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- Convenors:
-
Heidi Pauwels
(University of Washington)
Monika Boehm-Tettelbach (South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University)
- Location:
- 03G91
- Start time:
- 25 July, 2014 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 3
Short Abstract:
Alamgir is often cast a bigot who antagonized his Shia, Sikh and Hindu subjects This view is mainly based on travel accounts and Persian sources. This panel invites explorations of alternative sources, especially from vernacular literature
Long Abstract:
The Mughal emperor Alamgir (r. 1658-1707 ) is often cast as a tyrant who antagonized his Shi'a, Sikh and Hindu subjects through his "bigotry." Some see this as the root cause for the decline of the Mughal Empire. This negative view goes back to Sarkar's seminal work (5 vols. 1912-24). Increasingly, scholars are calling for a more nuanced understanding (Chandra, Alvi, Eaton, Kinra, Butler-Brown, Faruqui). Moreover, there were other interesting developments going on during Alamgir's reign, which was a period of transition, with the rise of vernacular literature. As it turns out, the commonplace view of Alamgir is based on European travel accounts and some Persian sources that reflect contemporary politics (written by disgruntled elements). The state-centered accounts of Alamgir's rule emphasize positive aspects, but are often disregarded as propaganda. Do the vernacular literatures of the period confirm this or bring other aspects to light? We invite explorations of the less-commonly referenced vernacular literatures of the period, towards a fuller and less state-centric view of the emperor.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
Short Abstract Critical review of the relationship of Aurangzeb with the Kachvahas as expressed in literary sources.
Paper long abstract:
Long Abstract
Currents of estrangement had been underlying the relationship between the Kachvaha kings of Amber/Jaipur with the Mughal court especially since the late 1660s. This expressed itself in symbolic and practical political action, in diplomatic correspondence, and in literature. The written records are in Indic languages, Persian, and English.
Whereas the contribution will review those various ways of representing the relationship, it will mainly dwell on its literary expression. In sources from the Kachvaha milieu, writing about the strained relationships took usually place much after the actual events, at a time when the Kachvaha state was vigorously asserting its identity as a Hindu kingdom vis-à-vis the weakened empire. If they take sides, these sources break down political complexity to encounters between heroes or heroes and villains, as the case may be. As for the undated bardic literature, it treats the issue in a peculiar literary form that neutralizes events and makes actions and acting characters almost interchangeable. The emphasis of the contribution is therefore on the examination of literary and other norms of expression that govern the sources at our disposal.
Paper short abstract:
The complexity of Aurangzeb’s character can be seen by comparing narratives in which Mir Jafar Zatalli ridicules Aurangzeb physically and assuages his sense of Justice as an Emperor to alternative works where he has the highest regard for his strength of character and military prowess in the face of crisis.
Paper long abstract:
Kaha ab paiye aisa Shahanshah
Mukammal akmal va kamil dil agah ?
Mir Jafar Zatalli (1658-1713), the author of Zatalnamah is better known for his scathing comments on everyone and for painting a portrait of moral and political decline in the eighteenth century where greed and backstabbing were flourishing. According to Zatalli, the solution to these socio- political problems was to go back to Aurangzeb's reign. In fact he holds his usually scathing tongue and praises the Emperor and his administrative abilities which supposedly held the entire Empire together in the time of crisis.
On the one hand, Zatalli has composed poems eulogizing Aurangzeb. Even though he gives him back handed compliments, he thinks that at least in Aurangzeb's reign the world was still habitable but after his death it seems that political and social life were deteriorating sharply.
On the other hand, he constantly ridicules Emperor Aurangzeb by writing extremely impudent and often obscene 'Court Journal' of the royal commands given by the Emperor during Court proceedings. Aurangzeb is depicted as listening to reports of some malfeasance or public discontent or of some vulgar sexual activity each day. Aurangzeb responds to it in a similar bawdy fashion.
It is difficult to decide which the more mordant satire on the emperor: a court where bawdy sexualities are reported as events of state, or a court where the Emperor receives report of a wrongdoing but laughs it off with a vulgar riposte. The paper hopes to explore the complex, often contradictory depiction of Aurangzeb's reign in Zatalli's work.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will examine representations of the emperor in the late 18th/early 19th century gurbilas or Sikh historiographical text by Kuir Singh (alongside others) to explore the multiple ways the figure of Aurangzeb has been drawn in this nascent form of Sikh histiorgraphical production.
Paper long abstract:
Aurangzeb is portrayed in Sikh historiographical traditions in association with ongoing conflicts between the Sikh Gurus and the Mughal state in the period, the martyrdom of the Ninth Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, and the assault and loss of the Sikh seat of Anandpur during the tenure of the Tenth Guru, Guru Gobind Singh. The Persian zafarnamah, recently explored in a book by Louis Fenech, is said to have been written by Guru Gobind Singh to censure the emperor and make an appeal for justice. This paper will examine representations of the emperor in the late 18th/early 19th century gurbilas or historiographical text by Kuir Singh (alongside others) to explore the multiple ways the figure of Aurangzeb has been drawn in this nascent form of Sikh histiorgraphical production in the period, and how claims for sovereignty are configured around the figure of the emperor in texts of the period.
Paper short abstract:
A study of Persian and Gujarati materials on Aurangzeb's rule in Gujarat.
Paper long abstract:
Born in Dahod (formerly Dohad) in eastern Gujarat, Aurangzeb retained an affection for region of his birth throughout his life. His legacy in Gujarat precedes his accession to the throne. As governor of the province and later as emperor, he is said to have pursued Muslim minorities, especially those who demonstrated Shi'i tendencies. This paper will examine Persian and Gujarati materials to reassess Aurangzeb's tenure in Gujarat, especially with reference to his alleged bigotry.
Paper short abstract:
This paper focuses on the Chatraprakāś of Lal Kavi, a Braj text written shortly after Aurangzeb’s death. While centrally concerned with an insurgent Bundela king, a parsing of its layers of panegyric and political critique contributes new perspectives to the historiography of Aurangzeb’s reign.
Paper long abstract:
Our understanding of Mughal-period India derives overwhelmingly from the chronicles produced at the imperial center and accounts by Europeans. My paper contributes to the collective effort of bringing attention to new types of sources. In this paper I analyze the vignettes of Aurangzeb and his officials that are available in Lal Kavi's Chatraprakāś (Light on Chatrasal, c. 1710), a Brajbhasha historical poem commissioned by the insurgent Bundela ruler Chatrasal (1649-1731). Written shortly after Aurangzeb's death, the Chatraprakāś is in part a retrospective on Aurangzeb's reign and the poet finds much to take issue with. The work is a valuable source of regional history that gives voice to how the Mughal Empire was perceived from the periphery. In places, Lal Kavi engages in trenchant political critique, expressing the court's strong disillusionment with the Mughal manṣabdārī system as well as more local grievances. While by no means the dominant tone of the work, there are occasional hints of the court's outrage at Mughal offenses against what Lal Kavi explicitly terms "Hindu dharma." Certainly the work must also be approached as an example of Indic praśasti (literary panegyric). Parsing the Chatraprakāś as both poetry and history, I try to follow in Lal Kavi's footsteps by providing a regional perspective on late seventeenth-century Mughal politics.
Paper short abstract:
Conflict with Mughal emperor Aurangzeb is a major theme of the Brajbhasa poem Rajvilas, completed at the Mewar court in 1680. In this paper, I analyze Rajvilas’s narrative of the Rajput Rebellion of 1679-1681, exploring how it stereotypically casts Mewar positively and the Mughals negatively.
Paper long abstract:
Conflict with the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb is a major theme of the Brajbhasa text Rajvilas, completed at the Mewar court in 1680 AD. While ostensibly composed to praise the achievements of the Rajput lord of Mewar, Maharana Raj Singh (r. 1652-1680), roughly 40% of this long poem of 1600 verses actually covers the Rajput Rebellion of 1679-1681. In this paper, I conduct a close analysis of Rajvilas's narrative of war, exploring how its poet Man casts Mewar and its warriors in a good light while at the same time castigating Aurangzeb and his prince Akbar. This is accomplished partly through the use of derogatory language, like Asuresar (Lord of the Demons) for Aurangzeb. More important, however, are the poet's positive portrayals of Mewar's military failures, such as when he justifies the forced retreat of the Rana and his court to the hills as a time-honored Mewar strategy against the Mughals. He also maligns the character of Aurangzeb by tracing the origins of the conflict to the emperor's supposedly long-held grudge against Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur, who supported his rival Dara Shikoh in the succession dispute of 1658. In closing, I situate Rajvilas within the larger political context of the Mewar kingdom and the Rajasthan region, showing that its belligerent tone belies the harmonious relations between Aurangzeb and Raj Singh's successor, Maharana Jai Singh (r. 1680-1698).
Paper short abstract:
The paper explores vernacular stories about Aurangzeb in Rajasthan. Focusing on the campaign in Mewar, it examines narratives that demonstrate ambivalence about royal authority, Mewar’s relationship with other kingdoms, and the emperors’ views about Vaishnavism.
Paper long abstract:
This paper contemplates vernacular legends about Aurangzeb. Gleaned from research in Udaipur, they demonstrate the complex of variously positioned and ambivalent narrators. Among salient motifs are the power of Vaishnavism, the glory of Mewar's Maharana Raj Singh, and the superiority of Mewar over other kingdoms.
Examining devotional literature, oral legends, and local histories, the paper examines diverse ways in which Aurangzeb is represented in the context of his campaign in Mewar. It explores complex representations by narrators, whose stories inevitably pit the emperor against Raj Singh, but also display ambivalence about blame for bloodshed. Some stories about Udaipur's most famous sagasji or hero, Sultan Singh (who was executed because his father, Raj Singh, believed a false rumor), express sympathy for all people subject to the whims of regal authority.
There are also stories about Raj Singh's struggle with Aurangzeb that portray him as nemesis but not antithesis. Among these are stories about Raj Singh's rescue/abduction of Princess Charumati of Kishengarh when Aurangzeb was planning to marry her. In these tales, the problem is not, or not only, Aurengzeb, but Charumati, who had fallen in love with Raj Singh. Not simply running from Aurangzeb, she was running to her beloved. Other stories are diverse accounts of Raj Singh's protection of Vaishnava icons from Aurangzeb (who is sometimes held to become a devotee of Shri Nathji), and legends about the emperor's near, but not complete, destruction of a Jain temple built by Mewar's Jain chief minster.
Paper short abstract:
Was Alamgir responsible for the displacement of Krishna images from Braj, in particular that of Shri Nathji? We investigate this claim, looking at contemporary political developments using that rhetoric, as well as at vernacular sources claiming to be eye-witness reports from the seventeenth century
Paper long abstract:
It is often uncritically repeated that the iconoclasm of the Mughal emperor Alamgir (r 1758-1707) caused the displacement and dispersing of Krishna images from the Braj heartland around the late 1660s and early 1670s. Such a view casts the emperor as the villain persecuting beloved Hindu images, and the images as victims, forced to be moved from their original homeland in a grand-scale exodus.
Emilia Bachrach will discuss this discourse and the ways in which it is both affirmed and challenged in contemporary theatrical performances and debates related to the Vallabhan image of Shri Nathji and to the deity's temple, or haveli in Nathdwara, Rajasthan.
But does such discourse indeed reflect how Shri Nathji's peregrinations were perceived in the seventeenth century? Bachrach and Pauwels will present the perspective of the caretakers of such Krishna images, as represented in the Shri Nathji ki Prakatya Varta, a text attributed to Harirayji, and as such contemporary to the events in question.
We do not mean to deny that temples were destroyed by Alamgir (and others) and that images were desecrated. What we are presenting here is a case where the perceived victims' response to the challenge was more nuanced than the current Hindu-Muslim confrontational narratives might lead us to think.
Paper short abstract:
Besides the relationship of Aurangzeb with the Nath Yogis of Jakhbar monastery, the figure of the Moghul appears in a few legends where he is or a vilain opponent or a faithful but clumsy and misguided devotee. This paper intends to explore the various parts he played in the Nath representations
Paper long abstract:
The Moghul emperor Aurangzeb figures in some legendary accounts collected among the Nath Yogis. However the part he plays in these stories may be quite different and diversify the common image of the vilain opponent to Hindus. Besides his close and well documented connection with the Yogis of Jakhbar monastery (Goswami and Grewal), Aurangzeb is sometimes depicted by the Yogis as a faithful but clumsy and misguided devotee of Gorakhnath. This paper intends to explore the various parts played by Aurangzeb in the Nath representations and traditions. One may wonder also if, in these narratives, Aurangzeb as such is taken into consideration or if he is not a metonymy for the encompassing category of « badshah ».
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines posthumous stories in Persian about Khushhal Khan kalawant, chief singer to Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir. Such stories reveal much about the imputed powers of music, the political roles of musicians -- and the political purposes of musical tales in Mughal historical narratives.
Paper long abstract:
Perhaps the most famous anecdote of Aurangzeb 'Alamgir's reign concerns his "burial of music", a parodic funeral procession put on by devastated court musicians in protest at the Emperor having banned music c.1668. In previous work, I investigated the veracity of 'Alamgir's ban at length, coming to the conclusion that reports of music's death during his reign had been greatly exaggerated. What I did not do then, in pursuit of clearing away a major obstacle to the history of Mughal cultural practices in the time of 'Alamgir, is consider what this and other such stories have to tell us about the intense relationship between music and political power in the Mughal period. Although the instigator of the burial protest is not named in either of the seventeenth-century retellings, we know that the principal target of 'Alamgir's rulings restricting musical performance in his presence were his chief dhrupad singer, Khushhal Khan kalawant, and his brothers. In this paper I will investigate eighteenth-century stories about Khushhal Khan in Persian-language tazkiras and musical treatises that give us more information about his implication in court politics. These telling tales tell us much about Mughal uses of music as a form of power, the political roles and intrigues of elite musicians at the Mughal court -- and the political purposes of musical stories in Mughal historical narratives.
Paper short abstract:
The paper will present song texts in Braj Bhasha addressed to Aurangzeb from a collection of lyrics of the 19th century. As a less studied source on poetic appreciation at the Mughal court, lyrics supplement the information provided by Indo-Persian musicological treatises and other textual sources.
Paper long abstract:
In earlier publications I studied manuscript, lithographic and printed collections of lyrics and more specifically of the Dhrupad genre of Hindustani music. A brief survey of motivations for their compilation as poetico-musical illustrations of theoretical treatises, or as court musicians' repertoires, will help contextualizing the oral and written transmission of dhrupad songs addressed to Aurangzeb. Among two remarkable examples of both categories are the late 17th century Sanskrit theoretical works of Bhavabhatta, a musician and musicologist at the court of Anup Singh, king of Bikaner, one of the governors of Aurangzeb in the Deccan, and the mid-19th century Rampur court musicians' repertoire known as Rampur Ragamala. Fifteen dhrupad songs dedicated to Aurangzeb / Alamgir have been edited from the Rampur manuscript by Acharya K.Ch. Brahaspati 'Anangrang' (1918-1979), a Sanskrit, Persian and other Indic languages scholar, musicologist and poet-composer at the court of Rampur in his Dhruvapada aur uska vikas (1976). They highlight the representation of Aurangzeb by court musicians praising his glorious and auspicious reign in Puranic and Sufi terms, his celebration of New Year, spring, etc. with courtesans, described according to the classical literary categories of lovers, in a style similar to many dhrupads composed for the Mughal emperors Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. As a less studied source on poetic and aesthetic appreciation at the Mughal court, lyrics supplement the information on performing arts at the court of Aurangzeb, as provided by Indo-Persian musicological treatises, historical chronicles, hagiographical narratives, and vernacular literature that have been studied earlier.