famous Sufi lineage that traced itself back to the
renowned Chishti master of Bijapur Shah Miranji Shams ul Ushshaq (d. 1499).
He is identified as one of the first Sufis in the Deccan to compose poetry like
Khush Nama and Khush Naghz in Dakhni.25 Shams ul Ushshaq was succeeded
by his son Burhanuddin Janam (d. 1597), the master of Mahmud Khwush Dahan
and a prolific author of Sufi treatises in Dakhani like Irshad Nama (1582–1583).
A treatise by Khwush Dahan titled Marifat ul Suluk (The True Knowledge of
Wayfaring, 1898) elaborates, in simple form and language, the basic Sufi teachings
and practices imparted by him and his master Burhanuddin.26 This treatise
drew from the works of non-Indian masters, like Al-Ghazali (d. 1111) and Ibn
al-Arabi (d. 1240), thereby situating Sufism in Mughal India within the larger
Islamic world.
The incorporation of women as intended readers and audiences of this kind
of literature affirm, first, the widening of the spiritual circuit beyond esoteric
teachings and trained disciples and, second, the increasing accessibility of elite Sufi
rituals like dhikr to the common people in the form of poetical recitation, thereby

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 Locating the Early Modern in South Asian Sufism51

‘remembering’ the attributes and presence of the Divine in one’s life. Known as the
Chakkinama and the Charkhanama, some of these poetical compositions from
seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Deccan were written by Aminuddin Ala (d.
1675), Shah Hashim Khudawand Hadi (d. 1704–1705), and Shah Kamaluddin
(d. 1809–1810). These narratives were meant to be recited and internalized by
householder women while grinding grain on the grindstone (chakki) and spinning
thread on the spinning wheel (charkha).27
An equally interesting story of the proliferation of Sufi orders unfolded in
Bengal, the eastern frontier of South Asia. Since the assertion of Mughal control
was still an ongoing and incomplete process here in the seventeenth century, most
of the land grants the state made in this region were among the forests of eastern
Bengal. In these parts, the Sufis employed the local population to clear forests and
expand the agricultural frontier. In the process, local inhabitants were introduced
to a Sufi world of Islam in both its Persianized and vernacular forms. In turn, this
led to the emergence of a corpus of Sufi literature in Middle Bengali. Examples
of such works are Sayyid Murtaza’s sixteenth-century text Yoga Qalandar and
Shaikh Chand’s Talibnama (1712) – both full of Persian vocabulary and idioms,
combined with yogic and nathapanthi traditions.28
This brings us to another major development during the sixteenth through
eighteenth centuries – the increasing importance of vernacular languages as a
medium of expression for Sufi spiritual discourse. The earliest traces of such works
appear in the form of dohas sung in Sufi sama assemblies. These were attributed
to the Chishti masters Hamiduddin Nagauri and Baba Fariduddin. The trend
picked up since the fourteenth century in the form of masnawis in Hindavi.
These included Mulla Daud’s Chandayan (1379) in the fourteenth century. By
the sixteenth century, the proliferation of this body of literature started gathering
greater momentum. Texts from this period included Mulla Qutban’s Mirigavati
(1503), Malik Muhammad Jayasi’s Padmavat (1540), and Shaikh Manjhan
Shattari Rajgiri’s Madhumalati (1545). These works fall under the genre of Sufi
premakhyan (romantic ballads), combining Indic symbols of love and devotion
with complex concepts of Sufi spirituality written in simple language. Both Mulla
Daud and Mulla Qutban were trained under reputed Chishti Sufi masters –
Shaikh Zaynuddin and Shaikh Burhan, respectively. The topos of the virahini as
the longing soul of the woman who suffers from separation and desires for union
with her beloved is central to these Sufi romantic tales of Lorik–Chanda, Sohni–
Mahiwal, and Sassui–Punhun. In these narratives, the idea of the union leading
to the state of unity was largely the impact of the spread of Ibn al-Arabi’s wujudi
doctrines in South Asia.29 The tales served as cultural artefacts readily accessible

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 52 Kashshaf Ghani

by common people, irrespective of their religious affiliation or cultural location.30

This emergence of Sufi writings in the vernacular in the heartland of South Asia
was complemented by similar processes on the margins as well. The case of the
Raushaniyya movement in the Pashtun society of modern-day Afghanistan is a
good example. The central figure here was Bayazid Ansari (d. 1575), who produced
a rich corpus of spiritual literature through the composition of melodies, diwans,
ghazals, qasidas, masnawis, and rubais in Pashto.31
The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw further proliferation of Sufi
literature in the vernacular. An increasing corpus of texts in Punjabi serves as a case
in point. An exploration of this corpus of vernacular Sufi poetry from this region
connects us to the spiritual lineage of the masters from the Qadiri order. Their
long-standing achievements in the cultural domain of Punjab lay in their prolific
contribution to Sufi poetry composed in Punjabi. This literary production was
led by some of the most revered Sufi poets like Shah Husayn (d. 1599), Sultan
Bahu (d. 1691), Shah Abdul Latif (d. 1752), Bulleh Shah (d. 1752), and Waris
Shah (d. 1798).32 The seventeenth-century quatrains of the Sufi poet Sultan
Bahu of Jhang in southern Punjab, for instance, provided a fine exposition of the
relationship between man and God. The finest of Sufi premakhyans, with their
rich repository of mystical allegory, came from Shah Abdul Latif of Bhit in the
Sindh region. His book of poems Shaha Jo Risalo (Book of Shah, 1866) contains 30
chapters according to traditional Indian musical modes (ragas), many of which he
composed himself.33 Sayyid Abdullah, popularly known as Bulleh Shah, emerged
as arguably the greatest Sufi poet in Punjabi.34 He is also credited with introducing
wujudi ideas in a reinterpretation of medieval Hindu folktales like Heer–Ranjha.
These vernacular literary expressions were complemented by the cultural
translation of mystical ideas from other parts of the world as well as from other
devotional paradigms within South Asia. For instance, the sixteenth century saw
the production of Rushd Nama (1480) by Shaikh Abdul Quddus Gangohi. The
shaikh was a staunch proponent of the wujudi doctrine of Unity from the Chishti–
Sabiri sub-order. It was inspired by the works of the Spanish mystic Ibn al-Arabi,
who had a tremendous influence on South Asian Sufis, especially the Chishtis
and Qadiris.35 Gangohi’s work reflected the crystallization of an older tradition of
bringing together ideas of al-Arabi with those of Hindu yogis and sannyasis. The text
carried verses in Hindavi and Persian, identifying wujudi beliefs among Sufis with
the philosophy and practices of the Shaivite yogi Gorakhnath. This signified the
heightening of Sufi engagement with Indic religious and philosophical paradigms
during this period. It is possible to identify two similar examples of literary works
that embody cultural assimilation between Sufi and Brahmanical traditions. In

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 Locating the Early Modern in South Asian Sufism53

the sixteenth century, Abdul Wahid Bilgrami (d. 1608) wrote Haqaiq-i Hindi
(Indian Truths, 1566–1567) in the form of a compilation of Hindu devotional
songs to the Brahmanical god Vishnu.36 In this text, he gave Brahmanical hymns
Islamic meanings for them to be used in Sufi musical concerts. The other example
is Abdul Rahman Chishti’s (d. 1683) Mirat ul Haqaiq (Mirror of Truths) from
the seventeenth century. It carried a Persian rendering of the Sanskrit Bhagavad
Gita. Here, Krishna’s message was depicted in non-contradictory terms to Islamic
teachings of the doctrine of hama ust.37

Emergence of Reformist Traditions

A third major marker of early modernity in South Asian Sufism was the emergence of
strong reformist traditions and a new criticality towards devotional practices. These
tendencies emerged during the seventeenth century, gained greater momentum
during the eighteenth century, and extended into the early nineteenth century. In
the intensity and scope of reformist ideologies, these centuries marked a shift from
earlier times. Two main tendencies were visible during this period. First, we see the
rise of the Mujaddadi tradition among Naqshbandis. The name Mujaddadi was
introduced by a highly respected scholar (alim) Maulana Abdul Hakim Sialkoti
(d. 1657) after Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, who was styled as the renewer (mujaddad)
of Islam in the second millennium (Mujaddad-i Alf-i Thani).38 Second, there was a
shift towards reformist Sufism led by Naqshbandis like Mirza Mazhar Jan-i Janan
(d. 1781) and his equally famous disciple Qazi Sanaullah Panipati (d. 1810). This
section discusses these and other related historical processes.
The emergence of the reformist tradition was triggered by a sense of ‘decline’
within South Asian Islam in general and Sufism in particular. Sufi customs and
practices labelled as ‘innovations’ came to constitute the primary target of this
reform. Questionable Sufi practices were identified as originating from localized
versions of Islam in the regions, influenced by indigenous ritualistic traditions and
assimilated through Sufi shrines and spiritual establishments. By the seventeenth
century, conservative sections within the Muslim society began raising questions
as to whether these mystical traditions constituting a plethora of practices and
diverse rituals, which the practitioners claimed was based on traditions of Prophet
Muhammad, could at all be connected to the Sunnah of the Prophet. If yes, then
what were the practices that can be accepted? If no, then what were those specific
innovations (bidat) that needed to be reformed in spite of its acceptance within
Sufi circles?
During the seventeenth century, Sirhindi came to be recognized in Sufi
and scholarly circles as one of the harshest critics of the wujudi doctrine.39 His

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 54 Kashshaf Ghani

alternate doctrine of wahdat al shuhud originated from a fine distinction in the

Sufi idea of union between reality and perception.40 Approaching from a Sufi
perspective, Sirhindi argued that claims of non-distinction between the Creator
and creation were made in a spiritual state where the Sufi saint was in no position
to distinguish between reality and falsehood. As a result, the closer he moved
towards the realization of Divine beauty, the more he lost control over his rational
sense of differentiating between the creation and the Creator. This illusion of
unity (wahdat), for Sirhindi, remained only in the perception (shuhud) of the Sufi,
never in actuality (wujud). Interestingly, Sirhindi was not a pioneer of the shuhudi
doctrine,41 but rather was responsible for imparting it with a doctrinal status and
acceptance, vis-à-vis the wujudi idea, that it was yet to claim for itself. Wahdat al
shuhud could never fully replace its wujudi antithesis but tried to alter the Sufi
experience of Divine reality.42
In effect, the shuhudi doctrine could hardly challenge the strong wujudi
foundations championed by Chishtis and Qadiris. Chishti response in the face
of a strong Naqshbandi offensive on wujudi doctrines emerged from the pen
of Abdul Rahman Chishti in one of his lesser-studied works – Mirat ul Asrar
(1663), considered a milestone in rearticulating the Chishti spiritual discourse. As
a member of the Sabiri branch of Chishtis, Abdul Rahman was a staunch advocate
of the wujudi doctrine, evident from his copious citations from the Fusus al Hikam
(1229) and the borrowing of wujudi interpretations from the works of Ala-ud
daula Simnani (d. 1336).43 Prior to Abdul Rahman, a strong exponent of Ibn al-
Arabi’s philosophy was the famous Qadiri saint Amanullah Panipati (d. 1550). He
worked extensively on the treatises of Ibn al-Arabi to defend his strong position
in favour of wahdat al-wujud. His depth of knowledge on wujudi doctrines led
his contemporaries to address him as Ibn al-Arabi-i Thani (the second Ibn Arabi).
The famous Shattari saint Muhammad Ghawth of Gwalior (d. 1562) also engaged
with the idea of wahdat al-wujud in his mystical treatise Jawahir-i Khamsa (1525).
The most important eighteenth-century figure in this context was Shah
Waliullah, often looked upon as a master of his time (qaim al-zaman) and polestar
of mystical hierarchy (qutb). His Persian work the Hamaat (Outpourings, 1735–
1736) begins with an outline on the rise and fall of Sufi orders and affiliations,
following the basis of the path (asl-i tariqat) through which the teachings are
continuously ‘being renewed along the lines of Renewership (mujaddidiyya)’.44
Although critical of Sufi practices in general, it is evident that Shah Waliullah
could not fully escape the influence of the reputable lineage of Naqshbandi
Sufis. He was most critical of the Sufi practices that he came to witness around
popular devotion, veneration of tombs, musical concerts and dance, and acts of

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 Locating the Early Modern in South Asian Sufism55

physical submission to the deceased saint. Therefore, it was less about critiquing
the tradition of Sufism in general and more about criticizing its practices whose
validity over centuries had become extremely difficult to ascertain. For Waliullah,
the only way towards that ascertainment was through the yardstick of the sharia.
He repeatedly argued that practices that failed to stand the test of Islamic law
should be rejected right away.45 Recognizing the endurance of wujudi doctrines,
Waliullah’s efforts at synthesis and reconciliation (tatbiq) between wujudi and
shuhudi ideas are noteworthy.
Another important figure of the eighteenth century was Qazi Sanaullah, a
successor of Sirhindi. For him, the primary prerequisite of a true Sufi shaikh was
sound academic training in the doctrines of the sharia that would lead one towards
the intricacies of the tariqa. Thus, his works emphasized a harmonious relation
between the tenets of the sharia and the tariqa, as essential for reinstating Sufism
as a means of Islamic revival in the eighteenth century. Sanaullah abhorred ideas
of superstition and un-Islamic practices, ranging from criticism towards a deep
sense of devotion in Sufi beliefs and practices like statements made in a state of
intoxication (sukr), inner spiritual realities, and actions attesting spiritual stature.
Subsequently, Sufi practices and ethics came to be increasingly read and
explained in accordance to the Quran and Hadith as proof texts, while Sufi
teachings attained a characteristic of legal treatises, with Sufi masters adopting the
approach of legal scholars (fuqaha) rather than mystics.46 Lessons and manuals
on spiritual training came to be textualized, marking a noticeable shift from the
dominant oral tradition. Manuals of Sufism did exist in writing prior to the
eighteenth century, like the Jawahir-i Khamsa of Muhammad Ghauth Gwaliyari
and Kalimullah Jahanabadi’s Muraqqa-i Kalimi and Kashkul-i Kalimi.47
However, by the time of the famous Sufi poet Khwaja Mir Dard (d. 1785), written
materials and manuals came to substitute the oral suhbat (company of the Sufi
master).48 The increasing availability of Sufi teachings and practices in the public
domain through print technology was perhaps an attempt at asserting the spiritual
legitimacy of these discourses along the models of the Quran and Hadith. The
personification of this latter approach was done no better than by Sirhindi, who
combined in himself characteristics of a learned alim with those of a profound
Sufi master (arif-i tamm al-marifat).49
These reformist tendencies continued well into the early nineteenth century.
Shah Ismail ‘Shahid’ (d. 1831), the grandson of Shah Waliullah and the nephew of
Shah Abdul Aziz (d. 1832), together with Sayyid Ahmad (d. 1831) of Rae Bareli,
leader of the Mujahidin movement, led the tajdid movement in North India by
combining the Wahhabi-inspired Tariqah-i Muhammadiya, a Sufi order led by

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 56 Kashshaf Ghani

Sayyid Ahmed.50 Sayyid Ahmad was trained in the leading Sufi orders – Chishti,
Suhrawardi, Qadiri, and Naqshbandi – by Abdul Aziz, before he went on to
integrate these mystical teachings in his own order of the Tariqah-i Muhammadiya,
conceived around 1818. The idea of reformism according to this school of thought
followed the actions of the Prophet and its proper imbibing throughout all
sections of the Muslim community, which called for ‘strict conformity to religious
law’ without compromising on the core Sufi ethics.51 These reforms were intended
at checking heterodox practices repeatedly criticized by Sayyid Ahmad and his
followers. These practices included the veneration of Sufi shrines, ritualistic and
devotional practices of Shias, and Brahmanical influences at Sufi shrines.52

Conclusion
What emerges from this discussion is that the onset of the sixteenth century
marked a paradigmatic shift away from the antecedent period in South Asian
Sufism in at least three major ways. The tendencies established around this time
stretched well into the eighteenth century and in some cases continued even into
the first half of the nineteenth century. In other words, the history of Sufism
from the early thirteenth to the early nineteenth centuries cannot be seen as a
continuous, uninterrupted, or uniform process; rather, the sixteenth century
marked a watershed in this process, in more ways than one. Hence, if the thirteenth
to fifteenth centuries are looked upon as the medieval period in the history of
South Asian Sufism, then the sixteenth through the early nineteenth centuries
deserve a different category in the acknowledgement of the historical difference
they exhibited. I argue that this is where the category of early modernity – with
its ability to encapsulate both changes that emanated from indigenous processes
and those that came about as a result of global changes – becomes useful. It is also
clear that the nature of this early modernity encompassed different dimensions of
South Asian Sufism, including interactions with the state and society, form and
content of cultural expression, as well as theology and doctrine. Let us recapitulate
some of these processes as outlined earlier.
First, there was a marked shift in terms of the interactions between Sufi orders
and the Islamicate state. With the rise of the Mughal state in the early sixteenth
century, new tendencies emerged. By this time, the great Chishti masters were
no longer alive; the emergent Mughal state easily lured their descendants into the
ambit of imperial patronage and service. Also, with the arrival of the Mughals,
Hindustan was once again firmly connected to the larger Persianate world. With
the advent of new Sufi orders, spiritual competition for state patronage intensified
within South Asia. Relations between the Mughal royalty and major Sufi orders

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 Locating the Early Modern in South Asian Sufism57

indicate this dynamism, where charismatic masters could access the imperial
household and play decisive roles in the formation of empire. Though in the
early fifteenth century the Nimatullahi Qadiris of Kerman had started marrying
into royal families like the Bahmanis of the Deccan, the Mughals formalized the
practice of marrying into Sufi families as an element of statecraft. Alongside this,
the tendency of Mughal emperors to elevate their own sovereignty to the heights
of sacred kingship and the deep interest of several members of the imperial elite in
mystical matters further complicated the relationship of the state with the Sufis.
In all these ways, the rise and consolidation of the Mughal Empire in course of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries heralded a new episode in the relationship
between the Islamicate state and Sufi orders.
This was complemented by major developments within the arena of Sufism
itself. The sixteenth century saw the expansion of the networks of Sufi orders
and sub-orders across South Asia. There was also radical heightening of Sufi
engagements with the South Asian population, in terms of the increasing use
of vernacular languages as the medium for Sufi literature and ritual. This was
accompanied by increasing engagements with literary tropes, spiritual ideas, and
cultural symbols of Indic religions and philosophies. Both these processes allowed
Sufi influences to spread across large sections of the South Asian population,
especially women. Alongside this, there also emerged significant engagements
with Sufi ideas from beyond South Asia. This is exemplified by the case of Ibn
al-Arabi’s discourse on wahdat al-wujud, which came to be internalized by South
Asian Sufis, especially in the spiritual training and practice of Chishtis and Qadiris,
since at least the sixteenth century. Their greatest success lay in adapting that very
vision of unity to interact closely with the South Asian cultural world. This could
be achieved through a spiritual revival initiated under the dynamic leadership of
Sufi masters who operated from a wide network of Sufi centres across South Asia.
In part, this spiritual revival was triggered by the religious significance of the
late sixteenth century, when the first Islamic millennium was expected to come to
an end in 1591. This event sparked the rise and spread of Islamic millenarianism
across Eurasia and provoked complex responses in South Asia. As Mughal emperors
projected themselves as saintly messianic figures, the renewers of Islamic faith, and
the highest arbiters in religious affairs, Sufi orders like the Naqshbandis grabbed
that very moment to mark a historical break in Sufi traditions by calling for a
return to the foundational doctrines of Islam. This led to the third development
that I have discussed. By the early seventeenth century, there emerged notable
reformist voices that were sharply critical of popular Sufi practices, including the
philosophical position of wahdat al-wujud. While the need to reform technically

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 58 Kashshaf Ghani

suggests a return to the roots, this movement, ironically, bridged early modernity
and colonial modernity for Sufism by advocating the use of print technology for
mass-based dissemination of Sufi texts and treatises.
After the advent of colonial modernity, reformist practices within Sufism
continued alongside the rise of the colonial state. The failure of the Revolt of 1857
led Sufi heirs to transform their outlook by reasserting Islamic scriptural and legal
traditions, as witnessed in the foundation of the Deoband seminary.53 Consolidation
of British colonialism led to its involvement in matters concerning Sufi shrines
and its administration, and, on occasions, gave way to legal interventions into
succession disputes. All this transpired while keeping in mind the social position
of Sufi shrines and its hereditary successors – many of whom were incorporated as
divisional, provincial, and even vice-regal darbaris (courtiers).54 Such a politicized
position of the shrine caretaker (sajjada nashin) turned out to be crucial with the
subsequent introduction of electoral politics in colonial India. The social presence
of the shrine and its support to the poor and needy led the colonial administration
to even attach the concept of welfare to these institutions, enlisting their support
in times of natural calamities.

Notes
1. Blain H. Auer, Symbols of Authority in Medieval Islam: History, Religion and
Muslim Legitimacy in the Delhi Sultanate (New Delhi: Viva Books Pvt. Ltd.,
2012), 25–46; Nile Green, Sufism: A Global History (Massachusetts: Wiley-
Blackwell, 2012), 125–186.
2. Simon Digby, ‘The Sufi Shaykh and the Sultan: Conflict of Claims to
Authority’, Iran 28 (1990): 71–81.
3. Aziz Ahmad, ‘The Sufi and the Sultan in Pre-Mughal Muslim India’, Der Islam
38 (1962): 142–153; Digby, ‘Sufi Shaykh and the Sultan’.
4. Stephen Frederic Dale, ‘Steppe Humanism: The Autobiographical Writings of
Zahir al-Din Muhammad Babur 1483–1530’, International Journal of Middle
East Studies 22, no. 1 (1990): 37–58, in particular see p. 48; Stephen Frederic
Dale, The Garden of the Eight Paradises: Babur and the Culture of Empire
in Central Asia, Afghanistan and India 1483–1530 (Leiden: Brill, 2004),
135–186.
5. Simon Digby, ‘Early Pilgrimages to the Graves of Muin al-Din and Other
Chishti Shaikhs’, in Islamic Society and Culture, ed. M. Israel and N. K. Wagle,
95–100 (New Delhi: Manohar, 1983).
6. Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur, The Babur-nama in English (Memoirs of
Babur), vol. 2, trans. A. S. Beveridge (London, Luzac, 1922), 539–540; Azfar

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 Locating the Early Modern in South Asian Sufism59

Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam

(New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 97–98.
7. Carl W. Ernst and Bruce B. Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs of Love: The Chishti Order
in South Asia and Beyond (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 98–99.
8. Dara Shukoh was born in Ajmer as the eldest son of emperor Shah Jahan.
While his brothers were appointed as administrators in far-off provinces,
Dara enjoyed the privilege of staying close to his father in Agra. Aside from
administrative responsibilities, Dara had enough time to engage in his interests
which spread across the Indo-Islamic cultural, spiritual, and linguistic worlds.
He knew Persian and Sanskrit, was interested in the beliefs of multiple faiths,
and valued the plurality of Indian culture. Shah Jahan saw Dara as his successor,
but Aurangzeb, who had sharpened his military skills in the Deccan, claimed
rightful successorship to the throne. With the emperor falling ill, Aurangzeb
chose the path of military confrontation to assert his claim on the throne. In
this war of succession among the sons of Shah Jahan, it was Aurangzeb who
eventually emerged victorious, defeating Dara who was supported by the
imperial army.
9. Principles based on the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud.
10. Stephen Frederic Dale, ‘The Legacy of the Timurids’, Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 8, no. 1 (1998): 43–58, in particular
see p. 49.
11. Abul Fazl Allami, Akbarnama, vol. 2, trans. Henry Beveridge (Delhi: Low Price
Publications, 2002), 237.
12. Literally, ‘wedding’. Popularly understood as the death anniversary of a Sufi
saint, celebrating his wedding or spiritual union with God.
13. For Mughal visits to the shrine of Ajmer, see Catherine Asher, ‘Pilgrimage to the
Shrines in Ajmer’, in Islam in South Asia: In Practice, ed. Barbara Daly Metcalf,
77–86 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).
14. Iqbal Sabir, ‘Jahangir’s Relations with the Contemporary Ulama and Sufis’,
in Medieval India 2: Essays in Medieval Indian History and Culture, ed.
Shahabuddin Iraqi, 23–36 (Delhi: Manohar, 2008), 27–29; Muhammad Aslam,
‘Jahangir and Hadrat Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of
Pakistan 10, no. 1 (1965): 135–148; Sajida Sultana Alvi, Perspectives on Mughal
India: Rulers, Historians, ‘Ulama’ and Sufis (Karachi: Oxford University Press,
2012), 197–218.
15. Munis Faruqui, ‘Dara Shukoh, Vedanta and Imperial Succession in Mughal
India’, in Religious Interactions in Mughal India, ed. Vasudha Dalmia and
Munis Faruqui, 30–64 (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2014); Supriya
Gandhi, ‘The Prince and the Muvahhid: Dara Shikoh and Mughal Engagements
with the Vedanta’, in Religious Interactions, ed. Dalmia and Faruqui, 65–101.

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 60 Kashshaf Ghani

16. Afshan Bokhari, ‘Between Patron and Piety: Jahan Ara Begam’s Sufi Affiliations
and Articulations in Seventeenth Century Mughal India’, in Sufism and Society:
Arrangements of the Mystical in the Muslim World 1200–1800, ed. John J.
Curry and Erik S. Ohlander, 120–142 (London: Routledge, 2014).
17. Eva Orthmann, ‘Ideology and State Building’, in Religious Interactions, ed.
Dalmia and Faruqui, 21–23; Moin, Millennial Sovereign, 113–123; N. Elias
(ed.), A History of the Moghuls of Central Asia Being the Tarikh-i-Rashidi of
Mirza Haidar Dughlat, trans. E. Denison Ross (London: Curzon Press, 1972),
398–399; K. A. Nizami, ‘Shattari Saints and Their Attitude towards the State’,
Medieval India Quarterly 1, no. 2 (1950): 56–70.
18. The doctrine of the ‘unity of being’ is identified with Ibn al-Arabi. According
to this theory, God and His creation are one, and all creation will eventually
return to Him.
19. Muzaffar Alam, ‘The Mughals, the Sufi Shaikhs and the Formation of the
Akbari Dispensation’, Modern Asian Studies 43, no. 1 (2009): 135–174.
20. Allami, Akbarnama, 237; Moin, Millennial Sovereign.
21. Azfar Moin, ‘The Politics of Saint Shrines in the Persianate Empires’, in The
Persianate World: Rethinking a Shared Sphere, ed. Abbas Amanat and Assef
Ashraf, 105–124 (Leiden: Brill, 2019); Richard M. Eaton, ‘The Court and
the Dargah in the Seventeenth Century Deccan’, Indian Economic and Social
History Review 10, no. 1 (1973): 50–63.
22. For one such case study on the Sufis of Bansa Sharif in Awadh, see Muzaffar
Alam, The Languages of Political Islam in India c. 1200–1800 (Ranikhet,
Permanent Black, 2010), 98–114; Francis Robinson, ‘Farangi Mahall and the
Sufis of Bansa Sharif’, in A Leaf Turns Yellow: The Sufis of Awadh, ed. Muzaffar
Ali, 98–107 (New Delhi: Bloomsbury India).
23. Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs, 28–29, 108–109.
24. Carl Ernst, ‘Chishti Meditation Practices of the Later Mughal Period’, in
The Heritage of Sufism, vol. 3, ed. Leonard Lewisohn and David Morgan,
344–357 (Oxford: Oneworld Publications); Scott Kugle, ‘The Brilliance of
Hearts: Hajji Imdadullah Teaches Meditation and Ritual’, in Islam in South
Asia, ed. Metcalf, 212–224.
25. A local dialect of the Deccan that combines Persian, Marathi, Telegu, and
Sanskrit.
26. William Chittick, ‘Travelling the Sufi Path: A Chishti Handbook from Bijapur’,
in The Heritage of Sufism, vol. 3, ed. Lewisohn and Morgan, 247–265.
27. Richard M. Eaton, ‘Sufi Folk Literature and the Expansion of Indian Islam’,
History of Religions 14, no. 2 (1974): 117–127.
28. Richard M. Eaton, Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier 1204–1760 (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997); Ahmad Sharif (ed.), Banglar Sufi

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 Locating the Early Modern in South Asian Sufism61

Sahitya (Dhaka: Samay Prakashan, Dhaka, 2011). Kashshaf Ghani, ‘Practices

of Sufism and Islam in Medieval Bengal’, in Sufism in Medieval India, ed.
Raziuddin Aquil (forthcoming).
29. For Indic literary traditions on love and romance in the early Mughal period,
see Aditya Behl, Love’s Subtle Magic: An Indian Islamic Literary Tradition
1379–1545 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
30. Madhu Trivedi, ‘Images of Women from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century:
A Study of Sufi Premakhyans’, in Rethinking a Millennium: Perspectives on
Indian History from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Century: Essays for Harbans
Mukhia, ed. Rajat Datta, 198–221 (New Delhi: Aakar Books, 2008).
31. Sergei Andreyev, ‘The Rawshaniyya: A Sufi Movement on the Mughal Tribal
Periphery’, in The Heritage of Sufism, vol. 3, ed. Lewisohn and Morgan,
290–318.
32. Christopher Shackle, ‘Persian Poetry and Qadiri Sufism in Later Mughal India:
Ghanimat Kunjahi and His Mathnawi-yi Nayrang-iishq’, in The Heritage of
Sufism, vol. 3, ed. Lewisohn and Morgan, 435–463; Annemarie Schimmel,
Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina
Press, 2011), 344–402; Christopher Shackle, ‘Beyond Turk and Hindu:
Crossing the Boundaries in Indo-Muslim Romance’, in Beyond Turk and
Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia, ed. David
Gilmartin and Bruce Lawrence, 55–73 (Florida: University Press of Florida,
2000); Denis Matringe, ‘Hir Waris Shah’, in On Becoming an Indian Muslim:
French Essays on Aspects of Syncretism, ed. M. Waseem, 208–237 (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2003).
33. Ali Asani, ‘Sufi Poetry in the Folk Tradition of Indo-Pakistan’, Religion and
Literature 20, no. 1 (1988): 81–94.
34. Zahiruddin Malik, ‘Role of Sufis and Bhaktas in North Western India during
the Eighteenth Century’, in Sufism in Punjab: Mystics, Literature and Shrines,
ed. Surinder Singh and Ishwar Dayal Gaur, 158–175 (New Delhi: Aakar Books,
2009).
35. For the impact of wahdat al-wujud on Mughal politics and ideology, see Alam,
Languages of Political Islam in India, 91–98.
36. Muzaffar Alam, ‘Assimilation from a Distance: Confrontation and Sufi
Accommodation in Awadh Society’, in Tradition, Dissent and Ideology: Essays
in Honour of Romila Thapar, ed. S. Gopal and R. Champakalakshmi, 165–177
(New: Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1996).
37. Muzaffar Alam, ‘State Building under the Mughals: Religion, Culture and
Politics’, Cahiers d’Asie centrale 3–4 (1997): 105–128; Alam, Languages
of Political Islam in India, 88–98; Green, Sufism: A Global History,
125–186.

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 62 Kashshaf Ghani

38. On the spread of the Naqshbandi order, see Hamid Algar, ‘The Naqshbandi
Order: A Preliminary Survey of Its History and Significance’, Studia Islamica,
44 (1976): 123–152.
39. For a discussion on Sirhindi’s works, see Iqbal Sabir, ‘Formation of Naqshbandi
Mysticism: Studying the Major Writings of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi’, Sufism
in Punjab: Mystics, Literature and Shrines, ed. S. Singh and Ishwar D. Gaur,
267–277 (New Delhi: Aakar Books, 2009).
40. The doctrine of wahdat al-shuhud (unity of witnessing) argues that according
to the principle of tauhid, no creation can be united with God. All creations of
God may witness His glory but can never achieve Union with Him in principle.
41. Doctrine based on the idea of wahdat al-shuhud.
42. Alam, Languages of Political Islam, 161–163; On Sirhindi’s attempted
reconciliation of the two doctrines, see Alberto Ventura, ‘A Letter of Shaykh
Ahmad Sirhindi in Defense of the Wahdat al-Wujud’, Oriente Moderno 92, no.
2 (2012): 509–517.
43. Muzaffar Alam, ‘The Debate Within: A Sufi Critique of Religious Law,
Tasawwuf and Politics in Mughal India’, South Asian History and Culture 2, no.
2 (2011): 138–159.
44. Marcia K. Hermansen, ‘Contemplating Sacred History in Late Mughal Sufism:
The Case of Shah Wali Allah of Delhi’, in The Heritage of Sufism, vol. 3, ed.
Lewisohn and Morgan, 319–343.
45. J. M. S. Baljon, ‘Shah Waliullah and the Dargah’, in Muslim Shrines in India:
Their Character, History and Significance, ed. C. W. Troll, 189–197 (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004).
46. Alvi, Perspectives on Mughal India, 177–193; Arthur R. Buehler, Sufi Heirs
of the Prophet: The Indian Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Sufi
Shaykh (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998); Marcia K.
Hermansen, ‘Contemplating Sacred History in Late Mughal Sufism: The Case
of Shah Wali Allah of Delhi’, in The Heritage of Sufism, vol. 3, ed. Lewisohn and
Morgan, 319–343.
47. On the genre of meditational treatises from the late Mughal period, see Scott
Kugle, ‘Sufi Meditation Manuals from the Mughal Era’, Oriente Moderno 92,
no. 2 (2012): 459–489.
48. Annemarie Schimmel, Pain and Grace: A Study of Two Mystical Writers of
Eighteenth-Century Muslim India (Leiden: Brill, 1976).
49. For a contemporary hagiographical account on Sirhindi by one of his disciples
Badruddin, see Carl Ernst, ‘The Daily Life of a Saint, Ahmad Sirhindi, by Badr
al-Din Sirhindi’, in Islam in South Asia, ed. Metcalf, 158–165.
50. Harlan O. Pearson, Islamic Reform and Revival in Nineteenth Century India:
The Tariqah-i Muhammadiyah (New Delhi: Yoda Press, 2008).

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 Locating the Early Modern in South Asian Sufism63

51. Marc Gaborieau, ‘The Jihad of Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi on the North West
Frontier: The Last Echo of the Middle Ages? Or a Prefiguration of Modern
South Asia’, in Sufis, Sultans and Feudal Orders, ed. Mansura Haidar, 23–43
(New Delhi: Manohar, 2004); Marc Gaborieau, ‘Criticizing the Sufis: The
Debate in Early Nineteenth Century India’, in Islamic Mysticism Contested:
Thirteen Centuries of Controversies and Polemics, ed. F. De Jong and B. Radtke,
452–467 (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Marc Gaborieau, ‘A Nineteenth-Century Indian
“Wahhabi” Tract against the Cult of Muslim Saints: Al-Balagh al-Mubin’, in
Muslim Shrines in India, ed. Troll, 198–239.
52. N. R. Farooqi, ‘Saiyid Ahmad Barelvi, Altaf Husain Hali and the Formation
of Muslim Identity in the Nineteenth Century’, in Negotiating Religion:
Perspectives from Indian History, ed. R. P. Bahuguna, R. Dutta, and F. Nasreen,
233–260 (New Delhi: Manohar, 2012).
53. Ernst and Lawrence, Sufi Martyrs, 105–127.
54. Muhammad Mubeen, ‘Evolution of the Chishti Shrine and the Chishtis in
Pakpattan (Pakistan)’, in Devotional Islam in Contemporary South Asia: Shrines,
Journeys and Wanderers, ed. M. Boivin and R. Delage, 119–137 (London:
Routledge, 2018); P. M. Currie, The Shrine and Cult of Muin al-Din of Ajmer
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), 164–173.

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 3
Beginnings of Modernity in South Asia
Natural Philosophy in Persianate Islam

Charles Ramsey

Will believers actually see the Almighty on the Day of Judgement? Could there
be multiple worlds? What is the relationship between matter and space, and could
there be a void? How does matter evolve and become increasingly differentiated?
These inherently modern questions were the subject of heated debate in late-
nineteenth-century India, and they continue to draw an array of responses even
today. But what if these same questions were seeded around the year 1000 CE, long
before they came into bloom in the mid-seventeenth century? One consequence
of that would be to make us ponder the temporal boundaries of what defines the
modern. In this chapter, I explore the trajectory of a particular intellectual tradition
that began prior to and continued through the nineteenth century – a time that
is often periodized as the beginning of modernity in this region. In questioning
the dative nomenclature of the medieval or Middle Ages of South Asian history,
I also question the narrative of an imported and ruptured modernity thrust upon
a people without agency.
Much is at stake, for historiography is concerned with more than nomenclature;
indeed, it is an adjustment of the lenses through which history is interpreted.
Modernity in this part of the world has been defined in terms of colonialism and
the reformulation of knowledge in the light of European ideas. It has traditionally
been seen to flow from west to east as the product of intellectual enlightenment
and technological advancement. But there is a growing sense that India engendered
a modernity of its own even before the advent of colonialism. As discussed in
this chapter, the circulation of ideas within the Persianate region in general, and
between India and Iran in particular, during the few centuries preceding the advent
of British colonialism is indicative of a dynamic intellectual environment where
powerful and innovative possibilities developed apart from European influence.
Defining the period from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries as ‘early
modern’, rather than ‘late medieval’ or the ‘Mughal era’, affirms such agency of
India as a region and pushes historians to examine this period in terms of a complex
interplay of local, regional, and global actors.1

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 Beginnings of Modernity in South Asia65

In the light of space constraints, I will consider mainly the first of the questions
I began with – ‘will the Almighty be seen?’ – and allow this to thread the discussion
of this chapter. It is an appropriately religious subject – delicate and complex,
and concerns both philosophy and science, that is cosmology, and the nature and
substance of all matter.2 One passage in the Quran, which is often cited in this
regard, states that ‘Some faces will be radiant on that day, gazing at their Lord’ (Surah
al-Qiyamah 75:22–23). To some, this unequivocally indicates that the Almighty
will indeed be seen, but others within the tradition maintain this conclusion – for
the formed to see the formless – to be a logical impossibility. It has been a heated
debate. Though the question may appear at first glance to be a conundrum of
the present age, perhaps inseminated by modern European rationalism and its
incredulity of the mythological and pre-scientific patterns of thinking, in actuality
it is not new at all.3 Whether or not the formless could be seen was a question
of considerable importance and careful deliberation for seventeenth-century
Persianate thinkers in India and Iran.4 This comes as a surprise to many because
of the prevailing nineteenth- and early twentieth-century characterizations of the
educational system in the Persianate zone as stagnant and altogether devoid of
critical and creative thinking, capable only of the parroting of facts, aphorisms,
and legal verdicts.5 The questions raised, however, and the manner in which
many of these seventeenth-century scholars went about constructing arguments
and interpreting sacred writings and experiences, are indicative of an approach
to knowledge that is inconsistent with such an assessment. Renewed interest in
the history of this region has caused a re-evaluation of existing assumptions. The
findings indicate that during this period, India and Iran were important centres for
the collection and continuance of a great tradition of learning in Central Asia, one
which drew resources and energy from all directions – from the Mediterranean,
China, and India.6
Locating historical benchmarks in South Asian historiography is admittedly
a challenge. There was significant destruction and loss of written records caused
by invasions and changes of regime. The dismantling and readjusting of social,
economic, and educational structures experienced in the violent turmoil of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have hindered the historicization of the earlier
period.7 But there are also methodological problems – as Shahzad Bashir has
argued – which have prevented a more robust assessment of the intellectual and
social developments of this region immediately before the advent of colonialism.8
As Sheldon Pollock has cautioned, ‘we cannot know how colonialism changed
South Asia if we do not know what was there to be changed’.9 To place this in
context, it is widely held that there has been no rupture greater in the history

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 66 Charles Ramsey

of the Islamic tradition than that brought about by the onset of modernity. In
the extreme, modernity is portrayed as a European force that was and remains
incompatible with the Islamic intellectual traditions.10 For the Islamist, modernity
is a Western malady inflicted upon the ‘East’. For the progressive, Islamic tradition
is a roadblock for human flourishing. Yet neither camp has produced a nuanced
account of what preceded the colonial experience in Persianate India.11 Bashir
concludes:

If we interpret these actors within the single timeline that has dominated modern
academic views of Islam, we turn to moments in the records of earlier Muslims
to find clues of understanding the present. This perspective leads to explanatory
paradigms centered on notions of linear and unidirectional development, positive
or negative evolution, ‘medievalism,’ and so forth, which have had a nearly universal
monopoly on how we understand modern Muslim individuals and movements.12

Characterizing the actors and identifying their roles in the unfolding tale of South
Asian history is a demanding task that requires revision. However, as Pollock
observes, historians are now increasingly imagining an early modernity in the
Persianate world as a ‘dynamic era of intellectual inquiry’.13 My aim here is to add
texture and nuance to this imagination by exploring the writings of two of the
protagonists.
Of the many possible options, one finds the writings of Ahmad al-Faruqi
al-Sirhindi (1564–1624) and Sadr al-Din al-Shirazi, also known as Mulla Sadra
(1570/1571–1635/1640), to be particularly promising for this purpose. Shaikh
Sirhindi and Mulla Sadra, in the Mughal and Safavid empires respectively,
contributed to this sense of dynamism by demonstrating the circulation of
ideas regionally and the continuity of ideas with intellectual predecessors. Later
modernists, from Tabataba’i and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani to Ayatollah Khomeini
in Iran, and from Shah Wali Allah and Muhammad Iqbal to Abu’l Ala-Maududi
in India, understood themselves to proceed in a channel opened and traversed by
these respective forerunners.14 The progression of these ideas is not associated with
Western post-Enlightenment thinking; yet they demonstrate an approach that is
more akin to the modern than not. A careful reading of their works underscores what
Fazlur Rahman concluded decades ago, namely that the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries represent the ‘pinnacle of Persianate philosophy’.15 Analogously stated,
what the British were accomplishing in the mechanical sciences during this time,
the Persianates were accomplishing in natural philosophy. As S. Frederick Starr
has described in great detail, long before the rise of European Enlightenment and
colonial rule – the mainstays of conventional definitions of modernity – thinkers

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 Beginnings of Modernity in South Asia67

in Central and South Asia were actively debating the measurements of the earth,
the shape of the cosmos, the concept of natural evolution, and the contingency of
revelation.16 Far from being otherworldly, these ideas had far-reaching educational,
social, and economic consequences. They marked a pathway to modernity that was
developing in this region apart from European stimulus. This region of Sanskrit
and Persianate confluence experienced an enlightenment of their own during this
period, and thinkers like Sadra and Sirhindi progressed in this tradition.
Theirs was a competent and articulate natural philosophy, which must be
regarded as advanced in this period by any measure. In rising academic centres
like Paris and Pisa, scholastic European philosophers like Thomas Aquinas
and Giovanni di Fidanza (St Bonaventure) played a vital role in the proceeding
intellectual flourish that emerged in Europe.17 This was thanks in part, however, to
the efforts of thinkers in Central Asia like Ibn Sina (Avicenna, d. 1037) and Al-Biruni
(d. c. 1050), whose ideas developed in dialogue with their Indian counterparts.
The routes connecting these regions enjoyed the protection of tolerant Muslim
sultans through the medieval period. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
they were strengthened further by the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605)
and his successors. As Jordanon Ganeri argues, they fostered the emergence of a
cosmopolitan atmosphere where ‘a very definite form of “modernity” developed
in Indian Sanskrit philosophy between 1500 and 1700’.18 This was a period of
intellectual flourish in the Indian subcontinent, the substance of which remains
to be fully appreciated in academic literature.
The oversight seems to have been caused by the failure to recognize the latent
value in works not traditionally regarded as repositories of historical knowledge.
There is a considerable body of writings, as Velcheru Narayan Rao observes, that
has been seen as something other than history. Significant textual sources have been
overlooked because their significance is yet to be deciphered. This is certainly the
case for the writings of Sadra and Sirhindi. One reason for this has to do with the
contested definitions of modernity itself. Modernity, as William Reddy recounts,
has been conceptualized in many quarters by a practical understanding of time and
space.19 The nomenclature of early modern, in this light, signifies the progression
towards the view of time and space as basically empty. ‘Time ticks away with perfect
uniformity,’ Reddy explains, ‘and space is devoid of gods, goddesses, and other
nonhuman agent; and in which history unfolds with no help from providence,
destiny, or apocalypse’.20 But this Western view of temporality as ‘empty time and
space’ conflates scientific discipline with philosophical naturalism. This implies
that scientific rigour demands a desacralized cosmos. But as Rao argues, ‘… there is
room for more than one effective temporal frame and pockets or loops of purāṇic

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 68 Charles Ramsey

or mythic valence, of varying intensity, can easily coexist with historical facticity
of a highly empirical and analytical type.’21 Scholars like Rao and Reddy challenge
the assumed uniformity within cultures and conversely the incommensurability
across different cultures. Their work supports the argument that time and space
have been conceptualized in a diversity of ways within primary sources and that
these sources are better approached with the assumption of multiple temporalities,
rather than a single time frame proceeding from the West.
Modernity has often been equated with scientific temporality and the
economic and political application of technology, but as Martin Heidegger notes,
the essence of technology is not anything technological. Technological objects
are means to an end. The essence of technology, as he explains, is something else
entirely and must be understood as a ‘way of revealing’.22 A shift in paradigm,
as Bashir argues, allows for multiple temporalities rather than a single timeline.
It opens access to and allows the interpretation of genres like Sufi epistles,
scriptural commentaries, and poetic treatises, which were previously considered
to be lacking in historical value. Paths of knowledge developed over time in many
cities and regions that provided a head-start in technological development, which
in turn enabled economic progress. Our two authors pondered such a ‘revealing’.
They sought to comprehend the substance of things seen and unseen in a manner
parturient for scientific development, in a way more ‘modern’ than not. Let us
now turn attention towards their context and respective works.

Authors in Context
Born in Safavid Shiraz, Mulla Sadra was educated in the manner typical of the day.
He commenced with the foundational subjects known as the transmitted (naqliyya)
sciences, that is, grammar, and an introduction to the Quran (tafsir) and tradition
(‘ilm al-hadith); then, he proceeded to the rational sciences (‘aqliyya), namely logic,
rhetoric, and theology. He studied in Isfahan under prominent masters like Sayyid
Baqir Muhammad Astarabadi (known as Mir Damad), Baha’ al-Din Muhammad
al-‘Amili (Shaikh Baha’i), and Mir Findiriski. Sadra’s thought reflected, as Ibrahim
Kalin summarizes, a synthesis of ‘Qur’ān, burhān, and ‘irfān’ – that is, revealed
knowledge, peripatetic philosophy, and realized (mystical) knowledge. Each of
these masters and their subject matter contributed to his intellectual development.
In time, Mulla Sadra became a prolific writer, and his ideas and influence spread
across the region.23 In the main, Sadra presented a robust metaphysical argument
for the primacy of existence as the foundational mode of divine self-disclosure.
He posited three categories of existence: ‘absolute existence’ (mahiyya), which is
not dependent on anything else; ‘relative existence’, derived from source, which is

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 Beginnings of Modernity in South Asia69

relative and contingent; and ‘self-expanding existence’ (tashkik al-wujud), which is

the gateway between the two.24
Tashkik, as we will consider here, imagined an evolutionary approach to
the creation process. By synthesizing elements of Ibn ‘Arabī’s theosophy’, as
Fazlur Rahman explained, ‘Ibn Sina’s peripatetic tradition, and al-Suhrawardi’s
illumination (ishrāqī), Sadra’s metaphysics constituted the pinnacle of Persianate
philosophy’.25 Otherwise stated, the core ideas of one like Ibn Sina – which were
instrumental in simulating European universities in the twelfth century – were also
carried forward in the Persianate zone of Central and northern South Asia. In the
mid-seventeenth century, Safavid Shi‘ism was in the throes of a heated controversy
between the Akhbars and the Usulis. As the literalist and legalist attitudes of the
former gained strength, dissonant philosophers and Sufis took refuge in other
lands.26 Many of these fled to India, and particularly to the relatively peaceful
region of the Punjab. As one of Sirhindi’s students, named Abdul Hakim Sialkoti
(d. 1656), recounted, it was during this time that Sa’id Sarmad settled in the region
and disseminated Sadra’s ideas.27 His migration sheds light upon the spread of
ideas through the region, the significance of which becomes clearer through the
writings of Ahmad Sirhindi.
Ahmad Sirhindi was born only a few years before Sadra, in the town of Sirhind
in Patiala, now in Indian Punjab. Sirhind was the largest fortified town (qasba)
between Delhi and Lahore. It boasted of splendid gardens and markets and was
renowned as a centre for medical care (yunani tibb).28 Having received similar
education as Sadra under the guidance of his father and brother, Sirhindi continued
his learning under Yaqub Sarfi Kashmiri and Bahlol Badakhshani in Sialkot, where
he was also initiated into the prevalent schools of Sufism. Later, while in Delhi
around 1593, he came under the guidance of the prominent leader of the highly
influential Naqshbandi order in this region, Shaikh Muhammad al-Baqi, whom
Sirhindi eventually succeeded upon his death in 1603.29 The Naqshbandi order, as
Annemarie Schimmel examined in detail, was heavily represented in the Persianate
world, and the extent of Sirhindi’s influence among them cannot be overstated.30
This explains, for example, why a mystic religious teacher like Sirhindi could be
perceived as a challenge to an emperor like Jahangir (r. 1605–1627). Thousands of
initiates across the region looked to him as a source of authority and guidance. If
not an actual threat to Mughal power, it was most certainly a check. His followers
looked at him as the ‘reviver of the second millennium (mujaddid alf thani)’.
This signified that Sirhindi was the divine representative on earth and a corporeal
portal to another realm.31 It had been a thousand years since the passing of Prophet
Muhammad, and this marked a profound cosmological progression in the order

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 70 Charles Ramsey

of creation.32 The time had come for the shift back towards the original point of
departure once commenced with the divine command: Be! (kun fa yakun).33 In the
same way that a stone launched into the sky must eventually return once reaching
its zenith, all that originated at the moment of creation would now retract to the
point of origin. Jahangir, as his father Akbar and the Safavid rulers in Iran, sought
to cast himself in this millenarian role, but they were held in balance by the power
of these Sufis.34
Unlike Sadra, who wrote many books, the primary source for gauging Sirhindi’s
ideas is epistolary – that is, an extensive collection of letters.35 These letters describe
practices, visions, and guidance from a series of spiritual ascensions, the full extent
of which was communicated explicitly only to an inner circle of devotees. Such
an extravagant claim, combined with the general scepticism towards the mystical
Sufi genre, has caused these writings to be regarded by modern academics as more
powerful than cogent. Indeed, the corpus has largely been either overlooked or
dismissed as fanciful and hagiographical.36 One consequence of this, however, is
that the philosophical notions therein are yet to be given significant consideration.
For the sake of problematizing the periodization in this context, one emphasizes
the theme of multidimensional forces within his works. By this, one means an
awareness of the boundaries between the material and the immaterial realms of
space and time, and the seventeenth-century attempt to characterize these.
If Sirhindi’s letters are read as mere hagiography or spiritual guidance, then
a window into this context remains closed and a vital link in this intellectual
tradition remains unseen. I am not advocating a new interpretation of Sirhindi’s
letters, nor will I attempt to go beyond those who have laboured to decipher his
account of the ‘formless ineffable realm that is beyond space-time’. Rather, I hope
to add a degree of historical texture that acknowledges language as a ‘living entity,
inseparable from the speaker’s cultural assumptions’.37 Without demystifying
his message, or de-emphasizing the reverence in which he was held, I attempt to
approach Sirhindi within his own temporal context.38
Expanding upon the written exchanges between Al-Biruni and Ibn Sina, Paul
Hullmeine recounted a time prior to the separation between those working in
philosophy, medicine, and mathematics.39 The Sufi hospice (khanqah) was not
merely a place of other-worldly meditation. Some of these – in ways similar to
certain European monasteries – were often centres of learning and discovery. This
was particularly the case in the Mughal Empire. The healing tradition, as Seema
Alavi argued, ‘expanded and was consolidated in tandem with the entrenchment
of the Indo-Muslim fabric of the region’s society’.40 Health was an aristocratic
virtue. Medical texts produced and circulated within the akhlaq literature codified

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 Beginnings of Modernity in South Asia71

socially acceptable norms of behaviour and civility within the health regime of
the ruling ashraf. ‘Medicine was a form of healing, central to the building of an
imperial political culture,’ Alavi concludes.41 These centres contained libraries and
hostels; they were the natural hosts for those travelling in search of knowledge.
Mathematics and engineering, with practical benefits in irrigation through the
Persian waterwheels (saqiya or rehat) or in medicine, were brought with the saints
and their learned followers to the countless shrines that dotted the pathways across
India, Central Asia, and beyond.42 When read in the light of the rich heritage of the
medical sciences, astronomical observations, and advancements in mathematics,
a considerably different picture emerges out of this. We can see Sirhindi and
Sadra progressing in continuity with this vein of learning, having developed
those rigorous mental habits and practices that constituted modernity in the
seventeenth century and were indicative of what Heidegger termed the ‘essence of
technology’.43
Sirhindi’s spiritual enthronement as the millennial reformer inaugurated a new
era of history. As Afzar Moin argued, his status ‘pivoted not on a new “doctrine”
of interpretation of “law” but on taking the place – bodily and spiritually – of a
sacred entity that had existed in the previous era or cycle of time’.44 Elucidating
the hidden symbolism, Sirhindi explained that Prophet Muhammad had two
individuations (ta‘ayyun) – the corporeal and the cosmic, as reflected in the two
mīms in his name. From the time of his passing, however, the individuation had
gradually shifted from the corporeal to the cosmic, so that the mim was subsumed
in the alif of divinity (uluhiyyat). The auspicious millennium marked the Prophet’s
transformation into pure spirit, thus creating the need for a restorer (mujaddid),
one who could navigate the mysteries of the cosmos and discern practical guidance
for the faithful. Whereas in the time prior to Muhammad, prophets were sent
to provide guidance, in this new era a restorer was sent, and one will continue
to arise in each generation until the consummation of time. Unlike those whose
gaze was focused on the past, this was a bold and forward-looking attitude. They
expected discoveries to be made and fresh guidance to be ascertained. This was also
the period of the greatest proliferation of Islamic millenarianism, and one finds it
highly significant that it occurred roughly during this same period that we call the
early modern.
Sirhindi’s exalted status is documented in various regional sources. But in order
to appreciate this intellectual environment, the oblique spiritual and intellectual
processes associated with millenarianism require disambiguation. One important
clue is found in the combined interests in reform or restoration (tajdid) – the task
of the mujaddid – and evolution (tashkik), or the graded modulation of all being.45

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 72 Charles Ramsey

This is a pairing of seminal ideas attributed to Sirhindi and Sadra respectively,

but not previously considered together. Sirhindi’s concept of the ‘unity of
[contemplative] witnessing’ (wahdat al-shuhud) brings forth a complimentary
addition to Sadra’s discourse. Through the practice of contemplative witnessing,
Sirhindi trained others to see with the ‘eyes of the heart’. Through the mystical
practice of ‘imagining of the Shaikh’ (tasawwur-i shaikh) and of cultivating
constant contact (rabitah) regardless of physical proximity, the goal of the wayfarer
was to abide simultaneously in both realms.46 This experience seeded the idea
that creation is like a thought (khayal) manifested by God who is ‘true being’. 47
‘Contemplative witnessing’ was a spiritual journey into increasingly higher stages
towards sublimation (fana) into the divine, only then to return to the awareness
of personal individuation. Contemplation on this complexity fostered observation
into the pattern of nature and the shape of the cosmos.
It is important to recall the metaphysical discourse prevalent among the Sufi
philosophers in this context. The underlying unity between spirituality and
metaphysics, drawn from Ibn ‘Arabi’s doctrine of tawhid or wahdat, was an
integral part of this intellectual environment.48 It provided the semantic framework
for the metaphysical quest to understand – and to experience – the paradoxical
interrelation of the Creator and the created.49 This assumed a complex theory of
emanation that had direct implications upon how revelation was understood to
enter the realm of human understanding. Following in the footsteps of Suhrawardi,
leading thinkers in this region – like Sadra’s teacher Mir Damad – had categorized
the divine ‘essence’ (dhat) to be fundamental and ‘existence’ as one of the divine
‘attributes’ (sifat). Sadra, however, reversed this order and posited that existence
was the source and end of all things. As Sadra explained:

God’s self-praise results in the emergence of the cosmos, and how the cosmos, as the
‘stuff’ (jawhar) of God’s self-praise, is nothing other than seamless expression or
modes or instantiations of praise. Since being is graded, and multilevel, the more one
manifests praise, the more he manifests of being.50

Here, we see innovation, progress, and the possibility of disagreement. It is essential

to grasp that these seventeenth-century polymaths were not content to simply lift
prayers into the air. There was a chartered course, a cartography of the spiritual
realm, to guide the wayfarer’s quest to observe, experience, and comprehend the
inner structure of the world in space and time. Today, we map on screens, but they
mapped in the mind, or the tablet of the heart.
Let us put this in perspective. From Aristotle to Ibn Sina, philosophers claimed
that change was possible in four categories: quantity, quality, position, and place.

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 Beginnings of Modernity in South Asia73

Sadra added a fifth category – substance (jawhar) – and this was an idea of great
significance. He posited that all jawhar – the substance of creation – progressively
divides into increasingly complex variants. ‘The agent of this essential motion is
God,’ Sadra wrote, ‘and its receptacle, that is, its object, is the human soul with
respect to the power of the receptivity of its soul and its passive hylic intellect.’51
This idea of transubstantiation is a precursor to later theories of evolution, and
it was articulated long before Darwin or other natural philosophers in Europe.
Sirhindi added that some of this substance is visible to the physical eye, and some
is not. All of creation, he explained, is a gradation of existence (tashkik al-wujud)
expressed in matter and energy, substance seen and unseen. As Sayyid Ahmad
Khan – who is often regarded as the ‘Father of Islamic Modernism’ – explained
in the nineteenth century, a person and a tree are of the same jawhar, but they are
differentiable in degree and refinement.52 In this light, the composite picture of
creation is that of a unified whole, differentiated but coherent, because it is made
of one self-unfolding substance that proceeds from an original source.53 Sayyid
Ahmad provided this description as an improvement to European science, but he
was in fact drawing back to the work of these Indian and Iranian precursors.
Let us now consider the formation of these ideas in greater detail as this
illustrates the continuity and innovation within this line of thinking. In Afsār
(Part 4), Sadra explored the traditional psychology of Ibn Sina and the spiritual
anthropology of Ibn ‘Arabi. He underscored the interaction of the soul with the
physical and intelligible worlds, and the encounter made possible through sense
perception (takhayyul) of the objective and ‘imaginal world’ (‘alam al-khayal).54
Ibn Sina’s medical examinations, as Fazlur Rahman convincingly argued, had led
to an original conclusion, namely that the imagination is a ‘physical faculty’.55 The
experience of hypnotic and trance-like states (waham) could be so profoundly
affective that patients were often unable to differentiate these from actual physical
events.56 But these are activities of the mind rather than departures into another
dimension. Sirhindi and Sadra carried forward Ibn Sina’s insight, namely that
spiritual images are projections of the imagination.
The imaginal world, however, is not an imaginary world. As Henry Corbin
explained: ‘While an imaginary world is a realm of subjective fantasy that we
make up in our heads, an imaginal world is a realm of objective reality that exists
between the world of matter and the world of the spirit.’57 During the period
under focus, imagination was regarded as a cognitive function, the bridge between
the objective world and the world of spirit. Drawing an example from the life
of Moses in the Hebrew Bible, for example, Corbin explained that the ‘burning
bush’ would have been a mere brushwood fire if perceived merely by the sensory

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 74 Charles Ramsey

functions. Perception, or the contemplative witnessing to the unity of existence

(to use Sirhindi’s term), is the experience of the imaginal function that bridges
the two realms and reveals the theophany. Returning to the initial question of
the possibility of seeing the Creator, Sirhindi wrote: ‘Coming to this throne,
one sees the passing of the innermost of the inner penetrate into the innermost
secrets (origin of the origins). Yes! The person who reaches the highest place has
the penetrating vision to see the most remotely distant object.’58 The faculty of
imagination, which connects the sensate to the spiritual, acts as an intermediary
between the worlds of objective substances and detached intelligible substances.
This cosmology, however, could not have been deduced from mere observation.
There was the need for a conceptual guide who could cross the imaginal divide.
Rational proofs were constructed through abstraction, but ‘contemplative
witnessing’ (mushahaba) was an intuitive way of seeing that unveils what is not
perceptible to empirical observation.59 The difference, as Sadra explained, is
‘like someone who knows the definition of sweetness and one who has actually
tasted something sweet’.60 This is a prime example of natural philosophy at work.
Recalling Heidegger, this is the essence of technology – ‘a way of revealing’.

On Seeing the Creator

Let us return to the issue of seeing the Creator. There are multiple occasions in
the Quran that portray anthropomorphic accounts of the divine in general and
of seeing Allah in particular. In interpreting Surah al-Qiyāma (Q75:23), Sirhindi
concluded that the meaning was that the faithful will indeed look upon their Lord,
but not in material actuality as experienced presently on the earth. Rather, they
will gaze upon an imaginal manifestation of their Lord: ‘What one sees cannot
be God, but a mere projection of the seer himself…. We cannot see God on the
Day of Judgement; for how can He who is above space and time be visible to
eyes?’ 61 Or as Sadra explained, ‘the soul is bodily in its origination and spiritual
in its subsistence’ (jismaniyyat al-huduth ruhaniyyat al-baqa’). For this reason,
the transmigration (tanasukh) of the present physical body is impossible, as is its
corporeal resurrection.62
Sadra posited that the system of thought derived from the primacy of existence
affects all aspects of cosmology, cosmogony, and eschatology. The ‘contemplative
witness’ – or the wayfarer, to use Buehler’s term – journeys through the imaginal
gateway to gain understanding of the divine effusion through the cosmos. The
perceiving (shuhud) of the other realm is both desirable and possible, but this is
not to be confused with the actual seeing of Allah, for the divine source of being
remains eternally outside of the manifest. To support this view, Sadra cited the

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 Beginnings of Modernity in South Asia75

‘Commander of the Believers’, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib’ – the nephew of the Prophet and
the fount of the Sufis – who said, ‘I have seen nothing but God before it, after it,
with it, and in it’. The perception of the Exalted One is accessible to each of God’s
servants, but this does not indicate the perception of the ‘Absolute Existence’
because that remains a logical impossibility.63
Here again we see the interplay between the religious and the philosophical, as
well as the physical and the metaphysical. From a religious vantage, the discussion
opens questions about the nature of the afterlife. Will there be a heaven, is there
eternal bliss, and what will it be like? Yet in the language of philosophy, the
discussion promotes the notion of substantial (jawhar) continuity after death.
In interpreting passages like Surah Al-Qissas (Q28:88), for example, where it is
written that ‘all things perish except His Face’, Sadra emphasized that the passage
does not define the nature of the resurrected body. Whereas the present body
is finite, the body in the afterlife is perfected and will be significantly different.
The gradation of substance that exists in the physical and spiritual realms assumes
multiple forms and degrees of intensity, and so the resurrected body will be of a
different kind.64 Contrary to most philosophers before him, Sadra differentiated
matter from the principle of individuation. Therefore, individual identity and
personhood can exist divorced from physical matter, so bodies in the afterlife are
real but immaterial. The corruption of the body at the moment of death does
not lead to the disappearance of the human person; rather, the ‘person’ takes on
a different and a higher mode of existence.65 The discussion, however, is not just
metaphysical, for it is concerned with producing a logical argument for ‘a higher
mode of existence’ that interfaces differently with time, space, and energy. The
idea is original, and innovative, but the thinker shares a continuance with a long
intellectual tradition that endured and flourished in this period.

Conclusion
In this chapter, I have explored the trajectory of a particular intellectual tradition of
Islamic natural philosophy that emerged to prominence in the seventeenth century
and continued through the nineteenth. I have argued that drawing upon antecedent
intellectual traditions, these new interventions by thinkers like Sadra and Sirhindi
arose partly in response to the global spread of millenarian ideas at the close of the
sixteenth century and with the myriad philosophical challenges that this historical
conjuncture produced. The lives and ideas of Sadra and Sirhindi thus offer us
windows into the emergence of an indigenous modernity in this context, one
that developed independently of any European intervention. At first glance, these
appear to proceed down the well-beaten path of medieval Sufi masters, but a close

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 76 Charles Ramsey

reading of their works shed light upon ways of thinking that were innovative and
of ideas that were pushed beyond existing intellectual boundaries and broke new
ground. These inhabited a threshold, where new ways of thinking were taking hold.
Their respective journeys into this early modernity were moderated by a nuanced
set of discreet terms applied to discuss the evolutionary expansion of the universe
and its eventual contraction at the end of time. Furthermore, the complimentary
nature of their ideas is indicative of a rich and sustained intellectual exchange over
generations that began before their time, and that has continued since. There was
a conjunction of methods, sources, and vocabulary that testifies to a dynamic
environment of enquiry, and this continues to add texture to the picture gradually
emerging of a context concomitant with our understanding of early modernity.
In essence, this chapter adds to the argument that modernity has been
mischaracterized as a transfer of post-Enlightenment thinking from the West to the
East. Such an over-generalization has obscured the existing intellectual traditions
which developed in the Persianate world at its own pace and by its own resources.
The point is not to deny the importance and power of developments in Europe but
rather to call for a recalibration of our understanding of this period in the light of
the agency revealed in the civilizational achievements in this region. When South
Asians engaged with European technological advancements in the nineteenth
century, they did so with a pre-existing intellectual framework that prepared them
to perceive and respond to these impulses. There were academic disciplines and
preconceived categories that enabled these ideas to be grasped, and even improved
upon. There were pathways of knowledge developed over generations and across
the many regions of the subcontinent that are indicative of a dynamic intellectual
environment where powerful and innovative possibilities arose in harmony with
indigenous resources and global influences.

Notes
1. John F. Richards, ‘Early Modern India and World History’, Journal of World
History 8, no. 2 (1997): 197–209; David Ludden, ‘Imperial Modernity: History
and Global Inequity in Rising Asia’, Third World Quarterly 33, no. 4 (2012):
581–601; Anthony Giddens, Conversations with Anthony Giddens: Making
Sense of Modernity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998), 94–117;
Francis Robinson, ‘Islamic Reform and Modernities in South Asia’, Modern
Asian Studies 42, no. 2 (2008): 259–281; R. S. Sharma, Early Medieval Indian
Society: A Study in Feudalisation (Kolkata: Orient Longman, 2001), 15–18.
2. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines
(Albany: Thames and Hudson, 1993, revised edition), 107–176.

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 Beginnings of Modernity in South Asia77

3. Christopher Lane, The Age of Doubt: Tracing the Roots of Our Religious
Uncertainty (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 14–35.
4. The term ‘Persianate’ is a cognate of the term ‘Islamicate’ that signifies the
proclivities shared by cultural regions, allowing for the nuanced but important
differentiation between an ideal, such as Islam, and its cultural manifestations.
For a robust exposition of this term, see Shahab Ahmad, What Is Islam? The
Importance of Being Islamic (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016),
113–120. The term reflects the commonalities of ethos and worldview shared
by a wide variety of ethno-linguistic groups.
5. Peter Hardy, Historians of Medieval India: Studies in Indo-Muslim Historical
Writing (London: Luzac, 1966), 1–19; Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Modern Islam
in India: A Social Analysis (London: Victor Gollancz, 1946), 44–47; Saiyid
Naqi Husain Jafri, ‘A Modernist View of Madrasa Education in Late Mughal
India’, in Islamic Education, Diversity, and National Identify: Dīnī Madãris in
India Post 9/11, ed. Jan-Peter Hartung and Helmut Reifeld, 39–55 (New Delhi:
SAGE Publications, 2006).
6. Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, ‘Contested Memories of Pre-Islamic Iran’, Medieval
History Journal 2, no. 2 (October 1999): 245–275. To place these developments
within a broader context, see S. Frederick Starr, Lost Enlightenment: Central
Asia’s Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2015), 1–27; Peter Frankopan, The Silk Roads: A New History
of the World (London: Vintage, 2017), 8–19.
7. Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian
Islam since 1850 (London: Routledge, 2000), 37–41. Also see Barbara Daly
Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband 1860–1900 (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1982), 20; Seema Alavi, Islam and Healing: Loss
and Recovery in a Indo-Muslim Medical Tradition 1600–1900 (New Delhi:
Permanent Black, 2007), 205–236.
8. Shahzad Bashir, ‘On Islamic Time: Rethinking Chronology in the
Historiography of Muslim Societies’, History and Theory 53, no. 4 (2014):
519–544.
9. Sheldon Pollock, ‘Introduction’, in Forms of Knowledge in Early Modern
Asia: Explorations in the Intellectual History of India and Tibet, 1500–1800,
ed. Sheldon Pollock (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011), 8. This view is
gradually being strengthened through the work of regional specialists like
Ahmad Dallal, Shahzad Bashir, Shahab Ahmed, and Afzar Moin.
10. Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians
of Change (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2004), 7; Wael B. Hallaq, ‘On
Orientalism, Self-Consciousness, and History’, Islamic Law and Society 18, no.
3–4 (2011): 387–439.

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 78 Charles Ramsey

11. Charles M. Ramsey, ‘Orientalist: Friend or Foe?’, in Literary and Non-Literary

Response Towards 9/11: South Asia and Beyond, ed. Nukhbah Langah (New
Delhi: Routledge, 2017), 35–48.
12. Bashir, ‘On Islamic Time’, 543.
13. Pollock, ‘Introduction’, 10.
14. S. H. Nasr, ‘The Quranic Commentaries of Mulla Sadra’, in Consciousness and
Reality: Studies in Memory of Toshihiko Izutsui, ed. Jalal al-Din Ashtiyani,
Hideichi Matsubara, Takashi Iwami, and Akiro Matsumoto, 45–58 (Leiden:
Brill, 2000).
15. Fazlur Rahman, The Philosophy of Mullā Ṣadrā (Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1975), 12.
16. Starr, Lost Enlightenment, 101–125. Also see Paul Hullmeine, ‘Al-Birūnī and
Avicenna on the Existence of Void and the Plurality of Worlds’, Oriens 47, nos.
1–2 (2019): 114–144.
17. George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and
the West (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1981), 279–281; George
Saliba, Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (Cambridge:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2007), 221–235. Also see
F. E. Peters, Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian Tradition in Islam (New
York: New York University Press, 1968).
18. Jonardon Ganeri, The Lost Age of Reason: Philosophy in the Early Modern India,
1450–1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 244–247.
19. William M. Reddy, ‘The Eurasian Origins of Empty Time and Space:
Modernity as Temporality Reconsidered’, History and Theory 55, no. 3 (2016):
325–356.
20. Reddy, ‘The Eurasian Origins of Empty Time and Space’, 326.
21. Velcheru Narayan Rao, David Shulman, and Sanjay Subramanyam, Textures of
Time: Writing History in South India, 1600–1800 (Delhi: Permanent Black,
2001), 255.
22. Martin Heidegger, The Question of Technology (London: Garland, 1977), 12;
Albert Borgmann, ‘Technology’, in A Companion to Heidegger, ed. Hubert
Dreyfus and Mark Wrathall, 420–428 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005), 428.
23. Sadra authored some 40 books. Of principal concern here is his work on
transcendent philosophy, known as Asfar (Journeys). Sadr al-Din Shirazi and
Muhammad Ibn Ibrahim, Al- Ḥikma al-muta‘āliya fī l-asfār al-‘aqliyya al-
arba‘a, ed. Riḍā Luṭfī, Ibrāhīm Amīnī, and Fatḥ Allāh Ummīd (Beirut: Dār
Iḥyā’ al-Turāth al- ‘Arabī, 1981), 1:56ff. 427–446.
24. Ibrahim Kalin, Mulla Sadra (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 28,
90; Rahman, Philosophy, 12–16. For a highly lucid account, see Zailan Moris,
Revelation, Intellectual Intuition and Reason in the Philosophy of Mulla Sadra:
An Analysis of the al-Hikmah al-‘arshiyyah (London: Routledge, 2003).

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 Beginnings of Modernity in South Asia79

25. Rahman, Philosophy, 20.

26. The Safavid dynasty in Iran, founded by Shah Isma‘il in 1501, had its origins
in Safawiyya, a Sunni Sufi order, but a later policy (tashayyu‘) succeeded in
promoting Shi‘ism and condemning competing organizations such as the Sufi
orders.
27. Nathan Katz, ‘The Identity of a Mystic: The Case of Sa’id Sarmad, a Jewish-
Yogi-Sufi Courtier of the Mughals’, Numen 47, no. 1 (2000): 142–160. Also
see Annemarie Schimmel, Pain and Grace: A Study of Two Mystical Writers of
Eighteenth-Century Muslim India (Leiden: Brill, 1976), 7; Rajmohan Gandhi,
Punjab: A History from Aurangzeb to Mountbatten (New Delhi: Aleph Books,
2013), 60–62.
28. Mansura Haidar, ‘Medical Works of the Medieval Period from India and Central
Asia’, Diogenes 55, no. 2 (2008): 27–43. During the reign of Akbar, Sirhind
spread for some 3 kos, or approximately 10 kilometers. The city was ransacked
repeatedly in the eighteenth century and never regained its former stature.
29. For a highly cogent description, see Arthur F. Buehler, Sufi Heirs of the
Prophet: The India Naqshbandiyya and the Rise of the Mediating Sufi Shaykh
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998). There is an erroneous
tendency in some quarters to emphasize Sirhindi as an opponent to mystical
exaggeration, and a champion for the sober reification of sharī‘ah, but this does
not adequately account for his stellar rise in station among the Sufi elite.
30. Though Sadra apparently was not initiated in a Sufi order, contact and
understanding of the mystical are implicit in his work. Annemarie Schimmel,
Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 2nd edition (Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 2011), 263–267; Jamal Malik, Islam in South Asia: A Short
History (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 170–171; Kalin, Mulla Sadra, 35, 62–63, 161.
31. Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, 267–269; Sajida S. Alvi, ‘Mujaddidi
Sufi Order’s Ascendancy in Central Asia through the Eyes of Its Masters and
Disciples (1010s–1200s/1600s–1800s)’, in Reason and Inspiration in Islam:
Theology, Philosophy, and Mysticism in Muslim Thought: Essays in Honour of
Herman Landolt, ed. Todd Lawson, 407–418 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005).
For other significant perspectives in English, see Yohanan Friedmann, Shaykh
Ahmad Sirhindi: An Outline of His Thought and a Study of His Image in the Eyes
of Posterity (Montreal: McGill Queen’s University Press, 1971); Muhammad
Abdul Haq Ansari, Sufism and Shari‘ah: A Study of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi’s
Effort to Reform Sufism (Leicester: Islamic Foundation, 1986); J. G. J. ter
Haar, Follower and Heir of the Prophet: Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (1564–1624)
(Leiden: Het Oosters Instituut, 1992).
32. The stalwart master of Delhi, Shah Wali Allah, for example, shortlisted Sirhindi
as one of the ‘most faithful servants of God ever’. See J. M. S. Baljon, Religion
and Thought of Shāh Walī Allāh (Leiden: Brill, 1986), 200.

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 80 Charles Ramsey

33. Mohammed Rustom, The Triumph of Mercy: Philosophy and Scripture in

Mulla Sadra (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012), 119.
34. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘The Eurasian Context of the Early Modern History of
Mainland South East Asia, 1400–1800’, Modern Asian Studies 31, no. 3 (1997):
735–762.
35. The collected letters (maktubat) are available in Persian and Urdu, and a
good number of these have been carefully rendered into English by Arthur F.
Buehler, Revealed Grace: The Juristic Sufism of Ahmad Sirhindi (1564–1624)
(Louisville: Fons Vitae, 2012). The edition I consulted in Urdu is Aḥmad
Sirhindi, Maktubat-i Imam-i Rabbani, ed. Nur Aḥmad, 3 vols. (Karachi:
Educational Press, 1973).
36. Shahzad Bashir, Sufi Bodies: Religion and Society in Medieval Islam (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2012), 8. Bashir demonstrates the value of epistolary
and hagiographic writings from this period as sources of knowledge and draws
attention to the academic tendency to overlook their importance.
37. Buehler, Sufi Heirs, xvii
38. Bashir, Sufi Bodies, 544.
39. Hullmeine, ‘Al-Birūnī and Avicenna’, 115. Boris A. Rosenfeld and Ekmeleddin
Ihsanuğlu, Mathematicians, Astronomers, and Other Scholars of Islamic
Civilisation and Their Works (7th–19th c.) (Istanbul: Research Center for
Islamic History, Art, and Culture, 2003), 126.
40. Alavi, Islam and Healing, 4.
41. Alavi, Islam and Healing, 4.
42. J. S. Mishra, ‘New Light on Albiruni’s Stay and Travel in India’, Central Asiatic
Journal 15, no. 4 (1972): 302–312; Mario Kozah, The Birth of Indology as an
Islamic Science: Al-Biruni’s Treatise on Yoga Psychology (Leiden: Brill, 2016),
8–34. Michael H. Fisher, Migration: A Human History (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013), 33. Nile Green, Indian Sufism Since the Seventeenth
Century: Saints, Books, and Empires in the Muslim Deccan (New York:
Routledge, 2006), 90.
43. Reddy, ‘The Eurasian Origins of Empty Time and Space’, 326.
44. A. Azfar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in
Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), 1–16.
45. Sajjad Rizvi, Mullā Sadrā and Metaphysics: Modulation of Being (London:
Routledge, 2009), 64–72.
46. Muhammad Hisham Kabbani, Classical Islam and the Naqshbandi Sufi
Tradition (Fenton: Islamic Supreme Council of North America, 2004), 285,
569. Also see Mauro Valdinocci, ‘A Model of Sufi Training in the 21st Century:
A Case Study of the Qadriyya in Hyderabad’, in South Asian Sufis: Devotion,

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 Beginnings of Modernity in South Asia81

Deviation, and Destiny, ed. Clinton Bennett and Charles M. Ramsey, 31–43
(London: Continuum, 2012); Buehler, Sufi Heirs, 201–203.
47. Yohanan Friedmann, ‘Religious and Political Ideas of Shaikh Ahmad
Sirhindi’, Rivista degli Studi Orientali 36, no. 1 (1961): 259–270; Buehler, Sufi
Heirs, 269. The influence of Sirhindi and Sadra in the development of Shah
Wali Allah’s thought has been well-documented. In broad terms, Wali Allah
attempted to synthesize Sufi-philosophical cosmologies into a descriptive system.
For greater detail, see Rahman, Philosophy, 90–91; Kalin, Mulla Sadra, 22.
48. S. H. Nasr, ‘Mulla Sadra and the Doctrine of the Unity of Being’, Philosophical
Forum 4, no. 1 (1972): 153–161.
49. William C. Chittick, ‘A History of the Term “Waḥdat al-wujūd”’, in Search of the
Lost Heart: Explorations in Islamic Thought, ed. Mohammed Rustom (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 2012), 71–78. The central question was
whether ‘everything is from Him [God]’ (hama az ust) or ‘everything is Him’
(hama ust).
50. Mohammed Rustom, The Triumph of Mercy: Philosophy and Scripture in
Mulla Sadra (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2012), 119.
51. Rustom, The Triumph of Mercy, 144. Translation of Sadra, Tafsīr 1:112–113.
52. Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Tabyīn al-kalām, vol. 2 (Aligarh: Sir Sayyid Academy,
2004), 55. For a highly lucid account of Sadra’s ideas of substantial motion, see
Zailan Moris, Revelation, Intellectual Intuition and Reason in the Philosophy of
Mulla Sadra: An Analysis of the al-Hikmah al-‘arshiyyah (London: Routledge,
2003).
53. The most direct translation of the term paidā is ‘birthed’, but it can also be
rendered as ‘generated’, ‘begot’, or ‘came forth from’. This is the term used in
the earliest Urdu translations, and it is linguistically consistent with the pre-
existing Persian version translated by Wali Allah, Shah ‘Abd al-Aziz, and Shah
Rafi‘ al-Din. In the Arabic Quran, God made (khalq) rather than ‘begot’ the
heavens and the earth.
54. Kalin, Mulla Sadra, 30.
55. Lenn E. Goodman, Avicenna (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), 176.
56. Fazlur Rahman, Avicenna’s Psychology (London: Oxford University Press,
1949), 98–99. For another cogent examination, see Jon McGinnis, Avicenna
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 89–116.
57. Henry Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn ‘Arabi, trans. Ralph
Manheim (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969), 80.
58. Buehler, Sufi Heirs, 257.
59. Kalin, Mulla Sadra, 62; Sayeh Meisami, Mulla Sadra (Oxford: Oneworld,
2013), 43–52.

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 82 Charles Ramsey

60. Kalin, Mulla Sadra, 35.

61. Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Tafsir al-Qur’ān, vol. 3 (Aligarh: Institute Press, 1883),
204–208.
62. Kalin, Mulla Sadra, 30.
63. Henry Corbin, ‘Le Thème de la résurrection chez Mollâ Sadra Shirazi
(1050/1640) commentateur de Suhrawardi (586/1191)’, in Studies in Mysticism
and Religion Presented to Gershom G. Scholem, ed. E. E. Urbach and R. J. Zwi
Werblowski, 71–115 (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1967).
64. Kalin, Mulla Sadra, 158, citing Afsār iv. 2.176. For greater detail, see Sajjad
H. Rizvi, Mulla Sadra Shirazi: His Life, Works and the Sources for Safavid
Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 311; Christian Jambet,
The Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mullā Sadrā, trans. Jeff Fort
(New York: Zone, 2006), 394–396.
65. Kalin, Mulla Sadra, 160. Sadra concluded his presentation with a quotation
from Jesus: ‘One who is not born twice will never reach the heavens of the
afterlife’ (cf. Gospel of St. John 3:3).

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 4
Contestations and Negotiations
Early Modern Individualism in Jain Heterodoxy, c. 1470–c. 1770

Shalin Jain

While debating the ‘early modern’ in South Asian history, it is pertinent to

acknowledge that the concept of ‘medieval’ is rooted in Orientalist discourse.
Borrowed from Europe, the tripartite periodization has continued to loom large
over the writing of South Asian history. In this chapter, however, I discuss the
nature of early modernity in South Asia between the fifteenth and the seventeenth
centuries in terms of some specific historical tendencies that characterized the
history of Jainism. In terms of religious practices, Jainism witnessed the rise of
individualistic consciousness and a new criticality during the period. In this
context, I trace the formation of the individual as a category of analysis through
the case study of two individuals from the Jain community. I further argue that
the spirit of individualism, dialogue, debate, and dissent that characterized early
modernity in Jainism in South Asia was derailed with the advent of colonial
modernity.

Individualism and Early Modernity

There is a persisting uncertainty regarding the sites of differences and similarities
with regard to medievalism and modernity across spaces; should one look into the
material content of mundane life in order to locate patterns of common experiences,
or in the world of ideas? European notions of modernity and their transplantation
in the Asian context have ended up making tradition and modernity two opposite
poles. However, both of these require to be seen in terms of interactions, more as
overlapping circles than disconnected ones. As Franz-Josef Arlinghaus has argued,
‘… with respect to self-esteem, self-consciousness and (if at all) “autonomy”
there are more similarities than differences between medieval and modern ways
of being “individual”’.1 Engagement with the concept of the individual as a site
that generates cultural narratives offers a good point of entry for constructing
connected histories of ideas, knowledge, and cultural production. In the case of
Europe, the window to modernity was largely opened by individuals since the time
of the Renaissance. This is what emerges from the works of scholars like Carlo

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 84 Shalin Jain

Ginzburg, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, and Natalie Zemon Davis. Their ‘new
histories’ reveal this by focusing on individual behaviour, choices, and experiences
of characters like Menocchio and Martin Guerre.2 The individual has been one
of the key categories through which the advent of modernity has been explained
in recent times. However, this exercise requires locating spaces of modernity,
memory, interaction, and production across boundaries of space and time, as well
as across periods of dynamic, often divergent, political and social developments.
This creates the historiographical problem of situating both the individual and
modernity within the existing overlapping, yet complex, relationship between
medieval and early modern. Spaces for individual assertion, dissent, and diversity
of opinions as well as levels of acceptance in such societies should be understood as
parameters of their indigenous modernity.
In order to develop the premise of individualism, it becomes imperative to
contextualize the issue within the larger debate. Scholarship on individualism
and its functionality in South Asia has focused overwhelmingly on monotheistic
contexts and the categories of community leadership – monarchs, nobles, religious
preachers, and trendsetters.3 The roles of common people and processes active on
the margins of history but negotiating the formation of an individual engaged in
heterodox projects and non-monotheistic religious traditions have largely been
ignored. This approach has complemented the persisting hegemony of the category
of the medieval in South Asian historiography, where until recently the traditional
structural model did not allow scope for histories of dissent or the individual
beyond the project of empires. Here, the dominant trend has been to project
the common individual as an obedient, orthodox subject on the basis of official
memoirs or court chronicles. Taken at face value, these textual narratives can
produce the image of a society dominated entirely by the community with no space
for manoeuvre by ordinary individuals. In this framework, dissent or innovations
are mostly appropriated within the normative discourse, eclipsing the scope for
differences, doubts, and arguments. In opposition to this, the present chapter
is driven by an urge to re-define existing identities beyond normative contexts
through a focus on unconventional individual attempts to embrace, surpass, and
resist such definitions. In the history of South Asian Jainism, there have been
instances of alternate, multiple, and vernacular modernities. They problematize
the idea of European exclusivity in terms of the emergence of modernity. There are
cases in South Asia too where individual identity was constructed and redefined
constantly by dissenting personalities who simultaneously contested as well as
negotiated asymmetrical power relations. This chapter locates diverse sites of
everyday interactions, appropriations, and interpretations that made diverse

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 Contestations and Negotiations85

political statements and created spaces of subjectivity. I will focus on two eminent
Jain individuals. The first is Lonka Shah, a fifteenth-century lay preacher of the
Sthanakvasi Jain tradition from the Kathiawad region of Gujarat. The second
is Banarsidas, an early seventeenth-century Shwetambar Jain from the Middle
Gangetic Basin. Their lives reveal the nuances, complexities, and conflicts involved
in the shaping of the rise of individualism as a marker of early modernity in
South Asia.
Our existing understanding regarding the parameters of religiosity of this period
needs to be nuanced in view of the textual expectations about what an individual
as well as his or her conduct ought to have been. This is because conflicts arising
out of individual actions became increasingly popular in heterogeneous ways
during these centuries, defying both conservative and communitarian authorities.
Therefore, merely reconstructing a social history through the information
contained in the texts is not sufficient. The material aspect of the texts – the
conditions and processes through which these texts were produced, circulated,
exchanged, read, shared, and performed – also becomes vital. Another significant
aspect is the issue of agency in relation with the intellectual and religious networks
of Jain merchants. Here, reconciliation between worldly occupation and spiritual
salvation seems to have been a problem for the merchants. One also has to address
the issue of tensions between individual aspirations and collective needs in the kin
and business networks as well as those of religious attitudes and institutions. The
principal objective for me is to trace the nature of early modernity by analysing the
relationship between the individual and the collective.
I plan to locate diverse sites of interaction and negotiation in the South Asian
context rather than contrasting with the European ‘others’ and their religion. The
fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries witnessed both the revival and the rise
of intense disputations and critical engagements within the religious landscape of
South Asia. Several intellectuals, regional state officials, and even lay individuals
grew critical of all formal religious hierarchies. Reworking, reactivating, and
revitalizing of tradition were practised generously within the Jain community. At
times, such attempts were reflections of being a collective movement of a section
of society to go beyond the dependence on the clergy. In many such crucial
attempts, certain individuals were at the apex, acting as the central agency through
which such heterodoxies found momentum. Since the fifteenth century, there
were certain individual projects within South Asian Jainism which demonstrated
attempts to mobilize religion into building unorthodox or individual campaigns,
mostly in opposition to organized religion. Sometimes, such attempts also
emerged in negotiation with organized religion or enjoyed the support of the

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 86 Shalin Jain

latter. The concept of the individual was not merely imposed from the above
but grew within the communities themselves. By the seventeenth century, a new
intellectual tendency increasingly facilitated the processes of individual-building at
the expense of the community. The following sections will discuss some of these
processes.

Prelude to Early Modern Individualism: Lonka Shah

Let us start with our analysis of the two Jain individuals who were active in
different times and spaces, but who shared a common agenda of dissent and
heterodoxy. The first, Lonka Shah, was a lay scribe-turned-preacher while the
other, Banarasidas, remained a merchant householder throughout his life. Lonka
Shah, who lived mostly in Ahmedabad in Gujarat in the fifteenth century, moved
beyond the normative discourse of the existing Jain theology by rationalizing
his opposition to idol worship. In his critical ways, Lonka could neither favour
the dominant structure of the community and religion nor leave any personal
writings; this led to his memory being repressed. The scant information available
about him was either censored or reinterpreted by the organized religion and by
modern stakeholders. In spite of his immense contribution to Jain sectarian and
canonical tradition, our knowledge about him is somewhat obscured because of
these mediators. By the time one reaches the case of Banarsidas and his friends
in the seventeenth century, heterodoxy did not remain an isolated case; rather,
it continued the traditions of Jain scepticism and dissent of the preceding
centuries. However, Banarsidas, who remained mobile between Agra, Jaunpur,
and beyond, was vocal enough to write arguably the first autobiography in the
Indian tradition with distinctly modern sensibilities.4 He used the colloquial
language of the metropolitan zone of Mughal North India. Notwithstanding his
provocative rational thoughts and actions, he did not challenge the Jain tradition
or canonical literature like Lonka Shah. Owing to the duality of his thoughts and
actions, he enjoys a respectable individual space within the Jain tradition initially
as a cosmopolitan and later as an orthodox Jain.
The historical biography of Lonka Shah remains uncertain for the lack of
reliable sources. There are very few references based on the textual tradition of
Lonka gaccha – a puritanical, reformist Jain movement which is opposed to
image worship and whose origin is credited to Lonka Shah.5 Most of the texts of
the Lonka gaccha tradition are poems or songs of a hagiographic or biographical
nature. The contemporary Lonka gaccha tradition itself has lost all written
sources and retains no cultural memory anymore on the doctrinal views of Lonka
or the earlier Lonka gaccha teachers (acharyas). Hence, the notions about the

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 Contestations and Negotiations87

life, teachings, and sect of Lonka Shah are more of a recent construct, coming
out of conflicting sectarian discussions and debates between Sthanakavasi and
murtipujak traditions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. For the
first group, Lonka Shah has been a great reformer embodying the true ethos of
Jainism, while the second tradition sees him as an aberration and portrays him as a
villain. Our analysis about him is largely based on the research conducted by Peter
Flugel, who has utilized sources available from both the sides to situate Lonka
Shah in his historical milieu and Jain philosophical traditions.6 Flugel has given a
well-researched argument on how no consensus exists on the nature of Lonka’s
influence on the formation of an iconic mendicant tradition, which emerged in
the aftermath of his protest.7
Lonka Shah was either a Porwad or Shrimali– that is, one of the three most
important castes among the Shwetambar Jains. There is no clear evidence about
where he spent his early days; in all probability, he grew up in Limbdi in the
Kathiawad region of Gujarat. Later on, he settled in Ahmadabad. Here, he emerged
as a learned layman with powerful connections with the Muslim authorities in
Ahmadabad. According to one Orientalist view about Jainism,

… one effect of the Mohammedan conquest […] was to drive many of the Jaina
into closer union with their fellow idol-worshippers in the face of iconoclasts.
Another effect was to drive others away from idolatry altogether. No oriental
could hear a fellow oriental’s passionate outcry against idolatry without doubts as
to the righteousness of the practice entering his mind. Naturally enough it is in
Ahmadabad, the city of Gujarat that was most under Mohammedan influence, that
we can first trace the stirring of these doubts.8

In this interpretation, the rationalization of ideas of Lonka Shah has been attributed
to the influence of Islam, denying the man any agency of his own. This is an early-
twentieth-century Orientalist generalization, one which did not understand the
nuances of indigenous tradition of non-idolism and categorized both the milieu
and the individual as medieval, thereby denying an individual the scope of the
agency or articulation of selfhood in modern terms.
Due to his profession of a scribe (lekhak) and expertise in calligraphy, Lonka
Shah could gain access to the sacred texts for the purpose of copying them. For
instance, when a Jain layman gave him a Jain text titled Dashavaikalika Sutra for
copying, he took it home and started reading it. Much impressed, he got two copies
made with the help of his widowed daughter and retained one copy for himself for
further study. Thereafter, he became a keen student of the Jain scriptures. Though
one does not get any contemporary works by Lonka Shah or his followers, all the

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 88 Shalin Jain

Jain legends accept his profession as a scribe. This indicates his ability to read and
internalize important texts. He thus cannot be rejected as an ignorant manuscript
copyist. It was his readings of these texts of the Jain tradition that was the origin
of the various ideas of Lonka. His study of Acharanga Sutra and Dashavaikalika
Sutra, for instance, discovered that the discipline and morality required by these
texts were rapidly diminishing due to the laxity and undisciplined behaviour of
Jain monks. Great slackness had also crept into the contemporary mendicants, as
they had come to possess not only books and clothes but also material wealth.
At times, there were also quarrels among them, attracting public criticism for
unethical conduct.9
Though the immediate milieu of Lonka Shah was marked by Islamic influence,
one cannot forget that image-worship hardly found any reference in the Jain
scriptures. In late-fifteenth-century Gujarat, the destruction of some temples by
the officials of the regional sultanate has been attributed to the provocations of
Lonka Shah.10 However, the Islamic stand against idol worship would have actually
made his job easier. He took advantage of these circumstances in propagating his
doctrines. He declared his disbelief in several essential Jain rites like as paushadha,
pratikramana, pratyakhyana, and even charity. Though the worship of images
was very popular among the Jains of his time, he argued that the practice went
against scriptural prescriptions. He then started preaching what according to him
was the authentic Jain religion, which did not ordain image worship. He argued
that the institution of the temple, with its concentrated wealth, power, and burden
of rituals, was the main source of corruption; it stood in opposition to the moral
path shown in the ancient scriptures. According to him, the erection of the idols
in temples involved digging, quarrying, and other construction activities; all of this
was harmful to minute life-forms. In this way, Lonka Shah provided a moral cover
to his campaign against temple construction. By challenging temple worship, he
wanted to force the Jain laity to opt for a more moral and mobile life. In addition
to this, he pointed out that the practices of the temple administrator monks did
not have any basis in the ancient texts. All these arguments infuriated the monks,
especially since Lonka was only a layman; according to the monks, he had no right
to preach.11
The campaign of Lonka Shah became popular once a Jain sangha (religious
group) arrived in Ahmedabad and met him. The leader of the group was Sambhuji.
His granddaughter Mohabai was a child widow. Both Sambhuji and this girl were
greatly attracted by the teachings of Lonka. Other lay members of this group also
joined the assembly of Lonka’s preaching. This enraged the monks accompanying
the sangha, and they left in a huff. However, about 45 lay members of the sangha

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 Contestations and Negotiations89

stayed on in Ahmedabad and became the disciples of Lonka by formally accepting

diksha (initiation) from him on Jaishtha Sukla, 1474. Lonka did not become a
monk himself but remained a lay preacher throughout his life. Many of his disciples
became munis (monks). Among them, muni Sarvaj, muni Bhanaji, muni Munaji,
and muni Jagmalji subsequently became well-known preachers. Lonka himself,
though a layman, was called muni Dayadharma by his followers, and the sect he
founded came to be popularly known as Daya gaccha. Lonka was followed by his
disciple Rupa Rishi, whom he had ordained in Surat. The next head of this group
was Jiva Rishi; however, by his time sub-groups began to emerge within the order.
One muni Bija started another sect called Bijamata in 1513. It seems that another
dominant Jain sect Tapa gaccha tried to take on such challenges during this period
by making strict rules for Jain monks and enforcing them rigorously. This process
was initiated by Anand Vimal Suri (1490–1540), who practised severe penance
for 14 years to create a positive impression of Jainism on the masses. According
to the Jain tradition, he was successful in regaining the influence of Jainism. Both
the Lonka gaccha tradition, which was founded in the 1470s by one of Lonka’s
followers named Bhanaand, and the Sthanakavasi tradition, which was established
in the early seventeenth century by different groups of dissenting sadhus (ascetics)
of the Lonka gaccha, objected to the re-emergence of idol worship within the Jain
tradition. Reform movements of the later period, like Bijamata, Sthanakavasi, and
Terapantha, borrowed heavily from the Lonka gaccha tradition. These individual
efforts and reasons made a case for dissent within the faith and thus gradually
created alternate spaces in parallel to the mainstream. By invoking puritanical ideas
of original Jainism while refashioning them to suit the fifteenth century, what
the dissenting voice of Lonka Shah in effect launched was an important revivalist
tendency within Jainism.

The Quest for Individual Agency: Banarasidas

My second case study concerns the seventeenth-century Jain merchant
named Banarsidas, whose career spread from Agra to Jaunpur and redefined
the relationship between individual, text, and society. The persona of
Banarsidas reflects a contrast between orthodox religiosity and individual
rationality, which could not be reconciled given the two forms of life he lived.
In the public domain, he was a reformer and a translator. However, as his
autobiography Ardhakathanak shows, his private actions spoke of contestations
and concealments. In the public sphere, he wrote and translated Jain philosophical
texts like Samaysar Natak, Gommatsaar, Dhyanbattisi, Adhyatam ke Geet,
a hymn titled Shivmandir, and many other texts concerning Jain philosophy.

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 90 Shalin Jain

However, writing his autobiography, Ardhakathanak, two years before his demise,
he acknowledged and repented what he perceived as his misdeeds, unbecoming of
a Jain. This shows a constant clash between prescribed public life and its critique
in the personal life by means of deviating from convention. Across these two
conflicting spheres of life, reconciliation was very much there. Banarasidas and
his literary circle re-explored and redefined the religious texts which communally
carried a normative meaning, as if they were stagnant in the time of their writing.
In writing a philosophical treatise titled Samaysaar, Banarsidas filtered down a
tradition according to his own worldview.12 The literary knowledge of Banarsidas
evolved through his engagements with different types of texts. During his bad
days in Agra, he passed his time singing Shaikh Qutban Suhravardi’s Mirigavati
and Mir Sayyid Manjhan Shattari Rajgiri’s Madhumalati – two mystical Sufi
poems composed in Hindi verse. For him, these were ballads of love. For us,
however, these present cases of early sixteenth-century textual traditions re-cast
for seventeenth-century audiences through the oratory skills of an educated
intellectual. Thus, the moment of oratory was the moment of recreation as well,
as the orator had the agency of interpolation and exposition in his relation to
the original text. John E. Cort talks about vernacular culture and the practice
of translation in seventeenth-century North India. However, such translation
was not a form of mere transmission. In a predominantly illiterate society, the
moment of translation also becomes that of creation. Ardhakathanak is full of
instances of oratory.13 On several occasions, Banarsidas and his intellectual circle
assembled to recite various popular literary texts. I argue that such moments
empowered individuals with the agency to navigate a text and its audiences across
time. One should remember that Ramcharitmanas first became more popular
through the performative acts of Ramlila and then the reading of the text.14
Here, individualism also becomes a signifier of choices. Contrary to the
circumscribed image of medieval Indian merchants, Banarsidas exercised his
individual choices whenever he could afford to do so. In this context, sexuality,
pleasure, and knowledge can be taken as the attributes of individual creativity. The
youthful pangs of Banarsidas were not taken positively by his community, but he
did not face any punishment beyond a mild reprimand.15 If the scope for expressing
individual opinions is taken to be an indication of the nature of the times, this
instance is revealing. In Italy, Mennocchio of the Inquisition records challenged
the virginity of Mother Mary. In South Asia, Banarsidas of Ardhakathanak
pondered over the existence of Lord Shiva.16 However, as a societal response, the
first was burned at the stake, while the second lived a full life. When Banarsidas
started deviating from the normative course of life prescribed by the community

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 Contestations and Negotiations91

leaders, Jain elders reprimanded him and advised him to mend his ways.17 However,
Banarsidas refused to adhere to such suggestions and kept pursuing his passions.18
His community allowed him that space. Given the circumstances of a parochial
communitarian world of the times, individualism requires to be acknowledged as
a two-way function. Not only did Banarsidas show the will to make and adhere to
his own choices, but his community too seems to have been tolerant enough to let
him have his ways, albeit with strong reservations. He was not subjected to either
excommunication or censorship, even as he continued with his adventures with
eroticism.19
The aforementioned deviations from the usual communitarian discipline
took place in spite of the fact that Banarsidas was well-trained in Jain religious
philosophy, rituals, and ceremonies. He knew the 14 precepts or niyamas and
ashthanikas, that is, the eight days of Jain religious ceremony. He was also
familiar with the 12 vratas (rituals) prescribed for the Jain householders. In all
these ways, he was a typical member of his community. Yet his rebellious attitude
becomes evident from his experiments with diverse religious practices and beliefs.
For example, he let two Hindu monks guide him on two different occasions on
following Hindu practices with the assurance of good luck. He also studied a
ninth-century Digambar text, Gommatsaar, of Nemichandra, a Digambar monk,
during the times of difficult Shwetambar–Digambar sectarian relationship.
Here, one needs to appreciate the fuzziness of religious and sectarian identities
too. Identity segregation in the seventeenth century was not as important in
the case of Jains as it has been made out to be in the last two centuries. Thus,
himself a Khartar gaccha Shwetambar Jain, Kharagsen, the father of Banarsidas,
went on a pilgrimage along with a Digambar Jain, Rai Dhanna. When Hiranand,
a Shwetambar Jain Oswal, organized a sanghayatra for Sammet Shikhar a few
years later, Kharagsen yet again did not hesitate to accompany him. These two
examples indicate that pilgrimage was often thought more as a social event than
only a strictly religious one. Contrary to the rhetoric of divine legitimation that
characterizes contemporary court chronicles, the author of Ardhakathanak
humanizes human vanity. In fact, the text is a part of a new genre in Hindi
literature, one where many texts were humanizing and personalizing narratives
through a focus on relationships between humans or between humans and
nature. It was beyond the categories of divine–human, patron–client, state–
subject, or exploiter–victim relationships that formed the basis of a vast range
of medieval texts.20 This strong human element is visible throughout the text of
Ardhakathanak, in narrating how Banarsidas was being repeatedly reprimanded
by the elders of the community for his ostensible waywardness and how despite

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 92 Shalin Jain

his repeated misdeeds and misconduct, he was always accommodated and

embraced.21
The recoverable expression of such individual emotions is a relatively recent
phenomenon in human history. Usually, emotions – feelings and their expressions
– are seen to be shaped by culture and learnt or acquired in social contexts. What
somebody can and may feel and express in a given situation depends substantially
on social norms and rules. Though the expression of emotions has not been rare in
South Asian literary traditions, it has largely comprised the expression of eroticism.
However, emotions also function as the individual agency contributing to larger
social groups, communities, and movements. This dimension of emotions is
embedded in the text of Ardhakathanak, where it manifests through the interplay
of thoughts and feelings of the author. However, Banarsidas also introduced a
sense of platonic emotions, visible in his friendships or in his lamenting for his
deceased children. This serves to humanize his thought process, something that
rarely found literary expression in the medieval context. Banarsidas and his friends
followed virtually a secret anarchist way of life that revolted against the established
norms of Jainism. In many cases, the proclamation of Banarsidas’ individualism
took the form of nudity and erotic acts within the circle of his close friends.22
For him, these acts were a means to subvert public norms in his private domain.23
Alongside this, emotions of friendship also occupy an important place in the
narrative. For instance, Banarsidas writes how one Narottam befriended him in
spite of the discouragement of his own father. The text also reveals how Narottam’s
subsequent death left Banarsidas devastated and how he wept for days.24
The text is an instance of a cosmopolitan, interactive, and popular literary
production that emerged in South Asia around this time. The range of literature
discussed by Banarsidas was predominately Jain, but his cosmopolitan vocabulary
revealed the larger context of which he was a part. Here was an individual acting
under various influences and responding to them through his own agency. That
is why Banarsidas could freely accommodate Persian words like mulk, shariyati,
dervish, fakir, and ashiqi within his narrative and also write about injuring
himself on hearing about the demise of the Mughal emperor Akbar. This speaks
of intimate yet complex connections between the imperial and popular realms.
The text also mentions other details that are relevant in this context. One incident
concerns Shantidas Jauhari of Ahmedabad not sending the best jewels to the
Mughal court owing to his ambivalence towards the last years of the reign of Shah
Jahan, leading to the protest of imperial authorities against his ways of functioning
in the form of blackmail.25 In another instance, Banarsidas, in spite of having all
the sense of loyalty towards the invisible, distant monarch, loathed the dominance

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 Contestations and Negotiations93

of Mughal officials at the local level.26 Through these anecdotes, the text provides
an important window into these complex and constant social interactions.
This was the nature of the social milieu in which Banarsidas cultivated a value
system conducive for the dominant structures of faith, community, and state.
However, there are too many instances within the text that foreground the spirit of
individualism vis-à-vis the structures of collectivism. In this context, the individual’s
defeat against the structures of dominance becomes explicit only towards the end
of the text. Much of the narrative projects Banarsidas as an individual struggling
all through his career, betraying and challenging his Jain identity. But the endless
failures force him in the end to surrender his individualism in favour of structures of
religiosity as an act of repentance. He becomes a devout Jain, lamenting his follies.27
In fact, it is here that the fluidity that exists between individual and community
unfolds fully. But for the act of repentance, the author of Ardhakathanak could
have eulogized his life as a Jain reformer celebrating his literary and communitarian
successes rather than his mercantile failures, familial ups and downs, and emotional
bondings and breakdowns. The very act of innocence at the fag end of his career
becomes the act of repentance, forcing the author to divulge the dark episodes
of an individual self.28 However, in the quest for locating the modern within the
so-called medieval context, one cannot and should not polarize the two. The
content of the change requires to be assessed in terms of the process rather than in
terms of a final outcome. Thus, issues like the status of women or child mortality –
as gleaned from Ardhakathanak – have to be discussed with an understanding
that individuals were ultimately a part of the context and culture of a medieval
society. Ideas and practices did not necessarily permeate each other all the time.
Instead, there were fault lines that essentially merge medieval trends and modern
tendencies into the grey zone of early modernity.

Situating the Early Modern in the Jain Tradition

Moving beyond the material aspects of early modernity as discussed in the
beginning of this chapter, I take humanistic rationality of individual agency as one
of its major attributes in South Asia. Here, the heterodoxies of Lonka Shah and
Banarsidas served as a prelude to future debates and struggles for individualistic
expressions. These figures act as the markers of historical continuities across the
medieval and colonial modern sensibilities. The emergence of the individual in the
process, in turn, helped the fostering of other fundamental qualities of the future,
like criticism and interpretation. The ability to question existing norms had not
yet become a vertical act in terms of social hierarchies; subordinates had not yet
started questioning their superiors in explicit terms. The tendency to question

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 94 Shalin Jain

whatever was found to be illogical was more horizontal. The changing material
concerns created a new environment for questioning moral premises and religious
orthodoxy. However, these instances of heterodoxy were not necessarily in
continuation with preceding and future traditions of Jain scepticism and dissent –
neither did they constitute mainstream religious knowledge; clouds of orthodoxy
continued to remain the dominant social force.
The extent of religiosity in the public life of the early modern times could be a
matter of debate, but cultural practices, literary heritage, and collective memories
cannot be totally detached from the contemporary milieu of prevalent religious
beliefs and practices. Certainly, one cannot imagine early modernity in South
Asia as an age of pure reason and unprejudiced science, but this was also the
case elsewhere. However, challenging the existing universally applicable method
of determining the truth content of any claim and assessing the pre-determined
morality of an act could be seen as indications of a new rationality and reasoned
debate. Here the dissenting views of Banarsidas, a merchant from the Gangetic
Plains, and the alternate visions of Lonka Shah, a householder of Shwetambar
Tapa gaccha from Gujarat, become important. Their disagreements signified
reasoned thinking minds. In their tendency of engaging with disagreements
with others through debates and writing, we find the first signage of the gradual
emergence of a public sphere.29 Here, one can see a particular type of humanism,
which led these intellectuals to stay open to the evolving moral situation and
not give in to the ideological rigidity of the prevalent orthodoxies. In course of
their education, Lonka Shah and Banarsidas moved from being indifferent to
being contemptuous towards the prevalent religious practices of their times. For
them, the rationalization of thought was a process characterized by repeatedly
challenging existing religious beliefs and orthodoxies. This made their views quite
unique and essentially different from the rationality of earlier times. Rationality
was now becoming increasingly autonomous of the realm of orthodox scholarship.
Challenges to and negations of existing belief systems, even though often in subtle
terms, were becoming increasingly rampant. New networks of knowledge were
emerging through a complex interplay between ideas, personalities, and events.
This was the essence of the early modern condition within South Asian Jainism.
However, the world of Banarsidas was lost by the early eighteenth century.
In fact, the urge to discover a homogeneous monotheism as well as to create a
minority selfhood started juxtaposing itself against the dominant narrative of the
majoritarian ‘others’. The hardening of the communal boundaries and the growth
of fixed social and religious categories of caste and religion started proliferating
from this time onwards. The colonial knowledge system had already identified

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 Contestations and Negotiations95

Christianity as a superior, Western, non-Indian religion and counterposed it

against Indic religions. This compartmentalization delegitimized a whole range
of pre-colonial knowledge forms. By the late nineteenth century, possibilities of
continuation of the cosmopolitanism that had marked the early modern condition
in South Asia were further negated by the rise of revivalist rediscoveries of the Indic
religions. In a way, the experience of colonialism in its process of building binaries
based on religious and sectarian identities scuttled the intellectual potential of
South Asia’s own early modernity. Peter Flugel has already referred to this scenario
in the context of Jainology.30 These revivalist and puritanical tendencies took the
whole religious system towards a metaphysical direction, forgetting their practical
implications and treating religion as something frozen in time. This approach of
Indic puritanism was very much commensurable with the notions of Christianity
and Western philosophy but incommensurable with the pre-colonial past and
especially with the environment of scepticism and debate that was the hallmark of
South Asian early modernity. Thus, religion became a category of equivalence by
all means. Under the hegemony of colonial modernity, the public life of religion
had to be refashioned to be necessarily distinct from the ‘secular’ world of the
West. In the process, the various local concepts of religion were subsumed within
a universal idea of religion.
One needs to appreciate the fact that an act of retrieval and translation of
the texts also meant their transposition. The quest of self and the other required
valid explanations for both followers and critics. This led to a great deal of tension
between polemics and accord. In the colonial milieu, the chief concern of religious
communities was to persuade their audiences (both the supporters and the
opponents) of their superiority vis-à-vis the inferiority of the others. Evolving an
appropriate universal vocabulary and literary practices to achieve this became a
major concern. Whatever did not suit the agenda of a linear progress of a religion
had to be either eliminated or suppressed. These urges of comparisons and
equivalences led to deep transformations in the conceptualization and expression
of the social and cultural project of religions. Here, Jainism was successful in
positioning its relationship with Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. However,
exactly like Hinduism and Islam, Jainism too gradually drifted away from the
open world of indigenous beliefs and practices that marked the few centuries
preceding the advent of colonialism.31 For instance, the moment Jainism clashed
with the Arya Samaj movement in colonial Punjab, the deployment of rhetorical
modes became crucial for each community to counter the competing claims of
the other.32 Thus, the historical conditions and requirements of the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries led to the disinheritance of many tendencies of diversity

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 96 Shalin Jain

and dialogue in the face of religious competition and the quest of developing a
refashioned religion.
The parameters of religiosity, in terms of the expectations about individual
and collective conduct, remained contested throughout the period under focus.
Conflicts arising out of individual actions became increasingly popular in
heterogeneous ways, defying both state and religious authorities. Two distinct
tendencies co-existed – an urge to define religion in normative contexts and
individual attempts to embrace, surpass, and resist such definitions. The
interactions between individual, religion, and politics against the backdrop of anti-
orthodox campaigns as well as the tensions between religion, individuals, and the
processes of de-legitimization or re-legitimization were important elements in the
process. If the centuries earmarked as early modern were a time of disagreements,
debates, and departures on the part of Lonka Shah and Banarsidas, they were also
one of continued dominance of the religious orthodoxy over the popular psyche
owing to the deeply rooted theological structures. It is for this reason that the
example of these two figures does not serve as a clean break from the medieval
past; rather, the overlap between the two contradictory tendencies comprises the
ambivalence and overlaps that early modernity represented in the field of Jainism
in South Asia.
Thus, the early modern condition in South Asia needs to be conceptualized
not only in terms of changes in the material world but also in terms of those
churning in the intellectual realm that led to the emergence of didactic
worldviews. Early modern cosmopolitanism was characterized by tendencies that
were complex, multi-layered, at times contradictory, and, most of all, human.
The multi-layered complexities of the lived experiences of people like Lonka Shah
and Banarsidas provide us windows into this cosmopolitanism. In many cases,
religious and sectarian identities were questioned, sometimes they were erased,
and in some cases they were replaced by a cosmopolitan identity. However, these
tendencies were derailed by the rise of colonial modernity. Far from being further
blurred, the boundaries of religious identity started hardening at the cost of the
ideas of cosmopolitanism. In fact, the quest for a homogeneous monotheism got
mixed into the colonial imperative of creating a comfortable echo chamber for the
notions of European superiority. Thus, the early modern tendency of theological
orthodoxies gradually getting diluted under the influence of debates, dialogue,
and cosmopolitanism suffered a major setback and went in the reverse instead.
The role of the intellectual as a public man within the wider mundane world
was lost again, and religiosity reasserted itself as the central marker of individual
identity.

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 Contestations and Negotiations97

The project of modernity as a universal promise remained unfulfilled due to

its inbuilt limitations. At the same time, one needs to problematize the category of
medieval as well. The medieval in South Asia, much like the modern, was neither
uniform nor homogeneous. Both categories were porous, overlapping, extending,
and intervening into each other. The very overlapping of scepticism, heterodoxy,
and dissent across periods of history shows continuity beyond different historical
periods. It is at the grey zone between the two that the early modern needs to be
located.

Notes
1. Franz-Josef Arlinghaus, ‘In and Out, Then and Now: The Conscious Self and
Its Relation to Society in Pre- modern and Modern Times’, Medieval History
Journal 18, no. 2 (2015): 1–26.
2. Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The World of a Sixteenth Century
Miller (New Jersey: John Hopkins University Press, 1992); Emmanuel Le Roy
Ladurie, Montaillou: Cathars and Catholics in a French Village, 1294–1324
(New York: Penguin Books, 1978); Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin
Guerre (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983).
3. Iqtidar Alam Khan, Akbar and His Age (New Delhi: Northern Book Centre,
1999); Shireen Moosvi, Episodes in the Life of Akbar: Contemporary Records and
Reminiscences (New Delhi: National Book Trust, 1994); Corinne Lefevre, ‘The
Majālis-i Jahāngīrī (1608–11): Dialogue and Asiatic Otherness at the Mughal
Court’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 55, nos. 2–3
(2012): 255–286; Corinne Lefevre, ‘Recovering a Missing Voice from Mughal
India: The Imperial Discourse of Jahāngīr (r. 1605–1627) in His Memoirs’,
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 50, no. 4 (2007): 452–489;
Charlotte Vaudville, A Weaver Named Kabir: Selected Verses, with a Detailed
Biographical and Historical Introduction (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1997); John Stratton Hawley, Three Bhakti Voices: Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir
in Their Time and Ours (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005).
4. Literary critics see the genre of autobiography as a retrospective prose narrative
produced by a real person concerning his own existence, focusing on his
individual life, in particular on the development of his personality; accordingly,
the author, the narrator, and the protagonist must share a common identity.
Linda R. Anderson, Autobiography: New Critical Idiom (New York: Routledge,
2001), 2–3.
5. Muni Kantisagar, ‘Sri Lonkashah ki Parampara aur Uska Agyaat Sahitya’, in
Muni Shri Hazarimal Smriti Granth, ed. Sobhachandra Bharill, 214–253

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 98 Shalin Jain

(Byavar: Muni Shri Hazarimal Smriti Granth Prakashan Samiti, 1965);

Alamshah Khan, ‘Lonka Gaccha ki Sahitya Sewa’, in Muni Shri Hazarimal
Smriti Granth, ed. Bharill, 203–213.
6. Peter Flugel, ‘The Unknown Lonka Tradition and the Cultural Unconscious’,
in Jaina Studies, ed. Colette Caillat and Nalini Balbir, 181–271 (New Delhi:
Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 2008).
7. Flugel, ‘Unknown Lonka Tradition’.
8. Sinclair Margaret Stevenson, The Heart of Jainism (London: Oxford University
Press, 1915).
9. Malvania Dalsukh, ‘Lonkashah aur Unki Vichar Dhara’, in Gurudev Shri
Ratna Muni Smriti Granth, ed. Vijay Muni Shastri and Harishankar Sharma,
365–438 (Agra: Gurudev Smriti Granth Prakashak Samiti, 1964).
10. Mohanlal Dali Chand Desai, Jain Sahitya No Sankshipt Itihaas (Bombay:
Omkar Suri Gyan Mandir, 1933), 495–496.
11. Muni Gyansundar, Shreeman Lonkashah (Falaudi: Shree Ratna Prabhakar
Gyan Pushpamala, No. 167, 1936), 110–117, 177–183, 326–336; C. B. Sheth,
Jainism in Gujrat, A.D. 1100 to 1600 (Bombay: Vijayadevsur Sangh Publication,
1953), 233–234.
12. Banarsidas, Natak Samaysaar (1636), commentary by Buddhilal Shravak
(Bombay: Jain Garnthratnakar, 1929).
13. John E. Cort, ‘Making It Vernacular in Agra: The Practice of Translation by
Seventeenth-Century Jains’, in Tellings and Texts: Music, Literature and
Performance in North India, ed. Francesca Orsini and Katherine Butler
Schofield, 61–105 (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2015).
14. Philip Lutgendorf, ‘Ram’s Story in Shiva’s City: Public Arenas and Private
Patronage’, in Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance, and
Environment, 1800–1980, ed. Sandria B. Freitag, 34–61 (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1989).
15. Banarsidas, Ardhakathanak (1641), translated and annotated by Mukund Lath
as Ardhakathanak: Half a Tale (Jaipur: Rajasthan Prakrit Bharati Sansthan,
1981), verse 170, 237.
16. Banarsidas, Ardhakathanak, trans. Lath, verse 263, 244.
17. Banarsidas, Ardhakathanak, trans. Lath, verse 200, 239.
18. Banarsidas, Ardhakathanak, trans. Lath, verse 201, 239.
19. Banarsidas, Ardhakathanak, trans. Lath, verse 202, 239.
20. The famous Jain biography of Shwetambar saint Hiravijay Suri, Hirsaubhgya
Kavya, is a divine–human text; Gujarati text Sri Rajsagar Suri Niravan Raas
too takes human relations to divine will. Surdas and Tulsidas humanized God
but only to set a normative trend. Banarsidas and Lonka Shah humanized
experiences of the society within temporality without looking for an external

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 Contestations and Negotiations99

agency. Humans thus became autonomous in their endeavours. See Devavimal

Gani, Hirasaubhagya Kavya, ed. Pandit Shiv Dutt and K. P. Parab, Kavya Mala
(Bombay: Tukaram Javaji, 1900), 67; Tilaksagar, Sri Rajsagar Suri Nirvana
Raas, Gujarati, 1723 VS, MS. Accession No. 13771 (Koba: Sri Kailash Suri
Gyan Mandir, Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra).
21. Banarasidas, Ardhakathanak, trans. Lath, verses 199–201, 239.
22. Banarasidas, Ardhakathanak, trans. Lath, verses 603, 270.
23. Banarasidas, Ardhakathanak, trans. Lath, verses 601–605, 269–270.
24. Banarasidas, Ardhakathanak, trans. Lath, verses 477–485, 259–260; verses
490–496, 261.
25. M. S. Commissariat, ‘Imperial Mughal “Farmans” in Gujarat’, Journal of the
University of Bombay 9, no. 1 (1940): 1–56.
26. Banarasidas, Ardhakathanak, trans. Lath, verses 462–464, 258.
27. Banarasidas, Ardhakathanak, trans. Lath, verses 649, 652–654, 273–274.
28. Banarasidas, Ardhakathanak, trans. Lath, verses 652–654, 274.
29. Farhat Hasan, ‘Forms of Civility and Publicness in Pre-British India’, in Civil
Society, Public Sphere and Citizenship: Dialogue and Perceptions, ed. Rajeev
Bhargava and Helmut Reifeld, 84–105 (New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2005).
30. Peter Flugel, ‘The Invention of Jainism: A Short History of Jaina Studies’,
Journal of Jaina Studies 1, no. 1 (2005): 1–19.
31. Such deviations within Jainism take us to the question raised by Talal Asad in
another context, that is, what actually constitutes the anthropology of Islam,
the universal ‘discursive tradition’ preserved and transmitted by learned men,
or more malleable and differentiated meanings created by local or popular
tradition. See Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of
Power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,
1993).
32. John E. Cort, ‘Jain Identity and the Public Sphere in Nineteenth-Century
India’, in Religious Interactions in Modern India, ed. Martin Fuchs and Vasudha
Dalmia, 99–137 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2019).

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 part ii
ECONOMY, ENVIRONMENT,
SOCIETY

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press
 5
Early Modernity and South Asian Economic History
Problematic, Periodization, Processes, and Possibilities

Rajat Datta

For South Asian history, the period between the mid-sixteenth century and the
1830s conventionally gets clubbed into the ambiguous and historiographically
challenged rubric of ‘medieval’ history. This owes mainly to the enduring
obsession of most historians writing from within the subcontinent with treating
the term ‘medieval’ as equivalent to an Indo-Persian political system that stretched
from the thirteenth century to the eighteenth. The thought of breaking it up into
discrete components and tagging these to a different schema of periodization
generates an anxiety which almost borders on hysteria. Since Meena Bhargava and
Pratyay Nath, the editors of this volume, have extensively critiqued the notion
of the medieval, this chapter will not get into the issue, except to say that the
standard literature on this is overwhelmingly fiscal, with static parameters. This
has resulted in an idiosyncratic analytical trap. While severe social inequalities and
sharp conflicts in society are recognized, they are posited within a surprising degree
of changelessness in the larger context. The critical variable influencing change
or otherwise is assigned to cycles of state formation – one in the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries, and the second in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Both the cycles are determined by the ability or inability of the state to refine its
tax-assignment systems. While this fiscal drive tended to maximize appropriation
and hence fall regressively on the poorest in the countryside, it did so while
subverting ‘superior cultivation’ as well as simultaneously increasing the distance
between the rural rich and poor.1 Stasis is implicit in this model because it ascribes
one single cause to explain the same sort of change over six centuries. This remains
by far the most structurally coherent overview of what I call the seamlessness of
the medieval in Indian history. The more things changed, the more they remained
the same in this framework, because the nature of the state is assumed to have
remained the same through more than half a millennium. However, historians of
this disposition use terms like ‘Mughal India’, ‘late medieval India’, or ‘late pre-
colonial India’ as a nod to some unexplained difference after the sixteenth century;

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 104 Rajat Datta

nevertheless, they land up projecting South Asia as unique, exotic, and somehow
detached from global history.
We need a different characterization, namely the ‘early modern’, as a way of
breaking out of this idea of seamlessness. Perhaps convinced that the term ‘early
modern’ is driven by overtly Eurocentric considerations, this category has usually
not been a part of the works of Indian historians while thinking of the periodization
of South Asian history.2 This chapter reflects on the appropriateness of this
category in analysing the political economy of India roughly between the sixteenth
and early nineteenth centuries. It contends that this period saw several features
which retained their coherence over the long term, and which essentially differed
from the previous three centuries even though they were derived from them. At
a general level, modernity need not necessarily always be about birthing the new;
it can also be about how old things, even cultural practices, are done differently
to suit new circumstances, as well as introducing new practices to suit the old.
The introduction of tobacco, chilies, or European languages in sixteenth-century
India and their dissemination into the cultural practices of diet, consumption, and
communication come to mind as examples of such newness and continuities. This
chapter explores four Ps: problematic, periodization, processes, and possibilities. The
major explanation I offer to highlight the differences of these centuries for South
Asia focuses on some critical economic changes which characterized them.

Problematic
In spite of the traditional historiographical conservatism, the notion of early
modernity as a period in Indian history has begun to touch the shores of India’s
historiographical insularity. This term has emerged as a counterpoint to the static
and moribund notions of a medieval that stretches though a millennium before
the eighteenth century. In an earlier attempt, John Richards explicitly rejected
the term ‘early modern’ as Eurocentric and argued instead that it was merely ‘an
attempt to capture the reality of rapid, massive change in the way humans organized
themselves and interacted with other human beings and with the natural world’.
It was in this sense that he applied the category in the South Asian context.3 Sanjay
Subrahmanyam looked at geographical explorations redrawing and re-imagining
the world by opening up new frontiers. At the socio-economic levels, he emphasized
the heightened struggles between the sedentary and pastoral modes of economic
activity. At the level of polities, he drew our attention to the development and use
of the ideology of universal sovereignty by many monarchs and the wide spread of
millenarian beliefs across societies.4 Richard Barnett saw early modernist historians
as revisionists who were responding to the growing evidence of continuity of local

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 Early Modernity and South Asian Economic History105

and regional economic growth, ecological pragmatism, and political realism of

entrepreneurial activity indigenous to India. For him, the new historiographical
impetus freed itself from Eurocentric, Mughal-centric, and essentialist viewpoints
in terms of periodization.5
These interventions caution us against the two related pitfalls – Eurocentrism
(or, European exceptionalism as an immanent given) and teleology.6 Instead, the
emphasis is on systems which ought to be more scrupulously seen as interconnected
‘multiple modernities’.7 In its west European context, ‘early modern’ refers to a
complex of traits to include coherent national units, increased rationality, growing
literacy, urbanization, denser market relations, as well as the rise of ideas about
individualism, self-interest, and privacy. Many of these now appear overdrawn,
over-emphasized, and anachronistic. On the question of the coherence of the early
modern state in Europe, for instance, the evidence is riddled with ambiguities.
Conflicts between the state and powerful landed gentries enjoying power
though intricate webs of familial connections were endemic; and the state could
only function through a web of patronage and clientage which stretched from
the royal courts to the local communities.8 As Daniel Nexon argues, sixteenth-
century Europe was made up of ‘segments of dynastic agglomerations’ which
were incorporated by dynastic rulers ‘via conquest, or dynastic unions’ but who
could only hold them ‘through distinctive contracts that either pre-existed their
incorporation or were negotiated as conditions for compliance with resource and
military demands’.9 Another overview of early modern Europe reveals that

… existing political structures put more limits on the level of actual control even
the most ‘absolute’ monarch could impose…. Civil law, which regulated the private
relations between individuals in such matters as inheritance and the exchange
of property, was based on custom, as well as written codes, and thus was nearly
impossible for monarchs to change.10

Was European agriculture more advanced or more efficiently organized during

this period? The answer is largely in the negative. As I have argued elsewhere, at
least the yield ratios in Europe do not overwhelmingly suggest that. They ranged
from a measly 4:1 in seventeenth-century Poland, 5:1 in Germany, and about 10:1
in eighteenth-century Netherlands and England. Agricultural surpluses were often
uncertain, and in most of the continent, except in the more urbanized areas like the
Low Countries and parts of England, they depended on the vagaries of the harvest
and the plethora of feudal dues, rents, and tithes. The effect of the urban pull
(except in close proximities of major towns in England and in the Low Countries)
on this remains uncertain, as the urban population in the more advanced areas of

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 106 Rajat Datta

northern Europe was about 8 per cent, which marked an increase by 4 per cent in
the 150 years between 1600 and 1750.11
For Lieberman, the period between the ninth and early nineteenth centuries
across Eurasia was of ‘lurching’ changes, broadly

… driven by a synergistic mix of material expansion, wider cultural circulation,

interstate warfare, and the deliberate and unintended effects of state actions. All
served to enhance the attractive and coercive potential of privileged cores, to reduce
the autonomy of local centers, to pacify rural society, and to spin webs of economic
and cultural inter-dependence. Most basically, material expansion … agrarian and
commercial growth as well as the post-1500 diffusion of firearms, magnified the
physical superiority of emergent political cores.12

Did South Asia not witness similar (but not mimetic) changes? Whatever the
variations, one aspect is now clear – there were no exclusive cultural preconditions
enjoyed by Europe which were not available to other regions across the Eurasian
landmass. As Jack Goody has persuasively argued, many of the so-called European-
specific cultural traits of modernity (rationality and an embedded individuality,
for instance) existed elsewhere in equal measure before the ‘triumph’ of capitalism
in Europe. Also, much of the rationality of European economic behaviour,
including the so-called propensity of technological maximization, was derived
from the cumulative longue duree of global economic intersections since the first
millennium CE, if not earlier.13 If European modernity was derivative, then the
question is what sort of anterior modernity (or modernities) did western Europe
manage to latch onto and then redirect that to suit its own ends? Answers to
this question will emerge from the ways in which we assess the period between
the fourteenth and the eighteenth centuries, but with a sixteenth to eighteenth
century global core.
In Jack Goldstone’s schematic framework for this period, the great arc
from Japan to Ottoman Turkey via India and Southeast Asia displayed various
combinations of features which also prevailed in contemporary Europe – agro-
commercial expansion, urbanization, global trade networks, dynamic mercantile
classes, and increasingly bureaucratized political regimes.14 Such views are
in concordance with some recent revisions in global economic history that
have reassessed the economic transition between the sixteenth and eighteenth
centuries from the perspective of non-European – particularly Asian – societies,
notwithstanding the likes of David Landes and Eric Jones, who would push
in the direction of European exceptionalism. The current historiographical
reassessments ‘provincialize’ Europe by positing a relatively backward Europe

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 Early Modernity and South Asian Economic History107

compared to the Asian giants, particularly China. The revisionists include a

formidable list of economic and social historians.15 The revisions range from the
scaling down of average growth rates in ‘modernizing’ Europe before 1870 – even
then at only around 2 per cent per annum – to a lifting of the ceilings of the neo-
Malthusian cycles that had stood as the main motor of pre-industrial economic
development.16 For Kenneth Pomeranz, no matter how far back we may push
the origins of capitalism in general, industrial capitalism, in which the large-scale
use of inanimate energy allowed an escape from the common constraints of the
pre-industrial world, only emerged in the 1800s to set the context of the ‘great
divergence’. Anything prior to that was coeval or even in favour of Asia than
Europe.17
How have these views changed the perspective about South Asia? From the
standpoint of Asian historiography, the answer to this question is that while
there is a growing body of literature in this direction, there is still a long way to go
before one can speak of a genuine comparative economic history from an Asian
perspective. However, from a civilizational perspective, K. N. Chaudhuri has
traced four points of unity within Asia before 1750: first, unity in the ‘ground
floor’ of material life; second, the unity of a commonly shared space by four
separate civilizational identities – Islamic, Indic, South East Asian, and Chinese;
third, certain unifying principles of economic production strongly oriented
towards agriculture and agro-commercial production, which tended to maximize
the production of cereals; and fourth, ‘the interaction between the long-term and
the random, between events and tendencies’.18
However, most historians studying Asian regions agree upon certain common
trajectories in Asian economies, particularly shared experiences of precocious
economic growth, followed by colonial subordination in the nineteenth century.
Looking at the comparative history of commercial developments in China and
Japan in the seventeenth century, William Atwell states that the ‘boundaries
between national and international history in early modern East Asia were far from
clear cut’.19 Sanjay Subrahmanyam sees a similar process of convergence – albeit
with an appropriate time lag – between South Asia, West Asia, and Southeast Asia,
in economic expansion, commercialization, fiscal intermediation, and relations
between state and society.20
Several processes which can be highlighted for this period in South Asian
history are comparative and convergent at regional and global levels. While the
medieval was characterized by relative localism, early modernity comprised rapid
circulation of people, commodities, technologies, and ideas. Economic expansion,
new maritime connections, the availability of New World gold and silver, and

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 108 Rajat Datta

the rise of a truly connected world economy to which exports from South Asia
contributed hugely, were some of the shared developments. The rapid growth
in population everywhere, the clearing of forests, intensification of land use and
expansion of cultivation, and the diffusion of several new technologies, including
introduction of crops from the New World, especially chillies and tobacco, were
further forms of such connections.
Therefore, to me the notion of early modernity invokes two related issues –
commensurability and convergence on a global scale. Instead of a linear narrative,
early modernity invokes an idea of convergent and multipolar modernities.
Britain’s emergence does provide a universalizing history of European modernity,
as Holland, which had witnessed precocious growth in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, began slipping in the nineteenth, and the Iberian Peninsula
had already exited from this race. Divergences began to arise since the nineteenth
century, but this is an aspect not dealt with in this chapter.

Periodization
So, what do all these issues indicate about periodization? First, the term ‘early
modern’ is not used as a definitive ‘stage’ of development; once it is rid of
its European exceptionalism, it becomes uncoupled from any a priori (also
teleological) history of capitalism (in a Marxian sense), which had characterized
a periodization of history oriented towards a model of modern world economy.
Second, the category of early modern invokes a sense of global interconnections
and thus opens the possibility of a universal periodization prior to the nineteenth
century, one which bypasses the ancient–medieval–modern triptych of the
European Enlightenment. At the material level, the notion of early modernity
invokes coevalness over a long period of about three centuries. It forces us to
rethink modernity not as an inevitable western phenomenon (with Japan as an
exception, thrown in for good measure) but something which had a more contested
emergence, was regionally heterogeneous, and was a product of conjunctural
processes, rather than some innately structural superiority.
In order to better understand this issue of periodization, and why the centuries
between the sixteenth and the early nineteenth deserve a new nomenclature, one
has to keep in mind some fundamental macro-level developments which occurred
in various regions of South Asia during this time. Matching the global tendency
of the growth of large, stable states that attained size, efficiency, and territorial
reach not seen since antiquity, South Asia witnessed the rise of the Mughal
Empire. It established its suzerainty over nearly the entire subcontinent for the
first time since the Mauryas. In terms of scale and wealth, the empire compared

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 Early Modernity and South Asian Economic History109

favourably with the contemporary Ottoman and Safavid empires and with any
state in Europe. Confronted with the greatly increased costs of firearms, states
turned their attention to improving their land-tax assessment and collection.
Administrative stability necessitated greater efficiency, increased availability of
credit, and systematic record-keeping. Mercantile groups in possession of capital, as
well as those who had skills like calligraphy, writing, and accounting, rose in social
importance in this environment. Competing regional states as well as European
trading companies required their skills, enabling the rapid ascent of revenue
farmers, bankers, merchants, and scribes. In this setting, the period witnessed the
emergence of new social groups in South Asian society, especially of scribal and
commercial communities.
Cultural pluralism was a hallmark of these centuries, and this added further
diversity to indigenous societies that were already heterogeneous. The hallmark of
the early modern state was its pluralism, a product of its need to strike a balance
between the needs of denominational and popular variants of Islam, a majority
Hindu community deeply rooted in its Sanskritic traditions, the syncretic
religious and cultural traditions of diverse ethnic communities, and diasporic
communities of Christians, Jews, and Parsis, whose voices and aspirations were
heard and met by emperors with an amazing degree of equanimity. Through a
continuous process of fusion and synthesis, Indic and Islamicate traditions came
together to produce a cosmopolitan world in both imperial and regional settings.
The declining influence of any one religion on the imperial governments and
the reflection of this incorporative polity on art, architecture, music, and other
cultural productions characterized the period in the South Asian context.21 Also
evident was the simultaneous growth of Persian as the new cosmopolitan language
alongside vernacular literary and aesthetic forms that regional elites cultivated as
they sought to develop local idioms for the expression of their authority.22 The
spread of mystic and devotional movements was linked to these developments. In
this context, the trajectory of developments in South Asia seems at variance from
its European counterparts where the processes of homogenization rather than
diversification and pluralism appear more pronounced.
Overall, there can be no doubt that things were different in India after the
sixteenth century. Some of these differences were an aggregative expansion in
production, growth of fiscal-military state apparatuses, the diversification of
mercantile activities, growing sophistication of peasant and artisan production
systems, massive percolation of a cash nexus, and the emergence of a cultural world
characterized by pluralist ecumenism. The sixteenth century ended the ‘medieval’
and ushered India into a global world of early modernity, a process which continued

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 110 Rajat Datta

till the end of the eighteenth century – some would argue even up to the 1830s –
before it was finally turned around and incorporated into colonial modernity.
These broad features could develop because of the changing components
of the region’s political economy in this period. The constituents of this were
private property in land, along with a vibrant market in land and in rights over
land, and a shift from the informal to the contractual in matters of economic and
fiscal transactions. A favourable land–labour ratio made it possible to concentrate
agricultural production in lands of high intrinsic fertility and, in turn, to get
higher yields per acre than in the nineteenth century. The agricultural systems were
complex, with most lands producing two harvests (do fasla) and some producing
three (sih fasla) or more crops per year. This was accompanied by a major increase
in the variety of agricultural products, and in the quantum of the agrarian surplus,
owing to the introduction and quick dissemination of a whole range of food
and cash crops from the New World after the sixteenth century. Several primary
and intermediate cities, interwoven by network of supply lines, flourished, and
a substantially large percentage of almost 15 per cent of the population lived in
such places. The countryside saw commercialized production and manufacturing.
Most of the producers produced at least part of the time for a market, while some –
probably along the coast and closer to primate cities – produced primarily for
it. The economy also received a massive injection of silver bullion from the New
World, leading to a phenomenal expansion of money circulation and monetization.
This occurred alongside pervasive cash-based exchanges based on a trimetallic
monetary system (gold, silver, and copper currencies) and backed up by elaborate
(subcontinental) networks of sophisticated financial institutions. Key roles under
these circumstances were played by specialized communities of merchants, each
of whom were engaged in a distinctive branch of trading or double-ended money
ventures with local economies as well as with the European trading companies. All
this functioned in conjunction with a political system in which the elite consumed
their incomes in urban areas or hypothecated in advance to a class of specialized
rural bankers and moneylenders who often farmed such revenue assignments.

Processes
There are three aspects of the economy which I want to specifically discuss, as
these have a direct bearing on the economic framework I intend to construct
for this period. These are issues of monetization, rural production systems, and
prevalence of a rural demand for non-agricultural goods.
The issue of monetization is quickly resolved as there is an enormous literature
testifying to its uniqueness and magnitude. The sixteenth century was a period

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 Early Modernity and South Asian Economic History111

when the world simultaneously started using more money. This expansion was not
European in origin, though Europe contributed enormously to it.23 Practically all
states from Japan in the east to England in the west were engaged in major fiscal
reforms or were facing some sort of financial strain trying to match mounting
expenses with stationery incomes around this time.24 The reasons for the global
demand for silver were perhaps more Asian than European. Europe, particularly
the Iberian Peninsula, became crucial in adding massive quantities of silver and
gold to the global fund of precious metal during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries. Nor can it be said that Europe was using more money than the
Eurasian economies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Out of the silver
that Europe extracted from the New World every year, at least 40 per cent found
its way to Asia, particularly to China and India.25 In any case, the relationship
between the regions at the vanguard of the discoveries in New World silver and
the productive or money-using capacities of European economies was never a
direct one. Spain hardly invested the treasure it acquired in the development of its
economy, losing sometimes as much as 40 per cent of its American wealth directly
to the Philippines.26 On the other hand, regions, like England and Holland, which
became the epicentres of Europe’s economic expansion, hardly engaged in the
colonial extraction of bullion. France, for instance, was scarcely affected by the
excitement of New World silver – gold was never used. Even silver coinage was
sometimes too strong a currency; billon currency circulated sluggishly.27
There is no doubt about India’s importance in this global redistribution of
bullion. The region that compares with this is China, which by all accounts received
the lion’s share from predominantly two sources – the New World and Japan.28
India, on the other hand, received silver in a multilateral system of exchange from
a whole range of sources in which there was a very important Asian component.
In fact, the amount of bullion which arrived in India from Asian countries during
the sixteenth through seventeenth centuries is said to have been excess of what was
being sent from Europe, a pattern which changed late in the eighteenth century.
Contrary to Immanuel Wallerstein’s belief, the imported bullion, particularly
the silver, was not hoarded (though, some of it, particularly gold, may have been
hoarded).29 Most of the bullion was immediately converted into money because
precious metals were a medium of exchange for commodities received. Their
circulation was vital in ensuring continuity in the investment and procurement
of exportable commodities, including food grains. Thus, each additional unit of
bullion brought into the economy resulted in an increment in India’s overseas
trade and was immediately converted into money to enable merchants to raise the
necessary purchasing power.

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 112 Rajat Datta

There was a significant impact of silver inflows on India’s economy. First,

this enabled the fiscal refinements of the Mughal state. As the Mughal imperial
frontiers advanced, so did the boundaries of India’s silver-guzzling systems. It was
additionally transforming the fiscal bases of the Mughal state, making it possible for
them to extract and redistribute enormous amounts in silver currency.30 Revenue,
commercial deals, even workers’ wages, came to be recorded and transacted in silver
rupees.31 Secondly, there was a phenomenal expansion in minting activity. Between
1576 and 1705, Mughal mints each year coined over 150 tonnes of silver in order
to maintain an exceptional metallic purity of the currency.32 Thirdly, there was a
major expansion in the activities of bankers and money dealers throughout the
length and breadth of the subcontinent, as is testified by the following description
of a French traveller, Jean Baptiste Tavernier. In the early seventeenth century, he
noticed that ‘a village must be very small indeed if it has not a money-changer,
called shroff, who acts as a banker to make remittances of money and issue letters
of exchange (hundi)’.33 In the same period, European currencies suffered periodic
bouts of debasement, leading to severe short-term increases in the price of goods.
Even China could not escape this fate in the seventeenth century. Yet the silver
currency of Mughal India was never debased between 1556 and 1707, not even
during the massive monetary crisis which convulsed much of Eurasia in the
mid-seventeenth century.34
On the question of rural production systems, I draw upon some of my
findings from Bengal. Though towns like Qasimbazar (in present-day West
Bengal) or Dhaka (the capital of present-day Bangladesh) continued to function
as centres of high production, there was a dispersion of production centres all over
the countryside. The production of cotton textiles spread out of its primary zones
around Nadia in the west and Dhaka in the east to Lakshmipur and Chittagong
on the eastern fringes, to Bishnupur in the west, and to Medinipur on the
southwestern edges of the province. Silk manufacture spread out of the core area –
the Murshidabad–Qasimbazar axis – to cover large areas of Rajshahi in the north
and Bishnupur in the west.35 The expansion of overseas trade also introduced a
greater diversification of production. The production of new commodities like
indigo and opium expanded rapidly. Between 1740 and 1828, production centres
of indigo mushroomed all over central and north-western Bengal, whereas opium
cultivation took roots in the northern and north-western margins of the province.
This meant that non-agricultural production tended to gravitate substantially to
the rural areas. Contemporary evidence indicates that depending on the commercial
importance of a locality, between 27 per cent and 15 per cent of the people living
in Bengal’s villages were artisans. Rangpur had a concentration of 207 artisans per

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 Early Modernity and South Asian Economic History113

square mile of territory at the turn of the eighteenth century.36 There was thus a
new consolidation of the rural economy and its intensive commercialization.
Rural developments were matched by developments at the intermediate –
‘rurban’ – levels. Much over northern and eastern India, a salient feature of the
early modern reconfiguration seems to have occurred in the changing nature
of these rurban settlements that were called qasba. Between the thirteenth
and eighteenth centuries, these transited from being outlier garrison towns to
becoming commercial centres and often commercial-cum-administrative centres
of local gentries and traders.37 In Bengal, the spatial equivalent of the north Indian
qasba was the muffassal.38 This kind of development was not limited to South
Asia. As Suraiya Faroqhi shows, in the Ottoman Empire too, small towns emerged
as marketing centres for taxes collected in grain. They also grew along transit routes
and caravanserais. In an empire whose revenues came mainly from agriculture,
markets were an essential means of transforming produce into money. In the words
of Faroqhi, ‘while not all markets turned into towns, many of them did so’.39
On the question of rural demand for non-agricultural (that is, commercial
and industrial) goods, the expansion of production centres in the countryside
resulted in movements in that direction. Evidence from Bengal indicates that
peasants could procure ‘industrial’ goods like ‘threads, coarse weaving cloths,
mats made of split bamboos, brass and cassie (tutenag) plates, kodallies (spades),
ploughs, plough shares and ruts for winding threads’ from merchants who
brought these to the villages, often on boats during the seasonal inundations
of its rivers.40 The requirement of so-called industrial goods in the countryside
would also be a function of demand, not merely from the artisanal sectors,
but from a whole range of consumers. Detailed lists available show that landed
proprietors maintained large households and officials. In addition, there were
occupational groups like the putwas (silk-worm breeders), tantis (weavers),
chotoors, (carpenters), chassars (silk winders), moochis (cobbler), kasaris (brass-
makers), sonars (goldsmiths), shroffs (moneychangers), banias (traders), and the
literate-cum-ritual gentry, like the brahman and the maulvi (learned Muslim
teacher or doctor of Islamic law).41
Such evidence of rural occupational groups living in close proximity should not
lead to any erroneous notion of these villages as ‘little republics’ or relatively self-
sufficient entities. The relationships between occupational groups in villages were
mediated by a variety of non-monetized and monetized modes of remuneration.
The evidence of the existence of shroffs at the village level serves to highlight the
commercial dynamics embedded in the rural economy.42 Likewise, while local
consumption requirements in villages were often met from local resources, a range

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 114 Rajat Datta

of external goods had to be brought in linking merchants operating from the

nodal qasba through an interconnected network of intermediaries to the village
market (haat) level.43 The important aspect of this period is the evidence that such
networks were solidifying across regions, except perhaps in the most inaccessible
parts. Even here, trade existed as can be seen from the following testimony of Abul
Fazl regarding the trade between the mountains and plains in the province of
Awadh c. 1580:

From the northern mountains quantities of goods are carried on the backs of men,
of stout ponies and of goats, such as gold, copper, lead, musk, tails of the kutas cow
[the yak], honey, chuk (an acid composed of orange juice and lemon boiled together),
pomegranate seed, ginger, long pepper, majith [producing a red dye] root, borax,
zedoary, wax, woollen stuffs, wooden ware, hawks, falcons, black falcons, mertins,
and other articles. In exchange they carry back white and coloured cloths, amber,
salt, asafoetida, ornaments, glass and earthen ware.44

Possibilities
The picture of the Indian economy squares well with the broad economic
contours of the most advanced areas of Europe and Eurasia in the period under
focus. The features outlined by Jan de Vries and Van der Voude for the early
modern Dutch economy – the most advanced among contemporary European
economies around this time – can be applied with some modifications to India in
this period.45 Markets, for both commodities and the factors of production (land,
labour, capital), were reasonably free and pervasive. Agricultural productivity
was adequate to support a complex social and occupational structure that made
possible a far-reaching division of labour. The state, despite its extractive profile,
was paternalistic, attentive to property rights, anxious about – but not opposed
to – movements of people, and not indifferent to the material conditions of life
of most inhabitants. Finally, there existed a level of technology and organization
capable of sustained development and of supporting a material culture of sufficient
variety to sustain market-oriented consumer behaviour.
The question is, in a processual sense, what do I make of all this growth? Is
there a globally compatible economic framework for these centuries, which, even if
derivative, can be applied to explain South Asian economic history in a comparative
and convergent fashion? Some derivativeness is unavoidable. As Shmuel Eisenstadt
and Wolfgang Schluchter remark, ‘we cannot avoid western concepts, but we can
make them flexible, so to speak, through differentiation and contextualization.
Such an attempt entails developing diverse perspectives in order to analyse these

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 Early Modernity and South Asian Economic History115

civilizations and encourage an intercultural dialogue between them’.46 With this

caveat in place, I suggest some possibilities and tentative combinations.
First, the patterns exhibited by the early modern Indian economy can be studied
with reference to two global growth models – one of the ‘extensive’ kind, and the
other of the ‘Smithian’ kind. In the extensive growth framework, productivity
and output grow quantitatively as functions of either demographic or territorial
expansion, or both. These are not accompanied by commensurate, or very slow,
changes in inputs like capital or new technologies, thus leaving land and labour as
the two factors to influence growth.47 The other model is of the ‘Smithian’ kind,
where growth is driven by increased specialization caused by the geographical
expansion of markets. As markets expand, each site can specialize more in the
production of one good and purchase other goods from specialized producers at
another site. ‘Smithian’ growth also occurs when returns from specialized economic
activities produce higher productivity and, hence, higher per capita incomes per
capita as well as total growth. These can come from specialization across different
societies that accompany increased long-distance trade, from regional, or urban or
rural, specialization accompanying increased domestic trade and urbanization, or
from increased occupational specialization accompanying expanding population
density and local circulation of goods and services.48
Problem arises if we expect ‘Smithian’ growth to be reproduced on a national
scale in a land so large and as diverse as India. All these processes, in some form
or the other, can be documented in India at the level of regional economies by
incontrovertible evidence of the steady and incremental supply of precious metals
through a massive increase in the export trade from various regions, the accretion and
densification of market places, the accelerating pace of occupational specialization
among artisans, and the intensification of inter-regional diversification among
markets (like raw cotton being sourced from the Deccan for Bengal’s cotton
manufactories).
The situation was not substantially different even in the most advanced
economies of north-western Europe in this period. The market-driven growth of
‘core areas’ in western Europe during the preceding centuries was real enough and
was undoubtedly one crucial precursor of industrialization, but it was probably
‘no more conducive to industrial transformation than the very similar processes of
commercialization and “proto-industrial” growth occurring in various core areas
in Asia’. The patterns of scientific and technical development that were taking
shape in early modern Europe ‘did not by themselves guarantee that Western
Europe would wind up on a fundamentally different economic path from, for
instance, East Asia’.49 One can thus justifiably claim that the economic frame of

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 116 Rajat Datta

reference for early modern India would be the combined existence of ‘extensive’
with ‘Smithian’ growth with some sectoral propensities (in textiles, for instance)
to move from the former to the latter.
However, both situations have some ingrained limitations. In a situation
characterized by extensive growth, population and total output grow in
tandem, so that per capita incomes become stationary or may even decline in an
inflationary situation. In India, low wages, very small technological changes, and
low subsistence thresholds would suggest such possibilities. Yet, as Tirthankar Roy
suggests, despite the income differentials between the two, the average peasant in
the province of Bengal was in no way poorer than their European counterparts in
terms of income. On the point of caloric adequacy, the Bengali peasant was as well-
placed as their counterparts in Europe and the Yangtze Delta in the mid-eighteenth
century.50 In another study, Prasannan Parthasarathi has argued that household
incomes of agricultural workers in southern India could be four times higher than
subsistence requirements and that weavers’ wages were comparable with – if not
higher than – that being earned by European weavers.51 On the other hand, in
the ‘Smithian’ model, there is no automatic technological improvement to a new
threshold; gains can therefore remain modest, to be quickly counterbalanced by
population growth, and may cease when specialization, trade, or density in a given
society reaches a plateau.52 The point is that such bottlenecks were not exclusive
to Asian societies alone. Economic disparities and growth-demography scissors
operated in Europe too.53

Conclusion
By all accounts, South Asia recorded very impressive and uninterrupted economic
growth over two centuries. It certainly appears superior in many respects to what
Europe was undergoing in the same period. It paralleled China, which in the
same period witnessed rapid agricultural specialization and commercialization,
steady expansion in the handicraft sector, a significant increase in the volume of
interregional trade, and monetization on an apparently massive scale.54 Japan, the
so-called Asian ‘exception’, exhibited the same features of economic growth –
commercialized agriculture and expanding handicraft production, accompanied
by burgeoning urban and monetary growth.55 The question is: were Europe, and
tangentially Japan, surging ahead than South Asia? This seems quite unlikely, as it
is clear that in Japan’s case, as in the case of contemporary Europe as well as South
Asia, these tendencies were achieved in farming and manufacturing primarily by
the use of human labour, and all had developed, within the confines of their own
conditions, rational and sensible ways to manage resources.56

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 Early Modernity and South Asian Economic History117

Early modern Europe did not comprise economies undergoing revolutionary

transformations. There is little to suggest that western Europe’s economy had
decisive advantages earlier then, either in its capital stock or economic institutions,
that made industrialization highly probable there and unlikely elsewhere.57 Instead
of a ‘dramatic’ break, early modernity in the field of economy in Europe showed
an ‘organic continuity with the later middle ages’, except in two areas: first, an
absolute and relative increase in the use of money and, second, population growth
in conjunction with a higher degree of urbanization.58 This was also the case in
South Asia. Recent revisions in European economic history show a very moderate
economic growth, even in the most economically advanced places. What is indicated
instead is a gradual demographic upswing, a slow advance in the living conditions
of people, and a better fund of consumption goods, especially from the New World
and from the tropics.59 The early modern period in Europe was a transitional age
when the structures of the ‘medieval’ were still alive, though changes were slowly
occurring that eventually led to others, but there was no inevitability about them.
They were also slow as they staggered over five centuries or so. The greater part
of the European economy retained its feudal and agrarian character for a long
time. Manorial estates still provided the framework for working the arable, but
within this traditional framework, some elementary forms of a market economy
started operating through the growth of small market towns, monetization, and
the attenuation of serfdom.
These slow changes over many centuries elicit a few cautionaries. First, we
must use the term ‘modern’ with great care, and certainly not as a definitive
stage of development, and also void it of its European exceptionalism. We also
have to rid ourselves of any fascination with the British economic experience
of the nineteenth century as a teleology. This means we must also use the term
‘early modern’ by uncoupling it from the history of a textbook kind of western
capitalism. As Goldstone remarks, there is no universal ‘pre-modernity’; rather, a
‘wide range of societies with distinctive cultures and structures went through their
own historical development over centuries before and after Western contact’.60 An
a priori understanding of modernity as capitalist modernity is no longer a model
one needs to explain pre-capitalist (in a broad sense) forms of capitalism, or, to put
it another way, forms of proto-capitalisms that emerged across Eurasia and South
Asia in almost the same time in history.
From a comparative Asian perspective, it is thus possible to argue that
modernities could assume different forms and could very well be non-capitalist
in economic orientation; alternatively, they could be capitalist modernities but
conceivably of different types of capitalism. European exceptionalism before the

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 118 Rajat Datta

nineteenth century cannot be pushed beyond a point. The market-driven growth

of core areas in western Europe during the preceding centuries, though visible
in some respects, was probably no more conducive to industrial transformation
than the very similar processes of commercialization and ‘proto-industrial’ growth
occurring in various core areas in Asia.61
Second, the pitfall in comparative economic history is the assumption of
national-level economic indicators to justify this search for a singular capitalist
modernity, or its absence.62 The first level of difference is that early modern
empires, especially in the Asian part of Eurasia, were very significant in terms of
the diversity of political, institutional, and cultural processes that they embodied.
A look at South Asia will substantiate this. Ecological diversities facilitated
distinct agrarian regimes, from wet rice agriculture in the high rainfall zones, to
intermediate wheat zones, to millet zones in dry and semi-arid areas. Economic
activities therefore ranged from high-density sedentarized agriculture and agro-
pastoralism, to high nomadism, depending on the environmental conditions
in which people found themselves.63 Outside the agrarian sectors, the Mughals
were repositories of multifarious social and cultural participants in the state,
in commercial transactions, and in productive labour. Additionally, unlike
contemporary European states, the early modern South Asian and Ottoman ones
were redistributive of the imperial fiscal resources.64 In India, there was also a
massive expansion in oceanic trade far beyond what occurred, for instance, under
the contemporary Ottoman Empire.65 These enabled a deep monetization of the
economy in South Asia, more extensive than in the Ottoman Empire,66 through
the circulation of cash. They also helped powerful and rich agro-commercial
gentries to consolidate themselves in the regions. The regions were in turn deeply
embedded in commercial networks of ascending scales and magnitude. Looking
at these kinds of growth trajectories of India’s economy in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries in a global perspective holds the key for understanding the
larger experience of early modernity here.
Third, the term ‘early modern’ brings in global interconnections. One is now
able to see Indian history in a global economic context, the absence of which has
been a singular failure of most of Indian historiography which is characterized in
a large measure with an almost self-imposed insularity for much of the past till the
advent of British colonialism. With the British conquest of Bengal in 1757, Indian
historiography becomes frenetically engaged with a saga of India’s incorporation
in a world process as a subordinated entity. This traditional insularity needs to be
broken by the insertion of the early modern into Indian historiography which,
I submit, enables Indian history to become part of a wider global history before
colonialism. The notion of early modernity also forces us to rethink the binary

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 Early Modernity and South Asian Economic History119

separations between medieval and modernity. At a conceptual level, it allows a

reconceptualization of modernity as a phenomenon which had a more troubled
emergence, was slower in its trajectory than is usually imagined, was geographically
disparate even in its core areas, was a product of more convergent changes, and
was not an immanent phenomenon somehow culturally embedded in the
western ethos.

Notes
1. The Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. 1: c. 1200–c. 1750, ed. Irfan
Habib and Tapan Raychaudhuri (Delhi: Orient Longman, 1982).
2. Here I refer to those who write on Indian history and generally reside in the
country.
3. John F. Richards, ‘Early Modern India and World History’, Journal of World
History 8, no. 2 (1997): 197–209.
4. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected Histories: Notes towards a Reconfiguration
of Early Modern Eurasia’, Modern Asian Studies 31, no. 2 (1997): 735–762.
5. Richard Barnett (ed.), Rethinking Early Modern India (New Delhi: Manohar,
2002).
6. Victor Lieberman, ‘What Strange Parallels Sought to Accomplish’, Journal of
Asian Studies 70, no. 4 (2011): 931–938.
7. S. N. Eisenstadt, ‘Multiple Modernities’, Daedalus 129, no. 1 (2000): 1–30.
8. Julia Adams, The Familial State: Ruling Families and Merchant Capitalism in
Early Modern Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005); Peter Musgrave,
The Early Modern European Economy (London: Macmillan Press, 1999), 95.
9. Daniel H. Nexon, The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious
Conflicts, Dynastic Empires and International Change (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2009), 83.
10. Mary Weisner-Hanks, Early Modern Europe, 1450–1789 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), 288–289.
11. Rajat Datta, ‘Before the Great Divergence: The Early Modern South Asian
Agrarian Economy in a Global Perspective’, in China, India and Alternative
Asian Modernities, ed. Sanjay Kumar, Satya P. Mohanty, Archana Kumar, and
Raj Kumar, 185–202 (London and New York: Routledge, 2019).
12. Lieberman, ‘What Strange Parallels Sought to Accomplish’, 932.
13. Jack Goody, The East in the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996).
14. Jack Goldstone, ‘Efflorescences and Economic Growth in World History:
Rethinking the West and the Industrial Revolution’, Journal of World History
13, no. 2 (2002): 323–389.

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 120 Rajat Datta

15. See, for instance, Kenneth Pomeranz, Before the Great Divergence: China,
Europe and the Making of the Modern World Economy (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2000); Andre Gunder Frank, ReOrient: Global Economy in
the Asian Age (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); R. Bin Wong,
‘The Search for European Differences and Domination in the Early Modern
World: A View from Asia’, American Historical Review 107, no. 2 (2002):
447–469; Sevket Pamuk, ‘Institutional Change and the Longevity of the
Ottoman Empire, 1500–1800’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35, no. 2
(2004): 225–247; Jack Goody, The Eurasian Miracle (Cambridge: Polity Press,
2000); Jack Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991).
16. Randolph Starn, ‘The Early Modernity Muddle’, Journal of Early Modern
History 6, no. 3 (2002): 296–307, see 306
17. Pomeranz, Great Divergence, 1–19.
18. K. N. Chaudhuri, ‘The Unity and Disunity of Indian Ocean History from the
Rise of Islam to 1750: Outline of a Theory and Historical Discourse’, Journal of
World History 4, no. 1 (1993): 1–21, see 8.
19. William S. Atwell, ‘Some Observations on the “Seventeenth Century Crisis” in
China and Japan’, Journal of Asian Studies 55, no. 2 (1986): 223–244, see 237.
20. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘State Formation and Transformation in Early Modern
India and South-East Asia’, Itinerario 12, no. 1 (1988): 91–109.
21. For a comprehensive perspective of such plurality, see Harbans Mukhia, The
Mughals of India (New Delhi: Blackwell Publishing, 2004).
22. Compare the following texts: Muzaffar Alam, Language of Political Islam
India, 1200–1800 (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005); Allison Busch, Poetry
of Kings: The Classical Hindi Literature of Mughal India (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2011).
23. John F. Richards (ed.), Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modem
Worlds (Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1983) was one of the earliest
collections of seminal essays to explore the connection between global precious
metals movements and money use.
24. Niels Steensgaard, ‘Commodities, Bullion and Services in Intercontinental
Transactions Before 1750’, in The European Discovery of the World and Its
Economic Effects on Pre-industrial Society, 1500–1800: Papers of the Tenth
International Economic History Congress, ed. Hans Pohl, 9–23 (Stuttgart:
F. Steiner, 1990), 19.
25. Ward Barrett, ‘World Bullion Flows, 1450–1800’, in The Rise of Merchant
Empires: Long-Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350–1750, ed.
James D. Tracy, 224–254 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990);
Renate Pieper, ‘The Volume of African and American Exports of Precious

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 Early Modernity and South Asian Economic History121

Metals and Its Effects in Europe, 1500–1800’, in European Discovery of the

World, ed. Pohl, 113.
26. John J. TePaske, ‘New World Silver, Castile and the Philippines, 1500–1800’, in
Precious Metals, ed. Richards, 425–446, see 434, 442–45.
27. Jean Meuvret, ‘Monetary Circulation and the Use of Coinage in Sixteenth-
and Seventeenth-Century France’, in Essays in European Economic History,
1500–1800, ed. Peter Earle, 89–99 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974).
28. One billion ounces of silver bullion apparently coursed through the Chinese
economy every year, which allowed a massive improvement in the state’s fiscal
health. Kenneth G. Deng, ‘A Critical Survey of Recent Research in Chinese
Economic History’, Economic History Review 53, no. 1 (2000): 1–28; Albert
Feuerwerker, ‘State and Economy in Late Imperial China’, Theory and Society
13, no. 3 (1984): 297–326.
29. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and
the Origins of the European-World Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York:
Academic Press, 1974), 41.
30. John F. Richards, ‘Mughal State Finance and the Premodern World Economy’,
Comparative Studies in Society and History 23, no. 2 (1980): 285–308; Frank
Perlin, ‘Money-use in Late Pre-colonial India and the International Trade
in Currency Media’, in The Imperial Monetary System of Mughal India, ed.
J.F. Richards, 232–373 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987).
31. Irfan Habib, ‘A System of Trimetallism in the Age of “Price Revolution”:
Effects of the Silver Influx on the Mughal Monetary System’, in The Imperial
Monetary System of Mughal India, ed. John F. Richards, 137–170 (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1987), 153–155.
32. By comparison, French mints between 1631 and 1680 processed only 75 tonnes
of silver per year. Shireen Moosvi, ‘The Silver Influx, Money Supply, Prices
and Revenue-Extraction in Mughal India’, Journal of the Economic and Social
History of the Orient 30, no. 1 (1987): 47–94, see 58.
33. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Travels in India, 1676, trans. V. Ball, ed. William
Crooke, Indian edition (Delhi: DK Fine Art Press, 2007), 24.
34. Goldstone, Revolution and Rebellion. Also see Neils Steesnsgaard, ‘The
Seventeenth Century Crisis and the Unity of Eurasian History’, Modern Asian
Studies 24, no. 4 (1990): 683–697; Habib, ‘A System of Trimetallism in the Age
of “Price Revolution”’.
35. Based on Irfan Habib, An Atlas of the Mughal Empire: Political and Economic
Maps with Detailed Notes, Bibliography and Index (Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1982), 46.
36. Rajat Datta, Society, Economy and the Market: Commercialization in Rural
Bengal, c. 1760–1800 (New Delhi: Manohar, 2000), 189–191.

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 122 Rajat Datta

37. Rajat Datta, ‘The Rural–Urban Continuum and the Making of a Proto-
Industrial Economy in Early Modern India: A View from the East’, in Cities
in Medieval India, ed. Yogesh Sharma and Pius Malekandathil (New Delhi:
Primus, 2014).
38. The position of the muffassal was explained by the 1777 report of the Amini
Commission in the following words: ‘the head court of a zamindar is sadar with
respect to the villages or tarafs, or subordinate parts of which it is composed,
and is mofussil [muffassal] with respect to the cutcherry at Murshidabad or
Calcutta’. The Amini Commission Report vide R. B. Ramsbotham, Studies in
the Land Revenue History of Bengal, 1769–1787 (Calcutta: Humphrey Milford,
1927), 109–111.
39. Suraiya Faroqhi, The Ottoman and Mughal Empires: Social History in the Early
Modern World (London: IB Taurus, 2019), 164.
40. Oriental and India Office Collections, India Office Records, Proceedings of the
Board of Revenue, Miscellaneous, Sayar, P/89/41, 15 April 1794.
41. Datta, Society, Economy and the Market, 189–190.
42. Datta, ‘The Rural–Urban Continuum’, 94–95.
43. B. R. Grover, ‘An Integrated Pattern of Commercial Life in the Rural Society
of North India during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Proceedings
of the Indian Historical Records Commission 37 (1966): 121–153; Datta, ‘The
Rural–Urban Continuum’.
44. Abul Fazl, The Āīn-i Akbarī, vol. 2, trans. H. S. Jarrett (New Delhi: Low Price
Publications, 2001), 183.
45. Derived and modified from Jan de Vries and Peter van der Woud, The First
Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy,
1500–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 721.
46. Shmuel N. Eisenstadt and Wolfgang Schluchter, ‘Paths to Early Modernities: A
Comparative View’, Daedalus 127, no. 3 (1998): 1–18, see 15.
47. Derived from E. J. Jones, Growth Recurring: Economic Change in World History
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988).
48. Morgan Kelly, ‘The Dynamics of Smithian Growth’, The Quarterly Journal of
Economics 112, no. 3 (1997): 939–964. For a discussion of Smithian growth in
eighteenth-century England’s textile production, see Prasannan Parthasarathi,
Why Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence,
1600–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 109–113.
49. Kenneth Pomeranz, ‘Beyond the East–West Binary: Resituating Development
Paths in the Eighteenth-Century World’, Journal of Asian Studies 61, no. 2
(2002): 539–590.
50. Tirthankar Roy, ‘Economic Conditions in Early Modern Bengal: A
Contribution to the Divergence Debate’, Journal of Economic History 70, no. 1
(2010): 179–194.

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 Early Modernity and South Asian Economic History123

51. Parthasarathi, Why Europe Grew Rich, 42–45.

52. Kelly, ‘The Dynamics of Smithian Growth’.
53. See, for instance, Carlo M. Cipolla, ‘The Decline of Italy: The Case of a Fully
Matured Economy’, Economic History Review 5, no. 2 (1952): 178–187; John
H. Eliot, ‘The Decline of Spain’, Past and Present 20, no. 1 (1961): 52–75;
Henry Kamen, ‘Decline of Spain. A Historical Myth?’ Past and Present 81, no.
1 (1978): 24–50; Michael R. Weisser, ‘The Agrarian Depression in Seventeenth
Century Spain’, Journal of Economic History 42, no. 1 (1982): 149–154.
54. Lee, ‘East Asia in the Age of Global Integration’, 18–19.
55. Chie Nakane and Shinzaburo Oishi, Tokugawa Japan: The Social and Economic
Antecedents of Modern Japan (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1990); Conrad
Totman, A History of Japan (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2000), 231–236.
56. Thomas C. Smith, ‘Farm Family By-employments in Pre-Industrial Japan’,
Journal of Economic History 29, no. 4 (1969): 687–715.
57. Pomeranz, Great Divergence; Goldstone, ‘Efflorescences and Economic Growth
in World History’.
58. Harry A. Miskimin, ‘Agenda for Early Modern Economic History’, Journal of
Economic History 31, no. 1 (1971): 172–183.
59. Musgrave, Early Modern European Economy.
60. Jack Goldstone, ‘The Problem of the “Early Modern” World’, Journal of the
Economic and Social History of the Orient 41, no. 3 (1998): 249–284, see 251.
61. Pomeranz, Great Divergence.
62. Pomeranz, ‘Beyond the East–West Binary’.
63. David Ludden, An Agrarian History of South Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999). Also see Ramya Sreenivasan, ‘A South Asianist’s
Response to Lieberman’s Strange Parallels’, Journal of Asian Studies 70, no. 4
(2011): 983–993.
64. Huri Islamoglu, ‘Modernities Compared: State Transformations and
Constitutions of Property in the Qing and Ottoman Empires’, Journal of Early
Modern History 5, no. 4 (2001): 353–386; Dina Rizk Khoury, ‘Administrative
Practice between Religious and State Law on the Eastern Frontiers of the
Ottoman Empire’, Shared Histories of Modernity: China, India and the
Ottoman Empire, ed. Huri Islamoglu and Peter C. Perdue, 46–74 (New Delhi:
Routledge, 2009).
65. Faroqhi, The Ottoman and Mughal Empires, 263.
66. Faroqhi, The Ottoman and Mughal Empires, 100, 237.

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 6
Markers of the Early Modern
Ecology, State, and Society in Rajasthan

Mayank Kumar

Defining any historical era is a difficult task, mainly because historical processes
are never linear; they crisscross, overlap, and exhibit contradictory tendencies.
To further compound the problem, in addition to addressing the issue of
periodization, we are dealing with the category of modernity in this volume.
Both these notions – periodization and modernity – have extremely chequered
histories. For South Asia, these terms carry considerable historical baggage
and are prone to misappropriation.1 One of the important components of the
baggage, as pointed out in the introduction to this volume, is the tendency to
evaluate Indian history with a Eurocentric approach. Following the conventional
division of European history into the classical ancient, the dark medieval, and the
rational modern, the Indian past too was categorized into the Hindu or ancient,
Mohammedan or medieval, and British or modern periods. This categorization of
Indian history along religious lines at the hands of British colonial administrator-
historians restricted the evaluation of India’s past in terms of other variables for a
long time.2 Departures towards the modern and the concomitant rupture from
past has never been a straight path for any society. It is in response to these concerns
that the category of early modernity has emerged in historical thinking in recent
decades. However, expecting the beginning of the early modern condition in
all the societies at the same time and in the same measure may also lead us into
problematic territory. Every society went through different processes to the extent
that even the most prominent features of early modernity manifested at different
point of time in different places.3 For much of the Indian subcontinent, the early
modern condition in the field of political economy comprised the rise of the
centralizing administrative machinery of the Mughal Empire during the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. For Rajasthan, however, the arrival of early modernity
was signified by transition from tribal kin-based political formations to centralized
state apparatus in course of the seventeenth century.4
It should also be noted that conventional historiography on India between
the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries has not accorded due importance to

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 Markers of the Early Modern125

environmental factors.5 A plausible reason could be the kind of sources that

historians have traditionally relied upon – Persian court chronicles and vernacular
literary texts, which did not furnish a lot of information about environmental
conditions. Even when administrative documents like village-level documents
from the latter part of the seventeenth century became available at the Rajasthan
State Archives, Bikaner, the focus of historical investigation remained largely on
agrarian history. A close examination of these records, however, offers insights not
only into the functioning of the state apparatus6 but also into the ways society
negotiated nature and appropriated different types of natural resources.7 They also
bear testimony to how people wrestled with environmental factors like adverse
climatic conditions.
This chapter highlights the various markers of the early modern condition in
South Asia by studying various polities in Rajasthan from the seventeenth and
the eighteenth centuries. Broadly speaking, these markers comprised constant
efforts of the state machinery to establish a centralized mechanism through which
it could ensure the greatest possible appropriation of natural resources and social
surplus.8 On the one hand, these efforts took the form of the construction of ‘mega
structures’ to augment the irrigation potential of the region.9 On the other hand,
the state showed increasing keenness on regulating the domestic and social lives
of the subject population.10 The chapter begins with a broad survey of the region
in question and the kinds of sources available for studying it. This is followed by
three sections which examine different markers of the early modern. The first
among these examines the nature and significance of intensive documentation of
geographies and mapping of the resources – natural as well as human – that the
state was interested in. The second section analyses the increasing expansion of
state enterprise, especially the way it channelized natural drainage to support the
expansion of agrarian environment. In time, this helped the agrarian sector emerge
as the primary source of revenue, although pastoral activities remained important
means of livelihood. The final thematic section studies various instances of
intrusion of the state in the domestic affairs through juridical and social means.

Region and Sources

In terms of ecological conditions, Rajasthan cannot be termed as a homogeneous
unit. The Aravalli Hills render north-western Rajasthan arid, whereas south-
eastern Rajasthan remains semi-arid. In the absence of snow-fed rivers, most of the
agrarian production has been dependent on the monsoon. Any delay or disruption
in the monsoons resulted in drought and even famine during the period under
focus, which could play havoc with the economy. The population density in the

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 126 Mayank Kumar

arid region of Rajasthan was meagre; pastoral activity, which dominated the socio-
economic landscape, supplemented agricultural economy here. The practice of
intermixing of crops was quite prevalent across the whole region.
However, the strategic location of Rajasthan between the ports on the western
coast of the Indian subcontinent and the fertile plains of North India provided
the region with a prominent position in trade networks. Despite the expansion
of trans-oceanic trade after the coming of European trading companies in the
Indian Ocean, the centrality of Rajasthan in the overland trade routes to Sind and
Multan as well as West Asia did not diminish.11 The landscape of the region was an
additional factor in the flourish of this trade network. The general aridity, limited
rains, and the absence of perennial rivers induced the movement of traders across
Rajasthan round the year. Ecological factors thus facilitated the integration of the
economy of the region with global commercial networks.
There is a wide range of official documents available for this period in the
Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner. These include local-level documents like
arzdashts (local petitions), revenue reports, arhsattas (ledgers of receipts and
expenditure), imperial directives issued by the pargana officials, and administrative
manuals. The fact that these documents were written in the vernacular testify
to the fact that the local vernacular had become the administrative language by
the seventeenth century. These sources reveal the nature of official responses to
various instances of natural distress. By implication, they also provide us glimpses
into contemporary sociopolitical responses and concerns. The information from
these documents supplements the information offered by literary and epigraphic
sources of this period. The importance of these documents is not confined to the
fact that they provide vital information to identify the various markers of the early
modern condition; rather, the sheer fact that these documents were generated is in
itself a definitive marker of this condition for this region.

Documenting Geography: Going beyond the Normative

One of the markers of the advent of early modernity in this region comprised
state-driven initiatives towards extensive documentation of the landscape.
Though landscapes were also described and documented earlier, one witnesses
a major change in South Asia from the sixteenth century onward. Unlike earlier
descriptions which usually followed normative-canonical narrative, depictions by
authors like Abul Fazl for the Mughal Empire and Diwan Munhot Nainsi for the
Marwar pargana now focused on a more realistic sketch of the landscape, often
giving due considerations to those elements that were of strategic interest from the
point of view of the state.

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 Markers of the Early Modern127

This point becomes clear in view of some instances drawn from seventeenth-
century Rajasthan. Nainsi, the Revenue Minister of Marwar in the second half
of seventeenth century, visualized Marwar as a political unit and described it
accordingly. While compiling an administrative manual for the Marwar region, he
described the landscape of Bikampur in great details. He listed, for instance, various
ponds, their distance from Bikampur, and duration of availability of water in each
waterbody.12 His documentation indicates that the state did not neglect the non-
agrarian areas of its realm; rather, it recorded its strategic significance carefully as a
part of the intensive mapping of the landscape. In his documentation of the region,
Nainsi mentioned various markers of landscape, especially rivers and mountains.
While describing the river Banas, he recorded that it originates from a mountain
named Jargara, which is 29 kos from Udaipur, and merges with the river Chambal
in the Harauti region. Furthermore, Nainsi traced the course of the river with
respect to major physical landmarks and villages. He also mentioned the nearby
hills in order to locate the river in its larger geographical context. In documenting
the pattern of village settlements in the region of Mewar, Nainsi showed a similar
eye for detail by dividing them into three categories: those situated on hills, those
located on a plateau, and the rest.13 This concern for documenting the realms
meticulously also manifested itself in other mediums. Neelima Vashishatha, for
instance, makes an important observation that the painted depictions of landscape
also became increasingly realistic during this period.14
Nainsi’s documentation of landscape also reveals a larger understanding of
society. For instance, he recorded that it was once suggested that land could be
divided between Hardas and Sekhas on the basis of the grass it supported. Sekhas
would take control of land which produced karar (Dichanthium annulatum),
while the Hardas would get that which grew bhurat (Cenchurus biflorus).15 This
indicates that the nature of vegetation had emerged as a means of identifying
different ecological zones by this time. Even the kind of grass grown in a particular
region could become the basis of identification of land to be divided for political
purposes.
Similarly, Nainsi documented that when Rao Jodha, a ruler of Marwar,
defeated Rana Kumbha, a ruler of Mewar, it was decided that the land which
sustained trees of babool (Acacia nilotica) would be bestowed to Marwar, whereas
the land which grew amla (Phyllanthus emblica, or Indian gooseberry) would go
to Mewar.16 This not only bears out lose interactions between environment and
sociopolitical life, but Nainsi’s documentation of this also indicates an increasing
awareness of this phenomenon at the state level. In sum, this increasing tendency
of the state to chart out the realms and map its resources was something new for

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 128 Mayank Kumar

Rajasthan in the seventeenth century. It revealed an increasing concern of the state

to monitor and control the countryside for the sake of governance, something that
needs to be recognized as a prominent marker of early modernity in this part of the
world. I will return to this issue in the subsequent sections.

State Stretching Its Arms

This kind of extensive documentation of landscape helped states enumerate the
potential resources they could harness. Water was the most limiting factor for
agricultural production in Rajasthan. The supply of water by natural precipitation
was meagre and sporadic. The long-term as well as the short-term variations in the
climate and rainfall would often ruin the crops and dry up the fodder, making the
living conditions difficult for the people. Recurrent droughts and famines could
also result in bouts of peasant migration. All this necessitated political authorities
to be accommodative in their attitude towards revenue realization and to extend
necessary relief to safeguard their long-term interests. This suggests that the state of
this period was making earnest efforts to directly communicate with the peasantry
and involve itself in improving their conditions. If not by choice, then definitely
under the compulsions of natural exigencies, the ruling elites were forced to secure
the well-being of the peasantry, who provided the much-needed manpower for
cultivation.17 Similarly, by curbing the powers and privileges of intermediaries,
polities of Rajasthan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries started becoming
increasingly accommodative of the concerns of various sections of society who
were engaged with economic activities.

Massive Investment for Greater Gains

Given the absence of perennial rivers and the erratic nature of rainfall, the state
tapped into the only viable alternate option for making water resources available
for the people – artificial methods of irrigation.18 Since the sixteenth century, there
were increasing efforts in Rajasthan to make optimal use of geographic features.
For instance, given that the region received monsoon rains only for a couple of
months, the state started making heavy investments in channelizing seasonal rivers
to create big reservoirs of water. Such efforts had also been undertaken earlier
both in Rajasthan in particular and in the Indian subcontinent in general. But
what was different in the enterprises undertaken in the projects in the sixteenth
through eighteenth centuries was the massive scale of investments and direct
interventions by the highest decision-making authorities.19 The tradition of
building waterbodies can be seen in various parts of Rajasthan as well.20 Apart from
tanks located in the natural depressions, large waterbodies were constructed with

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 Markers of the Early Modern129

the help of state intervention. The only precondition for this was a specific kind
of topography – a hilly terrain leading to formation of narrow gorges. The gorges
between two hills on either side offered an ideal location for the construction of
an earthen dam, ultimately leading to the creation of a large waterbody, like a lake.
A few prominent waterbodies that emerged since the sixteenth century include
the Udaisagar built in 1564,21 the Raj Summand constructed in Mewar between
1662 and 1675,22 and the Manasagar excavated near Amber in the early eighteenth
century.23 Let us look closely at some of these. An embankment of Pichhola Lake,
allegedly constructed by a Banjara at the end of the fourteenth century, was raised
by Rana Udai Singh in 1560. The lake is about 2.5 miles long by 1.25 miles broad.
It has an area of over one square mile and a capacity of holding 418 million cubic
feet of water. In the middle of it stand the two island palaces – the Jagmandir and
the Jagniwas. The former was built by Rana Jagat Singh I (r. 1628–1652) and the
latter by Jagat Singh II (r. 1734–1751).24 Another lake, Udaisagar, lies 8 miles east
of Udaipur. It is 2.5 miles long by 1.5 miles broad; its area is about 2 square miles,
and it drains 185 square miles of the land. The water is held up by a lofty dam of
massive stone blocks, thrown across a narrow outlet between two hills, a little to
the south of Debari at the eastern entrance to the Girwa or Udaipur valley. The
embankment, built by Rana Udai Singh between 1559 and 1565, has an average
width of 180 feet.25
Maharana Raj Singh (r. 1662–1680), a Sisodia Rajput ruler of the kingdom
of Mewar, is credited with the construction of the Raj Summand by a eulogy
posted on the embankment.26 The Raj Summand is situated approximately 60
kilometres north by northeast of Udaipur. It is 3 miles long by 1.5 miles broad.
Its catchment area is spread across 195 square miles and has an area that roughly
covers three square miles. Its construction served to alleviate the sufferings of a
starving population, even though the irrigation potential of this lake was restricted
owing to the absence of any provisions for canals.27 The tradition of development
of big reservoirs by constructing a dam across a river or rivulet continued in
Mewar in subsequent years. Later lakes are exemplified by the Jai Sammand, also
known as Dheber Lake. It lies about thirty miles south-east of Udaipur and 969
feet above sea level. It receives the drainage of around 690 square miles and has
an expanse of approximately twenty-one square miles. The earthen dam is 1252
feet long and 116 feet in height; its breadth at the base is seventy feet and at the
top sixteen feet.28
There is evidence of the construction of dams for the Amber region as well.
There exist a number of dams, with roughly similar designs and dating back to
the eighteenth century or earlier. One of these is the Mansagar dam. It is located

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 130 Mayank Kumar

more than 1 mile to the northeast from the city of Jaipur. The tract that was
eventually occupied by the lake was a marshy land earlier. It also formed the bed of
a rivulet which, passing through a narrow gorge in the hills, used to flow towards
the northeast. This rivulet called Darbhavati was dammed in 1735. In absence of
any evidence pointing to the contrary, one might conjecture that the specialized
knowledge related to the problem of dam-building, reflected in the basic design of
the Mansagar dam, was an indigenous tradition.29
Nomenclatures as well as inscriptions on these massive structures reveal a lot
about what can be called a marker of early modernity. The rulers who constructed
the structures made lofty claims in these texts and declared absolute sovereign
rights over territories across their realms. Due to the construction of large
waterbodies, the possibilities of irrigation in the region increased greatly; the rulers
took the entire credit for the resultant growth in agrarian production. Moreover,
huge investments in the construction activities were also seen as an evidence of the
superior capabilities of the ruling dynasty. As opposed to numerous land grants
issued in the vernacular, the sites of these structures carried assertive eulogies of
the rulers in Sanskrit. This shows a tendency of cultural appropriation of models
of monarchical absolutism – a process that gradually became dominant across the
various principalities of the region during this period.30

Agrarian Expansion and Administrative Interventions

Deeper and closer association of the landed nobility with the resources of the
land was always a cause of concern for ruling dynasties. However, several changes
emerged in the relationship between ruling dynasties and rural intermediaries in
course of the sixteenth and seventeen centuries with greater integration of the
various principalities of Rajasthan with the Mughal imperial agrarian-fiscal-
military apparatus. This led to a greater centralization of the administrative
machinery in the region, which represented a new historical phenomenon.31
Without the ruling dispensation having a somewhat accurate account of the
landscape as well as its natural and social resources, it was almost impossible
for the state to exercise effective control over the landed nobility in earlier
times. However, with the increasing generation of records of the resources and
increasing independence from the intermediaries, there was a considerable
centralization of power and authority even for the far-flung areas of the kingdom
during this period.
Arzdashts, or petitions written by the amils, faujdars, or other officials of the
pargana to the ruler at Amber, provide us a peek into the communications that
transpired between village-level officials and the office of the kings. These officials

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 Markers of the Early Modern131

regularly reported to the ruling authorities about various revenue-related and

administrative details of the areas under their control. Arzdashts documented
concerns of local officials and communities along with the responses and remedies.
Since agriculture was the mainstay of the economy, the ruling dispensation was
always eager to keep themselves updated about the status of agrarian production.
For example, Amar Chand and Sahib Ram, vakils of the Amber court, recorded
that due to meagre but delayed rains till the month of Bhadava, only moth could
be sown this year.32 Similarly, Vakil Ajitdas and Man Ram informed the state that
due to drought, not even moth could be sown this year.33 Information regarding
agrarian production helped central authorities reduce possibilities of corruption
by the intermediaries. These documents also suggest that officials appointed by
central authorities were given the task not only to extend the area under cultivation
but also to ensure proper cultivation even in the eventualities of delayed rains. The
fact that directives like these came directly from the royal court is a clear indication
that the power of intermediaries was being reduced and centralization of power
was on the ascent.
In the agrarian economy, the bohras (moneylenders) constituted an important
group of intermediaries. Generally, the bohras were eager to extend loans to the
peasantry. But when agriculture would be threatened by natural exigencies, they
would refrain from providing loans. At times this would provoke intervention
from the political authorities to ascertain that credit was made available. For
instance, reports of widespread refusal by the moneylenders to provide loans in
every pargana in 1731 led the diwan (financial offer) to issue instructions. They
compelled the bohras to advance half the grain that they had recovered in the
previous rabi harvest as seed-loan to the peasants so that the rabi cultivation in the
current year could commence.34
Moreover, the rulers in Rajasthan imposed several restrictions on the
functioning of the bohras on various occasions to redress the hardships faced
by the peasantry owing to reduction in agricultural production. The general
principle in regard to all loans – tagai as well as loans advanced by the bohras
– was that the debt incurred in the current harvest period had to be recovered
immediately after the harvest or within the same fiscal year. Arrears on the
older loans could only be demanded if the output of the current harvest was
considered adequate. The state’s attempt to discourage the recovery of old
loans by the bohras suggests that such loans were generally unrecoverable and
therefore written off.35 It was perhaps also driven by the awareness that excessive
exploitation of peasantry would compel them to migrate and thereby erode the
possibilities of revenue generation.

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 132 Mayank Kumar

Such detailed documentation of agrarian relations was done with a purpose

and this was reflected in day-to-day administration. Apart from the obvious
use in land-revenue administration, we find society in general and the state in
particular making use of the documented information. As discussed previously,
the construction projects of the various artificial waterbodies were derived from
this kind of information. The state was aware of the locational specificities of the
land and the assessed land revenue that varied according to the nature of irrigation
deployed by the peasants.36 The differences in land-revenue rates also reflect this
phenomenon. This further testifies to the fact that the state was making increasing
use of documentation available at hand. Determination of land revenue according
to the means of irrigation also testifies to the extent of intervention made by the
ruling sections of the society during this period.
Documentation of ecological as well as sociopolitical conditions provided
ample opportunities for the state to promote its agenda. While negotiating
disputes over the use of water for irrigation purposes in the semi-arid climate,
the political classes had the platform to promote their own interests. Rulers not
only arbitrated on the issue of ownership of the means of irrigation but also
issued directives on the amount of water to be distributed.37 It is not surprising
that most of the disputes over water uses were about illegal excavation of the
canals and draining of the water by the peasantry for irrigation.38 There is even
evidence of the excavation of dams to secure water for irrigation. The state meted
out appropriate punishments in such cases; the money collected as fine would
be deposited in the exchequer.39 At times, the state had to arbitrate between
claimants over the use of irrigational devices.40 It is interesting to also note that
the political authorities would often expand the agricultural domain by digging
new wells in the villages.41
Thus, what emerges is that one of the characteristics of the political economy
of Rajasthan in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – that set it apart from
the earlier times – was the expansion of the agricultural realm at the behest of state
power as well as the state acquainting itself with and using various facets of the
natural environment to further its agenda of politico-administrative centralization.

Taxation on Social Uses of Natural Resources

Unlike settled agricultural zones, pastoral communities were semi-nomadic and
had well-developed ‘networks of circulation of mobile wealth’.42 Very crucial for
the polities of frontier regions, this wealth, however, was difficult for states to tax.
Nevertheless, with the advent of increasingly comprehensive documentation of
their natural and human landscape, such taxation also gradually became possible.

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 Markers of the Early Modern133

Livestock-rearing communities were taxed on the basis of the number of families

in the community or in terms of the number of kitchens they maintained. The
tax of this latter kind was known as dhuan bhachh (smoke from the chimney of
the kitchens). It was a poll tax and was realized from each household at the rate of
one rupee. It was a major component of the rokad-rakam (non-agricultural taxes
collected in cash) and contributed around 40 to 50 per cent of the total income of
states. Similarly, another tax by the name of talibab was levied on non-agricultural
communities at the rate of 4 rupees per family.43 The rulers of Bikaner imposed
an extra cess of eight annas per camel load of goods brought to the kingdom by
itinerant merchants for sale.
Recognizing the value of animal husbandry to the economy of the kingdoms,
the rulers often intervened to regulate the usage of grass and fodder. It was
mandatory, for instance, for the cultivators to share one-fourth of the grass
produced by them with the state.44 Moreover, there is considerable evidence of
administrative regulation of grazing grounds. To augment its resources, the state
charged singothi – a tax of one paisa per head of cattle.45 Since the rearing of livestock
was a prominent occupation in the western part of Rajasthan, the cultivator had
to give a share of the grass produced in his field to the state. In Marwar, the rate
was one bullock-cartload of grass per plough of land. Furthermore, there was
tax on the sale of grass in the region, ‘charged at Rs. 2.50 on the first Rs. 100
worth of fodder, and Rs. 1.50 upon every successive Rs. 100 worth’.46 Extensive
documentation of natural resources, combined with an efficient administrative
mechanism, helped states to collect penalties on different kinds of illegal usage
of natural resources. For instance, the felling of green trees or defacing the village
pond through use of dyes was subject to penalty.47 Similarly, killing of buffaloes
and unauthorized cutting of grass were also punishable offences.48 Even the
cutting of grass grown on hills and forests was considered an offence.49 Pastures
increasingly came under state control since they provided food for cattle, which
were important in both agriculture and transportation, and horses, which had an
important role in warfare.50
Thus, be it through the construction of large public waterworks, bypassing rural
intermediaries while dealing with peasant communities, or imposing control over
natural resources, states in Rajasthan during the period under focus increasingly
exhibited a definite tendency of centralization as well as rapid expansion in their
mechanisms of control and governance. This set them apart from the historical
processes of earlier times, creating a sense of a historical break. The next section
shows how this heightening state-intervention also made its way into the domestic
world of the subjects.

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 134 Mayank Kumar

Regulating the Domestic: Judicial Processes and Social Norms

Highlighting the significant role of the king as dispenser of justice, Corinne
Lefevre cites the memoirs of Jahangir, who wrote:

After my accession, the first command issued by me was to have a chain of justice
(zinjir-i- ‘adl) hung so that if those charged with administering the courts were
slack or negligent in rendering justice to the downtrodden, those who had suffered
injustice could have recourse to the chain and pull it so that the sound would cause
awareness.51

Lefevre argues that in doing so, Jahangir was publicly adhering to established
normative models of kingship embodied by kings David and Anushirwan.
The remainder of the memoirs is peppered with passages in which the Mughal
monarch administers justice not only to his human subjects but also to the animals
of his empire. He is also keen on underlining his impartiality in the dispensation
of justice.
During the period under focus, we find a similar concern of Rajput monarchs
about the dispensation of justice as a vital part of their kingship in the various
principalities of Rajasthan. By asserting their personal prerogative to deliver justice,
kings of these principalities discreetly undermined the social prestige of various
intermediaries. A careful evaluation of arhsattas indicates that in course of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Rajasthan saw a steady rise of monarchical
authority at the expense of the traditional power of intermediaries. As mentioned
earlier, one of the sixty-eight categories of information was known as hasil farohi,
which means the collection of money, deposited as fine at the court at pargana
level. The documents of this category also provide information on the various
crimes committed in the region and the punishment awarded. In turn, they offer
us a peek into the workings of the legal world of the region. Dilbagh Singh argues
that a closer examination of judgments recorded in these documents

… give a nuanced picture of the state – here it appears to be overarching in its authority
and not hesitant to put its administrative apparatus to full use in regulating affairs of
the state and society down to the level of village, its distinct social groups, the family,
and even its individual members.52

The authority exercised by the state not only pertained to the management of its
agrarian resources but also extended to flora and fauna as well as the private affairs
of the household. Perhaps it was under the influence of their close associations
with the Mughal emperors – for whom justice served as one of the defining
characteristics of kingship – that asserting their right to deliver justice emerged as

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 Markers of the Early Modern135

a means for the kings of Rajasthan to consolidate their claims towards sovereign
authority over their realms.
This point is further illustrated by the references to legal interventions by
the states in the domains of social norms and marital disputes. Observance of
social norms is one of the prerequisites for reinforcing the authority of ruling
dispensations. For the kings under consideration, the right to deliver justice
emerged as a tool for reiterating and reinforcing social norms. States regularly
extended their arms to regulate the social order, thereby conveying the message
that social status and hierarchy were to be protected, with the position of the king
elevated above all the subjects of the empire. States increasingly came to expect
strict adherence to social norms, be it in domestic affairs or at the highest official
level. Challenging the authority and appropriateness of decisions of the elders or
arguments with them was seen as violations of the conventional code of conduct
regulating the social fabric. It is important to note that the onus of adhering to the
code of conduct was also applicable to the elders of the family. Even elders would
be castigated for unbecoming behaviour towards the young.53 In social disputes,
states would usually direct caste panchayats to resolve issues in accordance with
established traditions and conventions of the community, known as wajabi.54
Through these processes, states increasingly emerged as protectors and enforcers
of social norms during this period.
Alongside this, states started regularly intervening in the domestic affairs of
families. In a way, this opened a possibility for women to get redressal in cases
of sexual abuse, even within the patriarchal social formation of the times. Given
the nature of documentation available, it is not easy to chart out the routes of
communication through which the matters of the family reached the apex level.
Yet it is certain that the individuality of women came to be well-established as
far as judicial proceedings were concerned. Hasil farohi documents are full of
references for chamchori (the theft of the body) in the sense of any form of sexual
misconduct, including adultery and rape. There are instances where another term
joravari was prefixed to chamchori, implying the use of force – possibly referring
to rape or attempt to rape. We find increasing documentation of states adopting
a strong posture against such crimes in a bid to control the sexual morality of
society. Punishments were meted out even when such crimes were collective ones.
For example, when in 1749 an allegation was made against the residents of a village
named Ramparsadi for engaging in chamchori, the state fined the residents a
collective sum of 101 rupees.55
We also get glimpses through a very informative document known as Sanad
Parwana Bahi of the Marwar region. This text has plenty of evidences where the

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 136 Mayank Kumar

complainant was a woman. In fact, many women filed cases in their individual
capacity with the state. Kailash Rani points out that there are evidences where
women petitioned the state – and also received approval – for remarriage.56 This
indicates that even when a woman was in the ‘custody of someone’, known locally
as roti sata, she enjoyed the individuality of approaching the state apparatus to
seek justice for her grievances.57 The state also seems to have created by this time a
robust legal sphere where women enjoyed a great deal of rights in the eyes of royal
and legal authority.
All this indicates the emergence of new forms of legality, where the various
states of Rajasthan increasingly established themselves as the ultimate authority for
settling legal disputes during the period under focus. Their own anxieties reflected
by their repeated interventions in upholding social norms and order at the local
level were reciprocated by the state’s legal sphere gaining acceptance of the subjects
as the paramount forum for the redressal of legal grievances.

Conclusion
What emerges from this discussion is a picture of complex interactions between
state, society, and environment. We have seen that during the period from sixteenth
through eighteenth centuries, the various Rajput polities of Rajasthan showed
a remarkable inclination to devise penetrative and centralizing administrative
mechanisms. This was a time when these states emerged out of their tribal kin-
based status and increasingly transformed into robust monarchical entities in
close association with the Mughal Empire. This chapter has highlighted three
main processes that signified the early modern condition that comprised the
historical context for this. The first of these comprised the rising inclination of
states to document their realms and resources for concerns relating to governance.
Next, the information thus generated helped states intervene directly at the local
level, increasingly bypassing rural intermediaries. These interventions took the
form of the expansion of agriculture, welfare measures like the construction of
water bodies, and proliferation of state regulations like those imposed on the use
of grazing grounds. Thirdly, there was a gradual rise of monarchical authority
and rapid expansion of new forms of legality for upholding social norms and
controlling social morality. In the process, the state steadily emerged as a legitimate
forum for redressing legal matters for local society. Collectively, these historical
processes comprised a new condition – early modernity, one that brought about a
major shift from the historical landscape of antecedent times.

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 Markers of the Early Modern137

Notes
1. Partha Chaterjee, Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Romila Thapar, ‘Decolonizing
the Past: Historical Writings in the Time of Sachin and Beyond’, Economic and
Political Weekly 40, no. 14 (2005): 1442–1448.
2. Equally important has been the newly founded nation’s tryst, initially with
religious divide and subsequently with caste-based vote-bank politics. See
Gyanendra Pandey and Yunus Samad, Fault Lines of Nationhood (New Delhi:
Roli Books, 2007); Bipan Chandra, Communalism in Modern India (New
Delhi: Vikas, 1984).
3. S. C. Misra, The Rise of Muslim Power in Gujarat: A History of Gujarat
from 1298 to 1442 (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1982),
34–44; Kathleen Morrison, Fields of Victory: Vijayanagara and the Course of
Intensification (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2000).
4. G. D. Sharma, Rajput Polity: A Study of Politics and Administration of the State
of Marwar, 1638–1749 (New Delhi: Manohar Publications, 1977); G. S. L.
Devra, Rajasthan ki Prashashnik Vyavastha (Bikaner: Dharti Prakashan, 1981).
5. Mayank Kumar, Monsoon Ecologies: Irrigation, Agriculture and Settlement
Patterns in Rajasthan during the Pre-Colonial Period (New Delhi: Manohar,
2013), 13–39; Meena Bhargava (ed.), Frontiers of Environment: Issues in
Medieval and Early Modern India (Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2017), 2–6.
6. Suraj Bhan Bhardwaj, Contestations and Accommodations: Mewat and Meos in
Mughal India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016).
7. Tanuja Kothiyal, Nomadic Narratives: A History of Mobility and Identity in the
Great Indian Desert (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2016).
8. Sumit Guha, ‘Claims on the Commons: Political Power and Natural Resources
in Pre-colonial India’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review 39,
no. 2–3 (2002): 181–196; Mayank Kumar, ‘Vagaries of Monsoon, Resilience of
Society: Revisiting Nature of Socio-Political Structures during Early-Modern
Rajasthan’, Studies in History 32, no. 2 (2016): 209–230.
9. Rajiv Sharma and S. A Nadeem Rezavi, ‘Aspects of Hydraulic Engineering in
Medieval Rajasthan: A Case Study of Water System in Jaigarh Fort’, in Art
and Culture, ed. Ahsan Jan Qaisar and Som Prakash Verma, 129–133 (Jaipur:
Publications Scheme, 1993); I. A. Khan and Ravindra Kumar, ‘The Mansagar
Dam of Amber’, in Ancient and Medieval Technologies in India, ed. Anirudha
Ray and S. K. Bagchi, 25–40 (New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 1986).
10. Dilbagh Singh, ‘Regulating the Domestic: Notes on the Pre-colonial State and
the Family’, Studies in History 19, no.1 (2003): 69–86, see especially 85.

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 138 Mayank Kumar

11. Kothiyal, Nomadic Narratives, 133–150.

12. Munhot Nainsi, Munhot Nainsi ri Khyat, ed. Badri Prasad Sakariya, vol. 2,
1657–66 (Jodhpur: Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute, 1962), 134–139.
13. Munhot Nainsi, Munhot Nainsi ri Khyat, ed. Badri Prasad Sakariya, vol. 1,
1657–66 (Jodhpur: Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute, 1960), 37–42.
14. Neelima Vashishatha, ‘Unnisvi Shatabdi mein Marwar ki Chitrankan Parampara
mein Naveen Prayog’, Prof. R. P. Vyas Memorial Lecture, Session 34, Rajasthan
History Congress, 2019, 1–24.
15. Nainsi, Munhta Nainsi ri Khyat, vol. 1, 890.
16. Munhot Nainsi, Marwar-ra-Pargana-ri-Vigat, ed. Narain Singh Bhati, vol. 1,
1657–66 (Jodhpur: Rajasthan Oriental Research Institute, 1968), 36.
17. James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human
Condition Have Failed (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 185. Also see
Sumit Guha, Health and Population in South Asia from the Earliest Times to the
Present (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2001).
18. Dilbagh Singh, The State, Landlords and Peasants (New Delhi: Manohar, 1992),
18; Also see B. L. Bhadani, Peasants, Artisans and Entrepreneurs: Economy of
Marwar in the 17th Century (Jaipur: Rawat Publication, 1999).
19. Yogesh Sharma, ‘The Circuit of Life: Water and Water Reservoirs in Pre-modern
India’, Studies in History 25, no. 1 (2009): 69–108; David Mosse, The Rule of
Water: Statecraft, Ecology and Collective Action in South India (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2003); Anil Agarwal and Sunita Narain (eds.), Dying
Wisdom: Rise, Fall and Potential of India’s Traditional Water Harvesting
Systems (New Delhi: Centre for Science and Environment, 1997); Mayank
Kumar, ‘Adaptations to Climatic Variability: Irrigation and Settlements Patterns
in Early Medieval Rajasthan’, Medieval History Journal 17, no.1 (2014): 57–86.
20. Anupam Misra, Rajasthan ki Rajat Booden (New Delhi: Gandhi Shanti
Pratishthan, 1995).
21. Nainsi, Munhot Khyat, vol. 1, 30.
22. Shyamal Das, Vir Vinod, ed. Badri Prasad Sakariya, vol. 2 (Jodhpur: Rajasthan
Oriental Research Institute, 1960 [1884]), 578–634, 2204.
23. Khan and Kumar, ‘The Mansagar Dam of Amber’.
24. K. D. Eriskine, Rajputana Gazetteers, vol. 2A, The Mewar Residency (Ajmer:
Scottish Mission Industries Co. Ltd., 1908), 109.
25. Eriskine, Rajputana Gazetteers: Volume 2-A, 9.
26. Neelima Vashishatha, ‘A Note on the Sculptures of the Raj Samudra Lake in
Rajasthan’, in Art and Culture, ed. Qaisar and Verma, 111.
27. Eriskine, Rajputana Gazetteers: Volume 2-A, 9.
28. Eriskine, Rajputana Gazetteers: Volume 2-A, 8–9.
29. Khan and Kumar, ‘The Mansagar Dam of Amber’.

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 Markers of the Early Modern139

30. Norbert Peobody, Hindu Kingship and Polity in Pre-colonial India (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003); R. P. Bahuguna, ‘Religious Festivals as
Political Rituals: Kingship and Legitimation in Late Pre-colonial Rajasthan’,
in Revisiting the History of Rajasthan: Essays for Prof. Dilbagh Singh, ed. Suraj
Bhan Bhardwaj, R. P Bahuguna, and Mayank Kumar, 84–92 (New Delhi:
Primus, 2017).
31. Mayank Kumar, ‘Situating the Environment: Settlement, Irrigation and
Agriculture in Pre-Colonial Rajasthan’, Studies in History 24, no. 2 (2008):
211–233.
32. Arzdasht, Bhadva Vadi 7, 1774 vs./AD 1717 & Arzdasht Sawan Sudi 9, 1752
vs./AD 1695 Historical Section, Jaipur Records, Rajasthan State Archives,
Bikaner (henceforth, HS, JR, RSAB.) Traditionally, Bhadva is the third month
of rainy season and usually the last one also.
33. Arzdasht, Falgun Sudi 11, 1751 vs./AD 1694 HS, JR, RSAB.
34. Madhvi Bajekal, ‘Agricultural Production in Six Selected “Qasbas” of Eastern
Rajasthan (c.1700–1780)’, Unpublished PhD Thesis (London: University of
London, 1990), 85.
35. Bajekal, ‘Agricultural Production’, 85.
36. Bhadani, Peasants, Artisans and Entrepreneurs, 34–80.
37. Sanad Parwana Bahi, Sawan Sudi 2, 1765 vs./AD 1708, Jodhpur Records,
RSAB.
38. Sanad Parwana Bahi, Jeth Sudi 9, 1825 vs./AD 1768, Jodhpur Records, RSAB.
39. Arhsatta, Village Raitoli, Pargana Dausa, 1825 vs./AD 1768; Village Dhamorki,
Pargana Chatsu, 1775 vs./AD 1718; Qasba Baswa, Pargana Bhartri, 1774 vs./
AD 1717, HS, JR, RSAB.
40. Sanad Parwana Bahi, Kartik Vadi 11, 1768 vs./AD 1711, Jodhpur Records,
RSAB.
41. Sanad Parwana Bahi, Kartik Vadi 11, 1768 vs./AD 1711, Jodhpur Records,
RSAB.
42. Kothiyal, Nomadic Narratives, 41–50.
43. P. W. Powlett, Gazetteer of Bikaner (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of
Press, 1874), 162.
44. Kagad Bahi 1827, vs./AD 1770, Bikaner Records. Rajasthan State Archives,
Bikaner. The state required large amount of grass for the cavalry and the
elephants.
45. Bhadani, Peasants, Artisans and Entrepreneurs, 86; Nainsi, Vigat, vol. 1,
158–160.
46. Bhadani, Peasants, Artisans and Entrepreneurs, 223.
47. Arhsatta, Qasba Malpura, Pargana Malpura, 1791 vs./AD 1734, HS, JR,
RSAB.

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 140 Mayank Kumar

48. Arhsatta, Village Kiratpura, Pargana Bahatri, 1774 vs./AD 1717; Arhsatta,
Pargana Bahatri, 1786 vs./AD 1729; Pargana Malrana, 1772 vs./AD 1715, HS,
JR, RSAB.
49. Arhsatta, Pargana Bahatri, 1786 vs./AD 1729; Pargana Malrana, 1772 vs./AD
1715, HS, JR, RSAB.
50. Sanad Parwana Bahi, Jeth Sudi 9, 1825 vs./AD 1768, Jodhpur Records. RSAB;
Also see Abhimanyu Singh Arha, ‘Hoofprint of Empire: An Environmental
History of Fodder in Mughal India (1650–1850)’, Studies in History 32, no. 2
(2016): 186–208; Norman Ziegler, ‘Some Notes on Rajput Loyalties during the
Mughal Period’, in Kingship and Authority in South Asia, ed. John F. Richards,
215–251 (Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1978); Dirk H. A. Kolff,
Naukar, Rajput and Sepoy: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market
in Hindustan, 1450–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990);
Guha, ‘Claims on the Commons’, 181–196.
51. Corinne Lefevre, ‘Recovering a Missing Voice from Mughal India: The Imperial
Discourse of Jahangir (r.1605–1627) in His Memoirs’, Journal of the Economic
and Social History of the Orient 50, no. 4 (2007): 452–489, 470.
52. Singh, ‘Regulating the Domestic’, 85.
53. Singh, ‘Regulating the Domestic’, 72.
54. Nandita Prasad Sahai, Politics of Patronage and Protest: The State, Society and
Artisans in Early Modern Rajasthan (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2006).
55. Singh, ‘Regulating the Domestic’, 76.
56. Kailash Rani, ‘Claims and Counterclaims: Widow Remarriage in Eighteenth
Century Marwar’, in Revisiting the History of Rajasthan, ed. Bhardwaj,
Bahuguna and Kumar, 294–307.
57. Kailash Rani, ‘Roti Satta ka Samajshastra: Marwar ke Samaj me Stri Dasta ka
Ek Roop’, Pratimaan: Samay, Samaj avam Sanskriti, vol. 15 (January–June
2020), 352–368.

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 7
Through the Prism of Environmental History
Defining the Early Modern in South Asia

Meena Bhargava

As the world moved into the twenty-first century, ‘modernity’ was ‘out there for
everyone to see and no questions asked’, observed Christopher A. Bayly.1 To begin
with, there was a fair amount of consensus with Bayly’s definition of modernity
and its origins. But with the deepening of historical research and scholarship, that
consensus has become a thing of the past. Modernity has increasingly come to be
constructed in several different ways, with none attributing to it the characteristics
of an objective reality or speaking of it in the ‘singular’, thus leading to ‘subjective
modernities’.2 With the querying of ‘singular modernity’ and that ‘one-size-fits-all
conception of development’ evolved the notion of early modernity in different
parts of the world, pointing towards different regions pursuing alternate paths
into the modern world and experiencing modernity in different ways. In the
context of South Asia, a few scholars observed that India along with China led
the world economy – whether in crafts, agriculture, trade and commerce – until
about the middle of the eighteenth century. Not just that, India in the seventeenth
century could boast of traders like Abdul Ghafoor and Virji Vora, who by
themselves wielded more capital than all the East India Companies of Europe put
together. In addition, reason, philosophy, and intellectualism were deeply rooted
in the centuries – mid-sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries.3 As indicated in the
introduction to this volume, this is roughly the period that has been carved out
of the traditional category of the medieval period of South Asian history and has
come to be identified in recent historiography as the time of early modernity.
In this chapter, I explore the nature of the early modern condition in South
Asia in the domain of human–environment relationships.4 I argue that the period
between the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries in South Asia, like in every
other part of the world, witnessed processes by which human beings vigorously
intervened in the natural environment with heightened pace and magnitude of
change.5 Early modernity in South Asia also witnessed growing population,
rapidly moving anthropogenic change, and heightening effects of collective human
action on the ecosystems. Like in the global context, when the total number of

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 142 Meena Bhargava

human beings nearly doubled from 400–500 million in 1500 to 850–950 million
in 1800, there were patterns of growing population in South Asia too, especially
during the period between 1601 and 1801. Even as the society relied on human,
animal, wind, and water power, South Asia witnessed rapid changes in the natural
world; there was intensified human land-use, and with technological shifts,
humans brought material changes and manipulated the material world. I discuss
these transformations in detail in the two sections of this chapter, outlining the
meanings of early modernity in the field of human–environment relationships in
South Asia and concluding with the shifts that appeared with the rise of colonial
modernity in the nineteenth century.

Human Intervention and Land-Use Patterns

In this section, I analyse human interventions, the modification of natural
environment, and the rapid changes in land use that early modernity in South
Asia brought about. Environmental processes in South Asia during this period
facilitate the understanding of demography, settlement patterns, and ecological
change. Climatic and biotic factors – drought, flood, famine, and epidemics –
might have put some constraints on the growth of population in the region, but
for the period of 1601–1801, we notice a compound annual rate of population
growth of about 0.2 per cent. On the basis of pargana-wise6 statistical data
provided in Abul Fazl’s late-sixteenth-century text Ain-i Akbari on cultivable area,
crop yields, land revenue, prices, wages, retainers of zamindars, W. H. Moreland
estimated the population of India in c. 1601 at 100 million. Kingsley Davis
revised this to 125 million by taking into account areas that Moreland had not
considered. On the basis of further investigations on area statistics, productivity,
and taxation data, Shireen Moosvi estimated the population of India in c. 1601 to
be around 145 million, which went up to 207 million by 1801. There is no reliable
data to construct population statistics prior to 1601, but if it is accepted that the
population increased at the rate of 0.2 per cent in the period 1601–1801, then the
population in c.1101 should have been around 72.5 million.7
With rising human numbers and increasing pressure on the land, human
settlement and sedentary cultivation expanded; in turn, this led to ecological
change. Emphasizing the importance of ecology to understand demography and
settlement patterns, and to compute the extent of cultivated land around c. 1600,
Moosvi argues that it is the limits of the agricultural zone which constitute the main
frontier between the territories of nature and of man.8 Agriculture was the single
most important means by which humans changed the land and its ecosystems. As
land use intensified, the forests retreated. It is difficult to establish the extent of

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 Through the Prism of Environmental History143

forests in the period prior to the sixteenth century. But some assessment can be
ventured on the basis of the proximity of forests to the capital city of Delhi. In the
thirteenth century, forests stretched along the Aravalli hills up to south-west Delhi,
making it difficult for the sultans of Delhi to control this region. The middle Doab
region in modern western Uttar Pradesh, with its extensive stretches of forests,
connected with sub-montane forests by ravines and jungle running along the rivers
Yamuna and Ganga in the thirteenth century. This too obstructed political control.
Travellers traversing the region between Badaun and Delhi often encountered
tigers in this forest. In the latter half of the fourteenth century, the territory north
of Badaun, that is, modern Rohilkhand (then known as Katehr), was so densely
forested that herds of wild buffalo and Indian bison (gaur) roamed freely and
were known to have been hunted by Sultan Firuz Shah Tughluq. None of these
patterns were visible any longer in the sixteenth century and the Doab region was
almost completely under cultivation by c. 1600.9 Commenting on the seventeenth
century, Pelsaert mentioned complete lack of trees in the region – a sign of clearance
of forests and the emergence of agrarian settlements.10 Further, evidences from the
seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries regarding the absence of wild animals in
areas where their species had flourished in the preceding centuries are indicative
of similar human interventions. For the region of Gujarat, the author of Mi’rat-i
Ahmadi observed that sometime before 1761, wild elephants were no longer seen
in the Rajpipla area because their ‘forest route’ that had comprised unbroken belt
of forest linking Rajpipla with Malwa had been cut off by human settlements; this
barred the entry of wild elephants into Gujarat from central India.11
The greater portion of new cultivation since the sixteenth century occurred
in the ubiquitous frontiers of settlement. As settlement frontiers advanced
and made inroads into forests, grasslands, and other habitats, human land-use
intensified and productivity per square kilometre rose. Almost invariably such
expansion caused a reduction in the quantity and diversity of vegetation or a
reduction in biomass and biodiversity.12 The pioneer cultivators cleared forests
and woodlands to support themselves for their livelihood and to produce food
and commercial crops according to the market demand. Settlement patterns
from diverse regions illustrate gradually increasing modes of state control over
the environment; the state encouraged human intervention and set the norms for
it. For instance, prior to the sixteenth century, a large part of the Mughal sarkar13
Gorakhpur in the suba (province) Awadh was thickly forested. The area between
the sarkar Awadh and the sarkar Gorakhpur (both in the suba Awadh) was
covered by kans grass and bamboo forests considered ‘useless for man and beast’.14
But soon afterwards, this tract was clear of forests, as shown in James Rennell’s

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 144 Meena Bhargava

map, prepared in 1780.15 What is also noticeable is a marked change in the land
patterns of the sarkar since the sixteenth century – reclamation and cultivation of
land with remarkable rapidity and its quick rehabilitation under the new name of
Muazzamabad in the seventeenth century (coinciding with the reign of Mughal
emperor Aurangzeb). The sarkar continued to be so designated in the later
revenue lists. Intensified land use was marked by a process of improvement in
the use of land and changed patterns of agricultural production. Fresh cultivable
lands were cleared and brought under cultivation. The state encouraged peasants
to experiment with new crops that enhanced productivity. Expanding cultivation
moved further into the forest area towards the northern frontier of Gorakhpur
into the Terai region. Frontiers of settlement marked a significant change in the
way humans used land and consumed natural resources, signifying a change
from one form of human exploitation of the natural world to another. The fact
that human intervention and land use showed good performance was evidently
noticed by the mid-eighteenth century, apparent by its significant rise in the
jama.16 According to an eighteenth-century revenue roll, the aggregate rise in
jama of the suba Awadh was by over 85 per cent when compared to the figures of
the late sixteenth century; the maximum increase of 267.37 per cent, for instance,
was noticed in the sarkar Gorakhpur by 1755 in comparison with the figures
recorded in the Ain-i Akbari.17
Variety of negotiations with nature, through the use of technology and
processes of production, reflected the complexities and intricacies of human
intervention in the environment.18 Regions of urbanism, ethnicity, empire,
literature, and territoriality made the land look very different in c. 1800 than
what it did in c.1200. There was a qualitative change in the way people thought
about the land. The slow, incremental processes of the thirteenth–fourteenth
centuries laid the basis for dramatic trends that emerged after 1500; as agricultural
expansion accelerated, the state extracted more and more revenue and mobility of
people intensified. With regional formations of agrarian territory knitted together
by urban networks, shifting patterns of social power, agricultural expansion,
and cultural change characterized the early modernity.19 The evolution,
growth, and sustenance of the human settlements as well as the human–nature
interaction in different ecological contexts were significantly established by
the monsoon ecology and its erratic nature. Mayank Kumar applies the ‘larger
umbrella of monsoon ecology’ to understand human–nature interactions and
the peculiar identity of Rajasthan and its people.20 Kathleen Morrison provides
evidence from the Ganga and Indus river-basins and the Vijayanagara region to
explain changing ecological contexts of forests, agriculture, and land property.

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 Through the Prism of Environmental History145

She argues that the environmental and cultural developments in the Western
Ghats during the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries witnessed
forest-loss and regeneration, alterations in the composition and distribution
of vegetation and soil movement, and also oscillating long-distance and local
exchange involving forest products.21
Small, often unnoticed, innovations and changes gradually improved human
life and productivity, as illustrated in the works of Richard Eaton, John Richards,
and Chetan Singh.22 In his contribution on the region of Punjab, Singh suggests
the importance of the integration of ecological and historical developments in the
seventeenth century.23 There were long-established and fundamental relationships
between society and its physical surroundings. No society could survive without
them, making imperative the understanding of the socio-economic processes and
the specific ecological environment within which these relationships operated. Jos
Gommans, on the other hand, invokes the deployment of money and horsepower to
argue that the period from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries achieved
unprecedented agricultural, commercial, and political expansion. In terms of
ideology and ritual too, the Mughal state reflected as much the ‘world of the settled
court as that of the nomadic war-band’ during this period.24 Constant variations
and transformations were visible within the ecological perimeters of India’s limits
and inner frontiers. Most polities during the period emerged on the roads and
crossroads of commercial and nomadic interactions.25 Their ecological systems
were transient, uncertain, and constantly changing, although all transmutations
might not have been contributed by human beings; some modifications in nature
could also have been sudden and cataclysmic.26 The shift away from communal
forest use towards increasing state intervention was strengthened by the Mughal
state during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was further accelerated by
the regional states in the eighteenth century, particularly on the west coast of India,
where timber harvesting was most intensive. As early as the 1740s, the rulers of
the Maratha Empire had found it expedient to acquire control over large tracts of
coastal forest and set up plantations, for both shipbuilding and revenue. In Cochin
and Travancore, similar state-monopoly controls over forests were initiated. The
most extensive programmes for afforestation and forest protection were carried
out between 1770 and 1840 by the Amirs of Sind. So, by the 1770s, throughout
many regions of South Asia, there was widespread emergence of state-forest
controls – something that was the culmination of processes that had heightened
in the course of the sixteenth century. This phenomenon developed as relatively
integrated forces of economic penetration began to respond to new levels of trade
and demand, particularly in search for timber to meet the increasingly complex

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 146 Meena Bhargava

demands of the growing urban centres and that of European and indigenous
naval systems.27
This heightened intensity with which humans transformed nature and
modified land-use patterns was something that characterized the sixteenth
through the eighteenth centuries, and hence needs to be recognized as one of the
hallmarks of early modernity in South Asia. Human intervention established a new
relationship between society and nature, with communities constantly attempting
to mould the environment according to their own needs, notwithstanding the
limits set by nature.

Shared Historical Processes and Ecological Change

In this section, I highlight another dimension of South Asian early modernity
by investigating how the people who used the environment sought to define it,
organized their relations with it, intervened in it, and modified natural conditions
in that process. Using these discussions, I exemplify shared historical processes and
how human societies were continuously engaged in defining and constructing the
ambience around them, people’s ecological pressures, and their responses to the
changes during the period. It is difficult to establish whether these archetypes were
present in the period prior to the sixteenth century in South Asian environment.
At any rate, there were large stretches of land that abounded with dense forests at
that time. These were identified as mawas, or ‘difficult terrain’, a ‘natural fastness’
for local chieftains outside the control of the sultans of Delhi and a barrier for the
assertion of state authority.28 Sunil Kumar defines mawas as ‘disturbed, troubled
territory’ in the control of a rebel,29 whereas Irfan Habib characterizes it as ‘rebel
territory’, a term he says that was in use from the thirteenth century and had
been derived from Hindustani mahwas – forest, wood, retreat. Regardless of the
definition, the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries saw a strong connection
between mawas on the one hand and notions of disturbed and rebellious areas on
the other.30 The state, nevertheless, extracted revenue from the forests by imposing
bankar (taxes) on forest produce and nourished wild elephants, a military asset
to the state available only in the dense forests. To maintain the population of the
wild elephants and prevent reduction in the number of captive elephants to be
used in the wars, forests were not cut down. But as the forests, especially those
surrounding the capital city of Delhi, became threatening to the residents as a result
of the attack by the Meos who hid in these forests, Sultan Balban responded with
military campaigns. Finding it difficult to traverse the dense forests, the Sultan
deployed tabarzan (woodcutters) to clear the path for the army to march. It may
have changed the character of the territory but it still remained an armed camp,

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 Through the Prism of Environmental History147

a military cantonment, and the onslaught was felt by the pastoral, forest-dwelling
people as well. What emerges from this description is that there was hardly any
contact between the people of the forests and the settled population and that there
was considerable antagonism between pastoralist and sedentary communities.
This animosity became worse when Sultan Balban used state power to ‘resettle’
the lands through obtrusive tactics of sedentary societies against pastoral groups,
defeated forest dwellers and pastoralists, and resettled and repopulated their lands
with new personnel whom he gave mafruzi (rent-free lands) and for whose security
he established military cantonments.31 In all these processes of state-sponsored and
state-controlled reclamation and resettlement, there were hardly any evidences of
shared historical processes and interactions – tendencies that became remarkably
noticeable from the sixteenth century as the markers of a new era.
The study of the interaction between humans and the environment – whether
in the domain of the cultivated lands, forests, forest products, wildlife, or river
courses – show vast changes that took place from the sixteenth through the
eighteenth centuries. Man’s natural environment and the relationship between
man and nature demonstrate an interconnectedness and mutuality between
different environmental elements during the period, something that was absent
earlier.32 Continuous interaction and shared experiences among communities of
different ecological niches – riverine, forest, desert, and mountain areas – marked
the period. Pastoralists and agriculturists emerged as dynamic categories that
mutually participated in shared historical processes. Pastoralists traversed both
the forests and the cultivated land, and the agriculturists did the same; forests too
provided both resources and revenue.33 Environmentalists today may consider
sedentary cultivation and grazing as negative activities that lead to the erosion of
the soil and may deem grazing as dangerous to the forests because as the sheep
and the cattle eat the seedlings of trees, they damage their reproductive potential.
However, the developments of this period reveal that the pastoralists did not
reckon the replacement of forests by grasslands as degradation, even though the
hooves of large number of cattle driven into a forest to graze may make the ground
hard, compacted, and dry, rendering it less conducive for the seeds to germinate or
plants to grow.34 Similarly, farmers did not perceive the replacement of forests by
agricultural lands as degradation despite the adverse changes in the soil and micro-
climate35 and logging that could restrain the new plant growth36. In fact, the farmers
often preferred agriculture and the development of cultivation in the proximity of
or within the ambit of a forested area so as to benefit from the springs, a high
water-table, less-eroded soil, or even the new soil produced by the decayed leaf litter
in these areas.37 In several regions, the debris of burnt forest waste was considered

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 148 Meena Bhargava

a particularly good medium for seed growth. An abundant supply of such waste
was considered well-suited for agriculture – a feature commonly noticed, for
instance, in the forest tracts and wastelands (uncultivated and/or barren lands) of
the Mughal sarkar Gorakhpur in the suba Awadh.38
So, while it would be prudent to consider how the impact of human activity
on the fauna and flora might have changed the ecosystem, it would be equally
pertinent to observe that nature’s ability to reconcile competing human interests
is not limitless, nor are all humans equally culpable of exploiting nature.39 In this
context, it may be mentioned that although nomadic pastoralists have sometimes
been seen as predators to the sedentary agricultural societies, the two major forms
of subsistence – pastoralism and agriculture – are neither totally separated nor
fixed; they are, in fact, interchangeable and interactive.40 There are occasions when
specialized herding is often made possible only by a symbiotic relationship with
agriculture. During the period under focus, agro-pastoralism prevailed in zones
that could not exclusively support successful agriculture or pastoralism; those who
earned their livelihood largely from herds spent less time and labour on fields and
vice versa.41 In the case of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Punjab, the growth
of commercialized agriculture under the Mughals encouraged and facilitated the
absorption of pastoral people into the agrarian system. The contribution of the
sedentary communities to the creation and consolidation of economy and society
was not isolated or exclusive of the tribal pastoralist communities. In fact, there
are several instances of interdependence between pastoral and sedentary life; one
such example was the village communities in the Mughal Empire that subsisted
at a reasonable proximity to pastoral societies. There was continued participation
of pastoral population in the socio-economic processes and the stabilization
of agrarian society and certain other social formations, although in many cases
the sedentarized relied considerably on pastoralism. Even within the cultivated
area, there existed not only variations of the agrarian system but also socio-
economic systems that were remarkably different from it. There are innumerable
examples from several regions that demonstrate the close relationship between
tribal-pastoralism and sedentary-commercialized society. They were, in fact, so
inextricably linked in their economic interests that any shift in the structure of any
one of these societies would not leave the other unaffected. Singh argues that if
tribal-pastoral population in other regions were as integral to the agrarian society
as in sixteenth- or seventeenth-century Punjab, then ignoring them would mean
risking an incomplete understanding of the agrarian system that early modernity
signified in South Asia.42 While many tribes were fairly dependent on pastoralism,
they were also engaged in economic exchange with the adjoining agrarian society

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 Through the Prism of Environmental History149

and were added as new social groups to the sedentarized agricultural population.
The lives of the peasants and pastoralists were remarkably entwined. Their
involvement in the mutual exchange of products was accompanied simultaneously
with the scramble for encroachment on each other’s space: the herdsmen who
wandered on the fringes of productive areas re-appropriated the abandoned
fields and habitations and the agriculturists treaded on the grazing grounds of
the pastoralists; in yet other circumstances, jhum cultivators moved to settled
cultivation and the cultivators escaped to the forests.43
As human settlements arose during the period, communities showed
adaptation and accommodation to ecological interventions whereby nature was
altered and landscape modified. Agriculture was certainly a major constituent
in it and the single-most important means by which mankind changed the
lands and the ecosystems. It represented a connecting point between the human
powers that organize agriculture and the changing natural environment. It was a
major element of ecological transformation in human history, for no occupation
other than farming alters the land so much. However, without undermining
the significance of agrarian landscape and arguing against the singularity of it
in historical investigations and understanding environmental processes, it can
be suggested, as David Ludden has observed, that ‘farming landscapes are not
defined by their physical or environmental qualities but rather by their long-term
interaction of geography, culture, technology and social power’.44 New cultivation
occurred in the frontiers of settlement, when the pioneer settlers intruded upon the
remote lands inhabited by shifting cultivators, hunter-gatherers, and pastoralists.
Agrarianism includes not only farming but also animal husbandry, pastoralism,
fishing, and harvesting the forest. It can thus be defined as a major source that
produces organic material for human use, of which animal and forest products are
an evidence of.45
Drastic changes in the landscape occurred during the period under focus as
a result of newer sets of negotiations with climatic variability, as illustrated by
Morrison for South India in general and the region of Vijayanagara during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in particular. She argues for continuous
interactions between given landscape and social action, which modified and
changed both – landscape as well as ways and means of social interactions.
Examining the water systems in and around Vijayanagara during the period, she
shows the nature of extension of agriculture into the marginal areas. Monsoon
rains were increasingly captured to develop the agrarian potential of the areas on
the fringes of agrarian landscape. It was the scarcity of water that had restricted
agrarian production earlier, but with the channelization of monsoon rains

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 150 Meena Bhargava

for agricultural purposes, agrarian settlements could be expanded steadily.46

Emphasizing the intertexture between different modes of livelihood and
human–environment interaction, Singh raises the issue of the significance of
environmental factors in determining the economic development of the Mughal
Empire and understanding the evolution of state and society. Reiterating that
agriculture cannot be seen exclusive of the other elements of environment, he
argues that it has long been assumed that the prosperity of the Mughal state – a
new form of early modern state apparatus – depended on its agrarian base. To the
contrary, however, he suggests that it was in fact not upon the settled villages and
the revenue-yielding lands that the stability of the Mughal society rested; there
was much that lay beyond the agrarian economy. The Mughal ruling class did
not possess absolute monopoly over geographical space or the natural resources
even if they fell within the political limits of the empire. Ecological diversity – a
mix of agricultural production, forests, and grasslands – prevailed in the empire.
This fostered a variety of socio-economic systems that necessitated a relationship
of sharing with other social organizations that used the environment in diverse
ways. The extent of forested or uncultivated territory was considerable with several
qasbas, towns, and adjoining agricultural fields lying amidst forests.47
The shared historical processes, congeniality, and harmony between the agrarian
and other environmental forces are evident by the fact that while agriculture
developed leading to a sedentary lifestyle, agricultural zones were interspersed with
sizeable thick and impenetrable woods that not only had ecological significance
but were also an important economic factor and a necessary requirement for
agriculture. They provided pasture for cattle, as well as space for getting firewood,
timber, and forest products like wild fruits, honey, and toddy. The extent and type
of forests from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries can be inferred from
the locations of hunting grounds and the habitats of wild animals. For example,
while the presence of wild elephants would indicate the presence of a dense forest,
that of the wild cheetahs would imply the existence of grasslands and scrubs in the
vicinity. All these, Moosvi observes, can be ascertained by examining the statistics
of area under cultivation for the different regions.48 Her analysis of economic
geography and natural environment clearly demonstrates close connections and
interactions and a dialectical relationship that urge upon ‘an ecologicalism that
recognizes the inherent interdependence of all life-systems’.49 It establishes that
notwithstanding the vast agrarianism in early modern India, forests remained
central to the lives of many of its inhabitants. It served as their home, a shelter, a
source of fodder, firewood, and timber, even if the capital value of the latter was
of no great importance to them. The zamindars possessed proprietary, hereditary

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 Through the Prism of Environmental History151

rights over the forests within their jurisdiction. Generally, they did not consent to
the cutting of trees nor did they, as Buchanan Hamilton observed, ‘agree to receive
a pecuniary compensation for this sacrilege’.50 Large parts of forest were home
to large mammals, ungulates, and carnivores. These included lions and tigers,
cheetahs and leopards, hyenas and wolves, elephants and ants. Some ant hills, for
example in the Mughal sarkar Gorakhpur, were found to be at least ten feet high;
many trees were coated with ant tunnels and a few points of ant nests were broken
with large open galleries inside. However, irrespective of whether the forests were
dense or subjected to the incursions of wild animals that made the passage through
the forests dangerous and difficult, there was nothing to deter the local inhabitants
from defining their relationship with the forests.51 On several occasions, forests
served as ‘hideouts’ and provided a haven for those peasants and zamindars who
wanted to avoid the payment of taxes to the Mughal state. Sujan Rai described the
Lakhi jungle near the channels of the rivers Sutlej and Beas as an area of refuge
for the recalcitrant in the late sixteenth century, while Tuzuk-i Jahangiri informs
us that during the reign of Mughal emperor Jahangir, villagers in the vicinity of
Mathura fled to the jungles on the other bank of river Yamuna to resist payment of
land revenue. Forests served as an asylum too for the seriously ill and convalescents
of infectious diseases, particularly smallpox, which was rampant in the eighteenth
century in several areas. The disease was so dreaded that infected persons would be
removed from their homes and sent to the forest until the disease was eradicated
from the village or until they had recuperated.52
Land was also reclaimed; agro-forestry, pastoralism, and settlements could
overwhelm the forests. There was constant fluctuation and fluidity between forests
and cultivation, with shifting boundaries between the jungle and the arable. Fath
Ullah Shirazi’s observation regarding revenue matters for the reign of Mughal
emperor Akbar substantiates the point. He stated, ‘The fluctuations of civilization
are apparent to everyone. If in a village some land falls out of cultivation, one
endeavors to increase cultivation elsewhere.’53 The rulers from the sixteenth
century encouraged reclamation of forests by granting nankari rights to the
landholders.54 Connections between military campaigns, forests, and settlements
are also evident during the seventeenth century. During the reign of the Mughal
emperor Shahjahan, the Mughal army would be accompanied by tabarzan and
ploughmen who would clear the land to make way for the army and establish new
zamindaris. Asserting their political power, the zamindars and the jagirdars too
hired professional woodcutters to clear the jungles and settle new villages.55 In the
late eighteenth century, the zamindars of the Mughal sarkar Gorakhpur were the
sole holders of timber rights. They planted sal (known as sakhuya in Gorakhpur)

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 152 Meena Bhargava

and allowed it to be cut and sold. With such incentives and entrepreneurship, many
zamindaris emerged at the frontiers of cultivation consequent upon the clearings
of forests.56 While reclamation was carried out in some parts of this Mughal sarkar
in 1801, there were tracts of jungles and wastelands that remained along the river
Gandak and its numerous streamlets that were used as dhab lands (pasture lands)
during cold and hot months.57
Community locations, thus, were rarely fixed during the early modern period
when desertions and migrations were often the response to climatic or political
factors (asmani wa sultani), resulting in situations where wanderers might settle,
and the settled wander; forests be cleared, and forests be grown.58

The Advent of Colonial Modernity

Using environmental processes as exemplar to identify markers of early modern
in South Asia, I uphold that in the period defined as early modern, the pace and
magnitude of change had increased in human societies in every part of the world,
including South Asia; it was marked by shared historical processes and long-term
currents that not only accelerated in this period but also had a deep impact on the
changes during the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Imbibing and invoking
early modern Mughal patterns and yet remarkably at variance, colonial modernity
showed paradigmatic shift in its concerns, strategies, and norms. Forests and
forestry significantly figured on the agenda of the colonial government, though
forest clearance, expansion of cultivation, and the commercial and strategic
advantages of forests were known in the early modern period as well. The English
East India Company inherited these patterns and began experiments within it.
However, with its different vision on forests, the Company introduced a structure
and framework, reinvented and reformulated in its form, and introduced notable
changes. The objectives of the English East India Company were clear – an adequate
and profitable supply of timber, regulated cutting of timber, and conservation of
trees. Conservation, for the Company, was an act towards economic growth with
huge promises of growing revenue from timber. It had no moral underpinnings.
In fact, the Company had little concern for environmental ethics, even though
some of its officials might have had personal convictions about the importance of
ecological equilibrium and a balance in the ecosystem.59
By the mid-nineteenth century, as urban population grew and export markets
developed for various crops, the prices of agricultural commodities moved
upwards. Sedentary cultivation expanded. Expanding cultivation cut deeply
into the forests. By 1830, the new regime actively encouraged forest-clearing and
settlement. Its attention shifted from the more easily accessible and less heavily

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 Through the Prism of Environmental History153

forested wastelands to the more forbidding forest areas. As forest products became
a profitable and legitimate source of income, the Company asserted its exclusive
rights on the forest products. In one instance, it declared in Gorakhpur through
an ishtihar (advertisement) its right to forest products and invited proposals
for farming them; it thus replaced the zamindars whether in granting leases or
gathering and propagating the forest product to the highest bidder.60
Forest clearance moved swiftly in the nineteenth century. The developments
during this century and the attitude of the Company towards land – forests,
grasslands, and wastelands – were influenced by the political and economic
developments in Britain. The agricultural revolution in Britain had brought lessons
that all processes of agrarian improvement and progress entailed cutting of trees
and cultivation of wastelands.61 Immediate clearing and cultivation of wastelands
was placed in high priority on the agenda of the colonial government. The
zamindars, through the early modern period had possessed hereditary, proprietary
rights over all lands, including wastelands, within their territorial limits. They were
not divested of their powers and privileges by the Company. Instead, the Company
depended on their ability to procure capital and labour for clearing and cultivating
wastelands. The zamindars were vested with the responsibility to improve the
general condition of the estates. They, too, became aware of the inducements to
extend cultivation as commercialism and material concerns penetrated into the
villages. Changes in their attitudes gradually became visible. The zamindars had,
during the early modern period, adamantly stood by their trees and protected
them from human harm, but now they succumbed to commercialism, cut trees,
and even grew trees for the timber trade. More importantly, they also acquired
access to revenue and the franchise to retain the entire surplus revenue after paying
the government’s share of the jama. If the zamindar defaulted or refused to
cooperate, if the wastelands did not form a part of any mahal,62 or if there were no
claimants to the land, the Company resumed them as state property.63 This was a
most assured means of agrarian and commercial advancement.64
By the twentieth century, significant changes wrought throughout the world
in the inter-relationship between man and his environment. This was caused by
rapidly expanding urbanization and industrial growth. These systems threatened
to irreversibly destroy natural ecosystems. There was also a constant engagement
with the issues of striking a balance between human civilization and nature or
establishing compatibility between growth and equilibrium; preserving spaces
for nature even as the development continues and replacing fertile lands with
industrial sites.65 Growth, equity, and sustainability became major political issues.
The question of sustainability raised serious questions about the kind of growth

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 154 Meena Bhargava

humans want, re-emphasizing the need for equity, both globally and locally.66
Despite a global consensus on these matters, the Western industrialized nations,
including the erstwhile colonial powers, have remained hesitant in their
commitment to significant reductions, compensation for ‘historical offences’,
or pledging costs for necessary improvements, pitting issues of the environment
against historical legacies, historical justice, and a desire for development.67

Notes
1. Christopher A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914 (Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing, 2004), 11. Modernity, Bayly argues, was not only a
process but also a period which began at the end of the eighteenth century and
has continued up to the present in various forms.
2. Harbans Mukhia, ‘Subjective Modernities’, NMML Occasional Paper, History
and Society, New Series 13 (New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library,
2013), 2–7.
3. Mukhia, ‘Subjective Modernities’, 8. Also see Prasannan Parthasarathi, Why
Europe Grew Rich and Asia Did Not: Global Economic Divergence, 1600–1850
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011); Harbans Mukhia, ‘Agricultural
Technology in Medieval North India’, in Harbans Mukhia, Exploring India’s
Medieval Centuries: Essays in History, Society, Culture and Technology, 277–306
(New Delhi: Aakar Books, 2010).
4. Environmental history is a dynamic and growing field; while it may be rooted
in ‘older questions’ of medieval history, it takes advantage of new and exciting
sources and methods and explores themes such as climate and ecological history,
the history of agriculture and water, and landscape and religious studies, and
it facilitates a look at the catalysts for human change. Defined as that which
deals with the role and place of nature in human life, environmental history
has been described as ‘an unevenly spreading blob’. Formulations such as
these reflect wide array of methods and approaches, and studies from different
regions and periods. In fact, one of the significant features of environmental
history is its competence to derive from the insights and techniques of several
disciplines, and then to combine them in novel and often provocative ways
of its own. See Ellen F. Arnold, ‘An Introduction to Medieval Environmental
History’, History Compass 6, no. 3 (2008): 898–916, see in particular 898;
Donald Worster, ‘Doing Environmental History’, in The Ends of the Earth:
Perspectives on Modern Environmental History, ed. Donald Worster, 289–308
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); H. Ritvo, ‘Discipline and
Indiscipline’, Environmental History 10, no. 1 (2005): 75–76. To understand
various directions of environmental history, see Adam Rome, Michael Bess,

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 Through the Prism of Environmental History155

Tamara Giles-Vernick, Angela Gugliotta, Ramachandra Guha, Marcus Hall,

David Igler et al., ‘Anniversary Forum: What’s Next for Environmental
History’, Environmental History 10, no. 1 (2005): 30–109; David Arnold and
Ramachandra Guha, ‘Introduction’, in Nature, Culture, Imperialism: Essays
on Environmental History of South Asia, ed. David Arnold and Ramachandra
Guha, 1–20 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1995), 4.
5. There were shared historical processes and long-term trends that accelerated
during this period and deeply influenced human-induced environmental
changes in a later period during the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. In
fact, it reflected profound continuities that linked the environmental history
of the early modern and modern worlds. See John F. Richards, The Unending
Frontier: An Environmental History of the Early Modern World (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2003), 1–3, 22.
6. Pargana was a piece of territory delimited by Mughal administration for revenue
and administrative purposes.
7. Irfan Habib, Man and Environment: The Ecological History of India, A People’s
History of India 36 (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2010), 88–89. Also see Shireen
Moosvi, The Economy of the Mughal Empire c. 1595: A Statistical Study (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987); Shireen Moosvi, People, Taxation and
Trade in Mughal India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press), 2008.
8. Shireen Moosvi, ‘Ecology, Population Distribution and Settlement Pattern in
Mughal India’, in Moosvi, People, Taxation and Trade, 89–102, see 89, 92–93.
9. Habib, Man and Environment, 94–95. Also see Moosvi, ‘Ecology, Population
Distribution and Settlement Pattern’, 93; Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan
Habib (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of India, vol. 1: c. 1200–c. 1750
(New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1984), 6.
10. Francisco Pelsaert, Jahangir’s India: The Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert,
trans. W. H. Moreland and P. Geyl (Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1925), 48.
11. Ali Muhammad Khan, Mi’rat-i Ahmadi, vol. 1, ed. Nawab Ali (Baroda:
Oriental Institute, 1927), 214. Also see Abdul Hamid Lahori, Padshahnama,
vols. 1–2, ed. Kabiruddin Ahmad and Abdur Rahim (Calcutta: Bibliotheca
Indica, 1867–1872).
12. Richards, Unending Frontier, 4–6. Also see John F. Richards, ‘Only a World
Perspective Is Significant: Settlement Frontiers and Property Rights in Early
Modern World History’, in Earth, Air, Fire, Water: Humanistic Studies of the
Environment, ed. Jill Conway, Kenneth Keniston, and Leo Marx, 102–119
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999); Piers M. Blaikie and
H. C. Brookfield, Land Degradation and Society (London: Methuen, 1987),
12; Meena Bhargava, State, Society and Ecology: Gorakhpur in Transition,
1750–1830, revised edition (New Delhi: Primus Books, 2014), 33–35.

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 156 Meena Bhargava

13. Sarkar was a territorial subdivision of a suba, containing a group of usually

contiguous parganas.
14. Irfan Habib, An Atlas of the Mughal Empire (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 1982), Map 8B, 29.
15. James Rennell, Memoirs of a Map of Hindustan, reprint (Patna:
N.V. Publications, 1975).
16. Jama was the amount of revenue assessed on an individual, village, or larger
area, or a standard estimate of net revenue for the purpose of jagir assignment.
17. Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the
Punjab, 1707–48 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986), 103. Also see
Bhargava, State, Society and Ecology, xvi-xvii,
18. See Mayank Kumar, ‘Ecology, Social Stratification and Agrarian Production
in Medieval Rajasthan’, in Medieval India, vol. 3: Researches in the History
of India, ed. B. L. Bhadani, 257–270 (New Delhi: Manohar, 2012), see
especially 258.
19. For more details, see David Ludden, An Agrarian History of South Asia, The
New Cambridge History of India, vol. 4.4 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), 130–140, 148–150.
20. Mayank Kumar, Monsoon Ecologies, Irrigation, Agriculture and Settlement
Patterns in Rajasthan during the Pre-Colonial Period (New Delhi: Manohar,
2013), 15–16.
21. Kathleen D. Morrison, ‘Environmental History, the Spice Trade and the State
in South India’, in India’s Environmental History: From Ancient Times to the
Colonial Period, vol. 1, ed. Mahesh Rangarajan and K. Sivaramakrishnan,
296–326 (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2012); Kathleen D. Morrison,
‘Conceiving Ecology and Stopping the Clock: Narratives of Balance, Loss and
Degradation’, in Shifting Ground: People, Animals, and Mobility in India’s
Environmental History, ed. Mahesh Rangarajan and K. Sivaramakrishnan,
39–64 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014).
22. Richard Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997); Richards, Unending Frontier,
1–3; Chetan Singh, Region and Empire: Punjab in the Seventeenth Century
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991).
23. Singh, Region and Empire; Chetan Singh, Natural Premises: Ecology and
Peasant Life in the Western Himalaya, 1800–1950 (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1998).
24. Jos Gommans, Mughal Warfare, Indian Frontiers and High Roads to Empire,
1500–1700 (London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 202.
25. Gommans, Mughal Warfare, 201. Also see Rangarajan and Sivaramakrishnan
(eds.), Shifting Ground, 10.

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 Through the Prism of Environmental History157

26. Rangarajan and Sivaramakrishnan (eds.), India’s Environmental History, vol. 1,

1, 8.
27. Richard Grove, Ecology, Climate and Empire: The Indian Legacy in Global
Environmental History, 1400–1940, (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
1998), 56, 186.
28. S. H. Hodivala, Studies in Indo-Muslim History: A Critical Commentary on
Elliot and Dowson’s History of India, vol. 1 (Bombay: Popular Book Depot,
1957), 226–229.
29. Sunil Kumar, The Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate (Ranikhet: Permanent
Black, 2007), 283–285.
30. Habib, Man and Environment, 95.
31. Kumar, Emergence of the Delhi Sultanate, 333–336.
32. Shireen Moosvi, ‘Man and Nature in Mughal Era’, Indian History Congress,
54th Session (Mysore, 1993), Thematic Symposium, Symposia Papers 5 (New
Delhi: Indian History Congress, 1993), 1–33.
33. Buchanan Hamilton, ‘An Account of the Northern Part of the District of
Gorakhpur’, Book IV, MSS Eur D 91–93 (India Office Library, London),
91. Also see Abu Talib, Tafzi’hul Ghafilin, trans. William Hoey as History of
Asafu’d Daulah (Lucknow: Pustak Kendra, 1971), p. 56.
34. Ghazala Shahabuddin, Conservation at the Crossroads, Science, Society and the
Future of India’s Wildlife (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2010), x; Laeeq Futehally,
Our Environment (New Delhi: National Book Trust, 2004 [2000]), 33.
35. ‘Micro-climate’ refers to a set of climatic conditions, measured at a very local
level, which directly affects the growth and reproduction of animals and plants.
See Shahabuddin, Conservation at the Crossroads, x.
36. Shahabuddin, Conservation at the Crossroads, x.
37. Futehally, Our Environment, 33.
38. J. A. Voelcker, Report on the Improvement of Agriculture (London: Eyre and
Spottiswoode, 1893), 109–110. Also see Bhargava, State, Society and Ecology, 34.
39. Gunnel Cederlof and Mahesh Rangarajan, ‘Predicaments of Power and Nature
in India: An Introduction’, Conservation and Society 7, no. 4 (2009): 221–226,
see 223.
40. Paul E. Little, ‘Environments and Environmentalisms in Anthropological
Research: Facing a New Millennium’, Annual Review of Anthropology 28
(1999): 253–284, see particularly 262–263. Also see Xinru Liu, ‘Migration
and Settlement of the Yuezhi-Kushan, Interaction and Interdependence of
Nomadic and Sedentary Society’, in India and Central Asia, ed. Xinru Liu,
73–108 (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2012), 73, 102; Arun Agrawal and
K. Sivaramakrishnan (eds.), Social Nature: Resources, Representations, and Rule
in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2001), 5–6.

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 158 Meena Bhargava

41. Shereen Ratnagar, The Other Indians: Essays on Pastoralists and Prehistoric
Tribal People (New Delhi: Three Essays Collective, 2004), xi, 97–98.
42. Chetan Singh, ‘Conformity and Conflict: Tribes and the “Agrarian System” of
Mughal India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 23, no. 3 (1988):
319–340, reproduced in Exploring Medieval India, Sixteenth to Eighteenth
Centuries: Politics, Economy, Religion, vol. 1, ed. Meena Bhargava, 259–286
(New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2010).
43. Chetan Singh, ‘Forests, Pastoralists and Agrarian Society in Mughal India’,
in Frontiers of Environment: Issues in Medieval and Early Modern India, ed.
Meena Bhargava, 71–97 (Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2017), originally
published in Nature, Culture, Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History
of South Asia, ed. David Arnold and Ramachandra Guha, 21–48 (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1995).
44. Ludden, Agrarian History of South Asia, 49.
45. See, Richards, ‘Only a World Perspective Is Significant’; Richards, Unending
Frontier, 4–10; Ludden, Agrarian History of South Asia, 16, 18, 49, 60.
46. Morrison, ‘Environmental History, the Spice Trade and the State in South
India’, 296–325.
47. Singh, ‘Forests, Pastoralists and Agrarian Society in Mughal India’, 71–97
48. Moosvi, ‘Man and Nature in Mughal Era’.
49. Daniel Esty and Marian Chertow (eds.), Thinking Ecologically: The Next
Generation of Environmental Policy (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1997), 45.
50. Buchanan Hamilton, ‘An Account of the Northern Part of the District of
Gorakhpur’, Book III, Mss Eur D 91–93 (India Office Library, London), 55.
Also see David Hardiman, ‘Power in the Forests: The Dangs, 1820–1940’,
in Subaltern Studies 8, ed. David Arnold and David Hardiman, 89–147
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994), 105.
51. ‘Memorial Fragments of Azubah Clark’ (Extracts from Her Diary and Letters),
compiled by H. Clark, 1830, Mss Eur A 185 (India Office Library, London),
55. Also see Louisa Edwards, ‘Illustrated Diary of a Journey to India’, BM Add
Mss, 43809–43813 (British Museum, London); Bhargava, State, Society and
Ecology, 36–37; Bhargava ‘Forests, People and State: Continuities and Changes’,
Economic and Political Weekly 37, no. 43 (26 October 2002): 4440–4446, also
published in Bhargava (ed.), Exploring Medieval India, vol. 1, 287–306.
52. J. T. Brown to C. M. Rickets, 20 October 1803, Report on the Commerce and
Customs of the Ceded Provinces, Board of Trade – Commercial Proceedings,
vol. 172, 3–27 April 1804 (West Bengal State Archives, Kolkata). Also see
Muzaffar Alam, ‘Eastern India in the Early Eighteenth Century “Crisis”:
Some Evidence from Bihar’, Indian Economic and Social History Review

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 Through the Prism of Environmental History159

28, no. 1 (1991): 43–71, see 66; Alam, The Crisis of Empire, 98; Moosvi,
‘Man and Nature in Mughal Era’, 13; Bhargava, ‘Forests, People and State’,
294–295.
53. See Singh, ‘Forests, Pastoralists and Agrarian Society in Mughal India’, 71–97.
54. Nankari, or nankar, was an allowance for khidmat, or service, performed by the
zamindars in collecting and remitting land revenue. It was granted in the form
of a deduction from the revenue paid or in the form of revenue-free land.
55. Alam, ‘Eastern India in the Early Eighteenth Century “Crisis”’, 66; Alam,
The Crisis of Empire, 98; Satish Chandra, ‘Role of the Local Community, the
Zamindars and the State in Providing Capital Inputs for the Improvement
and Expansion of Cultivation’, in Satish Chandra, Medieval India: Society,
Jagirdari Crisis and the Village, 166–183 (New Delhi: Macmillan, 1982), 175;
Singh, ‘Forests, Pastoralists and Agrarian Society in Mughal India’.
56. Buchanan Hamilton, ‘An Account of the Northern Part of the District of
Gorakhpur’, Book III, Mss Eur D 91–93 (India Office Library, London), 55.
Also see Bhargava, State, Society and Ecology, 36.
57. Report on the Settlement of Goruckpore-Bustee District, vol. 1 (Allahabad, 1871),
126, para 24. Also see Bhargava, State, Society and Ecology, 35–36.
58. Sumit Guha, Environment and Ethnicity, 1200–1991 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991), 28–29, 41–42, 55.
59. Secretary Sudder Board of Revenue to the Secretary to the Government NWP,
12 May 1868, Settlement of Jungle Tracts, Sl. No. 10, File No. 12, Box 3, Board
of Revenue, NWP-Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh State Archives, Lucknow). Also
see Bhargava, State, Society and Ecology, 33–51; Meena Bhargava and John
F. Richards, ‘Defining Property Rights in Land in Colonial India: Gorakhpur
Region in the Indo-Gangetic Plain’, in Land, Property, and The Environment,
ed. John F. Richards, 235–262 (Oakland, CA: Institute for Contemporary
Studies, 2002).
60. R. M. Bird to Officiating Member of the Sudder Board of Revenue, in-charge
of unsettled divisions, 20 October 1829, Bengal Revenue Department, Right
of Government to forest lands and their products in Gorakhpur, Board
Collections, 1833–1834, vol. 1410, F/4/1410, 55691 (India Office Library,
London). Also see Bhargava, State, Society and Ecology, 36–38.
61. Mahesh Rangarajan, ‘Imperial Agendas and India’s Forests: The Early History
of Indian Forestry, 1800–78’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 31,
no. 2 (1994): 147–167, see in particular 152. Also see Bhargava, State, Society
and Ecology, 45–48.
62. Mahal was a territorial unit for revenue purposes, identical with pargana.
63. Secretary to Government in the Department of Ceded Provinces to Thomas
Graham, 11 October 1804, Proceedings Board of Revenue – Fort William,

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 160 Meena Bhargava

vol. 9, September-October 1804 (Uttar Pradesh State Archives, Lucknow).

Also see Deputy Secretary to Government, Revenue Department Fort William
to Sudder Board of Revenue on deputation, 26 July 1831, Gorakhpur District,
Settlement of Wastelands, Pre-Mutiny: Land Revenue Records, 1830–1837
(National Archives of India, New Delhi); Bhargava, State, Society and Ecology,
45–51.
64. R. M. Bird to Officiating Member of the Sudder Board of Revenue, in-charge
of unsettled divisions, 20 October 1829, Bengal Revenue Department, Right
of Government to forest lands and their products in Gorakhpur, Board
Collections, 1833–1834, vol. 1410, F/4/1410, 55691 (India Office Library,
London). Also see Bhargava, State, Society and Ecology, 45–51.
65. Cederlof and Rangarajan, ‘Predicaments of Power and Nature in India’, 222;
Shahabuddin, Conservation at the Crossroads, xiv.
66. Anil Agrawal, ‘An Indian Environmentalist’s Credo’, in Social Ecology, ed.
Ramachandra Guha, 346–386 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994), 347.
67. Cederlof and Rangarajan, ‘Predicaments of Power and Nature in India’, 222.

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 8
The Early Modern Conundrum
Peninsular India and the Idea of Periodization in a
‘Regional’ Perspective

Ranjeeta Dutta

The idea of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries comprising the early modern
period has gradually and reluctantly acquired a certain currency in historical
research. Nonetheless, it continues to remain an uncomfortable and nagging
conundrum for ‘medieval’ Indian history, located conventionally between the
thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. The condition of the early medieval, located
approximately from the sixth to the twelfth centuries, was for a long time met with
similar suspicion and uneasiness, though it is now a part of the historical canon.1
While periodization has cognitively and conceptually structured time in history
into the frames of ancient, medieval, and modern, it has also marginalized those
areas and themes of historical investigation that do not conform to the categories
of analysis comprising these time frames. This is what has given rise to newer
categories for studying these marginalized subjects. However, notwithstanding
the new challenges and excitement that these subjects have produced in historical
research, they have often continued to remain marginal in university curriculum
and classroom pedagogy. This chapter argues that the history of South India
has conventionally appeared as the ‘regional’ exception within the frame of
the medieval in Indian history. To address this, I emphasize the importance of
alternate temporal frameworks like the early medieval and early modern to salvage
the historical identity of South India and acknowledge its significance in academic
research.
This chapter focuses on three issues. First, I discuss the idea of the medieval
as a conceptual category and chronological construct in Indian history. Though
there have been several writings in the recent past on the category of the medieval
and its relevance in history writing, the emphasis here is on pointing out their
implications.2 I argue that the study of the medieval in Indian history, with its
association with specific historical processes, is somewhat limited and exclusionary;
this has in turn tended to influence pedagogical and research practices in Indian
universities. Second, I argue that the chronological categories of the early medieval
and the early modern provide frames of analysis that include a wide range of

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 162 Ranjeeta Dutta

historical processes which till now have remained marginalized within the rubric
of the medieval. Third, I focus on the historical processes in South Indian history
from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries to argue that these comprise the
early modern in the history of the region. While others have highlighted the role of
shared experiences like the emergence of greater connections, global passageways,
and transcontinental commerce in the rise of early modernity, there were also
significant stimuli from within the subcontinent that contributed to the making
of this historical condition during this period.3 In this context, I will discuss the
development of political and sacred geography, and the interactions between the
two against the background of changing settlement patterns. I argue that these
historical processes created a wider network of circulation and movement, which
significantly influenced the idea of a region itself. At the same time, I emphasize
that the onset of early modernity did not signify a total disjuncture from the
medieval past; rather, there were elements of continuity. Colonial modernity was
not completely disconnected from the medieval and early modern pasts of Indian
history either. Their interactions were mediated by various historical processes,
leading to different experiences of the modern, and in turn, producing subjective
modernities.

Violence of Periodization in Indian History

Unlike the conceptual categories of the early medieval and the early modern, the
medieval has hardly been problematized, debated, or discussed as a valid frame
of periodization for Indian history. The chronological span of the medieval
conventionally ranges from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries – a trend
that began with the early nineteenth-century writings of James Mill and has
continued into the present times.4 The category of empire, the idea of political
centralization influencing economic processes, religious developments mostly in
terms of Sufism and Bhakti, and the notion of the ubiquitous use of the Persian
language have dominated not only the research of this so-called medieval period but
also its curriculum and pedagogy at universities. The establishment and decline of
ruling dynasties – the Delhi Sultanate (early thirteenth to early sixteenth centuries)
and the Mughal Empire (early sixteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries) – have
traditionally determined the chronological limits and themes of various studies for
this period in Indian history. The imperial framework dominated political history
for a long time. Though state-formations were examined in terms of social and
political processes, they were often reduced to a teleological analysis that would
emphasize the indispensability of a centralized state. For a long time, any historical
development or process that did not conform to this general framework remained

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 The Early Modern Conundrum163

neglected. The one important exception was a slim compendium published in

1970 on political formations in different regions in the centuries between the
establishment and decline of the Delhi Sultanate.5 Issues of social hierarchies –
caste, varna, jati, and tribes – were rarely discussed for the longest time in the
study of Indian history for the so-called medieval period, as if these issues were
marginal to its understanding.
Roughly from the 1990s, certain shifts in historical research that were initiated
almost three decades back emerged as the basis of several new themes. Sources in
languages other than Persian, especially those in Rajasthani and Marathi, came
to provide much-needed relief to the overwhelming domination of Persian as a
source language. However, sources in these vernaculars were read around this
time primarily within the hegemonic framework of Mughal history. They became
important only as they were seen to be replicating the style of Mughal documents,
and their histories were considered to be relevant only as a counterpoint or a
complement to Mughal texts in Persian. Hence, while the Rajputs and Marathas
dominated the histories of the regions of what we know today as Rajasthan and
Maharashtra, other actors continued to remain marginalized.
As mentioned earlier, political processes that followed different trajectories
outside the dominant Sultanate–Mughal imperial framework were treated as
aberrations for a long time. Termed as ‘regional’, their historical importance
remained marginal in history textbooks. In such a context, regional kingdoms
emerged as counterpoints to the Delhi Sultanate and the Mughal Empire at
particular moments in history, especially in the intervening period between the
decline of the Sultanate and the advent of the Mughals. It was assumed until
recently that since these regional kingdoms were not empires, they were not
centralized; they were weak, short-lived, and their very existence – instead of the
presence of a big empire – represented a phase of chaos and confusion. Thus, the
phrase ‘regional’ came to denote a certain hierarchy of historical trajectories, and
the history of southern India came to occupy a low position in this hierarchy.6
Mohammad Habib and K. A. Nizami’s edited volume, A Comprehensive History
of India, reflects this understanding of history.
In many ways, some of the dominant historical trends that came to be
characterized as medieval – the coming of Islam, ubiquitous presence of the
Persian language, centralized states, the binary of empire and region, certain
religious policies, and the selective relevance of some polities (especially the
Mughal Empire) made the history of the peninsular region itself somewhat
exceptional.7 This exceptionalism was further highlighted when history-writing
on the medieval period delineated a composite geographical space called ‘South

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 164 Ranjeeta Dutta

India’ with an ostensibly distinct homogeneous political and cultural identity.

Such distinctiveness acquired legitimacy in the writings of history, which
underlined a distinct trajectory called the ‘History of South India’. In this historical
imagination, South India was understood as ‘a region characterized by a high
degree of sharing of significant social, cultural and political elements and an order
of interaction such as to constitute a viable unit for the study of certain problems’.8
The kinship system based on cross-cousin and uncle–niece marriages, specific
settlement patterns comprising the inimitable nadus, the brahman villages called
brahmadeyas, the ubiquitous temples, and, most significantly, specific languages
and linguistic cultures – these came to be considered as the characteristics of
this constructed image of South India.9 Thus, in many ways, the South came to
represent a challenge, especially in the medieval time frame, as its histories had
repercussions in generating counter-categories that impeded the forging of cultural
unity of the nation. Such a separate treatment by historiography is related to how
a certain space was imagined in history and the process through which modern
history-writing gradually became synonymous with a specific geographical and
cultural construct of a region – both regarded as commensurable to each other.
K. A. Nilakantha Sastri pointed out that ‘in general histories of India, the
part of the country with which we are concerned figures in a small way … on any
view the history of South India is an integral and not the least interesting part
of the history of India’.10 It was against this backdrop that Sastri felt the need to
write a separate history of the south, which according to him was ‘all the land
lying south of the Vindhyas’.11 However, his treatment of the themes was always
in conformity with the historiography of the general histories of India. In these
histories, South India was shown to have centralized states with model institutions
of local self-governance that were older than those in the ‘North’ and in many
ways superior to them. For him, the periods that did not have ‘stable’ states did not
merit any discussion. Thus, the phase following the decline of the Vijayanagara
Empire (c. 1336–1672) in the sixteenth century and before the eighteenth went
missing from the early history textbooks on South India, although this period was
characterized by vibrant polities and cultures under various nayaka dispensations,
especially those of Madurai, Tanjavur, and Ikkeri.12
This category of ‘South India’ in turn discursively produced certain regions
with distinct cultural types within the space of peninsular India – one influenced
by Sanskrit, Hinduism, and temples with a focus on the Tamil region; the other
influenced by Islam, Persian, and the northern culture with a focus on the Deccan.
The provenance of this regional binary can be traced to the formation of the Madras
and Bombay Presidencies in the colonial period.13 The history of the Vijayanagara

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 The Early Modern Conundrum165

Empire and its territorial expanse stretching from Goa to Madurai for nearly three
hundred years, the movement of various social groups from dry to wet regions
integrating Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu linguistic regions, and the circulation of
religious and intellectual ideas across boundaries – all challenging the simplistic
notion of an ostensible ‘clash of civilizations’ between the ‘Hindu South’ and the
‘Muslim Deccan’ were virtually ignored in this historiography.14
Within the broad frame of South India, scholarly attention traditionally
remained focused on certain areas, especially the Tamil region and its language.
Indeed, the development of the Madras School of Orientalism and linguistic
exercise under Francis Ellis at the College of Fort St George in the nineteenth
century to produce a Dravidian proof underscoring the significance of the
Dravidian language family set the tone for prioritizing Tamil over other southern
languages.15 In reality, however, there have always been distinct identities that have
asserted themselves at different points in time – a fact that challenges the discursive
homogeneity imposed by the overwhelming thrust on Tamil language and culture.
This is exemplified in the historiography of the origins of the Vijayanagara state.
N. Venkataramanyya argues for a Telugu origin of the Vijayanagara state and B. A.
Saletore for a Kannada one.16 Thus, even the idea of what comprises the space
and history of the invented category of ‘South India’ has never been completely
homogeneous, and this has continued to date.
Recent historiography has attempted to reduce the tyranny of the medieval
time frame through research on the Vijayanagara Empire. But one cannot help
one’s cynicism about the existing histories of the Vijayanagara political formation.
Guided by priorities set by the historiography of the Mughal Empire, the analytical
focus here has remained largely on the nayaṅkara system (a form of military
tenure), the capital city at Hampi, the ruler Krishnadevaraya (c. 1509–1529),
and the state’s engagement with the Deccan Sultanates, especially the Bahamanis
(c. 1347–1527).17 In the process, various other themes like agrarian history,
changing settlement patterns, demographic diversity and migrations, multiple
political systems, shifting centres of political power, and forms of production and
technology have been ignored.
Despite many discussions on periodization and the emergence of fresh
analytical categories like the early medieval and the early modern, we still find
the issue of periodization vexing. University departments continue to reflect the
traditional tripartite division in their curriculum and teaching positions. The
period of the early medieval has mostly been considered a part of early Indian
historical scholarship and has usually been kept separate from the study of medieval
Indian history. For instance, the history of the Cholas, considered a part of the

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 166 Ranjeeta Dutta

early medieval in historical research, still appears in the curriculum of ancient

Indian history in the functioning of most universities. The Chola state in addition
has always been treated separately from the Vijayanagara kingdom, which is seen
as a part of the medieval period. This has created many artificial separations in the
historical processes of transition between the two political formations, considering
that there were elements of continuity from the Chola period that influenced
Vijayanagara state and society.

New Periodization, New Possibilities

Since the periodization of the medieval limits the range of historical analysis, the
categories of early medieval and early modern – with their wider historiographical
possibilities – have in many ways fostered new forms of historical writings.
The category of the early medieval refers to the period between the beginning
of the seventh century and the beginning of the thirteenth century. It has been
described as a period of change or transition from the early historical (ancient)
to the medieval. The historical processes that emerged during this period along
with certain elements of continuity from the early period set the tone for historical
tendencies since the thirteenth century. Developed as a reaction against the
concept of disintegration and decline following the decline of the Guptas in the
sixth century, the category of the early medieval focuses on the idea of historical
processes as opposed to event-based histories. The proponents of this category feel
that this period was significant in terms of regional histories, especially regional
developments in economy and society. This regionalism, according to them, lent
dynamism to Indian history in the subsequent period and was an expression of
vibrant heterogeneous regional cultures. In recent years, these interventions have
allowed historiographical discussions to be concentrated on the southern, eastern,
and western parts of the subcontinent, as a move away from the traditional thrust
on the northern parts, especially the Indo-Gangetic plains.18 In many ways, the
early medieval thus presents a historically sensitive schema that helps delineate
complex historical processes like the expansion of state-society both horizontally
and vertically, the evolution of polities ‘from chiefdom to early kingdom to imperial
kingdom’, the growth of the regional societies simultaneous with the integration
of tribal cults into the larger pantheon and ‘peasantization of the tribal societies’.19
Over time, the analysis of state-formation in the early medieval period shifted
from an overwhelming focus on dynastic changes, events, and stimuli from outside
(invasions and wars) to social and economic dynamism from within. Historical
research on the southern Indian polities could connect with this analytical
framework because it provided analytical pathways to a complex gamut of

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 The Early Modern Conundrum167

historical processes in regions other than those in the Gangetic plains. For instance,
the peasantization of tribes, agrarian expansion, social mobility, interactions
between religious traditions, creation of hegemonic political ideologies, issues of
legitimation, and the spread of state-societies – all identified with the study of the
early medieval – could be applied to various regions including different parts of
peninsular India. In this way, the emergence of the category of the early medieval
has helped the cause of the historical analysis of South India.
Similarly, the category of the early modern has helped the analysis of
fundamental and general historical processes that can further enrich the
understanding of southern Indian history. The proponents of the category of
early modernity argue that the Western world cannot be considered instrumental
in ushering in modernity in South Asia. According to them, the historical
processes between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries exhibited indigenous
characteristics of an early modernity that set them apart from the medieval. This
early modernity emerged in conversation with India’s interaction with the global
world, which influenced its new indigenous processes. This set the tone for the
emergence of colonial modernity in the nineteenth century, the nature of which
was influenced by the Indian early modernity.20 Since the advocates of the early
modern have been mainly revisionists, the historians of medieval Indian history
within the Indian academia have looked upon these new histories with suspicion
and disdain. Further, according to some historians, there are limitations of early
modern historiography which, while emphasizing ‘various elements of modernity’
in ‘indigenous’ cultural forms ‘have often relied on the very tropes of the “medieval”
that were once used to consign the Mughal empire to a backward ‘medieval
period’.21 What can be said in response is that since the idea of historical transition
is at the heart of periodization, it is expected that the concept of early modern
will underscore the transition from the medieval. However, this does not mean
that medieval times were backward and regressive. Rather, some of the historical
processes of the medieval foreshadowed historical trajectories that characterized
the early modern. In other words, the advent of early modernity did not engender
a surgical break from the medieval. While a new-found global connectedness and
its consequent influence on South Asian society indeed proved crucial in the
production of early modernity, there were also significant pre-existent stimuli
within the subcontinent that contributed eminently to this process.
The discussion in the following pages empirically demonstrates the meanings
of the early modern in southern India through the changing historical processes
that modified settlement patterns since the fourteenth century. The changes in
these settlement patterns led to connections and interactions between the dry

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 168 Ranjeeta Dutta

upland zones and fertile wet regions, with a simultaneous rise of warrior classes
and newer agrarian elites who gradually challenged and replaced the older ruling
elites. The socio-economic process generated the migration of various professional
groups from one part of southern India to another, a phenomenon that was limited
before the fourteenth century. The resultant opening of new areas of settlements
and the rise of diverse social groups led to invigorated interactions between and
integration of the Tamil, Kannada, and Telugu linguistic zones. All this formed
the backdrop to the establishment of the Vijayanagara state in the fourteenth
century.22 This was accompanied by different imaginaries and practices of political
and sacred geographies. On one hand, the older areas were terra incognita for
the rising warrior groups. The conquest and occupation of these places created
a ‘geographic other’ for them. On the other hand, new conceptions of political
geographies occurred simultaneously with the development of sacred geographies
reflected in the expanding pilgrimage networks and literature since the fifteenth
century. Already present as a normative ideal in the textual traditions of the Shaiva
and Srivaishnava communities, the pilgrimage was crucial in the circulation of
the population through the creation of supra-local networks which gradually
saw political consolidation. These developments marked the transition from the
medieval to the early modern, a transition from local spheres of interaction to
trans-local networks of transmission, movement, and distribution.

Settlement Patterns, Regional Configurations,

and the Idea of a Region
Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, the Chola state policy of granting
land to the brahmans and important officials eroded the traditional common
rights over land and promoted individualistic landed relations resulting in an
unprecedented rise in powerful individual landholders.23 The growing number of
landed titles – like udaiyan, araiyan, nadalvan, and brahmanrayan – bestowed by
the Chola state indicate a rise in the number of powerful landed individuals. This
affected the common holdings in villages, or urs, where the population comprised
the non-brahman Velalas. This led to a stratification of rural society, comprising
a landed class, a class of cultivators, tenants, and landless peasants. Hill tribes,
who had joined the Chola army, gradually also became a part of agrarian society
by acquiring a landed base that transformed their social status from wandering
martial groups to new sedentized jatis.
This change in the traditional agrarian landscape gradually ruined the erstwhile
brahman landholders by the thirteenth century. Epigraphical evidence refers to the
sale of land by the brahmans of the brahmadeyas to repay their debts. The decline

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 The Early Modern Conundrum169

of the traditional agrarian society led to tensions between the older and emerging
landed classes. The focus of agrarian production gradually shifted to temples,
which started emerging as central in the rural landscape as agrarian institutions
expanded the agricultural base in the thirteenth century. Land grants to temples
generated extensive agrarian activities. Controlled by rulers and rural elites, the
temple cultivated the land through its religious functionaries. The returns from
this form of agriculture were shared between the state, rural groups, and the
temple in a certain proportion, decided by a prior agreement. Epigraphical records
provide rich evidence on this matter.
Since the Kaveri delta – the core of the agrarian settlements – was already
saturated and the nadus, or the peasant ecotypes, had exhausted their capability,
alternate areas of agricultural development emerged around this time with the
spread of tank irrigation. This occurred not only in the dry areas of the Tamil
region but also in the arid ecologically hostile areas of the Deccan. The expansion
of agriculture in the core riverine areas of the Kaveri, Pennar, Tamraparani, and
Krishna–Godavari led to competitive resource appropriation. The circulation of
peasant groups and agricultural specialists like tank diggers accompanied this during
this period. These groups had previously migrated from the Kannada and Telugu
regions to the Tamil region. Further, there was a movement of warrior chieftains
from areas of marginal resources to the wet riverine regions. The settlement of
the migratory Telugu or the Vaduga groups in the central Deccan and the Tamil
wet regions often displaced the older Tamil peasants and landholders, creating
a new class of landed magnates with new groups of artisans and merchants.
Consequently, the processes of migration integrated the dry upland areas and the
river valleys of Kaveri and Tamraparani. These changes provided the context for the
emergence of a warrior–peasant class, powerful both economically and politically,
and primarily non-brahman and Telugu in composition. A new class of itinerant
merchants and traders also emerged at the same time. Inscriptional references to
the pattanulkar (silk weavers) from Saurashtra point to the development of brisk
trade and increased craft production around this time.
Thus, changing settlement patterns, the rise of individual landed rights
eroding collective ones, growing prominence of temples, migrations of various
social groups, and circulation of resources together transformed the restricted
areas of interactions in the Tamil region to create larger spaces and networks of
integration across the entire peninsular region. The historical processes that
led to the creation of these supra-local networks had already commenced in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with changing land rights and settlement
patterns. The latter, in turn, set the tone for the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

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 170 Ranjeeta Dutta

in terms of the political consolidation across these supra-local networks. It is in this

context that the Vijayanagara kingdom was established with its capital at Hampi
in the north Karnataka region in the second half of the fourteenth century. The
southward expansion and development of the state encompassing almost the entire
peninsula occurred only by the end of the fourteenth century and the beginning of
the fifteenth. This finally got consolidated and integrated in the sixteenth century
under the Vijayanagara king, Krishnadevaraya.
Straddling different regions within the peninsula, these networks influenced
political ideologies and constructed a certain kind of political geography for
mapping the conquered areas. Defining the royal self, prashastis (introductory
portions) and political narratives articulated the imperial vision by metaphorically
describing the lands to be conquered as a geographical ‘other’. Moral decadence,
the misery of the inhabitants, desolate temples with no festivals, and a tyrannical
ruler would routinely be the characteristics ascribed to regions that were to be
conquered. One of the earliest chronicles that in many ways set the tone was the
Madhuravijayam, also called the Kampanacharita.24 The text was composed in the
fourteenth century by Gangadevi – the queen of the hero Kumara Kampana, the
son of the king Bukka. It describes the southern campaigns, especially to Madurai,
ruled by Alauddin Sikandar Shah. He was a descendant of Jalaluddin Ahsan Khan,
the Khalji governor of Madurai who revolted around 1335 CE and established
an independent sultanate. After the introductory portions, the text informs us
that when prince Kampana grew up, his father Bukka advised him on his royal
duties and pointed to the work that lay before him. Thereafter, Kampana marched
southwards, subduing several forest chiefs and eliminating king Sambuvaraya
of the Tondaimandalam region in a fierce battle. After describing this battle in
considerable detail the narrative tells us that a goddess appeared before Kampana,
describing the miserable plight of this southern country in the hands of the
Turushkas or the Yavanas as a Dark Age, or Kaliyuga. She says: ‘The Vedas have
ended. Reason has disappeared. The voice of dharma is silent. Good conduct is
gone. Noble birth is set aside.’25 Thereafter, Kampana goes to Madurai, routs the
Turkish (Turushka) forces, and beheads the Sultan. Gangadevi ends her narrative
with Kampana being crowned and peace returning: ‘With the Yavanas destroyed,
the Dravida country shone again. It shone like a luster of forests when a forest fire
has been put out. It shone like a bowl of the sky when an eclipse has just ended.
It shone like the Yamuna river after Krishna killed the serpent demon Kaliya.’26
Thus the defeat of the Sultan, undoubtedly a historic fact, was made honourable
by creating an imagined geography of a region as the evil other to be urgently
redeemed. Such narratives that collapsed the temporal–spatial idea with the social

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 The Early Modern Conundrum171

and cultural boundaries characterized early modernity in this part of the world.
While the geographic vision created a political superior, it also delineated a distinct
political identity in the pan-Indian conception of the Vijayanagara realms. Thus,
our narratives tell us that their protagonists not only conquered the peninsular
sites but also went up to the Himalayas and came back victorious to their kingdom.
This imperial geographic ideal coincided with the Puranic cosmogony of ‘the Lord
of four Oceans’ and became a significant statement of a great conqueror.
While the political chronicles of this period provided a conceptual template
of the conquered regions, the inscriptions incorporated an epic Puranic vision
of the extent of the royal territories and provided somewhat precise and concrete
details of the kingdom. Almost all the inscriptions in their introductory portion
introduce their patrons as the ‘Lord of four Oceans’ and ‘he who ruled his kingdom
on Earth’. Thankfully, for modern historians, in most cases, this is followed by
concrete geographical details of the kingdom, including those about the territories,
flora and fauna, precise regnal eras, and dynastic genealogies.
While the expansion of political geography involved a series of conquests,
changes in the settlement patterns, and the circulation of various professional
and social groups, it was also influenced by the simultaneous development of
sacred geographies and increasing control over newly conquered areas. This is best
illustrated by the visits the political elite paid to various temples along the route
of conquests, their sojourns and donations in these areas, interactions with local
social groups, and interventions in the temple administration. These indicated the
desire for exercising political control over the religious resources of the region and
its connections with sacred geography.
The descriptions of the geographical scope of conquests never missed an
opportunity to mention the temples and sacred sites conquered, especially those
that enjoyed great importance as centres of pilgrimage. There was already a vision
of sacred geography between the fifth and tenth centuries among the Shaiva and
Vaishnava communities, expressed through the hymns of their early saints – the
nayanmars and alvars, respectively. The nayanmars demarcated 274 sacred sites
for the Shaiva community and the alvars identified 108 sites for the Vaishnava
community. These sites were not only confined to the southern parts but were
present in the northern region also; this attributed a pan-subcontinental status to
Shaivism and Vaishnavism.27 However, the transition from an ideational norm, in
which each site was sanctified and associated with divine action, specific divine
presence, and physical descriptions of an area of active circulation in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries made pilgrimage an important basis for religious identities.
The actual practice of pilgrimage was reflected in the enactment of sacred

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 172 Ranjeeta Dutta

performances in festivals and rituals involving various sections of the communities,

enlarging the temple as an arena of public life. Besides, the journey to the sacred
shrines within a well-defined area of circulation strengthened the spatial identity
of the religious communities that encouraged not only the movement and
interaction of people, but also the transmission, exchange, and circulation of ideas
and beliefs.28 This made the geographic imaginary of the sacred space relevant to a
larger audience.
The concept of a divyadesa, or sacred space, emerged in the guruparamparas,
or hagiographies, from the thirteenth century onwards. This was further
developed in individual sthalapuranas, or temple texts, from the fifteenth century,
against the backdrop of the development of the temple and its activities.29 In
these guruparamparas, the notion of pilgrimage had a special function. For the
first time, pilgrimage emerged as a norm, enjoining devotees to physically visit
the shrines to attain merit and salvation. The element of obligation implied that
pilgrimage was equivalent to – and even more efficacious than – the exclusive
brahmanical rituals and sacrifices. Eulogizing the sacred importance of a particular
temple-centre within the pilgrimage network, the sthalapuranas often refashioned
the epic and Puranic narratives to a specific geographical context. Their singular
treatment of a particular site and a shrine was more to highlight the importance
of the place. By considering themselves as a part of the Sanskrit mahapuranas, the
composers of the sthalapuranas (mostly temple priests) linked the site to the larger
pan-Indian sacred tradition.
Two ideas were introduced at the close of the thirteenth century. One was
undertaking the actual journey to sacred places. Second, pilgrimage emerged as
a sociocultural institution where each site with its individual history, legends,
rituals, and deities came to be associated with the collective consciousness of the
community and transcended the southern borders, thus fostering a pan-Indian
identity. The pilgrimage network and its concurrent spatialization of the sacred sites
thus created an interconnection between the local, supra-local, and subcontinental
conceptualizations of space. For instance, in the case of the Srivaishnava
community, the distribution of the formulaic 108 sites reflects this connection.
The spatial distribution of the sites followed the traditional geographical divisions
of the Tamil country and also included Ayodhya, Badrinath, Mathura, Dwarka,
and other North Indian sites. The interconnections were further enhanced with
the cosmic bonding of these sacred regions with two celestial sites – Vaikuntham,
the Heavenly Abode of Visnu, and Tiruppadkadal, the Ocean of Milk.
However, the normative ideal of pilgrimage was not always fixed in the Shaiva
and Srivaishnava communities. It was adopted, modified, and tacitly reconciled

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 The Early Modern Conundrum173

within the practical realm of community interactions in the fourteenth and

fifteenth centuries. The pilgrimage process and its validation through mythical
narratives in the guruparamparas and sthalapuranas represented a process
by which the frontier was extended by the Vijayanagara Empire through the
integrative ability of religion. This, in turn, had implications for the sustenance
of kingship and the state. As a part of this process, those sites that had acquired
political and religious relevance since the fourteenth century were incorporated
within the frame of sacred geographies. An example of this is Melukote in
Karnataka. With a focus on the Narayanasvami temple, it was not a part of the 108
sites in the Srivaisnava pilgrimage network. But both the site and the temple had
become pilgrimage centres, more important than some of the 108 sites.
The interconnections within the sacred geographies were highlighted with the
integration of diverse social groups with a particular temple site or several sites.
For example, situated on a hilly tract in the Chandragiri area, Tirupati rose to
prominence as a Srivaishnava centre in the fourteenth century. The establishment
of the Vijayanagara political base in the Tondainadu area (close to Tirupati in the
northern Tamil zone) and the consequent patronage made Tirupati a pre-eminent
centre. Various local groups of the area, primarily comprising pastoral tribes like
the Kodavars, Irulas, and Census were integrated through the temple and its
ritual activities. The original myth of the Ahobila temple at Ahobilam (Kurnool
district, Andhra Pradesh), recorded in its sthalapuranas, presented hunter chiefs as
instrumental in the establishment of the site. An acknowledgement of their role by
the myths justified and legitimized the patronage and participation of these groups
in the administration of the Ahobilam temple.
One of the important motifs of integration was the divine marriage and the
multiple consorts of Vishnu or Shiva. In this connection, the myths used the
context of temples for projecting goddesses as spouses of the deity, where each
goddess was situated in a particular local tradition. Since the temple was analogous
to the cosmic world, the marriage between the god and the goddess was a­
re-enactment of the divine marriage that attempted to integrate and assimilate
certain sites, their local folk populations, and religious beliefs.30 The integration
of the local population through this ‘spousification’ of the goddesses also
consolidated the pilgrimage network. After all, it was the second bride who was a
focus of the pilgrimage process. In all the temples, the marriage celebrations were
an important part of the festivals and attracted numerous devotees. Very often, the
process of spousification reflected the tensions that arose with the expansion of
the religious network of the community. The tensions between the second bride
and the brahmanical bride were palpable in such instances. The brahmanical bride

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 174 Ranjeeta Dutta

would always be presented as ‘golden complexioned’, peaceful, and superior.31 The

second bride, who would be the autochthonous goddess and to whom the lord
was attracted, would be dark and earthbound. For instance, one of the Puranic
variants of the Ahobilamahatmyu, the sthalapurana of the Narasimhasvami
temple at Ahobilam is as follows:

Cencu princess being an expert huntress herself encountered lion in the forest who
transformed into a man – i.e. Narasimhavami. They fell in love and after testing his
prowess, sent him to her parents to get the consent. The parents had already heard
the glory of Narasimha from the sage Narada who also informed them that their
daughter was none other than Bhudevi herself. After their marriage, she was named
Cenculaksmi. There were frequent quarrels between Laksmi and Cenculaksmi and
ultimately, Laksmi deserted him and went away.32

This myth represented a process by which the frontier areas were extended by
the Vijayanagara Empire through the integrative paradigm of religion, therefore
having implications for the sustenance of kingship and state. Several such myths
appear in the sthalapuranas of various temples. These temple texts represented a
vision that combined the local and the pan-India, attributing the temple and its
site with a sacrality that would make it significant both in the southern regions and
in the larger pan-Indian pilgrimage network.
The conception of pilgrimage as the construction of a coherent sacred space
was not without contestation. Further tensions and conflicts were evident when
the sacred geographies and the pilgrimage networks were brought into the ambit of
shared sacrality. Interestingly, two such temple centres were the ones at Srirangam
and Tirupati, where Vaishnava and Shaiva communities clashed with each other,
each trying to appropriate the other’s sphere of control. The pilgrimage network
evolved a hierarchy, both while projecting temple geography and also in the real
sense. Some centres were of regional importance and hence enforced a regional
identity. Some others promoted a supra-local identity and drew pilgrims from all
over South India. Lastly, some pilgrimage sites became centres of religious activities
and assumed a pan-Indian status. For example, Srirangam was a major Srivaishnava
centre, and epigraphs refer to visits of the brahmans of ‘Kasmiradesa’ to it in the
fourteenth century. Similarly, in the seventeenth century, Tirupati had emerged as
the centre of Hathiram Jiyar matha, which was of North Indian origin.
Therefore, in many ways, the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries
were crucial in the circulation of populations through the creation of supra-
local networks, especially pilgrimage networks. The pilgrimage networks
mapped out a sacred geography that transcended the southern regions creating a

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 The Early Modern Conundrum175

pan-Indian identity. The resultant creation of a sacred geography of sub-continental

proportions also provided a template for trade routes, political expansion, and
movements of people. Paintings depicting temples and their respective plans
become increasingly visible around this time, particularly in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. They represented pilgrimage maps. These pictorial depictions
were not drawn on the scale and were heavy with cosmological symbolism, giving
priority to the experience of the devotee, ‘religious traditions of the place, forms of
worship, the multitude of shrines, festivals, seasons, and often important political
and social events (such as depictions of visits of royal or significant patrons, saints,
processions, and pageants)’.33 Topographic accuracy and topographic details of the
actual site thus had no relevance in the process. In general, the ‘pilgrimage maps
are, to some extent, the first indigenous attempts to depict an abstract theology, a
physical act of prayer and a sacred geography as physical representational space’.34
It is worthwhile to examine the interactions between the local and Portuguese
geographic visions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It is possible that
indigenous pictorial depictions of the region and the conceptualization of the
process of spatialization influenced Portuguese cartography of the peninsular
region. The advent of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century created another
geographic vision as well as a concept of space and region through the introduction
of European cartographic methods. Seas occupied an important place in this. It
was an integral part of the geographical imaginary of South India. The passages
through the seas created a space through which the Portuguese travellers Domingo
Paes and Fernao Nuniz arrived at Vijayanagara in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, and wrote their well-known accounts of the region, city, kingship,
festivals, and customs.35
Though influenced primarily by the new European tradition of cartography
that emerged during the Renaissance, Portuguese map-making for the Indian
subcontinent was an exercise that relied on the information and support of the
Indians themselves. The Portuguese maps focused mainly on the coast, primarily
the western coast, of India because of its economic and strategic significance.
However, the advent of Portuguese cartography did not replace the cosmographic
mappings from earlier times. It would be worthwhile to analyse whether the older
and indigenous forms of spatial imaginations interacted with the new techniques
of Portuguese map-making and if this produced new understandings of space.
Interestingly, despite the presence of various European maps and the increasing
knowledge about them, the peninsular region did not develop any indigenous
maps as per European cartography during the period under focus. Rather, the
people there continued with their own versions of visual representation of space,

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 176 Ranjeeta Dutta

sacred geographies, and pilgrimage networks in response to the immediate needs of

the society, polity, and economy.
Thus, there were multiple geographic visions of the peninsular region that
influenced and contested each other. These varied and complex geographical
imaginations produced an interconnected frame within which the ideas of the
local and the cosmopolitan circulated, and generated contesting cultural and social
identities. Edward Said’s concept of ‘imaginative geographies’ becomes relevant
here in identifying the intersections between geography and historical imagination
of space and cultural identities during this period.36 Imaginative geographies
relate to the production of geographic knowledge in the imperial world while
going beyond the techniques of cartographic mapping and focusing instead on
the cultural and symbolic politics of space and place. In this sense, new spaces are
constantly evolving and influencing not only the spatial orientation of the people
but also the geopolitics of the region.
In our case, these pressures and conflicts were spatially reflected in varying
perceptions and understandings of what constituted the ‘South’ in India. The
dynamism and fluidity inherent in all these perceptions show that South India was
never a static entity bounded by geopolitical and cultural specificities. Some ideas
emerged at certain junctures and were handed down the generations, which within
their respective sensitivities reworked or strengthened the received wisdom. Often
described as a geographical space from the vantage point of one’s existence, the
idea of the South acquired multiple meanings. Thus, there was not one South but
several such physical spaces that were considered the South, even within today’s
South India.37

Conclusion
Modernity has often been understood in terms of the creation of a sanitized
secular sphere in which religion has no public role, its practice and ideas having
been relegated to an individual’s private life. It has been rightly argued that such
an ideal of modernity is problematic for any culture, and the Indian case is no
exception.38 Recent writings have shown that religion and religious sectarianism
were an integral part of early modernity and that indigenous factors significantly
shaped the emergence of the public sphere that was informed by new ideas
about individual identities, religion, and religious identities.39 The idea of early
modernity that I have outlined in this essay remained closely associated with
religious processes. They marked at the same time a maturation of some of the
tendencies of the preceding medieval period and the advent of novel tendencies
that marked the emergence of modernity.

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 The Early Modern Conundrum177

What also emerges is that the shift from the medieval to the early modern
in peninsular India in course of the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries
needs to be understood in terms of changes in settlement patterns and circulatory
networks from the local into the supra-local. Illustrated through political and sacred
geographies and pilgrimage networks, these transformative processes challenged
localism and insularities within the southern region. This went hand in hand with
the emergence of global maritime networks, clearing of forests, rapid growth of
agriculture, development of centralized states, connected world economies, and
religious pluralism that characterized this period. Political and sacred geographies
recast the idea of the local in this wider context, with localism being the defining
characteristic of the pilgrimage sites. Connected through a supra-local network,
specific local expressions of these sites acquired a cosmopolitan outlook during
this period. It was at these interstices of the local and the global that we need to
locate the emergence of the early modern condition.

Notes
1. Brajadulal Chattopadhyay, The Making of Early Medieval India (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2012).
2. Harbans Mukhia, ‘“Medieval India”: An Alien Conceptual Hegemony?’
Medieval History Journal 1, no. 1 (1998): 91–105; Daud Ali, ‘The Idea of
Medieval in the Writing of South Asian History’, Social History 39, no. 3 (2014):
382–407. Also see Medieval History Journal. Special Issue: Contextualizing the
‘Medieval’ 1, no. 1 (1998): 3–164.
3. John F. Richards, ‘Early Modern India and World History’, Journal of World
History 8, no. 2 (1997): 197–209; Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected
Histories: Towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia’, Modern Asian
Studies 31, no. 3 (1997): 735–762; Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Hearing Voices:
Vignettes of Early Modernity in South Asia, 1400–1750’, Daedalus 127, no. 3
(1998): 75–104; Björn Wittrock, ‘Early Modernities: Varieties and Transitions’,
Daedalus 127, no. 3 (1998): 19–40.
4. James Mill, The History of British India, vol. 1 (London: Baldwin, Cradock,
and Joy, 1817).
5. Mohammad Habib and K. A. Nizami (eds.), A Comprehensive History of India:
The Delhi Sultanate (A.D. 1206–1526), vol. 5, part 2 (New Delhi: People’s
Publishing House, 1970).
6. Exceptions to this are the textbooks of Satish Chandra, Catherine Asher, and
Cynthia Talbot. Satish Chandra, History of Medieval India (New Delhi: Orient
Longman, 2007), 26–35, 138–161, 259–275; Catherine B. Asher and Cynthia

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 178 Ranjeeta Dutta

Talbot, India Before Europe (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2008),
53–83, 186–224.
7. Janaki Nair, ‘Beyond Exceptionalism: South India and the Modern Historical
Imagination’, Indian Economic Social History Review 43, no. 3 (2006): 323–347.
8. Burton Stein, Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1980), 32.
9. Stein, Peasant State and Society; Noboru Karashima, Ancient to Medieval:
South Indian Society in Transition (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2009); Noboru Karashima (ed.), Concise History of South India: Issues and
Interpretations (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014), 188–238; R.
Champakalakshmi, ‘Peasant State and Society in Medieval South India: A
Review Article’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 18, nos. 3–4
(1981): 411–426; Y. Subbarayulu, Political Geography of the Chola Country
(Madras: Government of Tamil Nadu, Department of Archaeology, 1973);
Kesavan Veluthat, Political Structure of Early Medieval South India (Delhi:
Orient Longman, 1993).
10. K. A. Nilakantha Sastri, A History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the
Fall of Vijayanagar (Madras: Oxford University Press, 1975, Fourth Edition), 1–2.
11. Sastri, A History of South India, 3.
12. For an excellent study of the Nayaka period, see Velcheru Narayana Rao, David
Shulman, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance: Court and State in
Nayaka Period Tamilnadu (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992).
13. Thomas R. Trautmann, The Madras School of Orientalism: Producing
Knowledge in Colonial South India (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2009).
14. Burton Stein, Vijayanagara: The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 1.2
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 13–30; Asher and Talbot,
India Before Europe, 53–83.
15. Thomas R. Trautmann, ‘Inventing the History of South India’, in Invoking
the Past: The Uses of History in South Asia, ed. Daud Ali, 53–70 (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2000).
16. The arguments about the origin and nature of the Vijayanagara Empire
were influenced by the rise of regional nationalism in the Madras Presidency
amongst the Kannada and Telugu speakers in the 1930s. For details, see B. A.
Saletore, Social and Political Life in the Vijayanagara Empire: A.D 1346–1646
(Madras: Paul, 1934); N. Venkataramanayya, Vijayanagara: Origin of the
City and Empire (New Delhi: Asia Educational Services, 1933 [1990]); Stein,
Vijayanagara, 5–15.
17. Stein, Vijayanagara, 31–108; Noboru Karashima, A Concordance of Nayakas:
The Vijayanagar Inscriptions in South India (New Delhi: Oxford University
Press, 2002).

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 The Early Modern Conundrum179

18. Hermann Kulke (ed.), The State in India, 1000–1700 (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1995); Chattopadhyay, Making of Early Medieval India;
Upinder Singh (ed.), Rethinking Early Medieval India: A Reader (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 2012).
19. Chattopadhyay, Making of Early Medieval India.
20. Richards, ‘Early Modern India and World History’; Subrahmanyam,
‘Connected Histories’; Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Hearing Voices: Vignettes
of Early Modernity in South Asia, 1400–1750’, Daedalus 127, no. 3 (1998):
75–104; Wittrock, ‘Early Modernities’; David Washbrook, ‘Intimations of
Modernity in South India’, South Asian History and Culture 1, no. 1 (2009):
125–148.
21. Ali, ‘The Idea of Medieval’, 407.
22. For details, see Stein, Vijayanagara, 13–30; Karashima, Ancient to Medieval;
Karashima (ed.), A Concise History of South India, 188–238; Ranjeeta Dutta,
From Hagiographies to Biographies: Ramanuja in Tradition and History (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2014): 78–110.
23. Karashima, Ancient to Medieval.
24. Richard H. Davis, Lives of Indian Images (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1997), 113–142; K. A. Nilakantha Sastri and N. Venkataramanayya,
Further Sources of the Vijayanagara History, vol. 3: Translations and Summaries
(Madras: University of Madras, 1946).
25. Davis, Lives of Indian Images, 117.
26. Davis, Lives of Indian Images, 119.
27. Friedhelm Hardy, Viraha-Bhakti: The Early History of Krsna Devotion in South
India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983); Indira Viswanath Peterson,
‘Lives of Wandering Singers: Pilgrimage and Poetry in Tamil Hagiography’,
History of Religion 22, nos. 3–4 (1983): 338–360; Indira Viswanath Peterson,
Poems to Siva: The Hymns of the Tamil Saints (New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1991); Ranjeeta Dutta, ‘Pilgrimage as a Religious Process: Some Reflections
on the Identities of the Śrīvaiṣṇavas of South India’, Indian Historical Review
37, no. 1 (2010): 17–38; Bharati Jagannathan, Approaching the Divine. The
Integration of Alvar Bhakti in Srivaisnavism (New Delhi: Primus, 2015), 224–
278.
28. Burton Stein, ‘Circulation and the Historical Geography of Tamil Country’,
Journal of Asian Studies 37, no. 1 (1970): 7–26.
29. For a detailed study of the sthalapuranas, see David Dean Shulman, Tamil
Temple Myths: Sacrifice and Divine Marriage in South Indian Saiva Tradition
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980).
30. Shulman, Tamil Temple Myths, 138–421.
31. Shulman, Tamil Temple Myths, 267–271.

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 180 Ranjeeta Dutta

32. Sri Govindacarya (ed.), The Ahobilamahatmayu of Peddaru Aiyangar (Madras,

1936): 45–92; M. L. K. Murty, ‘The God Narasimha in the Folk Religion of
Andhra Pradesha, South India’, South Asian Studies 13, no. 1 (1997): 179–188.
33. Vivek Nanda and Alexander Johnson, Cosmology to Cartography: A Cultural
Journey of Indian Maps (New Delhi: National Museum, 2015), 45.
34. Nanda and Johnson, Cosmology to Cartography, 31.
35. Vasundhara Filliozat (ed.), Vijayanagar as Seen by Domingos Paes and Fernao
Nuniz (16th Century Portuguese Chroniclers and Others) (New Delhi: National
Book Trust, 1996), 70–71.
36. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 49–72.
37. The names of two groups within the Srivaisnava community tradition –
Vatakalai and Tenkalai – can be cited as examples. Vatakalai meant north and
refers to Kanchipuram (Chingelput district, Tamil Nadu) to the north of
Srirangam (Tiruchchirapalli district, Tamil Nadu). Tenkalai means south and
refers to Srirangam. It should be noted that both Kanchipuram and Srirangam
are in south India.
38. For details, see Akeel Bilgrami, ‘Secularism, Nationalism and Modernity’, in
Secularism and Its Critics, ed. Rajeev Bhargava, 380–417 (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 1998); Peter van der Veer, Imperial Encounters: Religion and
Modernity in India and Britain (New Delhi: Permanent Black, 2001), 3–54;
Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam and Modernity
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003), 1–20.
39. Elaine M. Fisher, Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early
Modern South India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017), 1–31.

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 part iii
POLITICS, LAW, WAR

Published online by Cambridge University Press

Published online by Cambridge University Press
 9
Fidalgos, Soldados, Arrenegados
Portuguese Adventurers in Hugli and Early Modern Politics

Radhika Chadha

This chapter is a reflection on the political economy of South Asia in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, a period that often carries the epithet ‘early modern’. It
seeks to interrogate the processes of state formation in this period and asks whether
the peculiarities and specificities of these allow a useful invocation of the term
‘early modern’. I investigate this through the prism of a small region, Hugli, during
the period c. 1580–1633 and approach the theme through the somewhat unusual
case of a South Asian empire.
The Portuguese Estado da India is mostly regarded as a pre-modern European
empire, akin to other contemporary pre-capitalist Iberian imperialisms, and distinct
from its North European colonial successors. Correspondingly, contemporary
Asian empires such as the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal have traditionally
been studied as distinct species of the same genus, namely medieval South Asian
empires. I suggest that there existed important similarities between the Portuguese
and Mughal states, which allow us to contemplate certain political processes and
features in the centuries immediately preceding the arrival of colonial modernity
in South Asia. I argue that while they originated in entirely different worlds,
these states shared broad ‘family resemblances’.1 These commonalities can be seen
through an unusual point of contact: freelancing adventurers who moved between
well-defined imperial spaces.2
One of the key formulations of early modernity – as it has been defined in
recent years – in South Asia has been the emergence of large and stable empires
unprecedented since ancient times.3 It is sometimes regarded as an ‘age of empire’
between ages without empire – the unsettled fifteenth and the long eighteenth
centuries. Some scholars have emphasized the assertion of regional identities as a
conjunctural development of the second millennium.4 This leads us to a picture in
which empires of impressive size and strength loomed large over discernibly strong
regions. In the sphere of political economy, early modernity has been characterized
by regional players having a great say in determining imperial structures – something

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 184 Radhika Chadha

that vastly diminished in times to come. This becomes especially visible in

peripheral areas, far removed from the core imperial zones.5 Here, we find a
political scene crowded with numerous political players whose activities shaped
empires from the margins.
This chapter focuses specifically on coastal and deltaic Bengal in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries. This was a region where Portuguese officials and
freebooters jostled to carve out a space for themselves within a fiercely competitive
political milieu. They formed a small component of more than one enormous
imperial spread, involving the Estado da India, the Mughal Empire, the kingdom
of Arakan, and the regional principalities of Bengali warlords. The ways in which
the Portuguese related to each of these powers cast light on the nature of early
modern political systems. Their pursuit of private fortunes serves as a frame that
allows us to explore a political world composed of states that were ethnically and
culturally entirely foreign to each other, yet structurally akin. This world was
porous, accommodating, and not very ‘tightly ruled’.6 The political actors who
operated in this zone successfully navigated spaces as far removed as Portuguese
Goa and Cochin and the deltaic folds of Mughal Bengal.
These Portuguese adventurers operated within a complex political and cultural
landscape, in which regions were amorphous. Linguistic skills and cultural
osmosis were crucial for individual success. This was relevant at the upper end
of the political scale as well. It was equally compelling for rulers to imaginatively
reinvent notions of sovereignty, to suit multi-ethnic populations encompassing
several cultural spheres.7 Through the operations of merchants and adventurers,
the coastal folds of the Bengal delta came to be yoked loosely to the Portuguese
imperial arm while still forming a part of Asian empires. Portuguese settlements
and enclaves lay, variously and simultaneously, in the domains of Afghan rulers,
the Mughal emperor, and the king of Arakan. Their territories came to form a
significant component of all these kingdoms.
One important characteristic of the early modern condition for South Asian
polities was their imperfect control and indistinct boundaries. Frontiers did not
represent hard boundaries to be defended but, rather, signified contact zones,
merging spaces for negotiations and mediations, exchanges, and crossings.8
Frontiers were also viewed as gateways, to be sized up for opportunities and knocked
on for alliances. The incorporation of new territories was often merely indicated
through imperial markers of sovereignty.9 In terms of imperial formations, we
can hence imagine early modernity in terms of the existence of sprawling webs of
control radiating from foci of power at nodal points. The Mughal web spreading
from towns and rural fortresses along well-maintained roads and efficient

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 Fidalgos, Soldados, Arrenegados185

communication networks was a particularly successful example.10 We can perceive

a similarity with the Portuguese Estado da India, an empire floating on a seaborne
web of oceanic and coastal routes linking its nodal points of power located in
port cities.
Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that neither empire confined itself
to its ostensible zone of strength. The historiographic divide created between
Portuguese (read European) concerns at sea and Mughal (read Asian) limits on land
is artificial.11 I would like to argue that developments in these two vastly different
ecological zones were closely linked through political actors on each side, displaying
a close concern with events on the other.12 This led to a linking of hitherto far-flung
spaces in a new way. Individuals and states displayed unprecedented capacities to
reach out beyond the predictable and familiar. The keen understanding displayed
by political players of developments in seemingly unrelated regions is indicative of
the early modern condition.
With multiple players straddling a variety of ethnic, cultural, and geographical
worlds, working established channels and conduits of authority, and seeping
through borderlands that lay all around, much that was crucial to early modern
states often developed outside of state initiative and control. It is not that such
processes occurred despite state directives and checks; rather, they took place with
state endorsement of this ‘joint enterprise’. The looseness of the weave in the
fabric of early modern states gave ample scope for individual initiatives. Multiple
players operating on the edges of empires were an integral part of the political
economy of South Asia during the period under focus. In Bengal, where the web
of state power – both Portuguese and Mughal imperial control – was especially
thin, the fluidity, impermanence, and constant regenerative nature of rule in the
hands of a number of actors are thrown into sharp relief. Bengal thus offers a
particularly good site for analysing the dynamics of early modernity in the sphere
of politics.
In this chapter, I first argue that Bengal was, and remained, peripheral to the
Portuguese Empire in Asia, in terms of the Estado da India’s core concerns and
zones of activity. Second, I show how Portuguese personnel settling or moving
on these margins formed the penumbra of Portuguese society in Asia. Finally,
through a focus on the premier settlement at Hugli, I separate out the tangles
that held together the imperial spread in the Bay of Bengal. A port that had seen
a meteoric rise in the early seventeenth century, Hugli represents the nodal point
of this world, drawing together individuals, communities, places, and regions
in newly fashioned affiliations. It thus encapsulates the complex economic and
political entanglements that were defining features of early modernity.

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 186 Radhika Chadha

The Regional Setting

From the outset, the Portuguese knew that Bengal offered neither the Christians
nor the spices that had originally brought them to Asia. Consequently, the
Portuguese Crown did not evince much interest in the region during the first
two decades of the sixteenth century. Yet, in its efforts to acquire spices for the
European market via the Cape route, it soon realized that it had to get involved in
the intra-Asian trade. It could pick up cotton and silk textiles from Coromandel
and Bengal, gold and precious stones from Pegu, and silver from Bengal, and
exchange these for spices in the Moluccas and Malabar. Further, many of its
most important outposts, including Goa, Malacca, and Hormuz, were mostly
dependent for their basic supplies of foodstuffs on overseas sources. In this
scenario, the reputation of Bengal and Pegu as food-surplus areas flush with
supplies held special promise. Yet another reason for the growing official interest
in the region was its flourishing ship-building industry, reputation of which
soon reached the officials at Cochin and Malacca. Given the intense maritime
activity that they had to undertake for their vast, pan-Asian seaborne empire, not
to speak of the great fleet that sailed from Lisbon to Goa and back each year, the
Portuguese rapidly became keen to establish contact. Moreover, Bengal was the
largest Asiatic producer of saltpetre – the main ingredient of gunpowder, which
in turn was a vital instrument and component of Portuguese firepower in the
Indian Ocean region.
As the Portuguese Empire was being laid out in Asia, closely supervised by the
Crown to safeguard its primary interests, alternative constituencies were developing
within.13 These were as powerful in giving shape to the enterprise as the priorities
and concerns of the court itself. Private interests of the highest-ranking fidalgos
(nobles) and coteries of casados (settlers) reared up almost immediately – ‘regional’
interests carrying their weight in the corridors of high power and prevailing in
momentous matters. It was this ‘region within’ that was instrumental in replacing
a centrist like Afonso de Albuquerque with a regionalist like Lopo Soares de
Albegaria for the top job of governor general itself. It was able to project sharply
its own spaces in the ‘imperial’ enterprise, in terms of territories and operations.
Such private determinants of state concerns grew visibly under the momentum of
their own success. As they blotted out regions like Bengal from direct operations
of the king, they sucked large numbers out of these operations themselves,
tempting soldados (soldiers) to jump ship and turn arrenegado (renegade) with
the promise of opportunity. Such developments allow us to question the idea that
the Portuguese Empire in Asia was centrally driven, as many crucial turns taken
were directed by back seat concerns.

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 Fidalgos, Soldados, Arrenegados187

Clearly, private interests could press hard enough to frame state policies of
consequence. Even after the centre fought back to regain the reins of control, the
‘region within’ prevailed in having carreiras (trading voyages) instituted to areas
it had already identified as its own. Arguably, this is how the Portuguese presence
in Bengal–Arakan–Pegu came to develop differently from the way it did in the
western Indian Ocean. In turn, this region provides a filter through which to view
the overall Portuguese imperial enterprise in Asia.

Men on the Move: Greener Pastures, Newer Horizons

In 1548, one of the officers serving in the Estado da India wrote from Goa to
D. Joao III, the king of Portugal, that in ‘Pegu and Bengal and the whole coast of
Coromandel … are settled a quarter of the people that come (to Asia) from the
Kingdom [of Portugal]’.14 Clearly, in terms of manpower alone, such regions had
come to form a major part of the Portuguese presence in Asia.
The significance of regions ringing the Bay of Bengal has long been belittled,
classified as the ‘shadow’ of the Portuguese Empire in Asia. But a closer investigation
reveals that the activities of Portuguese ‘renegades’ in the east did not develop as
an aberration of ‘normal’ activity under the aegis of empire. Rather, their activities
help us understand the Portuguese presence in Asia in a more holistic manner.
These were collaborative and creative rather than controlled and dictated centrally.
If a quarter of the Portuguese personnel who landed on the west coast of India left
for Bengal aboard ships owned or sponsored by the Crown, armed with artillery
taken from the royal stores, with the active help of the monarch’s own caretakers
and storekeepers, it is difficult to see them as fleeing the shores of empire rather
than leading a joint enterprise into unchartered waters.15
The host of small – and not-so-small – settlements that sprang up around the
Bay of Bengal most often were, in fact, not seen by contemporaries as lying ‘in the
shadow’ of empire. Many were set up with the knowledge, and sometimes even the
tacit assent, of imperial authorities in the west. In every case, the Estado da India
showed itself eager to embrace a success story in the east. Sanjay Subrahmanyam
points out that as Portuguese ‘official’ settlements were being hammered out along
the west coast, so was fidalgo corsair activity taking place elsewhere. The privately
initiated settlements formed a part of the Portuguese presence in Asia – a different
part no doubt than those with an alternate origin story, but a large enough part to
qualify in our understanding of the nature of the Portuguese Empire. As we shall
see, boundaries were not so well drawn, and the formation and maintenance of
states remained fluid and processual throughout this period. References to them
reveal that settlements created by personnel operating outside Crown directives

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 188 Radhika Chadha

continued to occupy the interest of the Estado da India as much as the Estado
constantly remained on the fringes of the vision of these adventurers, fluctuating
between hesitation and embrace.16
The significant numbers of personnel that chose to venture forth did so for
a variety of reasons. Very early in the history of the Portuguese in Asia, we find
references to the corruption of the king’s officers and the ill-paid and neglected
state of the soldiers and lower officials in the Estado da India, forcing them to
desert in large numbers.17 This complaint was echoed through the sixteenth century
and came to be recognized in all quarters as a real problem facing the Portuguese
establishment. Yet not everyone fled under pain of starvation; some sought to test
new waters in search of better prospects. The accusation foy a Bengala sem liçenca
(‘unauthorizedly left for Bengal’) is endlessly repeated in the letters of the 1540s,
with the implicit understanding that the captain and other officials at Cochin
received handsome payoffs and protected the thieves.18 The Bay of Bengal soon
acquired the reputation of a region of much opportunity; even senior fidalgos
were tempted to make a brief sojourn in the area to try their hand at making some
money on the side.
Most of these deserters from the Estado da India left, burning their bridges
behind them, to seek better fortunes elsewhere. They attempted to settle in regions
of their choice and establish good relations with local polities. As early as 1521, we
have settlers like Martim de Lucena at Gaur, well-blended into local society and
culture, speaking fluent Persian, clad in ‘Moorish’ attire, in the employ of and on
excellent terms with the Sultan. We are told that he wielded so much influence that
he could single-handedly make or break the fate of the governor of Goa’s embassy
to the court at Gaur.19 He was not a stray example either; there were already several
Portuguese settled in Bengal by this time. Many discovered that they could find
fruitful employment as mercenaries in the armies of local rulers and warlords.
Most also carried their own artillery. At least one account of their activities in the
seventeenth century preferred to count the strength of these warring bands of
Portuguese roaming the area, not in terms of the number of persons but in terms
of the number of carbines.20 In this deltaic and coastal terrain, their naval skills
offered enormous advantages.
There are several words associated with persons settled in areas beyond
the reaches of empire in contemporary official Portuguese correspondence.
These include alevantado (rebel), arrenegado (renegade), chatim (deserter), and
homiziado (refugee or fugitive). The distinctions are interesting in themselves and
indicate various shades of official attitudes. The Estado da India seems to have
maintained a register of runaways. Classifying them in this manner served the

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 Fidalgos, Soldados, Arrenegados189

purpose of negotiating passages of return for them along with their acquisitions.
Significantly, we have no references to punitive plans on the part of the state to
rein them in or to prevent such an exodus. Rather, the Estado contemplated
seriously, and in a sustained manner over a century, various ways of reclaiming
such persons for the official fold. The names of dozens of such adventurers pepper
contemporary accounts. In the description of their actions, the sheer enterprise,
daring, gall, and bravado of these adventurers are striking. Such interest-governed
action in the pursuit of profit points to the emergence of a new kind of political
actor around this time, who were not bound by customary loyalties and typified
the early modern political milieu.

Hugli: The Jewel Evading the Crown

The story of Hugli – by far the largest, longest-lived, and best-entrenched
Portuguese enclave in the region of Bengal – allows us to examine the Portuguese
Empire as an example of an early modern polity in Asia. I argue that Portuguese
Hugli was also a crucial element in Mughal Bengal – a valued economic presence
and a transformative force in military matters.
Unlike several Portuguese settlements in the region, Hugli was not associated
with the career of a particular adventurer. In that sense, its own history was not
limited to the capacities, vision, and fortunes of any single individual. Located
‘sixty leagues inland from the sea’, it was originally only a salt market.21 Portuguese
traders arrived there to conduct seasonal trade from temporary straw-and-thatch
settlements, something that formed the norm of their mercantile activity in the
western Gangetic delta.22 It seems to have gradually taken over from Satgaon,
which was situated slightly upriver and was earlier the chief port of Bengal in the
western delta. This was the porto pequeno (small port) of the Portuguese sources
till about 1565. In course of the sixteenth century, the harbour of Satgaon began
to silt up, so that already in 1532 João de Barros found it ‘not … so convenient for
the entrance and departure of ships’.23 By 1565, larger ships had stopped going
there and instead anchored downstream at Betor.24 The shifting of Portuguese
trade further downstream to Hugli appears to have been a fallout of these general
developments.
Despite the impression of the rudimentary nature of the trade conducted from
Satgaon in these travel accounts, it seems to have been quite substantial in scale
in terms of money, manpower, and shipping. Ironically, the stakes involved only
become clear to us when the system broke down. The ramifications of this trade
figured prominently in the complaints filed before the Portuguese Crown in 1563.
At a time when the harbour at Satgaon was presumably proving prohibitive to

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 190 Radhika Chadha

furthering trade, Antonio Furtado, the captain major of the voyage from Cochin
to Porto Pequeno, reported that a crackdown on the port by the Bengal Sultan the
previous year had led to

… losses in terms of money and goods [which] amounted to over 300,000 gold
pardaos and between Portuguese and other Christians some hundred people were
killed and over three hundred captured, and thirty large and small ships captured and
burnt, together with much artillery, and many muskets, and many other arms.…25

Several questions and implications linger in the wake of such an incident. Why
did the ruler of Bengal destroy a long-standing trade in this brutal and decisive
manner? The Estado da India had had a customs house in Satgaon since 1536, and
Portuguese traders had been frequenting the port since much earlier. Interestingly,
local trading interests seemed keen to repair the rupture almost immediately, because
on the heels of the Captain Major there arrived at Cochin envoys from Bengal,
with the promise to have the captives and ships released. Trade with the Portuguese
was obviously too valuable to lose in the heat of the moment. The Portuguese seem
to have returned to their usual practice of seasonal trade soon afterward as we have
references to this even a decade later. Yet this kind of vulnerability made them keen
to acquire a more secure foothold where they had some protection. This became a
factor in their move to Hugli when the opportunity presented itself.

Testing a Knot: New Possibilities

Most of the Persian accounts pertaining to the origin of the Portuguese settlement
at Hugli are ambiguous and generic in nature. We know from Friar Manrique that
it was founded based on an imperial farman from the Mughal emperor Akbar.
He clearly indicates that Akbar’s interest in these Portuguese merchants who came
to Hugli every year from all over Asia and chiefly from Goa, Malacca, Ceylon,
and China stemmed from their reputation as formidable maritime merchants who
commanded a very profitable trade. In fact, the Mughal shiqdar of the district
apparently had long since been trying to befriend them and persuade them to
settle there. The vast scale of their trading activities, which were still conducted in
a seasonal manner from temporary installations, can be gauged from the fact that
they had given out money advances amounting to over two hundred thousand
rupees to local merchants in 1577 to acquire goods prior to their return the
following season.26
It was in this context that Akbar sent word, summoning the Portuguese
merchants from Hugli to his court. The Portuguese deputation to Fatehpur
Sikri was led by one Pedro Tavares, the recipient of the Crown voyage from Goa

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 Fidalgos, Soldados, Arrenegados191

to Satgaon in 1578. Subsequently, the emperor issued a farman, allowing the

Portuguese to choose the site of construction of their proposed settlement at
Hugli and granting them adjoining lands to support their establishment.27 The
Portuguese settlement at Hugli was, thus, formally founded around 1579–1580
with imperial sanction. The viceroy at Goa and the bishop at Cochin were
immediately informed.28
The early settlers at Hugli were described in Portuguese official circles as
‘highway robbers and men of loose lives’, who then actively encouraged others like
themselves to come and settle there. 29 The ‘captain’ of the settlement, presumably
the same Pedro Tavares, ‘assisted everyone; to some he gave gifts of money, to some
he made loans, while he stood security for others. All started trading and soon
raised Ugulim [Hugli] to the position of one of the richest towns in the East’.30
In addition, the plentiful availability of foodstuff in Bengal proved very attractive
to casados (married settlers) from various parts of the Estado da India. They
moved with their families in increasing numbers, year after year, to escape the food
shortages that the Estado settlements often faced elsewhere.31
Hugli soon became the premier settlement of the Portuguese in Bengal. While
it is difficult to determine the exact strength of its population, we do get the
sense that it was numerically much larger than any other in the region. Writing
in 1603–1604, Fr Fernăo Guerreiro reckoned that Hugli had a population of five
thousand, of which two and a half thousand were Portuguese, both pure and of
mixed blood.32 Fr Joseph de Castro, in a letter from Agra in 1638, said that there
were twelve thousand Christians at Hugli before the siege of 1632.33 Augustinian
records place the figure at seven thousand Christian residents of Hugli, plus a
large number of foreign merchants who were at the port at the time.34 Taking into
account the Indian mercantile communities and, above all, the huge assortment
of artisans and working groups, the actual size of the composite population of the
town would have been much larger.

Riding Bareback: Estado on Lasso, Mughals in Arms

Based in Hugli, Portuguese merchants operated an enormous and widespread
trade throughout the Bay of Bengal and beyond. Possibly the most lucrative part
of their trade was in the commodities forbidden to private trade in Asian waters
by the Portuguese Crown: cloves, nutmeg, and mace from the Molucca Islands
and Banda, camphor from Borneo, and cinnamon from Ceylon.35 The trade
circuit between Bengal and Cochin was another large and important component,
in which the casados of Cochin participated with as much enthusiasm as the
Portuguese merchants of Hugli.36 The main item of trade was Malabar pepper in

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 192 Radhika Chadha

exchange for Bengal textiles, sugar, and rice. Though this trade was in principle
illegal, it was highly profitable. From Hugli, pepper was shipped to the Red Sea by
Gujarati merchants, thus circumventing the blockade of direct linkage of the ports
of the Red Sea with the Malabar Coast.37 It is this kind of trans-regional trade, with
its truly global reach, that John Richards highlighted as a defining feature of early
modernity.38
Apparently, Hugli pulled its weight with the Estado and Mughals alike. State
policies were bent to accommodate its operations that yielded rich dividends.
In 1632, the sudden rupture of trade from Hugli following the Mughal attack
provided an occasion for the Council of State in Goa to deliberate on its
significance. Clearly, Hugli figured high in the Estado’s priorities. The restoration
of trade there was so imperative that the viceroy reported gladly to the king that
‘the Council decided (and I concurred) that since it was an occasion in which
this trade of which we have such need was being offered to us [emphasis added]’,
rules otherwise to be strictly enforced were relaxed.39 Thus, a ship of Asaf Khan
– one of the most senior Mughal nobles, the father-in-law of Shah Jahan, and a
trading partner-cum-ally of the Portuguese – caught in violation of the Estado’s
prohibition of trade directly with the Maldives was to be released for the greater
good of restoring trade at Hugli. This is more astonishing when we recall that
its inception and growth was a private enterprise that flourished outside state
concerns, and even in defiance of them.
Mughal jealousy provides indirect testimony to the prosperity of Hugli.
It has been suggested that this was because Shah Jahan was the most mercantile of
the Mughal emperors.40 The bustling trade conducted by the Portuguese, from
which the Mughal Empire benefitted somewhat disproportionately less, irked him
enough to intervene in these arrangements. This is captured well in the official
account of these matters – the Padshahnama of his court historian, Abdul Hamid
Lahori. The Mughal court conveniently chose to gloss over the fact that the right
to trade and settle at Hugli had been granted to the Portuguese by an imperial
farman. The perception that the Mughal Empire had been short-changed in the
arrangements from which the Portuguese had profited enormously left Shah Jahan
bristling. Ultimately, it led to a Mughal attack on the port and its obliteration in
1632. This avarice of the ‘Great Mughal’ points to the growing allure of Portuguese
Hugli in seventeenth-century Bengal.
Among other contemporaries, too, Hugli was widely reputed to have been
a rich and prosperous settlement. Fr Cabral noted in 1632, ‘the Bandel was
exceedingly rich’.41 It was these ‘immense riches, riches far exceeding anything
… [one] could imagine’ that Martim Afonso de Melo, the Portuguese resident
of Hugli who betrayed the town to the Mughal armies in 1632, pointed out to

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 Fidalgos, Soldados, Arrenegados193

the Mughal administration. He elaborated that the Casa de Misericordia was the
depository of more than 14 lakh tangas (tankas) which was the money of the
residents who had died at Hugli. There were also very rich individual merchants,
both Portuguese and 12–13 native merchants, ‘in possession of large capital’.42
During the siege of Hugli by the Mughal forces in 1632, the Portuguese paid out
a hundred thousand tankas, with the promise of two hundred thousand more,
to bring an end to the hostilities.43 One Portuguese ship that went down was
loaded with over three hundred thousand tankas of private property.44 Among
the survivors at Sagor Island was a rich Portuguese lady, who left large amounts of
money to the Jesuit fathers of Bengal, as well as to several other good works, and to
the rector of Hugli to create a college in Bengal. Some of this money was used by
the Jesuits to repair the damages caused by the siege.45
Local merchants seem to have shared a close and profitable relationship with
the Portuguese at Hugli. Significantly, their supporters included highly placed
and influential officials in the Mughal administration. Thus, while the Mughal
emperor Shah Jahan commanded Qasim Khan, the governor of Bengal, ‘to march
upon the Bandel of Hugli and put it to fire and sword’, the governor showed
himself to be very reluctant; he hesitated and postponed the attack several times
for as long as he could.46 The Portuguese were, in the meantime, forewarned of
the impending attack by ‘a Moorish captain’ – a nephew of Muqarrab Khan, then
the governor of Surat and one of the high-ranking officials of the Mughal court –
and by ‘some friendly Moors’.47 In the negotiations conducted before the attack,
there were merchants – both Muslim and Hindu – ‘who had for many years been
trading at Hugli’, and who were willing to ‘prove … by … authoritative evidence’
that the Portuguese were not guilty of any of the misbehaviour and lawlessness
that the Mughal administration was accusing them of.48
After the fall of Hugli, Shah Jahan ordered the execution of four priests
who were among the prisoners at his court in Agra. The order was stayed on the
intervention of Asaf Khan and other nobles, who pointed to the likely retaliation
by the Portuguese state at Goa and the loss of life and trade that it could cause all
along the coast. Meanwhile, ‘some merchants who were in correspondence with the
City of Goa’ negotiated with the emperor to secure their freedom. Finally, several
of the prisoners escaped from Agra with the assistance of local Muslim merchants,
who even advanced them three thousand rupees in return for a letter of exchange
drawn on the Portuguese captains in Bengal.49 Clearly, even after the capture of
their premier settlement in the region, the Portuguese had enough supporters and
allies who facilitated their return to Bengal.
Hugli, which occupied a space in between empires, was much valued across
the frontiers. The Estado da India had been reaching out to its residents for years,

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 194 Radhika Chadha

even making exception to accommodate their concerns. Mughal merchants and

elites alike had their fortunes closely tied to Hugli and were keen to ensure it a
long lease of life. Thus, in the wake of the wrath of the Mughal emperor, a part
of the Mughal nobility dared to press on and restore Hugli back to its previous
condition and status a year later. In an important reversal of a decisive imperial
show of strength, the town was rebuilt in 1633. Clearly, the settlers could well
afford to be independent minded on the strength of these closely cultivated
political constituencies.
The Portuguese at Hugli had generally enjoyed a good relationship with the
Mughal emperors from Akbar to Shah Jahan. Thus, ‘they were in possession of
a document confirmed by Jahangir and his son, Sultan Parvez, to the effect that
the settlers would never be held responsible, as a body, for the misdemeanors of
particular individuals’.50 The Portuguese had also rendered valuable mercenary
service to the Mughal armies in Bengal. In Jahangir’s reign, one Miguel Rodriguez,
who was the captain of Hugli in 1632, commanded a band of Portuguese
mercenaries who had such an impressive reputation in the region that they were
on the payroll of the Mughal emperor. They were used by prince Parvez in his
Bengal campaign against Khurram, the rebel prince. The Portuguese contingent
contributed in an important way to the defeat of the rebel prince by the imperial
forces. Significantly, prince Khurram too had tried to persuade them to join his
forces before the battle, but they had turned down the offer.
Portuguese Hugli represents a social and political fragment through which
we can reconstruct broad processes. It was located at the interstices of empires,
a space in which crucial aspects of state-formation were forged. A characteristic
geographical and political fluidity allowed frequent ‘break-ins’ by people from
outside.51 The activities and concerns of such groups on the fringes could become
central in directing processes of state-formation and the making of imperial
centres.

Straddling Worlds
The engagement of the Mughal emperors with the Portuguese settled in the
Mughal provinces seems to have been deeper than what appears at first glance.
There is evidence that by 1610, Jahangir was contemplating taking Chittagong
from Arakan. Chittagong was an even larger hub of Portuguese trade – the porto
grande (big port) of Bengal. By taking control of it, Mughal frontiers could be
extended to the eastern end of the delta. Shah Jahan’s attack on Hugli in 1632
may have been a run-up to the real prize. Chittagong was finally taken in 1666.
In Mughal understanding, the Portuguese were an important part of the political
economy of Bengal. Their trade, conducted from Hugli and Chittagong,

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 Fidalgos, Soldados, Arrenegados195

generated enormous revenue. This included traffic in slaves, which left a great trail
of devastation in its wake.
The active presence of Portuguese freebooters in the region became an
important factor that urged the Mughals into pushing the limits of their empire.
Crucial to the success in this campaign was the ability to ‘manage’ them to Mughal
advantage. Arguably, the attack on Hugli in 1632 was merely a form of severe
disciplinary action. It is in the context of such an interpretation that the restoration
of the settlement within a year by an imperial farman becomes comprehensible.
The sack of 1632 might have been intended to warn the Portuguese in Bengal
rather than to make them an enemy of the Mughal Empire. The Mughal emperors
probably understood well that the Portuguese settlers could prove useful in the
wresting of Chittagong from the Arakan kingdom finally. Jahangir had already
tried, though in vain, to win them over on two occasions – in 1619 and 1623. A
Portuguese observer had noted that ‘had it not, indeed, been for the seven hundred
and fifty Portuguese whom the Magh ruler had in his pay the Mogores would
on both occasions have seized Chatigan’.52 If these calculations were made, they
seemed to have paid off. When Shaista Khan, Aurangzeb’s governor of Bengal,
sought military alliance with the Portuguese of Chittagong in 1666, they finally
decided to relent. The memory of the blow suffered at Hugli in 1632 may have
played a part. The significance of this was not lost on the Mughal chronicler
who provided details of the whole episode and commended Shaista Khan, who
‘regarded the coming over of the Feringis as the commencement of the victory’ and
attacked immediately.53 Thus, in 1666, after nearly half a century of vain attempts,
the Mughals were successful in capturing Chittagong. Contemporary Mughal
texts indicate that the contribution of the Portuguese was gratefully acknowledged
and ‘wealth beyond measure was given to the Feringi pirates’.54 Such political
entanglements by anonymous players operating on the margins, representing
‘regions within’ both political and territorial spaces, are the hallmark of processes
of early modern state formation.

A Twilight Zone
Hugli had shared an uncertain relationship with the Portuguese authorities at Goa
almost from the beginning. Consequently, the Portuguese authorities tried that ‘in
the ports of Bengal … be maintained a normal trade with this Estado’, while fully
recognizing that the personnel settled there were largely outside its control. Most
of them ‘had created families outside the Portuguese law and maintained a lifestyle
proper to the region’.55
At the end of the sixteenth century, Hugli lay in a twilight zone, oscillating
between being counted amongst the official ports and maintaining a largely

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 196 Radhika Chadha

independent identity. The Estado continued to appoint its own representative

to the post of the ouvidor (magistrate) of porto pequeuo (Satgaon or Hugli).56
At the same time, it recognized the right of the settlers to elect from among themselves
candidates to offices that were considered important state appointments in other
Estado outposts. These included the juiz dos orfãos (judge of the orphans), the
procurador dos ausentes (administrator of the property of absent persons), and the
escrivão (scrivener) of Hugli.57 Whatever might have been the official perception
concerning the status of Hugli, it was commonly understood that the settlement
was an autonomous haven for the Portuguese based at Cochin, Malacca, or Goa,
who were deserting the Estado even at the end of the sixteenth century.58
Indeed, the Portuguese king and the viceroy constantly sought to prevent such
an exodus of manpower. They explored channels to communicate to deserters
a royal pardon and pave the way for their return to the official fold.59 In 1599,
the Estado sought to reinforce its control; a contemporary document records: ‘…
hence the lord Viceroy is seasonally trying to reduce all the bandels in which the
Portuguese are scattered [in the region] and to make only two, viz, this great port
of Dianga or Citigã and the smaller port which they call Gulim’.60
Perhaps the most telling indication of its position in the Portuguese Empire
came at a moment of crisis, when the authorities at Goa received credible
intelligence that the Mughals were preparing to attack Hugli. Confronted by this
challenge, the viceroy had no choice but to wash his hands of it. He wrote in reply
to Shah Jahan’s complaints of slave trade that ‘he had nothing to do with them’,61
indicating that Hugli was outside the purview of the Estado da India. The viceroy
and the establishment, who had been involved partly in promoting this trade, left
Hugli to its fate.
The Portuguese settlers at Hugli, like the rest of their brethren in the region,
maintained a relationship of convenience with the Estado da India. After the fall of
the settlement in 1632, the survivors who had taken refuge on Sagor Island decided
to make a new beginning. In this, as in all new and shaky enterprises in the region,
they found it useful to invoke authorization in the name of the king of Portugal.
Fr Cabral, who was there, reported that ‘it was decided to convert the pagoda [on
Sagor Island] into a strong fortress for His Majesty [emphasis added]’.62 In the
meantime, they sought help from all quarters to this end. In a gesture telling of
their affiliations, church fathers were sent as envoys both to the viceroy at Goa
as well as to the king of Arakan, who evinced keen interest in this matter. He
sent 27 galleons manned by Portuguese sailors in his employ, commanded by one
Manoel Palmeiro. They were an untamed set of marauders who came eagerly to
Sagor Island, ever on the lookout for the opportunity to grab the loot that was

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 Fidalgos, Soldados, Arrenegados197

the inevitable fallout of any war. They seized ‘an enormous booty’ from some
Muslim vessels that they encountered on the way and arrived expecting to find
an ongoing struggle. Discovering that the Portuguese loss of Hugli was final, they
moved on – true to the spirit of their enterprise, looking for new opportunities
for more plunder. Fr Cabral could not resist quipping: ‘seeing that the past was
beyond cure, as true Christians and Portuguese they offered their services for
the future’. A few remained behind, but most of them sailed upriver ‘with the
intention of privateering on Moorish vessels’.63

Conclusion
The idea of the early modern posits that specific pre-colonial historical contexts
were not just parochial and specific, but displayed visibly cross-regional trends and
patterns of linkages. These included not only long-distance commercial relations –
as John Richards points out – but also close political involvement of outsiders
as well as linguistic and cultural intermixing and hybridity. Thus, historical
developments can be seen to be taking place ‘laterally’, connected with the outside,
along with ‘vertically’ aligned developments of patterns or institutions that took
place in various regions.64
The Portuguese entrepreneurs placed their eggs in more than one basket.
If they understood the Estado da India well, they also learnt rapidly about the
political world of local powers and how to operate within it. Significantly, they
always had friends in high places amongst the regional powers with whom they
had profitable dealings. These ranged from highly placed elites at the court of
the Bengal Sultan and the local chieftains in Bengal to the top tier of the Mughal
nobility itself. They culled profits from all sorts of trade, made valuable additions
to the military labour market, carved out privileges, administrative commands,
and governorships in local polities. In one case, they even secured a kingship on
the Arakan coast early in the seventeenth century. In each case, they played an
important role in the region’s evolving political economy.
Particularly striking is their resilience and flexibility of operation, a feature
not allowed to more formal structures of empire. As the example of Hugli shows,
the settlers on the ground were enormously invested in their commercial ventures
buttressed by shreds of political power. They rose to meet challenges and provided
instinctive, experimental, and innovative solutions with spontaneity of action and
flexibility. This could not have been offered by the sheer power of the leviathan
that was the Estado da India and its slow procedures and heavy operations. The
Hugli settlers succeeded in returning within a year of being swept off the map
by one swipe of the Mughal paw. This, despite the refusal of the viceroy of Goa

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 198 Radhika Chadha

to assist in any manner and the treachery of the rescue party from Arakan sent
supposedly to bail them out.
This study thus affirms the polyvocality of structures like the Portuguese
Empire in Asia. It highlights the fluidity of some Asian political systems in this
period, which stretched themselves as they accommodated new arrivals and
negotiated collaborations. My study echoes others’ in confirming that imperial
centres were not free to impose their will on early modern political systems in an
unrestrained manner. These impressively large empires were not driven simply by
the ambitions and whims of emperors, no matter how absolutist we may imagine
them to have been. Yet the many drivers of their historical development were
not symptoms of weakness. Rather, they lent to the early modern state a tensile
flexibility that explains its palpable strength and longevity. This would go far in
developing a typology of early modern politics in Asia, of which the Portuguese
adventurers formed an important component.

Notes
1. C. A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections
and Comparisons (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 30.
2. Richard M. Eaton, A Social History of the Deccan, 1300–1761: Eight Indian
Lives (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), especially the chapter
on Malik Ambar, 105–128.
3. John F. Richards, ‘Early Modern India and World History’, Journal of World
History 8, no. 2 (1997): 197–209; Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected Histories:
Towards a Reconfiguration of Early Modern Eurasia’, Modern Asian Studies
31, no. 3 (1997): 735–762.
4. Rosalind O’Hanlon, At the Edges of Empire: Essays in the Social and Intellectual
History of India (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2014); Sheldon Pollock, ‘India in
the Vernacular Millennium: Literary Culture and Polity, 1000–1500’, Daedelus
127, no. 3 (1998): 41–74.
5. Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected Histories’, 758.
6. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 30.
7. Eclectic religious and ethnic policies are regarded as a crucial reason behind
the remarkable success of Akbar and his successors in creating an empire of
unprecedented size and stability.
8. Jos Gommans, Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and the High Roads to
Empire, 1500–1700 (London and New York: Routledge, 2002); Jorge Flores,
Unwanted Neighbours: The Mughals, the Portuguese and Their Frontier Zones
(New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018); Pratyay Nath, Climate of Conquest:

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 Fidalgos, Soldados, Arrenegados199

War, Environment, and Empire in Mughal North India (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2019).
9. The Mughals were willing to share sovereignty, as they did with Rajput kings
in the imperial suba Ajmer and with the Portuguese in Diu. See R. C. Hallissey,
The Rajput Rebellion Against Aurangzeb: A Study of the Mughal Empire in the
Seventeenth Century (Columbia and London: University of Missouri Press,
1977); Flores, Unwanted Neighbours, 22–23.
10. Gommans, Mughal Warfare.
11. C. R. Boxer, The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415–1825 (London: Hutchinson
& Co., 1969). For a different perspective, see Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The
Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700: A Political and Economic History
(London and New York: Longman, 1993). The lack of Mughal oceanic
perspective has been highlighted by the following works: M. N. Pearson,
Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat: The Response to the Portuguese in the Sixteenth
Century (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1976); K. N. Chaudhuri, Trade
and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean (London: Cambridge University Press,
1985); Ashin Das Gupta, ‘The Maritime Merchant of India’, in The World of
the Indian Ocean Merchant, 1500–1800: Collected Essays of Ashin Das Gupta,
compiled by Uma Das Gupta, 88–101 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press,
2001).
12. For keen Mughal interest in lands and seas far beyond their dominions, see
‘The Deccan Frontier and Mughal Expansion, c. 1600’, in Muzaffar Alam and
Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Writing the Mughal World (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2012), 165–203. For the close watch that the Portuguese kept
on fluctuating relations between the Mughals and Safavids over Qandahar and
its implication for the Estado da India, see Flores, Unwanted Neighbours, 32–73.
13. Radhika Chadha, Merchants, Renegades, Padres: Portuguese Presence in Early
Modern Bengal and Arakan (New Delhi: Primus Books, forthcoming).
14. ‘Cristandade de Goa, Goa, 13 de Outubro de 1548’, in Documentação para
a historia das Missoês de Padroado Português de Oriente: India (1548–1550),
ed. A. da Silva Rego, vol. 4 (Lisbon: Fundacao Oriente, 1991), document 17,
66–72.
15. See documents cited in R. O. W Goertz, ‘The Portuguese in Cochin in the mid-
sixteenth century’, Indica 23, no. 3 (1986): 63–78.
16. In research related to the Portuguese presence in Brazil and West Africa, Jorge
Pedreidro has suggested that distance from the imperial centre at Lisbon gave
merchants more autonomy, wealth, and status. Colonial merchants and officials
found freedom of agency and operated whole networks of their own. See
Commercial Networks in the Early Modern World, ed. Diogo Ramado Curto
and Anthony Molho (Florence: European University Institute, 2002), 13.

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 200 Radhika Chadha

17. ‘Letter from Antonio da Fonseca to the King, Goa, 18.10.1523’, in Documentos
sobre os Portugueses em Moçambique e na Africa Central, 1497–1840, vol. 4
(1519–1537) (Lisbon: Centro dos Estudos Historicos Ultramarinos, 1962),
181–237.
18. R. O. W. Goertz, ‘The Portuguese in Cochin’, 67.
19. G. Bouchon and L. F. F. R. Thomaz (eds.), Voyage dans les Deltas du Gange
et de l’Irraouaddy (1521) (Paris: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 1988),
para 32, 35, and passim.
20. Manuel de Abreu Mouzinho, Breve discurso em que se conta conquista do
reino de Pegu na India Oriental (Lisbon: Tipographia Rollandiana, 1829),
trans. A. McGregor, Journal of the Burma Research Society 16, no. 2 (1926):
124–125.
21. Fr John Cabral, S. J., ‘The Fall of Hugli’, Appendix to The Travels of Fray
Sebastien Manrique (1629–1643), vols. 1–2, trans. C. E. Luard and H. Hosten
(Oxford: Hakluyt Society, 1927), vol. 2, 391–422.
22. Fray Sebastien Manrique, vol. 1, 27–8.
23. Cited in Sushil Chaudhury, ‘The Rise and Decline of Hugli: A Port in Medieval
Bengal’, Bengal Past and Present 86, no. 1 (1967): 33–67, see 35.
24. ‘Extracts of Master Caesar Frederike His Eighteene Yeers Indian Observations’,
in Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrims, vols. 1–20, trans. Samuel
Purchas (Glasgow: Hakluyt Society, 1905) vol. 10, 113–114.
25. ‘Letter of Antonio Mendes de Castro in the ship Sao Vicente to the Queen,
1.8.1563, cited in “Persianisation and Mercantilism” in Bay of Bengal History,
1400–1700’, in Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Explorations in Connected History: From
the Tagus to the Ganges (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), 45–78, in
particular see 66.
26. Fray Sebastien Manrique, vol. 1, 28–29.
27. Fray Sebastien Manrique, vol. 1, 34–38; Manrique’s account is corroborated
by Akbar Nama in which Partab Tar Feringhi’s audience with the emperor is
recorded under the 23rd regnal year (1579), while he is noticed as the Portuguese
governor of Hugli in the 25th regnal year (1581). Abul Fazl, Akbar Nama,
vols. 1–3, trans. H. Beveridge (New Delhi: Ess Ess Publications, 1979), vol. 3,
349–350, 469.
28. Fray Sebastien Manrique, vol. 1, 37–38.
29. Fray Sebastien Manrique, vol. 1, 40–41.
30. Fray Sebastien Manrique, vol. 1, 40–41.
31. Cabral, ‘The Fall of Hugli’, 393.
32. Relacao Anual, Catholic Herald of India, 8 January 1919, 35; Fr Fernão
Guereiro’s Annual Relation for 1604–05, Hosten Collection, Vidyajyoti
Library, New Delhi, ‘Bengal XVI, XVII’, Mss. 9.

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 Fidalgos, Soldados, Arrenegados201

33. Cited in Agnelo P. Fernandes, ‘Hugli under the Portuguese prior to

Its Destruction by Shah Jahan’, Purabhilekha-Puratatva 2, no. 2 (1984): 39–44,
in particular see 39.
34. Fernandes, ‘Hugli under the Portuguese’, 40.
35. Fray Sebastien Manrique, vol. 1, 29–32.
36. ‘Letter of Fr Mestre Belchior to the Bothers of the Company in Portugal,
Cochin, 25.1.1559’, in Documentação para a historia das Missoês de Padroado
Português de Oriente: India (1548–1550), ed. A. da Silva Rego, vol. 7 (Lisbon:
Fundacao Oriente, 1991), document 54, 243–261, see 243.
37. ‘Jorge Cabral to the King, Cochin, 21.2.1550’, in Documentacao para a historia dos
Missoes, ed. A. da Silva Rego, vol. 4, document 84, 488–499, see especially 488–489.
38. Richards, ‘Early Modern India’, 198–199, 206
39. ‘Letter of the Viceroy to the King, 2.12.1636’, cited in ‘“Persianisation and
Mercantilism” in Bay of Bengal History’, in Subrahmanyam, Explorations in
Connected History, 68–69.
40. ‘On Indian Views of the Portuguese in Asia, 1500–1700’, in Subrahmanyam,
Explorations in Connected History, 17–42, in particular see 41.
41. Cabral, ‘The Fall of Hugli’, 418.
42. Cabral, ‘The Fall of Hugli’, 397.
43. Cabral, ‘The Fall of Hugli’, 410.
44. Cabral, ‘The Fall of Hugli’, 415.
45. Rev. H. Josson, S. J., Histoire de la Mission du Bengale, cited in H. Hosten,
‘A Week at the Bandel Convent, Hughli’, Bengal Past and Present 10, no. 1
(1915): 36–120, in particular see fn. 46.
46. Cabral, ‘The Fall of Hugli’, 396.
47. Cabral, ‘The Fall of Hugli’, 395–396.
48. Cabral, ‘The Fall of Hugli’, 400.
49. Manrique, Catholic Herald of India, trans. H. Hosten, June 12, 1918, 455.
50. Cabral, ‘The Fall of Hugli’, 400.
51. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 59.
52. Fray Sebastien Manrique, vol. 1, 285.
53. Shihabuddin Talish, Fathiyya-i Ibriyya, trans. Jadunath Sarkar, Journal of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal 3, no. 6 (1907): 405–425, in particular see 416.
54. Talish, Fathiyya-i Ibriyya, 416.
55. ‘Letter of the King to the Viceroy, Lisbon, 5.2.1597’, in J. H. da Cunha Rivara,
Archivo Portuguez Oriental (APO) (New Delhi: Asian Educational Services,
1992 [1857–1876]), Fasciculo 3, Document 239, 668–679.
56. ‘Alvara of the Viceroy, Goa, 1593’, in da Cunha Rivara, APO, Fasciculo
3, Document 133, 408–409; da Cunha Rivara, APO, Fasciculo 5, Part 3,
Document 998, 1324; Cabral, ‘The Fall of Hugli’, 397.

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 202 Radhika Chadha

57. da Cunha Rivara, APO, Fasciculo 6, Document 591, 1278–1279.

58. ‘Alvara of the Viceroy, Goa, 9.8.1597’, in da Cunha Rivara, APO, Fasciculo 3,
Document 281, 773–774; ‘Alvara of the Viceroy, Goa, 22.4.1598’, in da Cunha
Rivara, APO, Fasciculo 3, Document 353, 901–902.
59. ‘Alvara of the Viceroy, Goa, 1593’, in da Cunha Rivara, APO, Fasciculo 3,
Document 133, 408–409; ‘Letter of the King to the Viceroy, Lisbon, 5.2.1597’,
in da Cunha Rivara, APO, Fasciculo 3, Document 239, 668–679; ‘Letter of the
King to the Viceroy, Lisbon 17.1.1618’, in da Cunha Rivara, APO, Fasciculo
6, Document 440, 1131; da Cunha Rivara, APO, Fasciculo 6, Supplements 1
and 2, Document 893, 17.6.1597, 720–722; Letter of the King to the Viceroy,
12.2.1603, Historical Archives of Goa, Livros das Monçoes do Reino (M.R.)
7, folios 164–164v; Letter of the King to the Viceroy, 6.1.1602, M.R.8, folios
47–51.
60. Letter of Fr Andrew Boves, S. J. to the General of the Society of Jesus in Rome,
Chittagong, November 25, 1599, Hosten Collection, Vidyajyoti Library,
New Delhi, ‘Bengal XVI, XVII’.
61. Manrique, Catholic Herald of India, trans. H. Hosten, May 22, 1918, 395.
62. Cabral, ‘The Fall of Hugli’, 419.
63. Cabral, ‘The Fall of Hugli’, 420.
64. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 4

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 10
Law, Empire, and the New Julfan Armenians
The Early Modern in the Indian Ocean World

Santanu Sengupta

The category of the early modern for the period between the fifteenth and
nineteenth centuries has worked as a crucial tool to reclaim pre-colonial
South Asian history from the elusive gap between the medieval – a product of
Eurocentrism – and the modern, which is conventionally associated with the
advent of European colonialism. This chapter intends to navigate this divide and
revisit the utility of the category for this phase of South Asian history by analysing
what distinguished this period from the nineteenth century in terms of historical
tendencies. It intends to do so by looking at the period through the lens of the
New Julfan Armenian diaspora and their agency in the shaping of the legal culture
of the eighteenth century.
In his pioneering work, John Richards lists six major processes that characterized
early modernity. The rise of the global oceanic routes and circulation across long
distances was one of these processes. This was facilitated by the formation of
networks like that of the New Julfan Armenians.1 Reviewing the era through the
eyes of stateless, transoceanic, and cross-cultural actors like the Armenians is useful
in understanding the idea of the global connectivity and cross-cultural exchange
that developed during this period.2
The chapter is divided into three main sections. The first looks at the
customary legal culture of the New Julfans and how that became the basis of both
their diasporic culture and activities. The second section looks at the impact of
the early colonial legal regime on the maritime trade that became a crucial area
of Anglo-Armenian interaction. Building upon this idea of interaction, the third
section looks more specifically at their experience and dialogue with the Mayor’s
Court of Madras. I argue that the early colonial regime that had evolved by the end
of the eighteenth century was a product of the deliberations between the colonial
state and the various indigenous elements that emerged in the period from the
fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In course of the nineteenth century, however,
the flexibility of this early colonial regime was transformed into a state of much
more stringent colonial authority.

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 204 Santanu Sengupta

New Julfans and Their Legal Culture

The New Julfan Armenian network was formed during the course of the Safavid–
Ottoman contests in the seventeenth century. In 1604, Shah Abbas resettled the
merchants from the town of Julfa in a conclave near Isfahan, in a place that came
to be called New Julfa.3 Their operations expanded into the Indian Ocean world
through the Eurasian land route from Narva to India. They were also active on
the maritime route from the eastern coast of Africa to the Philippines, giving the
network an amphibious geographical character.4 The network followed a specific
social and legal culture that distinguished it from its respective host societies and
allowed its members mobility across distant zones by reducing risk.5 Historians
have considered intra-community trust as the key to the success of the New Julfan
Armenians as itinerant traders.
In the existing literature, the aspect of trust in the Armenian network has been
seen from two main analytical perspectives. One group of scholars has seen the
existence of an ethos or culture of trust. This, in turn, was based on a sense of
familiarity, which developed around principles of kinship, marriage, and common
point of origin.6 Sebouh Aslanian, on the other hand, looks at the functioning
of trust as a product of exclusive institutional arrangements, elaborate contract-
writing, and well-organized systems of self-regulation and dispute management.
Commenda partnership, the merchants’ assembly (Vacharakanats Zhoghov) in
New Julfa, the Armenian Church, and the local courts (jumiats) in the diasporic
settlements formed an elaborate system that regulated this intra-network trust.7
Bhaswati Bhattacharya questions the real agency of such exclusive legal culture
and suggests that in distant stations, formal contracts made under the aegis of
colonial courts of law were what really worked.8 The actual efficacy of an exclusive
concept of trust certainly needs to be reviewed, but it is also important to see
whether the pre-colonial milieu offered conditions that promoted the agency and
the importance of the diasporic identity in negotiating with the emerging colonial
regime.
Dispersed over a massive geopolitical expanse, the Armenians showcased
fascinating examples of negotiation with various states and legal regimes.
According to Edmund Herzig, the New Julfan legal experience not only formed
the basis of the unity of the network but also provided the rhetoric of negotiating
with their host states.9 The history of the compilation of the Datastanagirk
Astrakhani Hayots, or the Astrakhan Law book, reaffirms this idea. The law book
was compiled to assist the activities of the Astrakhanski Asobi Armiyanski Sud
(Armenian Court of Astrakhan), just as they intended to preserve the codes for the
unity of the larger network.10

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 Law, Empire, and the New Julfan Armenians205

However, Armenian legal culture was not as insulated as it has been

conventionally perceived. Rather, due to the demands of cross-cultural trade,
the Armenians needed to make the contracts comprehensible to their associates
from other communities.11 Datastanagirk also underlined the utility of flexibility,
dialogue and adaptation in a plural legal atmosphere for adapting to local
conditions, while successfully maintaining a core cultural identity.12
The experience of the Armenian legal culture as it evolved across multiple
empires highlighted the conditions that developed during this period. According to
Lauren Benton, the period between the fifteenth and the early nineteenth centuries
was a time of various forms of legal pluralism, characterized by multiculturalism,
negotiation, and flexibility. In this milieu, it signified the existence of multiple,
overlapping, parallel, or hierarchical ideas and centres of providing justice within
a political regime. It also indicated the porosity between legal regimes that could
be utilized by individuals or groups by jockeying to gain maximum benefit from
what was offered. In other words, it allowed actors like the Armenians to engage
in forum-shopping to suit their interests. This could also allow the actors to act
as a bridge between two disparate legal systems. It has been further argued that
although the pluralistic scenario waned with the ascendance of a stronger and
more composed colonial regime, this transformation was neither automated nor
pre-determined. Benton’s vantage point of looking at this legal culture is the
agency of the colonized that actually performed this act of negotiation.13
However, there are those who have questioned the actual limits of this agency.
In her case study of Surat, Lakshmi Subramanian suggests that there was a constant
supremacy of the colonial institution even when indulging in legal pluralism.14
Aparna Balachandran applies this logic for early colonial Madras and asserts that
within the apparent heterogeneous legal environment, the paramountcy of the
English court had already been established. What actually happened in the course
of the legal encounters was a quick appropriation of the indigenous norms into
the codes of the colonial legal corpus and a reduction in the utility of forum-
shopping.15 I draw upon Benton to argue that while the nineteenth century did
witness the establishment of a clear supremacy of the colonial legal culture, the
agency of the indigenous and hybrid legal discourses that developed through the
various encounters at courts of law in the early days of the Company rule cannot
be discounted; nor can they be divorced from the pluralistic character of the period
between the fifteenth and the early nineteenth centuries.
The rise in the political importance of the European companies in the Indian
Ocean littoral in course of this period produced a complicated scenario. The
growing marine presence of the Europeans began to regulate the character of trade.

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 206 Santanu Sengupta

This was accompanied by the increasing importance of colonial legal institutions.

All this had the potential of altering the conditions that had earlier helped the New
Julfan Armenians to flourish. However, I suggest that the Armenians continued to
be relevant in the era of increasing European influence during the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries. In fact, their dialogue with the English East India
Company was a part of their strategy of reorganization around regional nodes
after the fall of New Julfa. I also investigate how interactions between the New
Julfan customs and the growing English legal dispensation generated a process
of negotiations and adjustments. This assisted the Armenians in developing a
hybrid self-representation which, in turn, helped them to maintain their diasporic
identity, while also managing to utilize the tools of colonial governance. The
following section examines the Anglo-Armenian legal encounters and hybridity
of the system by studying the impact of the colonial legal culture in the arena of
maritime trade.

The Laws of the Sea

It has been widely believed that the backward Asians were swiftly put out of
business once the Europeans arrived and established their superior naval control
on the sea passages.16 However, several historians have questioned the actual
viability and scale of such naval control.17 While accepting the limitations of the
actual execution of sea domination, Elizabeth Mancke suggests that the Indian
Ocean was nevertheless politicized to an unprecedented degree by the arrival of
the Europeans during this period. European imperial aspirations altered both
the political and commercial dynamics of the ocean by the end of the eighteenth
century. 18
European ascent in the sea was further bolstered by the pervasiveness of
colonial legal culture among mercantile groups in the littoral societies of the Indian
Ocean. Subramanian notes that even in the period of European ascent, indigenous
maritime traders and their auxiliary groups remained extremely vital. They got
involved in the complex structure of trade that emerged in colonial towns through
the interaction of conflicting power, law, and regulation.19 The Armenians also
quickly entered the colonial institutional framework to safeguard their interest.
They used their bargaining power as a significant trading community to influence
the system, producing a constantly changing and rather mixed legal narrative
out of the colonial court at least till the end of the eighteenth century. The first
case study of this section involves the capture of a ship called Santa Catharina. It
shows how the option of using multiple legal regimes could produce an interesting
commentary on the correlation of the political situation and the legal systems.

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 Law, Empire, and the New Julfan Armenians207

The Santa Catharina Incident

Till the middle of the eighteenth century, there were still possibilities of
challenging European authority using the parallel domain of the indigenous
states. The Armenians tried to utilize the opportunities of the new legal culture,
while also making an attempt to hold on to the potentialities of settling issues
outside the colonial courts. The capture and the ensuing trial of the ship Santa
Catharina in the 1740s provides an entry point into understanding Armenian
encounters with British maritime regulations. Santa Catharina was a freight
ship hired in 1746 by a group of Armenians from Calcutta to conduct a voyage
to Basra and back. In spite of hoisting the Armenian flag, it was stopped near
Nagapatnam by a British squadron as a fallout of the ongoing Anglo–French War
on Austrian Succession. The pretext was the presence of Frenchmen on board the
Armenian ship.20
The trial regarding the salvage rights of Santa Catharina at the High Court
of Admiralty in London has been analysed by Sebouh Aslanian.21 This trial was
undoubtedly a major battle waged by one of the most important trading networks
of the Indian Ocean against the control mechanism of the English colonial regime.
Philip C. Webb, the legal solicitor of Admiral Griffin, successfully proved that the
power of attorney of the ship given to Stephen Cogigian, an Armenian merchant
operating from Amsterdam, was forged. The authenticity of such documents
had to be ratified by the Merchants’ Assembly. The fact that New Julfa had
faced a decline in the 1740s, following Nadir Shah’s ascent in Iran, meant that
the assembly was no longer functional.22 The case demonstrated the outcomes
of the colonial–local exchange of information that had equipped the state with
considerable knowledge to find loopholes in the existing customs of the locals.
It also showed an attempt by the Armenians to utilize the overlapping claims
and counterclaims of jurisdiction over maritime space to challenge the attempts
of hegemony by the English East India Company. The Armenians in Bengal used
their position in Murshidabad to cajole Nawab Alivardi Khan to pressurize the
English East India Company officials to provide redress in the Santa Catharina
case.23 While they did not see much success in London, their tactics yielded better
results in Bengal as English ships were banned from operating in the province.
Following this, Company officials had to break the ice with the Armenians with
the promise of providing various mercantile favours.24
A different perspective on this issue appears in the accounts of the Armenian
nationalist adventurer Emin Joseph Emin. Emin’s narrative pointed towards the
aspiration of the Armenians regarding the colonial legal system, especially in a
later period, when extracting restitution from parallel centres of authority like

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 208 Santanu Sengupta

the Nawab was no longer possible. Emin, who was present during the Santa
Catharina legal proceedings in London, had a rather sympathetic view of the role
of the Company officials in the affair, even as he held the British imperial navy to
be the culprit.25 Emin’s take on them position was influenced by his sympathetic
disposition towards the Company. Yet it is difficult to overlook the variation
between his observations regarding the legal politics of the period in London and
Calcutta, respectively. Emin expressed his anguish at the nature of proceedings in
London and asserted that the process and the outcome would have been fair had
it taken place in the Supreme Court of Judicature in Calcutta.26
The Supreme Court of Judicature in Calcutta had been formed by the time
Emin published his memoirs in 1792. Incidentally, 43 members of the Armenian
community had expressed their support towards the institution on the eve of its
establishment in 1775.27 This trust on the colonial judicial system probably grew
out of the long experience of the Armenians at the municipal courts of Calcutta,
Madras, and Bombay, the proceedings of which had represented considerable
flexibility. This also indicates that early colonial legal institutions were more of a
product of the pluralistic legal milieu associated with early modernity than of more
rigid legal institutions of the mid-nineteenth century that distinctively mirrored
the imperialist vision of the metropole. While Santa Catharina was a specific
and spectacular event, the colonial maritime legal culture began to make more
mundane but significant impact through the regulations that were introduced
in the sphere of finance and insurances. But the question remains whether the
narrative of the court itself had become streamlined and paramount before the
nineteenth century or if it remained hybrid.

Maritime Finance: Respondentia and Insurance

The money market in Mughal India had sophisticated credit arrangements like
hundi and avog.28 While hundis represented bills of exchange, avog was the term
used for a speculative form of investment in merchant cargo. The investors would
lend money to purchase the goods to be taken on the voyage that would have to be
repaid on the successful return of the ship.29 Similar instruments of mortgage used
by the New Julfan merchants were called avak or jukami avak in the New Julfan
documents.30 These instruments were critical for both risk sharing and raising
capital for maritime trade.
In addition to this, respondentia had emerged as a major form of financial
arrangement in the eighteenth century. Scholars hold different opinions regarding
the extent and timing of the impact of the colonial regime on this financial
arrangement. Sinnappah Arasaratnam suggests that in Coromandel of the

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 Law, Empire, and the New Julfan Armenians209

seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, both indigenous customary norms

and European law worked abreast.31 Kanaklatha Mukund, on the other hand,
argues that European influences were rather limited till the middle of the eighteenth
century, after which the shift of power equations in the Coromandel Coast exerted
a strong European influence on trading customs, particularly through the courts
of law.32
Respondentia loans were mortgaged upon the goods and merchandise and
were given at a higher rate of interest; a clause of no return was included in case
of failure of the voyage or loss of the cargo.33 Disputes were rather common in
respondentia as the interest of the lender and the borrower stood opposed to
each other. The frequency and gravity of such disputation pushed the Mayor’s
Court authorities to place several regulations on the practice of respondentia.34
According to the prevalent customs, a number of underwriters collectively decided
the terms and premium of a respondentia. In case of a dispute, the decision of
the majority of the underwriters or lenders would be upheld. In some cases, the
major investors involved in the deal would take a decision that would be binding
on the others.35
However, by the mid-eighteenth century, there was a greater acceptance of
the colonial courts among the indigenous merchants. This was catalysed by an
appreciation for the Company’s judicial institutions and the attraction of an
unambiguous tariff system and provisions of naval protection.36 In a study of
the respondentia cases brought to the Bombay Mayor’s Court during this period,
Subramanian demonstrates that the indigenous norms of conflict resolution on
respondentia deals were significantly challenged, as the rhetoric of individual
interest gained supremacy over the convention of collective decision-making.37
Although this was not a complete abrogation of the indigenous legal culture, it
was certainly a portent of an emerging dialogue.
Shifts such as these, along with more structural changes such as the rise of new
colonial port centres like Bombay replacing older ones like Surat, further altered
the equation between the indigenous and the colonial regimes.38 The increasing
tendency of the indigenous merchants to rely on English courts rather than work
around older conventions of trust and reciprocity suggests a shift from the earlier
scenario. But as the next case study demonstrates, the shift did not accomplish a
complete transformation of the language of legal deliberation. The legal discourse
in the court would often involve both indigenous and colonial norms, that too in
a way that complicated the expected positions of the colonizer and the colonized.
The Armenians in the eighteenth-century Indian Ocean arena were well-integrated
in this system. Not only were they affected by the emerging culture of commerce,

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 210 Santanu Sengupta

but as the following case study suggests, their deliberations over trade and finance
in the English law courts also helped in the development of the multiplex legal
language that signified the character of this period.
Let us proceed to look closely at this case. In 1771, Jacob Pimer, an Armenian
merchant from Madras, filed a case against Edmund Whatmough, an English
merchant and owner of the ship Morning Star, for the recovery of an amount
of 487 pagodas due on respondentia.39 Whatmough had passed away before the
completion of the voyage; Pimer hence placed his demands in front of Reynold
Adams and John Groslin, the executors of the estate. They, however, refused to
pay, saying that by accepted conventions, repayments could be executed only after
the disposal of the effects on the basis of collective decision of the stakeholders.
The English party in this case rested their argument on the prevalent custom of
collective decision-making, while the Armenian based his claim on the imported
notions of the sanctity of private property and individual interest. More
interestingly, the court in its verdict held on to the sanctity of the conventional
collective interest.40
This was characteristic of the period – a complex legal culture formed by the
coexistence of indigenous and English legal norms imported along with the British
legal institution of the Mayor’s Court. The possibility of appropriation of the
rhetoric of the other was perhaps most symptomatic of the dialogic culture of the
era. The legal culture that had emerged was based on rationalization, exchange, and
a shared experience between the colonial state and the merchants. The emerging
milieu was no doubt complicated by the increasing intervention from metropole
of the Empire. Control over maritime financing was bolstered by a series of
regulations introduced by the British Parliament regarding the finance business,
especially pertaining to the general development in maritime insurances.41 The
impact of these measures was expected to be felt in the colonial enclaves like
Madras.
Mukund suggests that although insuring ships for overseas trade was a common
practice in the Coromandel, not much of it is reflected in the Mayor’s Court
records.42 The stark absence of insurance disputes in the court records indicates
that the indigenous mechanisms were functioning successfully until a significant
shift occurred in the second half of the eighteenth century. As the volumes of
disputes grew, the state repeatedly sought ways to intervene and regulate the arena.
While this resurrects the concept of a colonial takeover of a flexible realm of legal
pluralism, a closer reading of the insurance-related court cases suggests that the
pattern of participation of the merchants and languages adopted by them did
not represent a simple acceptance of the colonial hegemony but a very calculated

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 Law, Empire, and the New Julfan Armenians211

response of reaping the maximum benefit possible within the perimeter of an

emerging system.
In the late eighteenth century, various European insurance organizations
like the Madras Insurance Company, New Madras Insurance Company,
Madras Equitable Insurance Company, and Society of Madras Insurers became
significant in the insurance sector.43 While it would not be right to suggest
that these companies had ousted all indigenous forms of insurance, it is also
difficult to deny their increasing pre-eminence. The consultations of the Madras
Equitable Insurance Company reveals a sense of the regulations followed by the
British insurance providers in Madras in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries In general, the board members of the Company decided to strictly
adhere to the insurance-related legislations of the British Parliament and the
recent rulings of the Madras Mayor’s Court and deny any policies which might
bear political risks.44
This signalled towards pressure operating from the imperial metropole
on the existing mercantile system in South Asia. However, numerous disputes
that appeared in the last two decades of the eighteenth century show that the
mutation of Madras trading culture under the English insurance regulations was
not simple or unilateral. The law court became a site of dialogue between the
existing and the emerging systems. The nature of colonial assertion on the sea and
the coastal enclaves along with the indigenous reaction is exemplified by a lawsuit
filed by two Armenian merchants, Anna Seth Aviet and Philipus Jacob Peltum,
against Madras Insurance Company. They intended to secure the payment for
the insurance on a respondentia loan on a ship called Wallajah for its voyage
from Madras to Manila and back.45 The plaintiffs argued that the ship had been
lost while returning due to a mutiny on board by a section of the crew and had
returned to Madras after the expiration of the stipulated time. When the Madras
Insurance Company declined to pay the money, the complainants moved the
Mayor’s Court and secured a verdict in their favour. The central debate in the case
revolved around the definition of barratry and the idea of ‘hostility by belligerent
nationals’.46The insurers pointed out that the mutineers were French – people
of an enemy state. Hence, they argued, that the mutiny should be considered as
an act of political hostility, which would render the policy null and void.47 The
Armenians convinced the Mayor’s Court that the act was not one of political
hostility but of barratry – an act of causing harm to a ship without the consent or
knowledge of the owner.
The insurers then approached the Court of Appeals and asserted that mutiny
on board by men of an enemy state could not be termed as barratry according to

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 212 Santanu Sengupta

British law. They also argued that there was no provision of paying the insured
amount in such cases. The Armenians tacitly accepted the notion of political
hostility in their rebuttal but claimed that there was a custom of applying for an
extra premium during such extraordinary conditions. They cited the precedence
of a case between Nazar Jacob Shamier and Madras Insurance Company at the
Supreme Court of Judicature in Bengal, where the insurers had been instructed to
pay in spite of the loss of the ship due to French and Spanish hostilities.48 However,
the insurers claimed that this was not applicable in Wallajah’s case as such a warranty
had to be inserted only on the basis of a consensus between all concerned parties.49
The idea of a consensus in terms of altering the originally accepted notions of risk
in a voyage was not very different from the idea of the collective decision-making
of the underwriters traditionally prevalent in the indigenous respondentia sector.
On the basis of these arguments, the Court of Appeals overturned the decision of
the Mayor’s Court. The case underlines the primacy of the colonial institution in
deciding commercial disputes.
One of the most intriguing inferences from this case pertains to how the enemy
state of the colonizer and the colonized became one due to the imposition of the
Court of Appeals. But this shift in the trend need not be equated with a diminution
of the heterogeneous narrative. On the contrary, commercial adjudication
remained fluid and accommodated notions like that of the consensus, clearly
demonstrating how emerging colonial law was not entirely averse to the validity
of pre-existing customs.
These narratives from the long eighteenth century reveal the role of exchange
and hybrid language in the process of the formation of mercantile culture as well as
that of the legal sphere. The Armenians invoked local and pre-existing conventions
as well as British law and legal precedents to support their arguments, as was seen
in their usage of the idea of barratry. It was not a case of simple colonial hegemony
but that of dialogue between local merchants like the Armenians and the newer
and increasingly powerful British regime. What underpinned the dialogue was a
multiplicity of languages that drew from diverse sources and experiences, trying to
influence the sphere of hegemony.
This dialogue, however, was not without its own caveats. While the previous
section dealt with the shifts in the broader cross-cultural mercantile affairs of the
Indian Ocean, the following looks at a more intimate space where the members
of the community engaged with each other in the Mayor’s Court. It explores the
long-term impact of the various negotiations and adjustments on indigenous
groups like the Armenians as well as the hybrid self-representation that developed
through the process.

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 Law, Empire, and the New Julfan Armenians213

The Madras Experience

Madras was one of the earliest centres of the English East India Company
government. In the eighteenth century, it had a significant Armenian presence.
Notable individuals like Petrus Uscan or Shahmir Shahmiryan, along with various
others, acted as traders, respondentia dealers, moneylenders, and freighters. They
had also established themselves as an important factor in running the everyday
administration of the government of English East India Company.50
The Mayor’s Court played a crucial role as a site of interactions and
negotiations.51 It was an important contact zone for various groups in Madras to
assert their individuality and self-representation, while also engaging with the new
regime.52 It has been questioned whether participation in the Mayor’s Court led
to a definite rupture of the pre-existing legal system, or if the process was more
complex. The indigenous participation in the court has been rationalized by
considering the lack of formality in its structure. Inclusiveness in its proceedings
made the court hybrid and it allowed a greater scope of individualization of legal
practices there. This gave the Armenians an opportunity to expand their options
without drastically altering themselves from the network’s judicial culture. At
least initially, the court allowed the incorporation of indigenous norms along with
English standards without much centralization.53
Aside from this, the claim of delivering justice on the basis of equity also
attracted participation. The Mayor’s Court gained importance particularly in
situations where the structural limitations of the indigenous merchant courts
failed to guarantee impartiality and effectiveness in cross-cultural conflicts.54 The
coercive and executive arrangements of the court were also a cause of attraction.55
It has also been argued that it was easy for the Armenians to adapt to the
practices of the Mayor’s Court, as their diaspora actually lacked any distinct legal
binding. This claim challenges what had been considered as one of the most
important parameters of the functioning of the network. The altercations between
the New Julfan kalanthar (mayor) and Sultan David (a New Julfan merchant
settled in Madras) have been used as an example to show how the exposure to the
new colonial legal institutions allowed evasion from the moral authority of the
core of the diaspora – New Julfa. Bhaswati Bhattacharya makes a valid case for
this by highlighting Sultan David’s claim that he could not be held accountable
to the kalanthar, since the Julfan merchants generally adopted the law of their
respective host states.56 But with the spotlight on this statement of Sultan David,
the portion of his intention to clear the debts of his father-in-law in New Julfa to
prove that he was a trustworthy person has been overlooked.57 This portion shows
David’s intentions of gaining reputation among the members of the network.

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 214 Santanu Sengupta

Here, it needs to be asked whether the self-regulating structures of the network

could continue to be pertinent even when external agencies or authorities could
potentially intervene.
The apparent leap of faith in the early colonial legal culture did not necessarily
turn the mercantile groups into collaborators of the colonial regime. Rather,
they acknowledged the colonial legal culture and the indigenous regimes of law
concurrently.58 It has to be accepted that the scope of forum-shopping and the
flexibility of legal pluralism, as highlighted by Benton, got reduced eventually when
legal conversations were buttressed by military and coercive power. But at the same
time the extent to which homogenization and standardization occurred under the
Mayor’s Court also needs to be reviewed. The Armenians, through their regular
negotiations with colonial institutions, underwent a degree of metamorphosis
themselves. But as the narrative of the Mayor’s Court suggests, there was always an
enduring inclination to preserve their community agency and identity.59
The litigations among the Armenians in the Mayor’s Court during the first half
of the eighteenth century were not particularly troubled, as drastic measures were
not yet enforced to subvert customary practices. In cases involving community
members, the court generally upheld prevalent norms. A body of referees from
the community was summoned to handle the arbitration.60 Mutual understanding
and trust invested in the group and established customs were the basis of such
arbitrations. This could be seen as a marker of a mutated continuation of the New
Julfan jumiat tradition, even when they were formed under the tacit direction of
the colonial court.
Examples of such litigations also show that New Julfan customs were generally
referred to in the proceedings as the basis of arbitration.61 Reports of the tribunals
used language assertive of the self-representation and customary norms of the
community.62 During this period, the court generally upheld the decision taken
by these tribunals. Therefore, the integration of the Armenians with the Mayor’s
Court in Madras in the early eighteenth century could be seen as a mixed process
of preservation and adjustments that had marked their negotiations with other
regimes during this period.
But the crossover of the two modes of legal arbitration was not as smooth as it
appeared. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the court began to assume
a much more dominating tone. In a significant departure from the earlier practice,
it began to scrutinize the decisions made by the tribunals closely before concurring
to it. Sometimes it even overruled these decisions.63
The tensions and fissures in the Anglo-Armenian interactions of the late
eighteenth century began to appear rather evidently in cases that dealt with

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 Law, Empire, and the New Julfan Armenians215

Armenian wills and inheritances. The wills generally spoke for the unity of
Armenian diasporic identity. For one, the wills represented the connectedness of
the diaspora. Armenian merchants continued to leave donations for the institutions
of their homeland or their community.64 The wills also reflected the connection
between individuals and families across the globe. As the wills determined the
inheritance and control over property, they were pivotal in the functioning of the
family firm-based commerce of the Armenian merchants. The Armenian wills
generally designated administrators and executors from within the community.
Exposure to the rationale of the Mayor’s Court, however, began to introduce
certain apprehensions. The practice of the court selecting the administrator for
estates left intestate led to instances of intervention into the well-guarded space of
the community.65
Consequently, the initial pragmatism characterizing the Armenian tendency
to abide by their customs gradually gave way to a more considered appreciation
of English law. In time, this impacted their own conventions, organization, and
identity. Both the tension as well as the coping mechanism to survive within the
emerging system was reflected in the following case study involving an Armenian
widow. Although the women found some rights in the New Julfan wills, their
actual agency was rather limited.66 The Mayor’s Court provided an opportunity
to these women to exert their rights. But at the same time, this created a sense
of anxiety that was met by a collective reaction from the community, which
represented attempts to hold on to a group identity.
A case from 1785, relating to the inheritance of the property of Grigor
Miqaelian, an Armenian merchant, reflects a similar crisis that the community
faced. Magdalena, the widow of Miqaelian, filed a petition at the Mayor’s Court
against Sett Aviet and Sanad Coja Maul, the administrators appointed for the
estate. She claimed that her share in the estate had been denied on the accusation
that she had eloped. The court appointed a five-member community tribunal to
decide the issue of inheritance.67 The rhetoric used by the tribunal continued to
show the balance that the Armenians sought to establish between the pragmatic
usage of the court and the preservation of the symbolic capital of the Armenian
identity.68 The scope of executing the customary norms was, however, becoming
limited by this time. The traditionally autonomous Armenian portable court
had to accept the status of a subordinate institution when it was compelled to
accept the directions of the Mayor’s Court and accept Magdalena as a lawful heir.69
However, in the course of the proceedings, the administrators and the members
of the tribunal continued to assert that the situation was caused by Magdalena
and her attorney’s ignorance regarding the community’s customs.70 This suggests

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 216 Santanu Sengupta

that the community constantly looked for rhetoric to balance their diasporic
self-representation with the new socio-legal conditions produced at the Mayor’s
Court. The court was therefore able to impose its sensibilities on the community.
The community in turn resisted by crafting the narrative of a distinct cultural
identity even when it did not always translate successfully into the outcome of the
case. But this scope of highlighting the idea of a distinct self-representation assisted
the preservation of heterogeneity and a specific form of self-representation.
Thus, by the late-eighteenth century, the hegemony of the colonial regime was
increasingly limiting the scope of pluralism and forum-shopping that the early
modern legal sphere provided. But at the same time, it is difficult to discount the
complex and accommodating language which developed within the institutional
structure of the early colonial courts. The scope of dialogue and adjustment, along
with a sense of flexible ambiguity in the verdicts, were what really distinguished the
period from the historical trajectories of the nineteenth century, when the British
colonial apparatus had become much more hegemonic.

Conclusion: Towards Colonial Modernity

The experiences of New Julfan merchants in the legal sphere in South Asia, Persia,
and Russia in course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries showcase a picture
of negotiation and adaptation that was symptomatic of this period. This history
shows that certain core ideas, like the notion of the community, remained constant
throughout this period. Constant cultural dialogue led to the development of new
nomenclatures or rhetorics of self-representation almost mirroring the balancing
act between being an Armenian merchant and British subject. Nazar Hakob
Shamier’s petitions sent to the Councils of Fort William and Prince of Wales
Island provided a fascinating prototype of this, that is, of an Armenian subject of
the British Nation.71
The key to understand the making of this hybrid identity could be found in the
complex legal culture that sustained till the early nineteenth century. The trend of
jockeying between indigenous customs and British law suggests that the emerging
system was composite, formed not by a unilateral imposition but through a long
process of exchanges. In this way, the initial Company state did not quite represent
a departure from the multicultural exchanges signified by the early modern
condition; rather, it was a part of this condition.72 Even with the narrowing of
the utility of forum-shopping, the heterogeneity of the legal discourse shows that
the idea of legal pluralism was not yet redundant. We have seen repeatedly in this
chapter that it was this early modern condition of multiplicity and flexibility
that allowed a diasporic trading community like the Armenians to sustain a
distinct self-identity through negotiations and adjustments in the courts of law.

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 Law, Empire, and the New Julfan Armenians217

However, by the second quarter of the nineteenth century, increasing imperial

interest and subsequent control of the colonies in South Asia caused a profound
shift in legal culture.73 This shift could be seen in the context of the establishment
of cultural paramountcy of the West. This is what ultimately paved the way for the
derailment of the hybrid early modern condition and the emergence of colonial
modernity in the legal sphere of South Asia.74
The transformation was clearly visible in the sheer change in the rhetoric of
Armenian self-representation that had been a crucial key to understanding the
scope of dialogue and hybridity in the legal sphere. In a petition submitted to the
Governor General in 1833, the Armenians in Calcutta appealed to be placed solely
under English law that was applicable in the King’s Court.75 They complained that
in the earlier Company courts, there had been no set standard of pronouncing a
verdict. While a few judges had applied English law, others had either worked on
the basis of the notion of equity or had chosen to look towards Armenian customs.
Interestingly, the Armenians endorsing this petition suggested that since Armenia
had ceased to be a nation long back in the fourteenth century, the concept of
Armenian customs or norms was a false idea. While this sudden inversion from
their long-standing narrative of cultural identity and heritage might come as a
surprise, this act of surrendering their legal agency should be understood in the
broader context in which the petition was submitted. The imposition of the
English Alien law by two Acts of 1826 and 1832 of the Supreme Court of Calcutta
had unsettled the rights of the Armenians over the properties and inheritances
that they owned in the Bengal province. By the introduction of the English Alien
law passed earlier in the British Parliament in 1793, properties belonging to the
Armenians (or any other groups marked out as foreigners) could be claimed by
the Crown. The only way of cementing their rights was to acquire the full-fledged
status as subjects of the British Empire by surrendering claims to any other identity.
Therefore, the political, military, and financial ascendancy of Company rule along
with the increasing involvement of the British imperial government into the affairs
of its South Asian colonies pushed out the last remnants of the hybrid legal culture
that had been one of the signifiers of early modernity.

Notes
1. John F. Richards, ‘Early Modern India and World History’, Journal of World
History 8, no. 2 (1997): 197–209.
2. Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1984), 3; Charles H. Parker, Global Interactions in the Early
Modern Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 2–3.

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 218 Santanu Sengupta

3. Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, ‘Global Trading Ambitions in Diaspora: The

Armenians and Their Eurasian Silk Trade 1530–1750’, in Diaspora
Entrepreneurial Networks: Four Centuries in History, ed. Ina Baghdiantz
McCabe, Gelina Harlafti, and Ienna Pepelasis Minoglou, 27–48 (Oxford: Berg,
2005), 27–28.
4. Sushil Chaudhury, ‘Introduction’, in Armenians in Asian Trade in the Early
Modern Era, ed. Sushil Chaudhury and Keram Kevonian, 3–18 (Delhi:
Manohar, 2014), 8.
5. Vahe Baladouni and Margaret Makepeace (eds.), Armenian Merchants of the
Seventeenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries: English East India Company
Sources (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1998), 11–12.
6. Chaudhury, ‘Introduction’, 10.
7. Sebouh David Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The
Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa (California:
University of California Press, 2011), 166–201.
8. Bhaswati Bhattacharya, ‘The Book of Will of Petrus Woskan (1680–1751):
Some Insights into the Global Commercial Network of the Armenians in the
Indian Ocean’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 51, no. 1
(2008): 67–98, see 74–75.
9. Edmund Herzig, ‘The Commercial Law of the New Julfa Armenians’, in
Armenians in Asian Trade, ed. Chaudhury and Kevonian, 69–70; William
Floor, ‘The Secular Judicial System in Safavid Persia’, Studia Iranica 29, no.1
(2000): 9–60, see 10.
10. F. G. Poghosyan (ed.), Datastanagirk Astrakhani Hayots‘ (Yerevan: Haykakanssh
Gitutyunneri Akadimiyai Hratarakchutyun, 1967), 6. ‘Since the Armenian
community lacked a country or King, they should organise their business and
other activities through information, understanding and consensus within
the community.’ Herzig, ‘Commercial Law of the New Julfa Armenians’, 66;
Sebouh David Aslanian, ‘The Salt in a Merchant’s Letter: The Culture of Julfan
Correspondence in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean’, Journal of World
History 19 no. 2 (2008): 127–188, see 145.
11. Herzig, ‘Commercial Law of the New Julfa Armenians’, 73–76.
12. The last passage of the Datastanagirk established the concern regarding the
applicability and acceptability of the law book in various legal regimes that their
compatriots encountered across the span of the network. It insisted on holding
on to a distinct Armenian identity through the legal culture and ethics described
in the book. It also took a pragmatic stance to accept the need of negotiating and
adapting to the host states and accepted the necessity of readjustments of legal
culture in that process. Poghosyan (ed.), Datastanagirk, 232.

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 Law, Empire, and the New Julfan Armenians219

13. Lauren Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History,
1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 6–12.
14. Lakshmi Subramanian, ‘A Trial in Transition: Courts, Merchants and Identities
in Western India, circa 1800’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 41,
no. 3 (2004): 269–292.
15. Aparna Balachandran, ‘Petition Town: Law, Custom and Urban Space in
Colonial South India’, in Iterations of Law: Legal Histories from India, ed.
Aparna Balachandran, Rashmi Pant, and Bhavani Raman, 147–167 (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2018).
16. See, for instance, K. M. Panikkar, Asia and Western Dominance: A Survey of the
Vasco Da Gama Epoch of Asian History, 1498–1945 (London: George Allen &
Unwin Ltd., 1953).
17. Ashin Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat: c. 1700–1750
(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1979).
18. Elizabeth Mancke, ‘Early Modern Expansion and the Politicization of the
Oceanic Space’, Geographical Review 89, no. 2 (1999): 225–236; R. P. Anand,
Origin and Development of the Law of the Sea (The Hague: Mrtinus Nijhoff
Publishers, 1983), 99.
19. Lakshmi Subramanian, ‘Reaping the Risks of Transition: Merchants and Trade
in Western India, 1750–1818’, in History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in
Indian Civilization, vol. 3, part 7: The Trading World of the Indian Ocean,
1500–1800, ed. O. Prakash, 285–307 (Delhi: Pearson India Education, 2012),
286.
20. Bruce P. Lenman, ‘Colonial Wars and Imperial Instability, 1688–1793’, in The
Oxford History of the British Empire, ed. P. J. Marshall, vol. 2: The Eighteenth
Century, 151–168 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); Gagan D. S. Sood,
India and the Islamic Heartlands: An Eighteenth Century World of Circulation
and Exchange (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 23.
21. Sebouh Aslanian, ‘Trade Diaspora versus Colonial State: Armenian Merchants,
the English East India Company, and the High Court of Admiralty in London,
1748–1752’, Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 13, no. 1 (2004):
37–100.
22. Aslanian, ‘Trade Diaspora versus Colonial State’, 76–83.
23. Kali K. Dutta (ed.), Fort William–India House Correspondence, 1748–1756,
vol. 1 (New Delhi: National Archives of India, 1958), 310.
24. Dutta (ed.), Fort William–India House Correspondence, vol. 1, 310.
25. Amy Apcar (ed.), The Life and Adventures of Joseph Emin: 1726–1809 (Calcutta:
Baptist Mission Press, 1918), 16.
26. Apcar (ed.), Life and Adventures of Joseph Emin, 17.

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 220 Santanu Sengupta

27. R. P. Patwardhan (ed.), Fort William–India House Correspondences 1773–

1776, vol. 7 (New Delhi: National Archives of India, 1971), lxii.
28. Irfan Habib, ‘Potentialities of Capitalistic Development in the Economy of
Mughal India’, in Irfan Habib, Essays in Indian History: Towards a Marxist
Perception, 180–232 (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 1995), see 227.
29. Irfan Habib, ‘Merchant Communities in Pre-colonial India’, in The Rise of
Merchant Empires: Long Distance Trade in the Early Modern World, 1350–
1750, ed. James D. Tracy, 371–399 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1990), see 395–396.
30. Shushanik Khachikian, ‘The Bill of Exchange in the Milieu of New Julfan
Armenian Merchants’, in Armenians in Asian Trade, ed. Chaudhury and
Kevonian, 277–282 (Delhi: Manohar, 2014), see 277–279.
31. Subramanian, ‘Reaping the Risks of Transition’, 289; Sinnappah Arasaratnam,
Merchants, Companies and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast 1650–1740
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), 274, 280; Kanaklatha Mukund, The
Trading World of the Tamil Merchant: Evolution of Merchant Capitalism in
the Coromandel (Chennai: Orient Longman, 1999), 172–174.
32. Mukund, Trading World of the Tamil Merchant, 175–177.
33. Alexander Annesley, A Compendium of the Law of Marine Insurances, Bottomry,
Insurances on Lives and of Insurance Against Fire (Middletown: I. Riley, 1808),
173–174.
34. Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce, 280.
35. Lakshmi Subramanian, ‘Seths and Sahibs: Negotiated Relationships between
Indigenous Capital and the East India Company’, in Britain’s Oceanic Empire:
Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds, c. 1550–1850, ed. H. V. Bowen, Elizabeth
Mancke, and John G. Reid, 311–339 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2012), see 324.
36. Subramanian, ‘Reaping the Risks of Transition’, 287–288.
37. Subramanian, ‘Seths and Sahibs’, 324–327.
38. Ashin Das Gupta, ‘Trade and Politics in Eighteenth-century India’, in Ashin
Das Gupta, The World of the Indian Ocean Merchant 1500–1800, compiled by
Uma Das Gupta, 141–179 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2004), 141,
168–169.
39. Tamil Nadu State Archives (TNSA), Mayor’s Court Records: Pleadings in the
Mayor’s Court, vol. 25, General no. 12020, 401–403.
40. TNSA, Pleadings in the Mayor’s Court, vol. 25, 406–408.
41. A Collection of Statutes relating to the East India Company: With an Appendix
Containing Acts and Parts of Acts, Relating to Shipping, Duties, Regulations for
Export and Import, &c. &c. which in General Do Not Solely Relate to the East
India Company … (London: G. Eyre and A. Strahan, 1810), 97.

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 Law, Empire, and the New Julfan Armenians221

42. Mukund, Trading World of the Tamil Merchant, 174–175. Just one case has
been located in 1744, where the court went in favour of the insurer on the basis
of prevalent conventions.
43. TNSA, Mayor’s Court Records: Series XII-C, Private Papers (MISC), Marine
Insurance Book.
44. TNSA, Series XII-C, Marine Insurance Book.
45. TNSA, Mayor’s Court Records: Appeals against the Mayor’s Court, vol. 36,
General no. 12096. Case entry dated 12th June 1797–17th November 1798,
543–770.
46. TNSA, Appeals against the Mayor’s Court, vol. 36, 580.
47. TNSA, Appeals against the Mayor’s Court, vol. 36, 565. The clauses of the
policy had mentioned that political aggression would not be held as a valid risk.
For an evolution of the definition of barratry in British insurance law, see Chief
Justice Daly, Barratry: Its Origin, History and Meaning in the Maritime Laws
(New York: Baker and Godwin Printers, 1872).
48. TNSA, Appeals against the Mayor’s Court, vol. 36, 767.
49. TNSA, Appeals against the Mayor’s Court, vol. 36, 753.
50. Records of Fort Saint George (RFSG), Diary and Consultation Book of 1707
(Madras: Madras Record Office, Superintendent Government Press, 1929),
61; Henry Davison Love, Vestiges of Old Madras: 1640–1800 (London: John
Murray, 1913), vol. 1, 559–560; vol. 2, 25–28.
51. Mary L. Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London:
Routledge, 1992), 6–7. Contact zone is a junction where disparate groups came
into contact with each other and often interacted within a milieu of unequal
relation of power that led to the exchange of information in moments of
colonial encounters.
52. Mattison Mines, ‘Courts of Law and Styles of Self in Eighteenth Century
Madras: From Hybrid to Colonial Self’, Modern Asian Studies 35, no. 1 (2001):
33–74, see 34, 41.
53. Mines, ‘Courts of Law and Styles’, 37, 40–46; John J. Paul, The Legal Profession
in Colonial South India (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1991), 12.
54. TNSA, Mayor’s Court Records: Pleadings in Mayor’s Court, vol. 24, General no.
12019, 23. For instance, Khachik Pogos, or Catchik Pogos [sic], an Armenian
Merchant, had proposed to resolve his disputes with Cammo Caul Chitty and
Adapamum Chitty, in any of the merchant courts, other than the ‘Malabarese’.
55. TNSA, Public Department Sundries, vol. 8, Form and Method of Proceedings
in All Civil Suits (1726), 41–45.
56. Bhattacharya, ‘The Book of Will’, 79.
57. RFSG, Diary and Consultation Book of 1745 (Madras: Madras Record Office,
Superintendent Government Press, 1931), 118.

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 222 Santanu Sengupta

58. Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures, 257–258.

59. There has been a considerable debate as to what added up to a New Julfan or
Armenian identity. In spite of the differences between the Orthodox (Apostolic
Church) and Catholic New Julfans, a common identity probably emerged for
the sake of the trade in South and South-East Asia. See Bhaswati Bhattacharya,
Ashtadash Shatake Bharater Armani Samaj o Banijya: Kichu Prasangik
Alochana (Kolkata: Paschimbanga Itihas Sangsad, 2018), 15. The construction
of a common Armenian identity was also seen in the nationalist articulations of
Shahmir Shahamirian. In Tetrak vor Kochi Nshavak (Booklet of Aim), published
in 1783, he attempted to write a constitution for the Armenians in Madras. His
concern was to devise a more rounded and political identity of the community.
See Sergey Arutiunov, ‘Triple Laws and Quasi-states in the Caucasus’, in
State and Legal Practice in the Caucasus: Anthropological Perspectives on Law
and Politics, ed. Stephane Voell and Iwona Kaliszewska, 25–30 (New York:
Routledge, 2015), see 26–27.
60. TNSA, Mayor’s Court Records: Pleadings in the Mayor’s Court, vol. 1, General
no. 11996, 154. For example, in a suit filed in 1731 by Khwaja Zachariah against
Khwaja Amouner, the court admitted that the matter was exclusively related to
Armenian customs. ‘[I]t appearing [sic] that the matters in question between
the plaintiff and the defendant depended on the customs of the Armenian
merchants … it is therefore ordered the several matters and accounts … are
hereby referred to Coja Pacedon, Coja David and Coja Gregoris … award made
by the arbitrators be final.’
61. RFSG, Pleadings at the Mayor’s Court, 1745, vol. 5 (Madras: Madras Record
Office, Superintendent Government Press, 1939), 49–73.
62. RFSG, Pleadings at the Mayor’s Court, vol. 5, 62. The tribunal’s report opened
with the statement: ‘We whose names are hereunto subscribed do hereby certify
and declare that it is the custom among us Armenians.’
63. TNSA, Mayor’s Court Records: Pleadings in the Mayor’s Court, vol. 23, General
no. 12018, 128–145.
64. TNSA, Pleadings in the Mayor’s Court, vol. 23, 138–139. For example, the will
of Joseph, the son of Maruth stated, ‘… five hundred rupees are to be sent to
Holy Egmiasun (Edjmiatzin) and five hundred rupees to the convent at Holy
Jerusalem, three hundred rupees to the convent at Aminapurkich at our Julpha,
two hundred rupees to the convent of the Numse at our Julpha, two hundred
rupees to our church at Purtvee’.
65. TNSA, Public Department Sundries, vol. 8, 125–126.
66. Houri Berberian, ‘Unequivocal Sole Ruler: The Lives of New Julfan Armenian
Women and Early Modern Laws’, Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 23
(2014): 82–112.

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 Law, Empire, and the New Julfan Armenians223

67. TNSA, Mayor’s Court Records, Wills, Probates and Letters of Administration,
vol. 35, General no. 12129 (1787), 193–194.
68. TNSA, Wills, Probates and Letters of Administration, vol. 35, 194. ‘… therefore
we proceed to our determination that the said Gregorio Miguel dying intestated
[sic], Seth Ter Avieth and Sanad Coja Maul the son of Coja Maul relations of the
said Gregorio Miguel deceased of Madras merchants by terms agreeable to the
customs of Armenian merchants and agreeable to the noble use of Great Britain
was granted by the Mayor’s Court at Madras with letters of administration for
the estate of the said deceased Gregorio Miguel.’
69. TNSA, Wills, Probates and Letters of Administration, vol. 35, 194.
70. TNSA, Wills, Probates and Letters of Administration, vol. 35, 308. ‘That they
wanted the said Miguel Johannes to give them a receipt or discharge in the
Armenian language in like manner as the said Joseph Maroot had given on the
part and behalf of the said Zeptha Stephan to which the said Miguel Johannes
replied that as he did not fully understand the form that would be necessary in
the Armenian language and did not know what kind of receipt or discharge had
been given by the said Joseph Maroot.’
71. National Archives of India, Home-Public Proceedings, 1805, 66–67.
72. Mahmood Kooria and Sanne Ravensbergen, ‘The Indian Ocean of Law:
Hybridity and Space’, Itinerario 42, no. 2 (2018): 164–167.
73. H. V. Bowen, ‘British India, 1765–1813: The Metropolitan Context’, in
Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 2: The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. J.
Marshall, 530–551 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Also see Lakshmi
Subramanian, History of India, 1707–1857 (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan,
2010), 89–92.
74. Anthony D. King, ‘The Time and Spaces of Modernity’, in Global Modernities,
ed. Mike Featherstone, Scott Lash, and Roland Robertson, 108–123 (London:
SAGE Publications, 1997).
75. A copy of the appeal was printed in the October issue of the Calcutta Monthly
Journal and General Register (Calcutta, 1836), 465–467.

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 11
Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern?
Pratyay Nath

It has become increasingly commonplace in the last two decades to refer to the
Mughal Empire as an early modern polity. By extension, Mughal warfare too
gets designated as early modern. But what does it really mean for Mughal warfare
to be early modern? Is it simply because it is associated with a certain historical
period that has now been re-categorized and redefined? Or did this warfare
exhibit certain features that actually set it apart from those of earlier and later
times, thereby necessitating the use of a new temporal category? If that indeed is
the case, then what features might these be? The present chapter addresses these
questions.
The first section discusses how historians have looked at Mughal warfare
in relation with the historical evolution of military processes in the Indian
subcontinent. These discussions have been dominated by an emphasis on the
role of a single technology – gunpowder weaponry – and a single explanatory
framework – the Military Revolution hypothesis. I argue that much of this has
been a Eurocentric exercise, whereby historians have assessed South Asian warfare
using parameters drawn from the European historical experience. For some, this
has created the problematic impression of drastic change – a historical break –
brought about by the proliferation of gunpowder weaponry in the sixteenth
century. For others, it has created an equally debatable notion of military
changelessness between the eleventh century and the eighteenth. Moving away
from both these interpretations, the present chapter analyses Mughal warfare on
its own terms and in the specific historical context of South Asia. I explore four
major facets of Mughal warfare in four subsequent sections – military adaptation,
army organization, management of war, and culture of war. I argue that in all
these fields, Mughal warfare ushered in a new paradigm that should be called early
modern because of the considerable shift it marked away from its antecedents. It
was only since the mid-eighteenth century that this military early modernity was
derailed in a large measure by the onset of colonial modernity.1

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 Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern?225

Warfare, Revolutions, and the Search for a Military

Early Modernity
There are two strands of thought that see the rise of Mughal power as a major
military shift in South Asia. First, one idea that emerged in course of the 1970s
and 1980s was that of the Mughal polity being a ‘gunpowder empire’. Marshall
Hodgson and, following him, William McNeill argued that the emergence and
consolidation of Mughal imperial power owed primarily to its effective use of
gunpowder technology.2 The second argument emerged by challenging this
gunpowder empire hypothesis. In 1989, Douglas Streusand offered a more nuanced
argument that continued to see the rise of the Mughals as a watershed in South
Asian military history but did not ascribe primacy for this to any one technology.
Instead, he said that the military shift owed to the introduction of a ‘new military
system’ in the subcontinent, one that ‘supplanted the existing elephant-based
system and remained dominant until the appearance of infantry armies on the
European model in the eighteenth century’.3 This new form of warfare, he argued,
gave the Mughals ‘a definite but limited margin of military superiority’ over their
opponents, one that emanated from their ‘sole possession of a complete array of
artillery, infantry armed with firearms, and an army of mounted archers’.4
More recently, these ideas of a break in South Asian military history with the
advent of the Mughals in the early sixteenth century has come under fire from Jos
Gommans, who has deployed the Military Revolution framework to analyse this
history.5 Gommans argues that while the advent of gunpowder weaponry triggered
a Military Revolution in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the
Indian subcontinent experienced only a ‘false dawn of the gunpowder’ during this
period.6 According to him, this resulted from the failure of gunpowder artillery to
make an impact on South Asian forts, owing to their strong build and inaccessible
locations. Because of this, there never arose the need for the major transformations in
fort architecture and the concomitant tactical and strategic changes that transpired
in Europe. In battles, Gommans explains the tactical marginality of firearms in
terms of the underdeveloped nature of infantry tactics. He also underlines the
inefficiency of field artillery, owing to its lack of mobility and standardization,
as well as the relatively poor quality of gunpowder. According to Gommans, the
lack of interest of Indian states in developing drilled and disciplined infantry units
of musketeers emanated from the abundance of warhorses. The highly skilled
cavalrymen – especially the mounted archers – who operated in the subcontinent
held a distinct tactical advantage over the Indian musketeers. The latter – in
contrast to their European counterparts – were poorly clad, ragtag bands of part-

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 226 Pratyay Nath

time mercenary soldiers using slow-firing matchlock guns even after the spread of
more efficient flintlocks in the seventeenth century. Hence, although gunpowder
weaponry saw widespread dissemination in South Asia since the fifteenth century,
Gommans suggests that they failed to propel musketeers and artillery into tactical
centrality; instead, cavalry continued to dominate the military stage.7 He argues
that it was only between the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries that
the subcontinent saw a gunpowder revolution owing to the rise of British colonial
power and the simultaneous Europeanization of the armies of the various post-
Mughal regional states of the subcontinent.8
Gommans’ analysis is a sophisticated one. It helps us situate Mughal warfare
in a wider military context. Yet, because he applies the Military Revolution
hypothesis in the South Asian context, he effectively assesses this part of the world
in terms of parameters derived from the European historical experience. Here,
however, he is not an exception. Since the late twentieth century, an increasing
number of historians working on different non-European parts of the world have
engaged with the ideas of Michael Roberts and Geoffrey Parker.9 Many of them
use the Military Revolution hypothesis as a convenient analytical framework to
interpret military changes in non-European regions during the sixteenth through
eighteenth centuries. The result is that processes similar to the European Military
Revolution have started being spotted in different non-European parts of the
world. Certain aspects of the framework – as developed by Roberts and Parker
in the context of western Europe – have started featuring in these discussions
repeatedly.10 In juxtaposing the parameters of the European Military Revolution
onto South Asia, these concerns also dominate Gommans’ analysis. Unlike other
similar exercises that have resulted in the discovery of the Military Revolution in
regions like Russia, Japan, and Korea, Gommans’ study reveals a lack of analogous
changes in the Indian subcontinent. This prompts him to argue against the
incidence of the Military Revolution in this part of the world and to counter the
idea of Mughal warfare heralding any paradigmatic shift in military matters.
In effect, these exercises – not only of Gommans but also of other scholars
who have discovered parallels to the European Military Revolution in various
non-European parts of the world – prioritize the European historical experience
over others. In this approach, European military processes become the yardstick
against which military changes in other regions are understood and assessed. In
some cases, the intentions are entirely noble – to show that various parts of the
world were at par with Europe in terms of technology, tactics, strategy, and army
organization during the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Quite rightly,
some historians argue against a form of Eurocentrism that projects backward in

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 Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern?227

time the nineteenth-century European military supremacy over the rest of the
world.11 Yet, as a means of arguing, this takes the form of an attempt to show that
various non-European regions experienced roughly the same changes as Europe
did. Consequently, military histories of these regions often end up being cast
in the mould of European history. Through this discursive universalization of
the European experience, a new form of Eurocentrism makes way for the older
one. The continued focus on the Military Revolution hypothesis also obscures
various military aspects that did not appear in Europe but characterized the
historical experiences of various other parts of the world. Discussions around these
processes get relegated to the margins of the historical discourse as the European
experience occupies the mainstream of global scholarship on the subject. As the
primary set of shifts to have engulfed the domain of warfare in the sixteenth
through the eighteenth centuries, the Military Revolution becomes synonymous
with what can be called a military early modernity.
All this has profound implications for South Asian history. According to
Gommans, the Mughals did not bring about any paradigmatic military shift in the
subcontinent, mainly because they did not inaugurate a Military Revolution in the
subcontinent. Owing to this, he argues that they largely fitted into and continued
the historical tendencies established by the horse-warrior revolution in the eleventh
and twelfth centuries, and the fortress revolution in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries.12 Gommans’ work thus foregrounds long-term historical continuities
in the field of warfare between the eleventh century and the eighteenth, thereby
denying South Asia of a military early modernity.13 For him, the one enduring
feature of South Asian warfare through these centuries was the overwhelming
centrality of the warhorse. This also contributed, he argues, to an ostensible lack
of emphasis on siege warfare in the Mughal case, because ‘they had opted for the
mobility of the horse and not for the stability of the walls, for ruling India from the
camp and not from the fort’.14
It is true that South Asia did not experience most of the military processes
that characterized the European Military Revolution. However, the very fact that
Gommans makes this European framework his parameter for investigating change
and continuity in South Asian warfare renders his methodology problematic.
I am also sceptical of his arguments about the enduring tactical centrality of the
warhorse in South Asian warfare.15 It is my contention that Mughal warfare did
herald a new military paradigm in South Asia. The category of early modernity
helps us conceptualize these changes that emerged in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. However, they get obscured when one studies Mughal warfare using
the framework of the Military Revolution and focuses only on the elements that

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 228 Pratyay Nath

characterized the European military transformation – the use of gunpowder

weaponry, transformation of positional warfare, and rise of massed infantry
formations. In order to trace the important shifts that characterized the rise
of Mughal warfare, it is necessary to look beyond this analytical framework
altogether.16 At the same time, it is also vital to move beyond primacy that
historians like Hodgson ascribe to the role of technology – especially gunpowder
weaponry – in heralding military change in the fifteenth to sixteenth centuries.
Instead of focusing only on military techniques or the dynamics of combat, one
needs to adopt the more inclusive ‘war and society’ approach. Doing this enables
us to understand the nature of Mughal warfare on its own terms within the
historical context of the subcontinent and in relation with the dynamics of the
state, culture, and society. This is the exercise I undertake in the following sections
by focusing on four themes one by one – military adaptations, army organization,
management of war, and culture of war.

Military Adaptation
At the most fundamental level, the so-called Military Revolution was a set of
military adaptations. A few years back, Jeremy Black pointed out that while the
category of revolution suggests something with a certain degree of intention in
bringing about change, adaptation is more open-ended. According to Black, this
makes the category of adaptation more helpful in capturing the variety of military
changes that states and armies went through between the sixteenth and eighteenth
centuries in creatively responding to various challenges.17 More recently, Richard
Eaton and Philip Wagoner have applied Black’s suggestions in the context of the
sixteenth-century Deccan Plateau. They argue that the changes that accompanied
the so-called Military Revolution were largely absent among the Deccan polities.
Hence, the category of revolution does not prove to be helpful in interpreting the
other sorts of military changes that did occur. It is here that the category of military
adaptation renders itself useful. It helps us understand and analyse the myriad
changes in military techniques and architecture that the spread of gunpowder
weaponry triggered, even as these changes did not conform to the tendencies
visible in western Europe.18
In light of these interventions, it is possible to revise the implicit equivalence
between the Military Revolution and a military early modernity. I argue that it is
better to conceptualize the latter in terms of heightened military adaptations. As
large empires vied with each other to control the fate of the continents during this
period, each of them faced certain challenges that their predecessors had not. These
included financial, environmental, technological, political, and cultural hurdles

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 Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern?229

related to rapid imperial expansion in terms of human, material, and territorial

resources. As these empires negotiated these hurdles, they constantly adapted
to changing circumstances to fight wars more efficiently. Since the sixteenth
through the eighteenth centuries witnessed heightened state- and empire-building
activities across the world, it can be argued that this engendered heightened
military adaptations as well. Instead of positing the path of western Europe as the
standard and all the others as aberrations, it is more historically accurate to look
at the entire set of these escalating adaptations as being one of the features of a
military early modernity. While some of the characteristics of this condition –
like the necessity of engaging with new technologies like gunpowder weaponry –
were globally shared, some others were specific to the cultural, political, and
environmental contexts of individual political formations.
Seen in this light, Mughal warfare was certainly early modern. Babur
(r. 1526–1530) and his followers arrived in North India in 1526 with military
techniques thoroughly rooted in the post-Timurid, post-nomadic traditions of
Central Eurasia. As Streusand points out, Babur’s victories at Panipat (1526) and
Khanua (1527) rested squarely on his ability to deploy together heavy cavalry,
mounted archers, field artillery, and musketeers, all around the wagon laager.19
This combination itself was a product of Ottoman military adaptation in the late
fifteenth century, whereby the central European defensive formation of the wagon
laager, the post-nomadic traditions of cavalry warfare, and the new technology
of gunpowder weaponry were fused together into a cogent battle tactic.20 It is
from the Ottomans that Babur received the knowledge of this tactic in the early
sixteenth century, and deployed it to great effect at Panipat and Khanua. In all big
battles since then, Mughal armies used this composite tactic.
Gommans sees this as a subversion of firearms by the traditional tactical
importance of cavalry. However, I am more inclined to interpret this as an
adaptive response to a question that almost all armies of the sixteenth century
faced – how to protect one’s own matchlock-bearing infantry from attacks by
the enemy forces in a battle? Western European armies used pikemen to shield
their matchlockmen. Armies of imperial Russia positioned their matchlockmen
behind temporary field fortifications called guliai gorod. In 1575, Oda Nobunaga
(r. 1534–1582) positioned his Japanese matchlockmen behind stockades in the
battle of Nagashino. The Ottomans made use of a line of defensively arranged
wagons to the same end. Moving away from the idea that the western European
adaptation – the combination of pike and shot – was the standard and all the
rest were aberrations, it is more worthwhile to look at all these as different – but
equally resourceful – examples of military adaptation, produced by the specific

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 230 Pratyay Nath

set of material and cultural conditions each polity was operating under. Even the
Mughal appropriation of the Ottoman tactic was shaped by their specific historical
trajectories thereafter. I have argued elsewhere that under Akbar (r. 1556–1605),
Mughal battle tactics went through a shift that could perhaps be conceptualized
as a form of sedentarization. Even as the wagon laager retained its value, mounted
archery got gradually marginalized; in contrast, heavy cavalry, war-elephants, and
the common infantry assumed greater tactical importance.21 These were a result of
the specific military, political, and cultural processes that Mughal empire-building
went through at this time. The shifts in battle tactics comprised adaptive responses
of Mughal armies to these processes.
Mughal military adaptability also manifested itself in how armies learnt to
subjugate the massive stone forts of South Asia through arduous sieges. Imperial
expansion into Central India and the Deccan Plateau in particular entailed a
large number of sieges. These ranged from the likes of Chitor (1567–1568),
Ranthambhor (1569), Ahmadnagar (1600), and Asirgarh (1600–1601) under
Akbar to Bijapur (1685), Golconda (1687), and Gingee (1698) under Aurangzeb
(r. 1658–1707). The winning combination of firearms, cavalry, and the wagon
laager in battles had to be set aside here for the slow game of positional warfare.
However, the lack of rivers in these regions prevented imperial armies from
transporting artillery to many of these sieges, while the inaccessible locations of
fortresses restricted the successful deployment of artillery even when they were
successfully transported. Instead, Mughal adaptation entailed the use of more
traditional methods of siegecraft, like mining and sapping, as well as efforts to win
over garrisons through negotiations.22
A completely different sort of conditions presented itself as Mughal armies
entered Sind and Bengal in the 1570s and Assam in the 1610s. Rivers dominated
the landscape of these regions. Every year, monsoon rains would cause extensive
floods, making it quite difficult for cavalry or infantry to move around freely.
Here, Mughal military adaptation took the form of learning to wage amphibious
campaigns. Although imperial armies fought some amphibious wars in Sind in
the 1570s and 1590s, they came to experience their seriousness in Bengal only
by the close of the sixteenth century. From extremely meagre resources in terms
of boats, they were forced to gradually build up a huge flotilla by the early years
of the seventeenth century. This comprised partly the imperial flotilla under the
command of mansabdars and partly the war-fleets of co-opted local zamindars.
Imperial armies also learnt to mount artillery pieces onto boats, possibly from
Portuguese military professionals and renegades who abounded the region around
this time. It was these military adaptations that enabled imperial forces to conquer

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 Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern?231

most of Bengal by 1612. However, the ability to adapt reached its limits in the
face of Portuguese–Arakanese naval raids in southeastern Bengal between the early
1620s and the mid-1660s. It also failed to bring many military victories in Assam,
where imperial armies fought four wars – much of them amphibious – between
1613 and 1682.23
These examples indicate that Mughal war-making in South Asia entailed a
constant process of military adaptation. Some of them were responses to challenges
faced by almost all polities globally, like the need to raise more and more money to
make war. Some of the adaptations, however, were brought by military specificities
of the subcontinent – like the peculiarities of its terrain, climate, and ecology –
and hence were specific to the Mughal case. If a military early modernity can be
conceptualized in terms of heightened military adaptations, then the Mughals
were integral to that shared early modernity. Admittedly, there are many instances
of military adaptations in South Asia even before the Mughals.24 However, what
marks a paradigmatic shift in the sixteenth century was both the remarkable extent
of Mughal military adaptations and the way these changes helped the dynasty
to eventually create a truly subcontinental empire. Also, it was this heightened
adaptability that enabled them to fight wars in extremely diverse environmental
zones, ranging from the Himalayan foothills to the forested delta of the Ganga
and the Brahmaputra, from the arid lands of Balkh and Qandahar to the broken
hills and plateaus of the Deccan. In this, they were assisted by new centralizing
tendencies of military organization. This is what we turn to next.

Army Organization
One of the hallmarks of medieval warfare in Islamicate polities was the institution
of military slavery. Developed in the Abbasid caliphate in the later centuries
of the first millennium CE, this institution was one of the pillars of military
organization and statecraft in medieval Islamicate polities from North Africa to
South Asia. Aside from comprising a major component of the army and the ruling
elite, the mamluk (military slaves) also ruled in their own right as sovereigns in
many cases.25 Some of the Islamicate polities – like the Ottomans, Safavids, and
Deccan Sultanates – continued this medieval practice through the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries as well.26 The Mughal Empire, however, did not make use
of this institution. While Mughal commanders prided in calling themselves banda
(slave) – a term also used for a military slave – in relation to the emperor, this was
meant in a figurative rather than juridical sense. It was invoked to express one’s
complete loyalty and devotion to the emperor.27 Instead of using the institution
of military slavery that served as one of the cornerstones of the armies of the Delhi

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 232 Pratyay Nath

Sultanate, Mughal emperors filled their ranks with free men. This was a big change
in terms of the nature of military personnel.
There was also a major shift between the medieval sultanates and the Mughal
Empire in matters of fiscal-military administration and organization. In the
Islamicate world, one of the traditional mechanisms of linking army organization
with the collection and distribution of the resources of the realm was iqtadari.
Iqta was a revenue assignment given to individual military commanders by the
sultan. In return, the commander had to maintain troops and make them available
to the sultan in times of war. The economic resources the iqtadar was supposed
to collect was meant for the maintenance of his household and his troops. This
fiscal-military institution arrived in North India from West Asia in the early
thirteenth century. The institution had a checkered history under the sultans of
Delhi between the thirteenth and the fifteenth centuries. In order to centralize
power in their hands, sultans repeatedly tried to make iqtas transferrable, get the
commanders to maintain a fixed number of troops, have them surrender any
revenue collected in excess of the stipulated amount, and prevent sub-infeudation
and inheritance of iqtas. However, they encountered stiff resistance in all these
matters from the iqtadars, who preferred a more decentralized administrative
structure. Overall, fiscal-military administration under the Delhi sultans remained
rather decentralized notwithstanding periodic centralizing drives launched by
sultans like Alauddin Khalji and Muhammad bin Tughlaq.28
This kind of fiscal-military administration saw a reversal under the Mughals
in the sixteenth century. Iqtidar Alam Khan argues that since the mid-sixteenth
century, there was an increasing drive to centralize the administration of revenue
assignments. He conjectures that this might have been a maturation of the
administrative reforms of the Afghan ruler Sher Shah (r. 1540–1545) as well.29
Athar Ali too points out that Sher Shah – and in his footsteps Islam Shah (r.
1545–1553) – introduced the zabt arrangement of assessing land-revenue and re-
imposed the practice of branding of horses as a measure towards centralizing his
administration and imposing his authority over the commanders.30 His revenue
reforms were complemented by his introduction of the pure silver rupaya (rupee)
in addition to pure gold and copper currency.31
The third Mughal emperor, Akbar, built on these measures and brought about
further centralization since 1561. Khan argues that this was a part of a ‘new concept
of assignment, which, in the post-1561 period, was increasingly perceived as pre-
sanctioned income determined in accordance with the status and obligations of
the assignee’.32 This began the practice of fragmenting the land assignment given
out to military commanders.33 Thereby, land assignments were decoupled from

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 Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern?233

territorial jurisdiction under individual military commanders. Instead, their land

assignments increasingly came to be conceptualized in terms of the sanctioned
income of the commander. This acted against the tendency of commanders to
control compact territorial units. Mughal drive for administrative centralization
thus began to hold sway over something that had been the essence of iqtadari in
the immediate pre-Mughal period – the tendency of political fragmentation of
authority and governance. Finally, the fiscal jurisdiction of the holder of the revenue
assignment was increasingly separated from the conduct of routine administration
of the area. Khan argues that these changes between 1561 and 1567 introduced the
first elements of Mughal administrative centralization, something that was finally
implemented by Akbar’s decisive administrative reforms in 1574–1575.34 These
reforms introduced sophisticated mechanisms for assessing and collecting land
revenue. This was linked with the military ranks (mansab) that were instituted
for Mughal commanders in 1573–1574. Every commander was ascribed a single
number to denote their salary, the size of their cavalry contingent, and the number
of horses, elephants, carts, and beasts of burden they were expected to maintain.
This format underwent a further modification in 1596–1597, when the
mansab was broken down into two numbers – zat and sawar. The first denoted the
position of an individual commander in the official hierarchy of the Mughal state.
It also determined his salary. The second denoted the number of horsemen and
horses he was supposed to maintain. Most mansabdars were paid by transferrable
revenue assignments called jagir. The allotment of both mansab and jagir
was centralized. All the military commanders reported directly to the emperor.
There was no scope for sub-infeudation or inheritance of them. Assignment,
promotion, and cancellation could only be done by the emperor.35 Instituted by
Akbar, this arrangement underwent several changes in course of the seventeenth
century in response to changing circumstances, making mansabdari a dynamic
practice rather than a static system.36 As a part of this centralization of military
organization, the Mughal state also kept forts under its direct control by assigning
them to commanders (qaladar) appointed by and answerable to the emperor.37
It is true that this military organizational centralization was not an unqualified
one. Several historians have pointed out that the mansabdari and jagirdari practices
might not have worked in the strong centralized fashion in which it was envisioned
at the imperial level. In fact, at the operational level, the state had to accommodate
strong local interests and bend to the ambitions of powerful mansabdars.38
Even the regulations regarding branding of horses were not enforced in some
cases.39 Akbar’s increasing measures to centralize political and military powers
precipitated a major revolt by several of his commanders in 1580–1581. The result

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 234 Pratyay Nath

of the clash between Akbar’s desire to centralize and the ruling class’ desire for
autonomy was what Streusand calls ‘the Akbari compromise’. This entailed ceding
some autonomy to his commanders while retaining the central control of the
new military organization in his own hands.40 We also need to remember that the
fiscal-military reforms of Akbar and his descendants did not appear out of the
blue; rather, they represented the maturation of older efforts at achieving greater
efficiency and centralization – something that spanned across the Delhi Sultanate
and the Sur interregnum. Akbar’s decimal system of ranking military commanders
was also inspired by Turko-Mongol practices of military organization.
Yet, seen in a comparative perspective, what the Mughals were able to
achieve since the late sixteenth century was remarkable. Various limitations
notwithstanding, the state was able to attain an unprecedented level of
centralization in comparison with earlier polities.41 The practice of organizing
the military commanders through centralized ranking system (mansab) and
paying most of them through transferrable, non-hereditary revenue assignments
(jagir) lasted through the seventeenth century, well into the period of imperial
fragmentation in the eighteenth. While Akbar’s descendants had to repeatedly
make concessions and adjustments to the measures he introduced, Mughal fiscal-
military administration in the empire’s heyday never devolved into the rampant
sub-infeudation, hereditary ownership, or community dominance that land
assignments had seen under the sultans of Delhi. In this sense, Mughal military
organization since the reign of Akbar represented a definitive shift away from its
antecedents.

Management of War
Mughal military success in South Asia was based not only on changing military
techniques and an efficient, centralizing fiscal-military administration, but also on
the meticulous management of military labour, supply, and logistics. This section
discusses the myriad facets of this excellent military management, which – as I have
argued in greater detail elsewhere – substantially contributed to imperial territorial
expansion. The empire emerged against the backdrop of a teeming military labour
market in North India. Dirk Kolff and Jos Gommans have shown that between
the mid-fifteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, the Indian subcontinent had a
vast pool of different sorts of soldiers. This was a large and heterogeneous body,
comprising peasant-soldiers, armed ascetics, military slaves, indigenous chieftains,
foreign adventurers, and military professionals of all description. One important
group among them were the part-time peasant-soldiers, who initially served as
foot-archers but gradually switched to using muskets in course of the sixteenth

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 Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern?235

century. A big challenge for the Mughal state was to negotiate this teeming labour
market and harness its manpower to expand its own armies. Gommans’ work
indicates that the Mughal state met with considerable success in this direction. Its
employment of thousands of peasant-soldiers in its own ranks neutralized a part of
the potential military threat that they might have posed otherwise and channelized
their military resources towards the pursuit of the empire’s own ambitions.42
However, managing combat labour was only a part of the task. Aside from the
skills of soldiers, military campaigns also depended majorly on a whole range of
logistical operations. To this end, Mughal armies employed very large numbers of
labourers and animals of diverse descriptions. In forested regions like the Aravallis,
armies on the march would be led by corps of woodcutters and pioneers, who would
cut down trees to create a path of the army to proceed. Similarly, on the rugged
terrain of Kashmir or the Afghan region, pioneers and workmen would advance
ahead of the main army. They would level the ground and, in some cases, remove
snow to create a passable road for the soldiers, animals, and transport. In Bengal
and Assam, the imperial flotilla required thousands of boatmen and labourers
to row and man the vessels as well as to manoeuvre artillery pieces mounted on
some of them. In sieges, carpenters, stonecutters, and other workers were of prime
importance for constructing mines, saps, and siege towers. Contemporary sources
suggest that most of these logistical labourers were raised seasonally for individual
campaigns. Aside from them, a very large number of workers remained perennially
employed by the state for taking care of war-animals, manufacturing weapons,
managing the operation of military camps, and so on. Another equally important
part of Mughal military management was the gathering of war-animals, used in
both combat and logistics. Mughal military success owed a great deal to the ability
of the state to recruit labourers and mobilize animals in extremely large numbers
and channelize their labour into making expansionist wars.43
Supplying armies in course of campaigns was complex business. Mughal
military logistics was based first and foremost on a command over routes
of communication. Across the length and breadth of the empire, the state
maintained control over these routes through a network of forts. The important
ones among these forts were kept under the direct watch of the emperor through
the appointment of imperial fort commanders. Taking over the control of routes
and building new ones, if necessary, lay at the heart of military campaigns. The
logistical labourers mentioned earlier played a vital role in this regard. In cases
where imperial armies failed to keep routes under their control (as in the Afghan
or Bengal regions) or failed to create new ones (as in the Aravalli forests), the course
of imperial expansion and consolidation faltered.44

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 236 Pratyay Nath

In the field of supply, Mughal armies relied heavily on the itinerant grain
merchants of South Asia, who were designated by the generic name of the Banjara.
To satiate the need for water, armies usually followed the courses of available
water bodies. Imperial forces also invested heavily towards the production of
military infrastructure like boats and bridges, which enabled them to wage wars
in negotiation with the natural environment. The state also needed to maintain a
steady flow of military information in course of campaigns between its different
armies as well as with the major centres of military mobilization.45
In the realm of military finance, the state benefitted from the existence of a
thriving cash nexus and extensive banking networks in South Asia. Irfan Habib
argues that this cash nexus had emerged in North India by early fourteenth century
under the Delhi Sultanate. The Mughals developed this further by collecting
land revenue in cash across large portions of their empire. The centralizing fiscal
apparatus, a robust currency system, and the pouring in of New World precious
metals also contributed to this process. Finally, all this benefitted from the
presence of a sophisticated network of transfer and remittance of credit, operated
by specialized moneylending and money-changing communities like the Sarrafs.46
In all these fields of military management, Mughal armies showed remarkable
dexterity. Doubtless this military management reached its limits in certain cases.
But on the whole, it served as one of the main factors that enabled the Mughals
to create an empire of truly subcontinental scale – the first one since the Mauryan
Empire (fourth to second centuries BCE). Unfortunately, the lack of historical
research on military management and logistics for the period before the sixteenth
century makes it difficult for us to compare the Mughal case with its antecedents.
Hence, for the time being, the suggestion that the rise of Mughal power marked a
paradigmatic shift in terms of military management must remain a conjecture to
some extent.
However, there is enough circumstantial evidence to indicate that fundamental
shifts came about in this field in the sixteenth century. To mention one example,
Abhimanyu Singh Arha points out that the close association of the Rajputs with
the Mughal state created for them new managerial needs of raising large cavalry
armies. In turn, this pushed the Rathor state of Marwar towards better ecological
management in the seventeenth century. Driven by the anxiety of creating a robust
equestrian economy, the state closely intervened in the local management of
fodder by bringing in new regulations and appointing officials.47 This serves to
indicate the new circumstances that the rise of the Mughal Empire produced in
South Asia, and the novel infrastructural and managerial demands this generated,
which I contend made the sixteenth century a watershed in the history of much of
the subcontinent.

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 Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern?237

Culture of War
Alongside the various material changes discussed so far, profound shifts appeared
in the realms of military culture and ideology with the rise of Mughal power in the
sixteenth century. In the Delhi Sultanate as well as the various regional sultanates,
Islam played an important role in shaping the broad ideological framework of
kingship and authority. The sultanate of Delhi itself was a product of a major wave
of Islamicate expansion under Turkish dynasties that rose to prominence around
the eleventh century. During much of this phase of expansion, Turkish rulers –
who were relatively new converts to Islam – derived their authority as Muslim rulers
from the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad. Major sultans like Shamsuddin Iltutmish,
Muhammad bin Tughlaq, and Firuz Shah Tughlaq obtained investiture from
the Abbasid caliph to legitimize their royal authority. Since the early thirteenth
century, Islam faced a major civilizational and confessional crisis in the face of
the violent expansion of the Mongol Empire. Following the assassination of the
caliph al-Musta’sim by Mongol forces in the mid-thirteenth century, many of the
Turkish sultanates emerged as the new havens of political Islam. During most of
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Delhi Sultanate embraced this role
as one of the centres of the Islamicate civilization in the east. Although it never
became a theocracy, Islam played an important role as one of the main points of
reference in formulating norms of kingship and governance. Many intellectuals
and chroniclers used the examples of the Prophet and Sufi shyakhs to create
models of royal authority. Caliphal authority also remained a major source of
political power. In all, Islam served as the most important ideological framework
for conceptualizing sultanic authority and power during the thirteenth through
the fifteenth centuries.48
The Mughal Empire marked a profound change of direction in this domain.
Although Sunni Islam remained the religion of the rulers, Islam increasingly came
to be substituted by the ideology of universal sovereignty in course of the sixteenth
century as the overarching ideological framework of kingship and governance.
The Mughals were the inheritors of the universalist ideologies of the Turko-
Mongol tradition. The empire was founded with Babur’s vision of inaugurating
a Timurid renaissance. Subsequent Mughal emperors drew upon this ideology
alongside others to fashion their own versions of universalist claims. As Azfar
Moin shows, these claims often elevated emperors to the status of the mahdi, or the
reviver of Islamic religious faith, due to arrive around the completion of the first
Islamic millennium in 1591.49 An even more dominant ideological framework for
defining kingship and governance was a Persianate normative tradition of political
theology, championed by the thirteenth-century philosopher Nasiruddin Tusi.
Muzaffar Alam points out that Tusi’s Akhlaq-i Nasiri and commentaries on it

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 238 Pratyay Nath

were widely read in the empire. Especially since the reign of Akbar, they formed
the bedrock of Mughal political philosophy and the major political framework of
the empire.50 While Islam came to hold a more prominent role in courtly culture
under Shah Jahan (r. 1628–1658) and Aurangzeb in the seventeenth century,
this did not challenge the universalist ideals established primarily by Humayun
(r. 1530–1540, 1555–1556) and Akbar in the sixteenth.
This shift had three major implications for the domain of warfare. First, this
political universalism made the Mughal diplomatic outlook extremely flexible
and accommodative. Since the state did not align itself with the interests of any
particular religion, community, or race most of the time, it remained open to
allying with anyone and everyone, as long as they would accept Mughal suzerainty
and dutifully undertake the concomitant responsibilities. Recent research indicates
that the Mughal Empire expanded more by absorbing and co-opting the various
powers of South Asia than by eliminating them outright.51 This accommodative
politics reflected in the extremely composite nature of the political aristocracy and
the army, both in terms of race and religion.
Second, this political universalism allowed the Mughals to justify war and
military violence not in the name of any sectarian interest or identity; rather,
this was done using the abstract notion of justice, at least since the late sixteenth
century. This the Mughals borrowed mainly from Nasirean akhlaq. In Akbar’s
official biography, Abul Fazl borrowed Tusi’s ideas about kingship to fashion
a theology of kingship for the Mughal Empire. In the process, he fused Tusi’s
ideas with a variety of other inspirations – Sufi ideals, Turko-Mongol motifs,
Brahmanical symbols, and medieval Persian ishraqi ideas – to create a sophisticated
political theology that became hallmark of the state. In this framework, war and
military violence were portrayed as unavoidable means for spreading justice
across the world. In Mughal imperial chronicles produced since the late sixteenth
century, most military invasions were justified as a means to eradicate the suffering
of the common people, bring them under the just and benevolent rule of the
Mughal sovereign, and punish evil, misguided, or lackadaisical rulers whose reigns
bring misery to their subjects.52
Finally, the ideology of universal sovereignty helped the Mughals from Akbar
onward to build a vast and disparate military aristocracy into one composite body
bound together by a corporate ethos around the figure of the sovereign. Rosalind
O’Hanlon points out that in this milieu, the emperor was projected as a paternalist
sovereign, whose watchful eyes monitored the behaviour of his officialdom and
the subjects alike. Mansabdars serving the empire for multiple generations were
given the epithet of khana-zad (son of the house). Court etiquettes inculcated

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 Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern?239

certain bodily disciplines among the mansabdars to render the disparate elements
of the nobility into one ideal prototype of the loyal imperial servant.53 The
mansabdars were also bound with the emperor by a strong reciprocal relationship
of gift exchange.54 As a part of their duties, they had to attend to the emperor
in the court as an expression of their subordination to imperial authority. They
were expected to ride into battle fearlessly to forward the military agenda of the
empire. They would also be expected to dutifully honour the responsibilities that
accompanied the rewards of ranks and remunerations by the emperor. Loyalty and
servitude to the emperor were hailed as the highest forms of virtue in Mughal court
society. Even in the absence of institutional military slavery, mansabdars prided in
referring to themselves as banda (slave) as a mark of their devotion. John Richards
argues that the unifying corporate identity created around the figure of the
emperor contributed greatly to the centralization that characterized the imperial
military aristocracy.55
In its thrust on universal sovereignty as the basis of how kingship was
conceptualized and military violence was legitimized in the official imperial
discourse since the late sixteenth century, the Mughal Empire marked a fundamental
shift from earlier – especially Islamicate – polities. It fostered the development of
arguably a more accommodative and cosmopolitan politico-military elite than
South Asia had seen so far.

Conclusion
What emerges from this discussion is that the Mughal world of war exhibited
certain features that did set it apart from its antecedents. Remarkable adaptability
in waging military campaigns across different environmental zones, centralizing
military organization and fiscal administration, increasingly efficient management
of military resources, and integrative and cosmopolitan military culture framed
by a universalist political ideology were some of the features that made Mughal
warfare distinctly different from what South Asia had witnessed till the fifteenth
century. As indicated earlier, these shifts were a result of both global processes and
local conditions. All this necessitates the use of a different analytical category that
differentiates Mughal warfare from military processes of the earlier centuries. This
is where the category of early modernity proves useful. It distinguishes Mughal
warfare, on the one hand, from its antecedents, which we can continue to designate
as medieval, and, on the other, from what emerged with the advent of colonial
modernity in the late eighteenth century.
It is possible to see this novelty of the Mughal world of war only by discarding
the category of the Military Revolution in studying change and continuity in

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 240 Pratyay Nath

the domain of warfare. In this sense, this chapter represents a methodological

shift away from the earlier approach of historians like Gommans. It affirms the
utility of using more flexible categories like military adaptation. At the same time,
it represents a move away from the technology-centrism that prompted earlier
historians like Hodgson to argue in favour of a historical break in military matters
in the sixteenth century. Rather, I have arrived at the idea of a similar historical
break in very different terms, by adopting the more inclusive war and society
approach. This has helped identify the military changes not in isolation but in
their wider connections with state, culture, and empire-building.
It was since the mid-eighteenth century that this military early modernity was
gradually derailed. On the one hand, the new post-Mughal regional polities of
this time embarked on a drive to Europeanize their armies under the guidance of
European military professionals. On the other hand, British and French armies
fought to outdo each other as the dominant European power in the Indian
subcontinent – a struggle from which the British emerged victorious. Through
these processes, there was another paradigm shift in military matters. Under the
increasing influence of European military techniques and culture, South Asian
armies were introduced to European models of drill, discipline, and uniform.
On the battlefield, the centrality of the cavalry finally saw a demise with the rise
of flintlock-equipped massed infantry formations. The introduction of lighter
and more mobile artillery also brought about profound changes in military
techniques.56 All this comprised a decisive shift away from the military early
modernity that the emergence of Mughal power in South Asia had ushered in.
These changes in terms of military techniques complemented the shifts in the
four domains discussed in this chapter. As Kaushik Roy argues, British victories
were made possible by heightened forms of military adaptation, which he calls
‘military synthesis’.57 Army organization and fiscal-military administration were
completely overhauled to introduce greater centralization and better chain of
command. In terms of military management, the work of Randolph Cooper
shows that the rise of British power introduced new and more efficient methods of
supply, logistics, and labour deployment.58 Finally, in contrast to the cosmopolitan
and accommodative ideological paradigm of Mughal rule, the rise of British power
ushered in the emergence of colonialist and imperialist political framework that
legitimized both rule and violence using very different – often civilizational –
parameters.59 By the mid-nineteenth century, the process of derailment of the
military early modernity that Mughal warfare represented and its substitution
with its colonial modern counterpart was complete.

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 Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern?241

Notes
1. In these discussions in this chapter, one major point of comparison is the Delhi
Sultanate, arguably the most important Islamicate polity of North India before
the advent of the Mughals.
2. Marshall G. S. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in
a World Civilization, vol. 3: The Gunpowder Empires and Modern Times
(Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1977 [1974]), 18; William
H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Forces, and Society since
A.D. 1000 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 95–98.
3. Douglas E. Streusand, The Formation of the Mughal Empire (New Delhi:
Oxford University Press, 1989), 65.
4. Streusand, Formation of the Mughal Empire, 65–67.
5. The Military Revolution hypothesis was first propounded by Michael Roberts in
1955. He identified four major changes in the domain of war in Europe between
1560 and 1660. These comprised the rise of handgun-equipped, drilled, and
disciplined infantry armies; emergence of a new strategic consciousness; rapid
growth of army size; and a general rise in the impact of war on society. Roberts
argued that these shifts comprised a Military Revolution that transformed the
face of European warfare. Since the 1970s, this framework has been revised and
expanded by Geoffrey Parker, among others. Roberts argues that the motor
of much of these changes was the rise of gunpowder artillery, which in turn
precipitated a revolution in fortress architecture. In the face of the threat that the
new siege artillery posed to medieval fortifications, fort architects developed the
new trace italienne design of artillery fortresses around the close of the sixteenth
century. This neutralized the initial tactical advantage siege artillery bestowed
on besiegers. Instead, it forced besiegers to once again fall back upon more
traditional techniques of siegecraft like blockading, mining, and sapping. It was
this, according to Parker, that led to the dramatic rise in army size in Europe.
Michael Roberts, The Military Revolution 1560–1660 (Belfast: Marjory Boyd,
1956); Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the
Rise of the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 6–44.
6. Jos Gommans, ‘Warhorse and Gunpowder in India, c. 1000–1850’, in War in
the Early Modern World, 1450–1815, ed. Jeremy Black, 105–127 (London and
New York: Routledge, 1999).
7. Gommans, ‘Warhorse and Gunpowder in India’, 117.
8. Gommans, ‘Warhorse and Gunpowder in India’, 117–119. Since the publication
of Gommans’ monograph on Mughal warfare in 2002, several other historians
have arrived at similar conclusions, partly owing to their use of Gommans’
work in their own analyses. Kenneth Chase, Firearms: A Global History to 1700

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 242 Pratyay Nath

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 131–134; Peter Lorge, The

Asian Military Revolution: From Gunpowder to the Bomb (Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 112–131; Geoffrey Parker and Sanjay
Subrahmanyam, ‘Arms and the Asian: Revisiting European Firearms and Their
Place in Early Modern Asia,’ Revistade Cultura 26 (2008): 12–42, see 14–24.
9. This globalization of the Military Revolution hypothesis occurred even as it was
repeatedly challenged as an explanatory framework for European history itself.
For a collection of important essays of this debate, see Clifford J. Rogers, The
Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformations in Early
Modern Europe (London and New York: Routledge, 1995).
10. For examples of histories spotting the Military Revolution in different parts of
the world using these parameters, see Michael Paul, ‘The Military Revolution
in Russia, 1550–1682’, Journal of Military History 68, no. 1 (2004): 9–45;
Matthew Stavros, ‘Military Revolution in Early Modern Japan’, Japanese Studies
33, no. 3 (2013): 243–261; Tonio Andrade, Hyeok Hweon Kang, and Kirsten
Cooper, ‘A Korean Military Revolution? Parallel Military Innovations in East
Asia and Europe’, Journal of World History 25, no. 1 (2014): 51–84.
11. See, for example, Günhan Börekçi, ‘A Contribution to the Military Revolution
Debate: The Janissaries Use of Volley Fire during the Long Ottoman–Habsburg
War of 1593–1606 and the Problem of Origins’, Acta Orientalia Academiae
Scientiarum Hung 59, no. 4 (2006): 407–438. Here, the discovery of Ottoman
volley fire during the Long War (1593–1606) against Habsburgs becomes a way
for the author to argue in favour of Ottoman equality with European armies
in matters of infantry tactics and the use of technology in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries.
12. Gommans, ‘Warhorse and Gunpowder in India’.
13. This is also indicated by the fact that he takes roughly this time period as a
temporal unit of analysis in many of his essays.
14. Jos Gommans, Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire
(London and New York: Routledge, 2002), 141.
15. I have argued elsewhere that Gommans’ ascription of this overwhelming
importance to the warhorse is a result of his conceptualization of post-
nomadism as a relatively static condition. In my view, Mughal post-nomadism
was dynamic; it was decisively moulded by the dynasty’s long habitation within
the South Asian landmass. As a result, the role of the warhorse in Mughal
warfare seems to have been much more heterogeneous across both space and
time than what Gommans concedes. Pratyay Nath, Climate of Conquest:
War, Environment, and Empire in Mughal North India (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2019), 53, 108–111, 273–274, 278–279.

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 Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern?243

16. I have argued this in greater detail elsewhere. Pratyay Nath, ‘Looking beyond
the Military Revolution: Variations in Early Modern Warfare and the Mughal
Case’, Journal of Military History, forthcoming.
17. Jeremy Black, Beyond the Military Revolution: War in the Seventeenth-Century
World (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 5.
18. Richard M. Eaton and Philip B. Wagoner, ‘Warfare on the Deccan Plateau,
1450–1600: A Military Revolution in Early Modern India?’ Journal of World
History 25, no. 1 (2014): 5–50, especially 48.
19. Streusand, Formation of the Mughal Empire, 52–57.
20. Rhoads Murphey, Ottoman Warfare: 1500–1700 (New York: Routledge,
1999), 107–108; Brian Davies, ‘Guliai-gorod, Wagenburg, and Tabor, “Tactics
in 16th–17th Century Muscovy and Eastern Europe”’, in Warfare in Eastern
Europe, 1500–1800, ed. Brian Davies, 93–108 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2012),
100–102; Chase, Firearms, 86.
21. Nath, Climate of Conquest, 32–38.
22. Streusand, Formation of the Mughal Empire, 57–64; Nath, Climate of Conquest,
38–43; Gommans, Mughal Warfare, 187–197; John F. Richards, The New
Cambridge History of India, vol. 1.5: The Mughal Empire (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2001), 220–222, 229–230.
23. Nath, Climate of Conquest, 57–74.
24. In a recent article, Philip Wagoner has shown myriad forms of such adaptations
in the period between c. 1000 and c. 1500. Using the examples of polities like
the Delhi Sultanate and the Vijayanagar kingdom, Wagoner shows how this
manifested in battle tactics, army organization, fiscal-military administration,
defensive architecture, and military culture. Phillip B. Wagoner, ‘India, c.
1200–c. 1500’, in The Cambridge History of War, vol. 2: War and the Medieval
World, ed. Anne Curry and David A. Graff, 470–506 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2020).
25. Peter Jackson, ‘Turkish Slaves on Islam’s Indian Frontier’, in Slavery and
South Asian History, ed. Indrani Chatterjee and Richard M. Eaton, 63–82
(Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2006); Sunil Kumar,
‘When Slaves Were Nobles: The Shamsi Bandagan in the Early Delhi Sultanate’,
Studies in History 10, no. 1 (1994): 23–52.
26. David Nicolle and Christa Hook, The Janissaries, Osprey Elite Series (London:
Osprey Publishing, 1997); Sussan Babaie, Kathryn Babayan, Ina Baghdiantz-
McCabe, and Massumeh Farhad, Slaves of the Shah: New Elites of Safavid Iran
(London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2004); Richard M. Eaton, ‘The Rise and
Fall of Military Slavery in the Deccan, 1450–1650’, in Slavery and South Asian
History, ed. Chatterjee and Eaton, 115–135.

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 244 Pratyay Nath

27. John F. Richards, ‘Norms of Comportment among Imperial Mughal Officers’,

in Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, ed.
Barbara Daly Metcalf, 255–289 (London, Berkeley, and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1984), 264–267.
28. Irfan Habib, ‘Agrarian Economy’, in The Cambridge Economic History of
India, ed. Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib, vol. 1: c. 1200–c. 1750, 48–75
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987 [1982]), 68–74.
29. Iqtidar Alam Khan, ‘The Mughal Assignment System during Akbar’s Early
Years, 1556–1575’, in Iqtidar Alam Khan, India’s Polity in the Age of Akbar,
19–92 (Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2016), 26.
30. M. Athar Ali, ‘Towards an Interpretation of the Mughal Empire’, in M. Athar
Ali, Mughal India: Studies in Polity, Ideas, Society, and Culture, 59–73 (New
Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008 [2006]), 60–61. Also see Irfan Habib,
‘Agrarian Relations and Land Revenue: North India’, in Cambridge Economic
History of India, ed. Raychaudhuri and Habib, vol. 1, 235–249, see 236.
31. Irfan Habib, ‘The Monetary System and Prices’, in The Cambridge Economic
History of India, ed. Raychaudhuri and Habib, vol. 1, 360–381, see 360.
32. Khan, ‘Mughal Assignment System’, 35.
33. Khan, ‘Mughal Assignment System’, 35–39.
34. Khan, ‘Mughal Assignment System’, 39–41.
35. M. Athar Ali, The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb (New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2015 [1966]), 38–94; Shireen Moosvi, ‘The Evolution of the
Mansab System under Akbar until 1596–7’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
of Great Britain and Ireland 113, no. 2 (1981): 173–185.
36. Ali, Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb, 42–49.
37. Streusand, Formation of the Mughal Empire, 65–66.
38. Chetan Singh, ‘Centre and Periphery in the Mughal State: The Case of
Seventeenth Century Punjab’, Modern Asian Studies 22, no. 2 (1988): 299–318.
39. R. A. Alavi, ‘New Light on Mughal Cavalry’, in R. A. Alavi, Studies in the
History of Medieval Deccan (Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 1977), 20–62, see
20–22.
40. Streusand also points to the various constraints that prevented the Mughals
from developing a central army under the direct command of an imperial
bureaucracy. These included a general inclination of Mughal commanders for
autonomy, the armed nature of the North Indian peasantry, the strong local
bases of zamindars, and the difficulties of collecting and redistributing land
revenue among the ruling class. Streusand, Formation of the Mughal Empire,
154–172, 178.
41. This is something Streusand also points out. Streusand, Formation of the
Mughal Empire, 176.

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 Was Mughal Warfare Early Modern?245

42. Streusand, Formation of the Mughal Empire, 70–72; Dirk H. A. Kolff,

Naukar, Rajput and Sepoys: The Ethnohistory of the Military Labour Market
in Hindustan, 1450–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991);
Gommans, Mughal Warfare, 67–98; Pratyay Nath, ‘Towards a People’s
History of the Mughal Empire: War and the Non-Elite’, Medieval History
Journal, forthcoming.
43. Nath, Climate of Conquest, 120–167; Nath, ‘Towards a People’s History of the
Mughal Empire’; Pratyay Nath, ‘What Is Military Labour? War, Logistics, and
the Mughals in Early Modern South Asia’, War in History 28, no. 4 (2021),
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0968344520918615.
44. I have shown elsewhere that a failure to exert control over existing routes of
communication or create new ones, contributed to limiting the ambit of
Mughal imperial authority and, in turn, creating frontiers of the empire. Nath,
Climate of Conquest, 172–176.
45. Nath, Climate of Conquest, 148–167.
46. John F. Richards, ‘Mughal State Finance and Premodern World Economy’,
Comparative Studies in Society and History 23, no. 2 (1981): 285–308; Irfan
Habib, ‘The System of Bills of Exchange (“Hundis”) in the Mughal Empire’,
Proceedings of the Indian History Congress 33 (1971): 290–303.
47. Abhimanyu Singh Arha, ‘Hoofprint of Empire: An Environmental History
of Fodder in Mughal India (1650–1850)’, Studies in History 32, no. 2 (2016):
186–208. Similar changes are discussed by Mayank Kumar in his chapter in this
volume.
48. Blain H. Auer, Symbols of Authority in Medieval Islam: History, Religion and
Muslim Legitimacy in the Delhi Sultanate (London: I.B. Tauris, 2012).
49. A. Azfar Moin, The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in
Islam (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012).
50. Muzaffar Alam, The Languages of Political Islam in India, c. 1200–1800 (New
Delhi: Permanent Black, 2004), 61–64.
51. Farhat Hasan, State and Locality in Mughal India: Power Relations in Western
India, c. 1572–1730 (New Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Nath,
Climate of Conquest, 279–281.
52. Nath, Climate of Conquest, 235–252.
53. Rosalind O’Hanlon, ‘Kingdom, Household and Body: History, Gender and
Imperial Service under Akbar’, Modern Asian Studies 41, no. 5 (2007): 889–
923.
54. Streusand, Formation of the Mughal Empire, 139–145.
55. Rosalind O’Hanlon, ‘Manliness and Imperial Service in Mughal North India’,
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 42, no. 1 (1999): 47–93;
Richards, ‘Norms of Comportment’.

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 246 Pratyay Nath

56. Gommans, ‘Warhorse and Gunpowder in India’, 117–119; Kaushik Roy, War,
Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia, 1740–1849 (Oxon and New
York: Routledge, 2011).
57. Kaushik Roy, ‘Military Synthesis in South Asia: Armies, Warfare and Indian
Society, c. 1740–1849’, Journal of Military History 69, no. 3 (2005): 651–690.
58. Randolf G. S. Cooper, ‘Beyond Beasts and Bullion: Economic Considerations
in Bombay’s Military Logistics, 1803’, Modern Asian Studies 33, no. 1 (1999):
159–183.
59. Thomas R. Metcalf, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 3.4: Ideologies of
the Raj (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

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 About the Contributors

Meena Bhargava teaches History at Indraprastha College for Women, University

of Delhi. She is the author of State, Society and Ecology, Gorakhpur in Transition,
1750–1830, Revised Edition (2014 [1999]) and Understanding Mughal India:
Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries (2020); the co-author of Women, Education and
Politics: The Women’s Movement and Delhi’s Indraprastha College (2015 [2005]);
and the editor of anthologies on Mughal history and environmental history.
She specializes in the medieval and early modern Indian history. Her research
interests include social and economic history of India, especially agrarian history,
environmental history, and history of drugs and narcotics. She has also published
several research articles in peer-reviewed national and international journals and
edited volumes.

Radhika Chadha is Associate Professor of History, Miranda House, University

of Delhi. She is the author of Merchants, Renegades, Padres: Portuguese Presence
in Bengal and Arakan, 16th and 17th Centuries (forthcoming). She received her
PhD in History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has been
Fellow, Fundacao Oriente, Lisbon. Her academic interests include medieval
Islamic empires, the history of early modern India, the visual culture of medieval
and early modern South Asia, and gender.

Rajat Datta retired as Professor of History from Jawaharlal Nehru University,

New Delhi. He was the author of Society, Economy and the Market.
Commercialization in Rural Bengal, ca. 1760–1800 (2000) and the editor of
Rethinking a Millennium: Perspectives on Indian History from the Eighth to the
Eighteenth Century (2008). He published widely in journals and edited volumes
on economic history of early modern India, the eighteenth century in Indian
history, comparative trajectories of early modern economic development in an
Asian perspective, and the nature of globalization in the early modern world with
special reference to India in the world economy.

Published online by Cambridge University Press

 248 About the Contributors

Ranjeeta Dutta teaches at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. She is the author of From Hagiographies to Biographies:
Ramanuja in Tradition and History (2014), the editor of a special issue of
Summerhill (Shimla) titled ‘Regions, Identities and Entangled Geographies’, and
the co-editor of Negotiating Religion: Perspectives from Indian History (2012).
Her areas of interest are the history of religion, and ideas of region and space in
medieval and early modern India. She has been a fellow at Max Weber Kolleg,
University of Erfurt, Germany, and the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies,
Shimla. She is one of the editors of Medieval History Journal.

Kashshaf Ghani is Assistant Professor of History at Nalanda University,

Rajgir, Bihar. He is the author of Sufi Rituals and Practices: Experiences from
South Asia 1200–1450 (forthcoming). He specializes in premodern South Asian
history between 1000 and 1800, with a focus on the history of Sufism, and its
practices, interactions, networks, and regional experiences. He is also interested
in Indo-Persian history, cosmopolitan cultures, and Asian interconnections. He
has previously held research positions at the Asiatic Society, Kolkata; Universite
Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris; and Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. His co-edited
volumes include Exploring the Global South: Voices, Ideas, Histories (2013) and
Imagining Asia(s): Networks, Actors, Sites (2019).

Shalin Jain is Professor of History, University of Delhi. He is the author of

Identity, Community and State: The Jains under the Mughals (2017). His research
and teaching interests include social history of the Jain community, religious
thought and practices, gender and society, identity formation, environment
and society, popular culture, and resistance in medieval and early modern
South Asia. He has published several research papers in journals like the Indian
Historical Review, Studies in History, and Social Scientist. A two-time winner
of Professor J. S. Grewal award for the best research paper in Medieval Indian
History at Indian History Congress (2004 and 2013), he has also been a recipient
of UGC (University Grants Commission) Raman Fellowship award for Post-
Doctoral Research in the United States of America (2013–2014) and honorary
fellow at the Centre for South Asia at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
USA (2013).

Published online by Cambridge University Press

 About the Contributors249

Mayank Kumar is Associate Professor of History, School of Social Sciences,

Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi. He is the author of
Monsoon Ecologies: Irrigation, Agriculture and Settlement Patterns in Rajasthan
during the Pre-Colonial Period (2013) and the co-editor of Revisiting the History
of Medieval Rajasthan: Essays for Professor Dilbagh Singh (2017). His research
focuses on human-nature interactions in pre-colonial India. He was associated
with the Decision Centre for Desert City, Arizona State University, as a Fulbright
fellow. He was a fellow at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi,
before availing the UGC (University Grants Commission) National Research
Award.

Pratyay Nath is Assistant Professor of History, Ashoka University, Sonipat. He

is the author of Climate of Conquest: War, Environment, and Empire in Mughal
North India (2019). His research lies at the intersection of environmental history,
military history, and imperial history, with a focus on the Mughal Empire. His
research articles have been published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,
War in History, the Journal of Military History, and South Asia: Journal of South
Asian Studies, as well as several edited volumes. He is one of the editors of the
Medieval History Journal. He writes in English and Bangla.

Charles M. Ramsey teaches history of South Asia at Baylor University, Texas.

He is the author of God’s Word, Spoken and Otherwise (2021), co-translator
and editor of The Gospel according to Sayyid Ahmad Khan (2020), and editor
of South Asian Sufis: Devotion, Deviation, and Destiny (2012). He is also the
editor of the South Asia section of the Brill Encyclopedia of Christian–Muslim
Relations (CMR 1500–1900). He has been awarded grants from the British
Library’s Endangered Archives Program, United States Institute of Peace, and
the American Institute for Pakistan Studies.

Santanu Sengupta is Assistant Professor of History, Polba Mahavidyalaya,

University of Burdwan, West Bengal. He earned his PhD from Jadavpur
University, Kolkata, in 2021. His thesis was titled ‘The Empire’s Network:
Formation of the British Empire in the Eastern Indian Ocean and the Armenian
Agency (From Mid-18th to 19th Century)’. His articles on the legal and cultural
history of the Armenian merchants of eighteenth-century Madras have been
published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society and Global Networks respectively.

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 Index

administrative, 19, 59n8, 124, 136, 232 Ardhakathanak, 89–93

centralization, 233 arhsattas, 126, 134
commands, 197 arzdashts, 126, 130–131
documents, 125 Astrakhan, 204
interventions, 130–132
manuals, 126–127 Banarsidas, 29, 85–86, 89–94, 96,
regulation, 133 98n20
stability, 109 Bay of Bengal, 185, 187–188, 191
agency(ies), 9, 27, 29, 64, 76, 85, 87, Bhakti, 162
203–205, 215, 217 biotic factors, 142
external, 98n20, 214 Bottomry, 220n33
individual, 89–93
agriculture/agricultural/agrarian, 9, 19, cartography, 22, 38n91, 72, 175–176
21, 106–107, 113, 116–118, Chishti, 45, 48, 51–54, 56–57
125–126, 131–134, 136, 141– saints avoids association with
142, 144–145, 147–150, 153, temporal authority, 44
154n4, 165, 168–169, 177 Sabiri, 50
aristocracy, 30 Salim, 45–47
European, 105 sama and dhikr (practices of), 49
expansion, 130–132, 167 climatic factors, 142
frontier, 30, 51 colonial/colonialism, 2–4, 8–11, 17,
land–labour ratio, 110 22, 25–28, 31–32, 36n68,
productivity, 114, 128, 130 39n111, 58, 64–66, 83, 93–95,
revolution in Britain, 153 107, 110–111, 118, 124, 142,
settlements, 143, 169 152–154, 162, 164, 167, 183,
specialists, 169 199, 203–214, 216–217, 224,
surplus, 110 226, 239–240
ancient, 5–11, 21, 24, 34n24, 88, 108, Commenda, 204
124, 161, 166, 183 commercialization, 107, 113, 115–116,
anthropogenic, 21, 30, 141 118

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conservation, 152 early medieval, 11–12, 27, 32, 161–162,

court/Mayor’s court, 203, 209–216 165–167
cross-cultural, 21 early modern/early modernity, 3–4,
actors, 203 12–13, 28–32, 35n46, 36n68,
conflicts, 213 36n69, 37n75, 39n111, 43, 49,
mercantile affairs of Indian Ocean, 53, 56, 58, 64, 66, 71, 76, 104,
212 107–109, 113–118, 124–126,
trade, 205 128, 130, 136, 141–142, 144,
cultural, 1–3, 5, 8–9, 18, 23, 29, 37n75, 146, 148, 150, 152–153, 155n5,
43–44, 49, 51–52, 57, 83, 86, 161–162, 165–168, 171,
94–95, 104, 106, 118–119, 130, 176–177, 183–186, 189, 195,
164, 167, 176, 184–185, 197, 197–198, 203, 208, 216–217,
216–217, 228–230 224, 239
adaptation, 48 defence, 23–27
boundaries, 171 defined, 17–23, 105
change, 144 and individualism, 83–89
cosmopolitanism, 11 in Jain tradition, 93–97
developments in Western Ghats, 145 military, 225–229, 231, 240
expression, 56 East India Company/Company, 1,
hegemony, 15 141, 152–153, 205–209, 213,
pluralism, 109 216–217
sensibilities, 20 ecology/ecological/ecosystems, 21, 30,
synthesis, 48 105, 118, 125–127, 132,
curriculum, 161–162, 165–166 141–142, 144–150, 152–153,
custom/customary, 46, 53, 105, 175, 169, 185, 231, 236
189–190, 203, 206–207, 209– environment/environmental, 4, 21–22,
210, 212, 214–217, 222n60, 29–31, 64, 71–72, 76, 94–95,
222n62, 223n68 109, 118, 125, 127, 132, 136,
141–147, 149–150, 152–154,
Dakhni, 49–50 205, 228–229, 236
dark age, 5, 7, 9–10, 170 history, 154n4
Mohammedan, 8 human-induced changes, 155n5
decolonization, 11, 24, 27, 32 zones, 231, 239
demography, 27, 115–117, 142, 165 epigraphical evidence/records, 168–169
diaspora/diasporic communities, 16, 31, Eurocentrism, 15, 105, 203, 226–227
109, 203–204, 206, 213, 215–216
documenting geography, 126–128 fiscal, 103, 111, 118, 131, 232–234, 236,
dominant, 6, 10, 18–19, 24–25, 55, 84, 239–240, 243n24
86, 89–90, 93–94, 130, 163, intermediation, 107
225, 237, 240 -military state apparatuses, 109

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refinements, 112 diasporic, 204, 206, 215

transactions, 110 hybrid, 216
forest(s), 51, 108, 133, 142–147–153, individual, 75, 84, 96
170, 174, 177, 231, 235 regional, 19, 174, 183
frontier(s), 19, 30, 51, 104, 112, 132, religious, 20, 91, 96, 171, 176
142–145, 149, 152, 173–174, sectarian, 91, 95–96
184, 193–194, 245n44 segregation, 91
imagination, 10, 20, 35n36, 66, 73–74,
gaccha, 86, 89, 91, 94 164, 175–176
global growth models, 115 imperial, 46, 92, 109, 112, 118, 187,
194, 198, 211, 217, 229–230,
hagiography, 70, 86, 172 236, 238–240
heterodoxy, 11, 56, 84–86, 93–94, 97 army, 59n8, 230–231, 235
history, 3–13, 15, 17, 19–20, 23, 26–27, cities, 49
29, 31, 36n69, 39n111, 43, 56, directives, 126
64–67, 71, 83–85, 92, 97, 103– elite, 47, 57
104, 106–108, 114, 117–118, enterprise, 186–187
124, 141, 149, 161–162, 167, farman, 190, 192, 195
172, 188–189, 203–204, 216, formations, 184
225, 227, 232, 236 framework, 162–163
agrarian, 125 household, 44, 57
comparative, 32 servants, 44
connected, 32 spaces, 183
environmental, 154n4, 155n5 suba, 199
evolution of western Europe, 20 zones, 184
global, 32 individual(s), 4, 18, 20, 29, 46, 66,
intellectual, 25 75, 83, 89–93, 105, 134–136,
temporalization of, 18, 23, 37n75 168–169, 176, 184–185, 189,
Hugli, 183, 185, 189–197, 200n27 193–194, 205, 209–210, 215,
human–environment relationships, 229, 232–233, 235
141–142, 150 and early modernity, 83–89
liberty, 13
Ibn Sina, 67, 69–70, 72–73 sthalapuranas, 172
identity, 29, 37, 144, 161, 164–165, insurance, 208–212
171–172, 196, 205, 214, Islam/Islamic/Islamist, 7, 10–12, 27,
217, 238 31, 46, 50–51, 53, 55, 56–58,
Armenian, 218n12, 222n59 75, 77n4, 87–88, 95, 107, 109,
civilizational, 107 163–164, 231–232, 238
corporate, 239 anthropology of, 99n31
cosmopolitan, 96 millenarianism, 71

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modernity a western malady, 66 176–177, 183, 203, 231–232,

philosophy, 43 238–239, 241n5
political, 29 European origins of, 4–6
radical, 5 late, 64
role in shaping framework of outside Europe, 6–8
kingship and authority, 237 politics of, 8–12
South Asian, 3–4, 97, 141
jama, 144, 153, 156n16 merchant, 29, 85–86, 89–90, 94,
Jain/Jainism, 29, 83–97, 99n31 109–111, 113–114, 133, 169,
judicial process, 134–136, 208–209, 213 184, 190–194, 199n16, 204,
207–213, 215–216, 221n54,
kinship system, 164, 204 223n68, 236
military, 2, 22, 59n8, 105, 146–147,
land-use pattern, 30, 108, 142–146 165, 195, 197, 214, 217, 224
law, 1, 4, 30, 55–56, 71, 195, 204–205 adaptation, 224, 228–231
civil, 105 changelessness, 224
of sea, 206 fiscalism, 30, 109
legal, 14, 30, 69, 134–136, 218n12 mobilization, 236
arbitration, 214 modernity, 225–228
culture of Indian Ocean, 31 organization, 31, 231–234
deliberation, 209 power, 1
New Julfan culture, 204–206 professionals, 19
pluralism, 31, 210, 214, 216 revolution, 224
procedures, 30 violence, 30
treatises, 55 millennial sovereign, 59n6, 60n20
verdicts, 65 modern/modernity/modernization, 1,
logistics, 208–212 6, 8–11, 36n69, 66, 68, 70, 93,
124–127, 130, 136, 176–177
Madras, 164, 205, 208, 210–211, anterior, 106
213–216, 222n59, 223n68 Bengal Renaissance, 2
margins, 52, 84, 112, 149, 184–185, bourgeois, 2
195, 225, 227 civilization, 7
maritime, 30–31, 107, 177, 186, 190, early, 3–4, 17–23, 28–32, 39n111,
203–204, 206–212 43, 49, 53, 56, 58, 64, 76,
massive investments, 128–130 83, 107–109, 113–119,
mawas, 146 141–142, 146, 148, 150,
medieval, 17–18, 24, 27–28, 31–32, 152, 161–162, 165–168,
34n24, 44, 52, 56, 83–84, 87, 183–189, 195, 197–198,
90–93, 96, 103–104, 107, 208, 216–217, 224,
109, 117, 119, 124, 161–168, 239–240

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category of, 203 of power, 14

defence of, 23–27 regional, 44
defined, 104 supra-local, 168–169, 177
and individualism, 83–89 trans-local, 168
in Jain tradition, 93–97 urban, 144
origin of, 104 New Julfa Armenian diaspora, 203,
European nationalism, 65 215, 222n59
idea of, 12–17 decline in 1740s, 207
indigenous, 75 jumiat tradition, 214
late, 37n69 kalanthar, 213
multiple, 105 legal culture, 204–206
reawakening, 5 merchants as avak or jukami avak,
secular, 71 208, 216
singular, 141 New World, 107–108, 110–111, 117, 236
subjective, 141 normative, 84, 86, 90, 96, 98n20,
universal, 2 126–128, 134, 168, 172, 237
monetization, 110, 116–118
Mughal warfare, 31, 240 other
army organization, 231–234 European, 85
culture of war, 237–239 geographic, 168, 170
management of war, 234–236 majoritarian, 94
military early modernity, search for,
225–228 pastoral/pastoralists/pastoralism/
military adaptation, 228–231 agro-pastoralism, 19, 104, 118,
military revolutions in, 225–228, 125–126, 132, 147–149,
239 151, 173
pedagogy classroom, 161
nadus, 164, 169 peninsular region, 30, 163–164, 167,
Naqshbandis, 45–50, 53–54, 56–57, 169, 171, 175–177
62n38, 69 periodization, 8–9, 25, 28, 32, 70,
naval, 22, 146, 188, 206, 209, 231 103–105, 108–110, 124, 161, 165
nayaka, 164 historical, 4–6, 23–24, 26
nayankara, 165 new, 166–168
neo-Malthusian, 107 politics of, 3
network, 57, 85, 94, 106, 110, 114, 118, tripartite, 83
126, 132, 162, 203–204, 207, violence in Indian history, 162–166
213–214, 218n12, 235–236 periphery, 184–185
expansion of, 49–53 Persian, 51–54, 56, 59n8, 60n25, 64–67,
of integration, 169 69, 76, 80n35, 92, 109, 125,
pilgrimage, 172–177 162–164, 188, 190, 216,

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ishraqi ideas, 238 Rahman, Fazlur, 66, 69, 73

philosophy, 21 reclamation, 144, 147, 151–152
tradition, 43 reformism, 56
waterwheels, 71 region(s)/regional, 1, 7, 11, 16, 19,
pilgrimage, 45–46, 91, 168, 171–177 21–22, 24, 26, 30, 36n69,
political, 1–2, 8, 15, 18, 27, 84–85, 43–45, 49, 51–53, 64–72, 76,
105–106, 110, 118, 127, 143, 85, 87–88, 105–111, 114–116,
145, 150–153, 162–167, 177, 118, 125–130, 132–135,
197–198, 205–206, 217, 141–145, 147–150, 154n4,
228–230, 233, 238–240 161–167, 177, 184–185,
actors, 184–185, 189 188–189, 191, 193–196, 206,
application of technology, 68 227, 230, 235, 237, 240
aristocracy, 238 configurations, 168–176
authority, 43, 128, 131–132 identities, 183
baggage, 9 military revolutions in, 226
consolidation, 168, 170 setting, 186–187
culture, 71 regulating the domestic and social lives,
dynasties, 43 125, 134–136
economy, 9, 11, 30, 104, 110, 124, religion/religious developments, 4,
132, 183, 194 8, 13, 18, 20, 22, 29, 48, 57,
entanglements, 185, 195 85–86, 88, 94–96, 109, 162,
hostility, 211–212 173–174, 176, 237–238
ideology of universal sovereignty, 22 respondentia, 208–213
Islam, 29, 237 roti sata, 136
orders, 43 rural production systems, 110, 112
regimes, 11, 106 rurban settlements, 113
right, 10
superior, 171 sacred geography, 162, 168, 171,
tribal kin-based formations, 124 173–177
population, 19, 22, 30, 48, 51, 57, 105, Sadra, Mulla, 29, 31, 66–75, 79n23,
108, 110, 115–117, 125, 129, 80n30, 81n47, 82n65,
141–142, 146–149, 152, 168, Sanad Parwana Bahi, 135
173–174, 184, 191 sectarian, 20, 87
Portuguese Empire, 185–187, 189, 196, interest or identities, 91, 95–96
198 Jain, 86
privateering, 197 Shwetambar–Digambar, 91
sedentary cultivation, 142, 147, 152
Qadiri, 46–47, 50, 52, 54, 56–57, self, 2, 93
61n32 -assigned custodians, 12
qasba, 69, 113–114, 150 -expanding existence, 69

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-governance, 164 116–118, 124–126, 145, 167,

-interest, 105 183, 203, 211, 216–217,
-praise, 72 224–225, 227, 230–231,
-representation, 206, 212–214, 216 239–240
royal, 170 early modern of, 43, 83, 85, 94, 96,
settlement patterns, 142–143, 162, 141, 146, 148, 152
164–165, 167–177 engaged with European
Shah, Lonka, 29, 85–89, 93–94, 96, technological
98n20 advancements, 76
shared historical processes, 21, 146–152, environmental processes in, 142
155n5 gunpowder weaponry
Sirhindi, 31, 46, 53–55, 62n49, 66–67, dissemination in, 226
69–75, 79n29, n32, 81n47 Jainism, 84, 94, 96
social hierarchies, 93, 163 medieval in, 97, 141
social use of natural resources, taxation Military Revolution hypothesis in,
on, 132–133 226
society(ies), 1–2, 7, 10, 25, 27, 29, military success of Mughals in,
32, 43, 56, 70, 84–85, 89–90, 234–236
98n20, 103–104, 106–107, 109, political economy of, 183–185
115–117, 124–125, 127–128, and politics of Medieval in
132, 134–136, 142, 145–146, twentieth-century, 8–12
148, 152, 166–169, 176, 188, Sufism in, 43–44, 47
204, 206, 228, 239–240 and western Europe, difference
civil, 14 between, 20–21
coastal, 12 South India, 12, 30, 149, 165, 174, 176
contemporary, 17 early modernity in, 20
court, 48 geographical imaginary of, 175
indigenous, 8 history, 20, 161–162, 164, 167
medieval, 93 South Indian vernaculars, 20
modern, 14, 16, 26 state formation, 183, 194–195
non-European, 15, 23 cycles of, 103
Pashtun, 52 in early medieval period, 166
pastoral, 19, 148 reduced to teleological analysis, 162
Portuguese, 185 Sufi, 29, 43, 55
profit-oriented, 35n46 customs and practices as
sedentary, 19, 147–148 innovations, 53
South Asia, 2–4, 8, 13, 17, 19–20, 22, Islam, 31, 51
24–32, 39n111, 48–49, 51–53, masters, 43
56, 65–66, 69, 85, 90, 92–93, network, 44, 49–53, 57
103–104, 106–108, 113–114, orders, 43–49, 51, 54–57

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personalities, 50 text, 20–21, 28, 51–53, 55, 70, 85–93,

premakhyan, 51 95, 98n20, 125, 130, 135–136,
rituals, 50 142, 163, 170, 172, 174, 195
romantic tales, 51 tashkik, 69, 71
saints, 43 tashkik al-wujud, 69, 73
sama, 51
shrines, 56 vernacular, 22, 29, 126, 130, 163
spiritual discourse, 51 culture, rise of, 37n75, 90
suborders, 49 languages, 49–53, 57, 19
treatises, 50 literary, 109, 125
writings, 52 modernities, 84
Sufism, 29, 49–50, 53, 55, 69, 162 South Indian, 20
Chishti, 46–47 violence, 4, 15, 22, 240
colonial modernity for, 58 against women, 35n36
history of, 43, 56 caste system, 35n36
South Asian, 44 of idea of modernity, 32
sustainability, 153 legitimation of, 31
military, 30, 238–239
trade, 114–115, 118, 141, 145, 153, of periodization in Indian history,
169, 175, 186, 189–191, 194– 162–166
197, 204, 208, 222n59
cross-cultural, 205 warfare, 4, 29, 133. See also Mughal
global networks, 106 warfare
interregional, 116 interstate, 31, 106
maritime, 203, 206 wahdat al-wujud, 48, 54, 57, 59n9,
overseas, 111–112, 210 61n35, 62n40, 72
and politics, 220n38 war and society approach, 228, 240
transoceanic, 126
transregional, 28, 192 zamindar(s), 122n38, 142, 150–153,
trust, 46, 208–209, 214 159n54, 230, 244n40
intra-community, 204

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