Poetry and Legitimacy at the Mughal Court :  Selected Tasks of a Poet according to the Text of Čahār čaman by Chandar Bhan Brahman

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Abstract

The present paper proposes to take a new look at the imperial Mughal court’s pattern of patronage of arts and letters as a vital and indispensable component of the imperial state machinery on the one hand and an instrument of historical change on the other. It focuses on, and draws from, Čahār čaman, a mid-17th-c. work by Chandar Bhan Brahman, one of the prominent figures among poets, writers, scribes and secretaries in Mughal service; a person involved in the never-ending, and aesthetically intricate, ceremonial exchange of goods, honors, acts of refined praise and proofs of recognition that not only made up the rich and variegated courtly milieu of the period but also gave form and actively shaped the ethos of the Mughal state’s pattern of self-representation—all in the service of legitimating the imperial power and its expanding claim over increasingly vaster stretches of the Indian subcontinent and its regional rulers and their riches. The same was done in the garb of sophisticated aesthetics of imperial power that demanded rulers, princes, prominent chiefs and officers, executive clerks, accountants and administrative professionals to communicate and ever prove anew their status and position in the language and manners recognized as aesthetically pleasing and in the form requiring literary, if not poetical, skills and competence based on knowledge of recognized expressive forms and appropriate genres as well as individual talent and personal ambition.

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Revisiting the History and Historiography of Mughal Pluralism

Rajeev Kinra (2020)

The concept of ṣulḥ-i kull is well known as a core feature of the Mughal Empire's state ideology, one that made it, comparatively speaking, arguably the most tolerant and inclusive state in the entire early modern world. Often translated as “peace with all,” the term has become almost synonymous in South Asian historiography with the policies of religious pluralism promoted by the dynasty's most celebrated emperor, Jalal al-Din Muhammad Akbar “the Great” (r. 1556–1605) and his famed courtier and biographer, Abu al-Fazl ibn Mubarak (1551–1602). Surprisingly enough, however, despite its ubiquity in discussions of Mughal attitudes toward religious and cultural pluralism, a comprehensive intellectual history of the term ṣulḥ-i kull does not, in fact, appear to have ever been attempted. It is often taken for granted that ṣulḥ-i kull was the obvious term to express the ethos of civility, universal reason, and inclusiveness that Akbar wanted to promote. But why did Akbar and Abu al-Fazl choose this term, specifically? What exactly did they mean by it? And how was the term actually understood in practice, not just in Akbar's era but also in the subsequent decades and indeed centuries? These are the kinds of questions this article seeks to address.