Manliness and Imperial Service in Mughal North India

Manliness and Imperial Service in Mughal North India
Author(s): Rosalind O'Hanlon

Source: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 42, No. 1 (1999), pp.
47-93
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3632298
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MANLINESS AND IMPERIAL SERVICE IN
MUGHAL NORTH INDIA
BY
ROSALIND O'HANLON
(Clare College, Cambridge)
Abstract
This essay explores some of the ways in which gender identity and norm
were important in the political and religious discourses of Mughal north
with the meanings of manhood ran through these discourses and their an
wider world of medieval Perso-Islamic political culture, constructing import
links between kingship, norms for statecraft, imperial service and ideal ma
examines in detail the ways in which one high imperial servant in the e
century inherited, developed and reflected on these themes, and related
personal experience. These definitions of elite manliness began to change
enteenth century, and their connection with imperial service began to frac
emergence of more complexly stratified urban societies in north India, and
of an increasingly ebullient and cosmopolitan ethos of gentlemanly connoiss
sumption. The essay examines some of the normative literature associated w
and suggests that one of their consequences may have been to intensify the
service morale associated with the last decades of the seventeenth century.
Introduction
In the last decade, historians of India in search of new insights into social
change have turned increasingly to the study of women and gender. Here as
in many other fields of historical study, however, 'gender' here has tended
to mean women.') Women are assumed to be the 'carriers' of gender, because
their reproductive role is held to define their place in society. Men's nature, on
the other hand, is felt to be vested not so much in their bodies, as is their
capacity for reason, reflection and understanding. Men thus become for us the
norm, the universal subjects of history, against which women, children and
others less complete in their humanity should be measured. These presupposi-
tions about men and women have existed in different forms in many cultural
1) There is now a very large literature on women in Indian society from the late eight-
eenth century. An excellent introduction to this is still the collection of essays in Sangari and
Vaid 1989.
? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1999 JESHO 42,1
48 ROSALIND O'HANLON
traditions, and have very often formed

hierarchies of gender have been elab
argued, a particular consequence of the
masculinity socially invisible.2) Thus, w
beings and gendered bodies: at what
their sense of themselves as men, at w
masculine identity may entail, at what
together on the basis of shared gender i
Masculinity might be defined, then,
which is gendered: which defines him
and conditions other aspects of his iden
ethnicity or age. Defining masculinity in
it is some kind of universal essence, to
the cultural context. The purpose is ra
qualities, behaviours and roles associate
different historical contexts, how these
ticular social groups, and employed to
kinds, both between men and women,
identities contain a further complexity,
be inclusive as well as exclusive, and refer in some contexts to men and
women in general, considered in relation to other orders of being. This ambi-
guity emerges particularly strongly in the political and ethical discourses on the
nature of human perfectibility which have featured so largely in both Western
and Islamic philosophical traditions. Many strands in each consider the possi-
bilities for human moral growth in ways which appear to include women, but
which in practice identify human virtue in masculine terms.3) Cultural under-
standings of what constitutes 'manhood' in its various forms have also differed
very widely, as have assumptions about its consequences for individual tem-
perament, behaviour and bodily experience. In the case of nineteenth century
Britain, for example, historians have explored a shift in the codes of manliness
current among governing and professional classes during the later nineteenth
century. These codes moved from the moral earnestness of the Evangelicals and
Dr Arnold, with their emphases on moral courage, sexual purity and civic
virtue, to the muscular and 'imperial' masculinity of the 1890's.4) But wherever
manhood is associated with power, however loosely or variably, it becomes
also a public social status which must be striven for and maintained in specific
2) Tosh 1994, p. 180.

3) See, for example, Ahmed 1992, pp. 39-125.
4) Mangan and Walvin 1987, pp. 1-7; Roper and Tosh 1991.
MANLINESS AND IMPERIAL SERVICE IN MUGHAL NORTH INDIA 49
social contexts, and to which the recognition of peers is essential. Thus the con-
cept of masculinity is inherently relational in two senses. It is not only per-
ceived differences from women that define and sustain its meaning, but also
the recognition and affirmation of other men.5) As R.W. Connell has argued,
moreover, codes of masculinity in most societies have their own pecking order:
some are superior to others. Ruling groups not only valorise particular features
of their own masculine code; they often stigmatise others as marginal, deviant
or criminal, particularly those which seem to undermine or discredit men more
generally as possessing a proper authority over women.6) Sexuality is perhaps
the most obvious register here, given the formal stigmatisation of homosexual-
ity evident in many political and religious traditions, but other registers-of
class, culture, race, ethnicity or age-may equally feature in the construction of
'low' forms of manhood.7)
Thus relationally conceived, the wider social elaboration of these codes for
men as well as women, their construction in realms of economy and polity as
well as of kinship systems and households, constitute major themes in the study
of gender. As Joan Scott has reminded us, however, gender is not only an im-
mediate dimension of social relationships in this way; it acts also as a wider
and particularly potent means of signifying relationships of power in much
more general ways.') This is because the conceptual languages required in
these processes establish their meanings through differentiation, and sexual dif-
ference represents an immediately available and pervasively familiar way of
establishing differentiation. It works most strongly, of course, wherever the
meanings of masculine and feminine are most categorically polarised, and dis-
tinctive sexual roles for men and women themselves affirmed and elaborated.
Most significantly, the relations, institutions or other phenomena whose mean-
ings are affirmed in this way may often have nothing directly to do with sexe
bodies. In the South Asian context, for example, relations between king, court
and temple, the distribution of roles in agricultural labour, the nature of rela
tions between imperial powers and colonial subjects, even the qualities of par
ticular landscapes and ecological systems have all been areas where sex-related
differences between bodies have been invoked to construct meaning, difference
and, usually, hierarchy.9) What makes this mode of establishing difference so
5) Tosh 1994, pp. 183-5. See also Kimmel 1987 and Connell 1995 for an appraisal of
recent models for the study of masculinity.
6) Connell 1995, pp. 76-81.
7) For transgressive sexualities in a range of cultural contexts, see Maccubin 1987; Hinsch
1990; and Murray and Roscoe 1997.
8) Scott 1986.
9) For the sexualisation of court culture in medieval South India, see Narayana Rao et al.
pervasive and attractive, moreover, is

alterable world of nature, beyond hum
analytically separate, these two levels
its symbolic content shaped by and in
and codes.
This essay explores some of the ways in which gender identity and norm
for manhood were important in the political and religious discourses of Mug
north India. Here, as Sanjay Subrahmanyam has- recently remarked, the stu
of broader social and cultural themes still remains poorly integrated into p
itical and economic histories of the period.'1) I argue that a concern with t
meanings of ideal manhood ran through through these discourses and their
antecedents in the wider world of medieval Perso-Islamic political culture, co
structing important and enduring links between kingship, norms for statecra
imperial service and ideal manhood. These links were already established in t
traditions of moral and political theory inherited from the Delhi Sultanate, a
it was a critical part of Akbar's political project to strengthen them. I exam
in detail the ways in which one high imperial servant in this period develop
and reflected on these themes, and related them to his own personal experien
I explore some of the ways in which definitions of elite manliness may ha
begun to change in the later seventeenth century, and their connection wi
imperial service to fracture, with the emergence of more complexly stratif
urban societies in north India, and the development of an increasingly ebullie
and cosmopolitan ethos of gentlemanly connoisseurship and consumption. I
look at some of the normative literature associated with these shifts, and su
gest that one of their consequences may have been to intensify the strains
Mughal service morale associated with the last decades of the seventeen
century. I conclude with brief comparative reflections on these links in oth
early modern states.
Gender and the Meanings of Manliness in Mughal North India
The north Indian context naturally reveals enormous regional complexity

and marked changes over time, both in the range of codes and roles associat
1992, pp. 169-219; for gender-based taboos in agriculture, fishing and hunting, see Agar
1994, pp. 312-315. Sinha 1995 analyses the use of sexual language in representing Brit
authority in India. For discussion of the feminising effects of climate and landscape,
Marshall and Williams 1982, pp. 129-38. These connections between sexual identity an
landscape are not exclusively European: for a South Asian example which makes simi
links between wetness, fecundity and the feminine, see Feldhaus 1995.
10) Subrahmanyam 1992a, pp. 292-3.
with manhood, and in the wider deployment of sexual meanings to create differ-
ence and hierarchy. Yet there are also a range of common themes, reflecting pro
esses of cultural adaptation and fusion.") High profile codes of martial hon
were shared widely amongst specialist military communities; these overlapp
but did not always coincide with the closely guarded sexual honour of p
riarchal householders. Great exemplars were naturally important in defini
what it meant to be an ideal man, whether as ruler, warrior, householder or
lover. Some of these great exemplars, such as Ali, son-in law of the Proph
belonged to the great religious traditions of India.'2) Other ideals emerged
classics of Persian literature, such as the great romantic epic of Layla
Majnun, or Firdawsi's celebration of heroism and tragedy in the Shah'ndmah
North Indian oral literatures suggested some models, while others derived fr
more local histories of virtuous rulership, exemplary courage or extraordina
devotion.14) Other traditions, such as those of the great warrior ascetic comm
nities of north India, or the Islamic ideal of the ghczi as holy warrior, defin
manliness more in terms of self-control and bodily renunciation, and placed
greater emphasis on disciplines of the body as the means to greater spiritu
and physical strength.'5) Cross-cutting these particularist traditions were norma-
tive constructs of more general application, such as the central Islamic conc
tion of dddb, at once moral training, cultivation of manner, bodily discipl
and spiritual refinement, that represented an ideal for every cultured Muslim
west Asia, and that extended to women as well as men. Every serious occu-
pation and activity had its own particular appropriate acddb, its own way
fusing together practical action and spiritual meaning. In more cosmopolit
cultural settings, adddb also denoted a generalised ideal of civilised and cul
tured behaviour in which non-Muslim men could share, which grew out of t
11) For an introduction to the small literature on South Asian themes which does exis
see Sinha 1995. Carstairs 1970 focusses on modern Hindu understandings of adult manho
and contains some essential insights. Psychoanalytic perspectives are insightfully emplo
in Kakar and Ross 1986, and Kakar 1989.
12) Bulliet 1979, pp. 64-79 and Schimmel 1987, pp. 217-220 discuss the popular diffu-
sion of names such as Ali as an index of their status as exemplars.
13) For these models, see Kakar and Ross 1986, pp. 42-73. Davidson 1994 discusses
ideals of kingship and heroism in the Shdh'naimah.
14) See Blackburn et al. 1994, for exemplars in Indian oral epics, and for a local north
Indian example, see the canonisation of the Bangash warrior Dalel Khan in Bundelkhand, in
Irvine 1878, pp. 365-371. Irvine reported that at the age of 12, every Bundela boy was taken
to Dalel Khdn's tomb, his sword and shield placed on the tomb before being girded on, so
that he might absorb the dead hero's qualities.
15) For these warrior and monastic communities, see Ghurye 1964; Kolff 1971, pp.
213-8; Lorenzen 1978, pp. 61-75; van der Veer 1989, pp. 458-70; Pinch 1996.
infusion of all mundane activity with

constructs were often elaborate and c
body, its sophisticated systems of hu
best means of keeping them in equili
ing them to create extraordinary pow
informed by a range of biomedical tra
Indian Unani legacy of Graeco Arabic
there were important common them
ties are acquired through techniques o
as an equilibrium of internal humours
heat and cold, dryness and moisture, t
ticular foods, aromas and essences in m
intimate connection between tempera
environment.17)
There were also significant parallels
male body were constructed in the m
Male spiritual power and bodily comp
of sufi devotionalism as much as for
This is made clear in the elaboration
normative literature of sufi masters, wh
sufi emphases on asceticism and renu
quirement that all adult Muslims shou
forms of devotionalism oscillated betw
aration in gender roles, and moments
transgressed. Thus the upsurge of d
shrined Rama and Krishna not only a
but as great exemplars, whose qualities
playful inventiveness were celebrated
India such as the pervasively popular R
16) Metcalf 1984, pp. 2-5.

17) For patterns of cross-fertilisation betw
tions, see Filloziat 1964, pp. 196-279. For humo
1987, and in Indian Unani medicine, Azmi
Bagchi 1997, pp. 71-81. Relations between la
ditions are described in Pearson 1995, pp. 14
icine in wider Asian contexts, see Good an
pp. 272-88.
18) See, for example, Lawrence 1994, pp. 152-5; Schimmel 1979, pp. 122-30. For a gen-
eral history of sufism in India, see Rizvi 1983. For sexuality and marriage in medieval
Islamic societies, see Bouhdiba 1985, pp. 88-100.
19) Lutgendorf 1989, pp. 34-61.
ism often elaborated similarly polarised roles for men and women, based on
idea that women's procreative function made them particularly vulnerable
the nafs or lower self, unlike men, whose superior qualities of intellect or '
render them better able to control their own nafs.20) As Annemarie Schimm
has argued, the true hero of sufism is the 'man,' fatci', mard, javdnmard, a
many sufis compared the nafs to a wayward woman seeking to entrap the st
ing soul on its path to God.21) Not only worship, but all worldly activity co
be classified on elaborate grids of sexual difference. Thus for the thirteen
century Indian mystic Jamal HHnswi, 'The seeker of the world is feminine,
seeker of the other world is a hermaphrodite, and the seeker of the Lord
masculine.'22)
At the same time, these spiritual discourses could apparently make such d
tinctions more permeable, or appear to transcend them altogether. Drawing
other qualities imputed to women, their ability to inspire and experience par
ularly intense love, sufi religiosity often represented its saints as the adori
brides of God. In Indian sufism, the nafs became the equivalent of the Hin
virahini, the loving spouse parted from her Lord, just as Vaishnava devote
sometimes expressed their passionate love in the feminine imagery of Rad
and the g6pi playmates of Lord Krishna.23) Sufi religious thought could app
to transcend these distinctions altogether, as concern with the nature of id
manhood shaded naturally into reflection on the possibilities for human perf
tion more generally. Thus later sufi thought often represented man as journ
ing spiritually though a long series of 'unveilings,' in which a select few wo
finally recognise the divine image within themselves. Particularly associat
with the great thirteenth century mystic Ibn 'Arabi, this doctrine distinguis
the 'perfect man,' inscdn kmil, from all other conscious beings-men, wom
lesser forms of life-who were content with low levels of spiritual awarene
and concerned only with the mundane and material levels of existence. Thus only
a tiny proportion of men were actually 'true' men, marked out by their w
ingness to endure every kind of pain and hardship on the journey to ultima
spiritual illumination and union with the divine love.24) Here, then, the jux
position between men and women seemed to be suspended in favour of
20) Lawrence 1994, p. 153.

21) Schimmel 1980, pp. 428-29 and Schimmel 1979, pp. 136-40.
22) Schimmel 1979, p. 130.
23) For permeable gender boundaries in South Asian religious traditions, see Sin
1966; Schimmel 1980, pp. 139-41; Hiltebeitel 1980-81; Kakar and Ross 1986, pp. 74-10
Goldman 1993; Gupta 1993; Lawrence 1994.
24) For discussion of these themes in sufi thought, see Naimuddin 1971; Chittick 1
Schimmel 1989.
essentially spiritual distinction between

besotted with the world. Saintly women
tion, which were generically human rat
acter. At some level, however, the insd
essentially a man. Women could come t
spirit, but this very often meant meant
mere women. They were praiseworthy p
generality of their sex. As the great thirte
asserted: "When a woman walks in the
called a woman."25)
The emergence of Indo-Persian court cu
of the Delhi Sultanate provided another
codes defining manliness, javanmardi, an
body. In this context too, it is the para
idiom that are striking, as much as the
tion. Here, the power of the male body
and expressive one, based less on the con
on the intensely public enactment of unive
consumption and gifting that were cent
Sultanate. Patrimonial themes featured im
royal authority: the king was at once fa
to the wider realm. The image of the k
the households of great nobles, with the
dependents.26) Gifts of ceremonial dress
clients and servants into the king's body, t
nial authority, and confirmed their recip
of power over lesser courts and househ
fundamental to these forms of authority,
to demonstrate its benevolent and fruct
distribution of wealth in exchange for t
25) Quoted in Schimmel 1975, p. 426. These

cussion of the place of women in sufi traditio
26) For a 'patrimonial-bureaucratic' model of
pp. 77-94. For more general histories of the cu
1997; Richards 1993. For a survey of the litera
27) For these aspects of ritual incorporation
1989, pp. 312-6. For the construction of imperi
Richards 1978, pp. 252-85.
28) Bayly 1986, pp. 297-302.
elements in the political discourse of the Sultanate--Persian 'mirrors for prin

works, akhldq literature, sufi conceptions of the 'ideal man,' insdn krdmil, c
sical Sanskrit precepts of statecraft-also constructed links between kingsh
the service of kings and norms for ideal manhood in the range of senses d
cussed above.29) From the late sixteenth century, these gendered idioms of ki
ship were elaborated in important new ways. Akbar and his court support
sought to strengthen these associations between imperial service and ideal m
hood, and to make them a more public and explicit part of court cultu
Reworked bodily and sexual codes for imperial servants emphasised the po
bilities for moral and human perfection in all of the homologous worlds t
men inhabited as governors: the kingdom, the household and the body. Th
eclectic norms for ideal manhood were intended both to transcend differences of
law and religion, caste and region, and to present imperial service as the best-
indeed the only--medium for its realisation. This strategy in turn formed a part
of the wider Mughal project to create a new north Indian cultural synthesis.
These north Indian models of patriarchal and heterosexual male virtue were
contrasted with the transgressive and debased practices of outsiders from beyond
the Oxus, or of the southern, Iranian-influenced courts of the Deccan.30)
These perspectives open up new possibilities for the understanding of a range
of issues in social life, politics and the state in Mughal India. This essay ex-
plores the way in which particular individuals in imperial service negotiated
these bodily codes, and employed wider idioms of sexual difference in their
understanding of imperial authority and imperial service. The essay also sug-
gests some of the ways in which these codes and idioms may have changed
between the early-seventeenth century high point of Mughal imperial power to
its period of crisis and disintegration in the first decades of the eighteenth. The
work of John Richards in particular here has been helpful in exploring the
codes of honour, loyalty and dignified subordination which informed Mughal
imperial service, and particularly the shift from the intense emotional tie of dis-
cipleship as it developed under Akbar, to the more generalised ethic of loyalty
and hereditary service embodied in the ideal of the khdnazdd.31) Yet these codes
were not only about honour, service and dignified subordination. They were
also about the meanings of ideal manliness, the bodily disciplines which helped
develop them, and the possession of the right qualities of affability, tact, atten-
tiveness and decorum which a successful man needed to forge networks of
29) For these themes, see Nizami 1961 and Habib and Khan 1967.
30) O'Hanlon (forthcoming).
31) See in particular Richards 1984, pp. 255-289.
friendship and alliance in the overwh

officers. Attention to these themes, an
naturalising language of sexual differ
construction of imperial authority and
ants which helped to sustain it.
There are difficulties of evidence he
about the qualities of the ideal imperial s
sion to the A'in-i Akbari, itself a synt
described above. Contemporary valu
other important normative genres. Suf
talk of sufi masters, is useful here, as
and political writing about the ethical
propriate to rulers.32) For images of m
poetry that were deemed an essential
toire form a rich source.33) Perhaps m
painting represents an enormously va
imperial authority and the values of
political historians have yet to develop
find the self-accounts of individual h
these public expressions and make exp
meant for their own personal ways of
ness or masculine virtue.
Reworking Tradition: Muhammad Bdqir Najm-i Sdni
One possible source lies in the life and writing of Muhammad Baqir Najm
Sani, descendant of Amir Yar Muhammad Khan Najm-i Sani, the power
vdkil of the founder of the Safavid dynasty, Shah Isma'il Safavi. Muhamm
Baqir came from Persia to India in dire financial straits either towards the e
of Akbar's reign or at the beginning of Jahangir's, during the period of Sh
'Abbas's drive to limit the political and commercial activities of Tajik elites
the Safavid state. Linked to the ruling family through his marriage to the n
of Nor Jahan, he rose rapidly through the imperial service under Jahingir
32) For sufi literature in north India, see Rizvi 1983; for ethical and political writings,
Lambton 1981.
33) For this imagery, see Yarshater 1986, pp. 971-6.
34) For introductions to Mughal painting, see Okada 1992; Beach 1992; Beach and K
1997; and for architecture, Asher 1995.
Shah Jahdn, serving as governor of Patna, Bihar, Bengal, Orissa, Guju

Delhi, Jaunpur and Allahabad, until his death in 1637.35) In the biographic
dictionary of Shahnavaz Khdn, Baqir emerges as a man both of pen and swo
A seasoned soldier, 'he was unequalled for courage and he was the first of
age for military skill.' Exemplars were important for him: he loved to hear the sou
of the trumpet, he always said, because Rustam used to listen to it.36) He
extremely capable in political affairs and was not only well versed in mus
literature and philosophy, but wrote himself a range of prose, poetry and th
logical works.37)
What makes Baqir such a useful source of insights into contemporary defi
tions of manliness is that he also reflected in a wide ranging and systematic
on his experience as an ambitious emigre imperial servant, and on the insig
that this gave him into the proper conduct of statecraft, and the best strate
for a man's survival in the competitive world of imperial service. Through
long career, he also made a particular point of collecting precious ideas, sa
ings and maxims from a wide range of Persian, Arabic and Indian sources.
He assembled these together into a book, the Mau'izah-i Jahdngiri, 'Admon
tion of Jahangir,' completing the work probably in 1612.39) He named the b
after his patron Jahangir, but there is no evidence that the book was ever p
sented to the Emperor. It was divided into two parts. The first, 'On the Exho
tion of Emperors' ranged over the qualities rulers needed if they were to gov
successfully: generosity, bravery, forbearance; personal discipline in govern
passions and the senses; the right balance between kingly dignity and the k
of personal affability needed to draw friends; a sense of timing in dealing w
enemies, of when to be lenient and when to punish. The second half of the b
'The Admonition of Subordinates and Peers' set out the qualities and etiquet
the dddb, which emperors should cultivate and encourage in imperial servan
Baqir used this second half of his book to define his sense of the connecti
35) See Alvi 1989, pp. 11-13. The emperor Jahangir also refers to him frequently in h
autobiography: Tfzuk-i Jahdngiri, Rogers and Beveridge 1978. He also features promine
in the Ma'asir al-umard, the biographical dictionary of Shfhnaviz KhAn, 1888, pp. 408-1
For these waves of Irani and Tajik migration see Subrahmanyam 1992b.
36) Ma'asir al-umard, vol. 1, p. 411.
37) For Baqir's literary and religious concerns, see Alvi 1979; Alam and Subrahmany
1996, p. 178.
38) Thus, for example, as governor of Orissa he detained the traveller Mahmfid Balkhi at
his court so that the latter could translate treatises on 'Practical Wisdom,' hikmat-i "amali,
from Arabic into Persian. Alam and Subrahmanyam 1996, p. 178.
39) See Alvi 1979, for an edition of the Persian text, with a translation and extensive
introductory essay.
between the adddb of personal striving

the particular qualities of ideal manlin
vidual might cultivate it.
As a cultured and widely read state
with the genres of normative literature
lished sense of the connections betwee
manhood. In reworking these genres a
full advantage of their range and dept
fluences. There are frequent references t
by the striving soul, and to the willin
ship to reach his goal which sets the 't
beings lacking in spiritual awareness
questions about the conditions for hum
of politics, and what kind of ruler, p
to promote the moral perfection of su
platonic traditions of reflection on id
These were available to Baqir most eas
tion of writing on akhldq, ethics or m
Tilsi in particular had enjoyed consider
Other textual references are to rather
His text reveals clear borrowings fro
Dimnah, with their extended reflectio
for success in imperial service, and th
of intense moral ambition, the natural
and eminence.42) Baqir was also familia
Iranian classics in the genre of 'mirror
of Kayka'iis, al-Ghazali's Nasihat al
Ncmah. Thus, Baqir emphasised the se
ate to rulers: of generosity, bravery (
buland). For Baqir too, justice was cen
ability to enforce it an indispensable
was also a shared one. A range of te
qualities of ideal manliness. Thus al-Gh
himmat-i pddshdhdn, 'On magnanimit
40) For sufism in the early modem Indian

41) A'in-i Akbari, vol. 1, A'in 34. For an
1977-8 and Lambton 1981, pp. 103-129.
42) Irving 1980, pp. 4-5, 111.
wa pur-dili, 'self restraint and courage.'43) Many of his anecdotes illustra

the personal munificence of successful rulers, their desire to relieve subj
from want and care with a single great gesture. In other contexts, howev
where personal spirit and willingness to take risks were at issue, the term
was javcnmard, literally 'young man,' but with the implication of a parti
lar ideal of generosity, bravery and spirit. Thus, for al-Ghazali, the quali
of the javdnmard were evident in his example of the adventurous noblem
who forged his way into the court of a great patron, then risked all by d
claring his deception, or in the patron who refused to take back the larg
bestowed on servants even when the latter turned out not to need them.")
Kayka'iis in his Qdbiis Ndmah, javanmardi was identified particularly with
personal nobility-of bravery, self-restraint, truthfulness and endurance-of
diers.45) This was the term also that Baqir himself most often employed
denote the kind of spirited and generous manliness which he associate
strongly with the pursuit of eminence and success in the service of kings.
In celebrating these qualities of javdnmardi, it is also important to not
Baqir not only drew on political discourses inherited from the Delhi Sultan
but connected himself to a much wider set of gendered practices in Midd
Eastern Islamic society. For the aristocracy of medieval Persia, javanmardi
resented the translation of the older Arab-Islamic principle of futuwwa, fr
fatd', literally 'young man,' connoting a man youthful and vigorous, stou
hearted in warfare, gallant and generous in his treatment of others weaker
himself. In medieval Islam, the figure of Ali gradually emerged as the gr
exemplar, the fatd' par excellence. Over time, however, the principle
futuwwa became elaborately embodied in a whole variety of urban commun
organisations, usually of young men, that developed as a fundamental elem
in the structure of medieval Middle Eastern society, and were often stron
influenced by sufi ideals of corporate living and personal virtue.46) In pa
futuwwa here represented an urban expression of the more fundamental con
of 'asabiyyah, the moral solidarity of the group in the Islamic polity mad
famous in Ibn Khaldun's interpretation of history and theory of the state. 'Asabiy
represented the general notion of such solidarity, and futuwwa the qualitie
individual members through which it might be achieved. With their defi
commitment to comradeship, mutual loyalty and striving for moral perfect
43) Nasihat al-Mulfk, tr. Bagley 1964, p. 119.

44) Ibid., pp. 127-31.
45) Qabas Namah, Levy 1951, p. 139.
46) For links between sufi orders and the medieval futuwwa corporations, see Schim
1975, pp. 245-7.
these corporations embedded themselv

different ways: sometimes as guild
framework for sufi solidarities, somet
sporting training made them valuable a
state power alike. The futuwwa also d
popular forms, possessed strong codes
of initiation and corporate bonding.
javanmardi, then, connected with thes
ples of male solidarity, honour, braver
normative literary genres discussed ab
While Baqir thus situated himself wi
linked kingship, the service of kings a
sought to rework many of its element
dotes, and romances as a means of exe
with the historical experience of past r
of imparting advice in the work of al
see, he spoke rather in practical and di
perience as an ambitious and sometime
mutable star of imperial favour, and to n
society. He put forward his own very c
manage his officers and clients: of th
needed to get the best out of servants,
men to their posts, and of the need to
own sense of their relative places in th
were valued not for abstract reasons, b
might bring solace to a man's life and
ment. Here, the principle of solidarity
older discourses of javanmardi and fut
cal significance. Baqir's discussion of weal
tion of the constant humiliations to wh
contemporary society, also read very
man who has known both. Also unlike
Baqir did not devote a separate, formu
heroism, courage or magnanimity that
Rather, he integrated his account of w

mard, into his broader discussion of th
47) A good introductory discussion to the

also Encyclopaedia of Islam, 'asabiyyah and
ice of kings. What emerged was his strong sense of an important practical a
ciation between the two: between a particular kind of manhood based on str
gle and striving, and the drive for preeminence in imperial service.
Given these links, it was natural that Baqir should open the important sec
half of his book with a discussion of the complex and delicate art of frien
ship. In placing friendship so centrally, he followed an established convention
the 'Mirrors' genre, which itself had well-established classical antecedents.
Yet the detail and intensity of this part of his discussion, the forcefulness of his
insistence that a circle of mutually committed friends was quite indispensab
for an ambitious man's happiness and success, also suggests a connection w
personal experience. The strength of Bdqir's insistence here also reflected
critical importance of the alternative and cross-cutting connections of family fo
a man's advancement in imperial service. To advocate the equal value of tie
of friendship, Baqir needed to suggest a particularly powerful ethos of mut
support, and the kind of intimacy that could only arise between men with
shared commitment to the struggle for eminence, and mutual concern for e
other's inner and outer perfectibility as men. This was not simply the view
an emigre and outsider without family connections to sustain him: as we ha
seen, Baqir had himself married directly into the imperial family. What is strik-
ing here, indeed, is the sense of intimacy about friendship in Baqir's discu
sion, of the conviction not only that friends should be absolutely faithful al
in a man's worldly struggle for eminence, but that a critical part of this lay
a mutual concern and engagement with each other's inner qualities as men
with the effort to shape and perfect those qualities in what ought to be an
going struggle for personal reformation. Thus, friendship was very much t
friendship of a group, who 'affiliate both in times of prosperity and adversi
affluence and impoverishment. Through adversities in fortune and calamities
Time, they stand by each other, sincere in helping to facilitate their [return
successful, prosperous and affluent positions in society.'49) Since a man's cir
of friends needed to serve so many different purposes, helping him to perf
his inner character as well as to succeed in outward terms, the business of
choosing them was a matter of fine discrimination. Different men met different
needs. Knowledgeable men were a source of happiness; men of particular virtue
48) See, for example, Aristotle's discussion and classification of friendship in Book 7 of
the Eudemian Ethics: Barnes 1984, vol. 2, pp. 1958-1981. Arabic versions of Aristotle's eth-
ical works had been available to pre-Islamic moral writers in the Arab world, and were con-
veyed into Islamic moral thought during the great flowering of interest in works of Greek
philosophy and science between the ninth and twelfth centuries.
49) B~qir, pp. 78-9; 184. References here are to the English and then to the Persian text
in Alvi's edition of the Mau'izah.
would take an interest in the inner st

men could be relied on always to be sin
kinds of people brought specific type
man's repose, hypocrites would 'incess
and transmit them to other people,' an
even as they sought to do their friends
over, the wise man would remember
larger class of things in the world that w
macy of rulers, the beauty of a beloved
insane, the generosity of intoxicated
With this caution in mind, however, t
out friends with the right qualities, w
comings and persuade him to reform,
who would remember the favours he o
vicissitudes of friendship. These were
which marked out 'the practice of
individuals.'52) Interestingly in this
futuwwat to describe the generous sol
'Therefore, when you find great gener
and affection in a friend, when you kn
and that you are benefitting from the
must fully focus your attention on hi
social duties."'53) He emphasised the in
friendship should involve: 'Following
friendship, ask him about your drawba
gence and importunity. No matter how
ings in you," do not accept it. Showing
he mentions your faults to you, consid
you, express your happiness, and endea
From friendship, Baqir moved to a d
forceful assertion that wealth alone en
cess in the world. In this, of course, h
contemporary teaching of powerful sufi
50) Idem.
51) Ibid., p. 81; 186.
52) Ibid., p. 82; 188.
53) Ibid., pp. 83; 188-9.
54) Ibid., pp. 83-4; 189. Baqir's emphasis on
of AbW'l Fazl's prescriptions for provincial g
of poverty and austerity."55) Poverty he saw unambiguously as a source of dis-

grace and disaster. This was partly because for most men, poverty actually
made it more likely that they would stray into crime. It was also that in the
social world Baqir felt he knew so well, people did not assess a man's actions
for their intrinsic merit; rather, they interpreted what he did in the light of his
material circumstances. In what seems to be a painfully felt assessment of his
contemporaries' ways of measuring a man's worth, Baqir explained that 'every
quality for which the wealthy are admired and praised evokes condemnation
and ridicule in the case of the impoverished.' What appeared as sterling virtue in
the one attracted scorn and condemnation in the other. 'Bravery is considered
impetuousness, generosity prodigality, and affability meekness and spiritless-
ness. If he discriminates in food and clothing, he is called self-indulgent; if he
manages with a [mere] cloak and little food, he is seen as afflicted and indi-
gent. If he settles in one place, he is branded a slave [to that place] and deemed
ignorant of the world. If he resolves to travel, he is seen as stupefied, vagrant
and unfortunate.'56)
If it was legitimate to pursue wealth, however, Baqir was very careful to spec-
ify the purposes with which a man might do so. Wealth should never be viewed
simply as a means to luxury or personal indulgence, nor should it be pursued
avariciously, as an end in itself, since 'lust for luxury shows baseness and de-
gradation.' Undertaken in the proper spirit, however, there was a wonderful
connection between wealth and virtue. It was not only that wealth allowed a
man to fulfil his own legitimate ambitions, to expand his talents and under-
standing, to ornament his dignity, and to make himself remembered by poster-
ity. Properly pursued and used, wealth enabled a man to benefit his friends,
clients and kinfolk. It meant he could to extend support, provision and largesse
to a wide circle of needy and dependent, much as a single strong eagle could
bring down prey and thereby make it possible for many other creatures to feed.
Thus, it was a matter of shame that a man should lose himself 'in the pit of
avarice and baseness,' when by exertion and struggle he could rise to the kind of
preeminence that brought glory to himself and sustenance to others.57)
With this, Baqir returned to his theme of manhood, and defined it as essen-
tially a willingness to take part in the wider arena of struggle for advancement
and power. 'One must remember that through striving an individual is led to his
intended destination. Traversing with exertion the desert of endeavour brings
55) For the growth of Naqshbandi influences under Akbar and Jahangir, see Rizvi 1995,
pp. 176-260.
56) Baqir, p. 86; 192.
57) Ibid., p. 87; 193.
into view the beauty of one's [desired

struggle in the field of courage and in e
physical comfort and leisure, reaches his
willing to tolerate privation, hardship and
self a man: 'No one can achieve his objec
from the goblet of his desire without e
tasting unpleasant dregs. [Indeed] he can
his objective, tying round his waist the
miydn basta) By keeping his aspiration h
base actions. By rejecting the goals of
stoop to trivial things like decrepit wom
With this imagery of self-girding, evo
womanly and base, Baqir also invoked a
manliness and contemporary understand
dress, and the adab of struggle and servic
of a man's waist and back were critica
which parallels the English sense of 'gir
it. Thus a man who was kamar band, 'w
action, service and battle. Kamar bast
heroism.6) Nor, it is worth bearing in m
manliness and strength of waist and back
culture which placed such premium o
heavy weapons on horseback.61) Susti-y
hand, had the meaning not only of gener
ual impotence.62) These meanings extend
the sash, kamar band, kamar pesh or pat
of a man's public dress for attendance a
ponent of the robes of honour conferred
the stylised forms which the Mughal sa
rather than battlefield, it continued to s
action and service. It bound up his waist
tial personal items, and, at the court of B
58) Idem.
59) Ibid., p. 88; 194.
60) Steingass, p. 1049. Thus nobles in attend
contemporary sources as standing with waists g
Beach and Koch, p. 113.
61) For Mughal military drill and exercises des
pp. 182-9; Phul pp. 49-52; Sharar, pp. 109-14.
62) Steingass, p. 681.
shape and decoration came to be powerful signifiers of personal allegiance

To appear in public assembly at court without one was virtually to appear in
undress, and to imply refusal of service, even wilful contempt for authority:
kamar duzdidan, 'stealing the sash' was to disobey or to refuse service.63)
Rectitude in outer comportment was again intimately linked to a man's inner
disposition.
Having invoked these compelling images, Baqir returned to his theme of
striving in the service of kings. Thus a man must be prepared to travel, 'if there
is no possibility of ascendancy in one's own homeland,' and to endure the rend-
ing pain of separation from family and loved ones. Here again, the image of
the eagle recurred, this time as the close companion of rulers: 'The reason that
the wrist of the ruler is made the resting place of the eagle is that it does not
lower its head into a nest.' So also must a man be prepared to travel far and
fast, like an eagle, in pursuit of his goals.6) This was a spiritual as much as a
physical journey, and here classic sufi themes and images emerge as he de-
scribed the importance of journey and quest in marking out the 'true' man. The
static tree falls victim to axe and saw; the constant movement of the sky, on the
other hand, elevates it above all else. The striving soul, no less than the ambi-
tious servant of kings, needed constantly to move onwards towards its goal.65)
Most importantly, however, in this philosophy of striving and action for success
in imperial service, true manhood itself came to be defined by willingness to
take part: 'In sum, toiling is the vocation of valiant men and the occupation of
the valorous. Only that individual can be considered a "man" who, renouncing
his life, steps into the arena of "quest" and, not deterred by hard work, performs
to expected and achievable levels of striving and endeavour.'
Either we step over the sky to achieve our goal

Or we submit to the struggle like a 'man.'66)
Baqir was also careful to include a caveat in this part of his discussion, to build
a certain personal fortitude and imperviousness to fate's vicissitudes into his
63) Steingass, p. 1049. For Mughal court dress, see Cohn 1989, pp. 312-6, and for court
dress an as index of political affiliation in South India, Wagoner 1996, pp. 851-880. For a
history of the sash, see Kahlenberg 1972, pp. 153-66. British colonial culture in India inher-
ited this intense concern with the waist as a significant region of the body, to be protected
by cholera belts from disease and flannel from heat. See Collingham 1997, p. 220.
64) Baqir, p. 90; 196.
65) For these images in the great poet mystic Rumi and before him in the twelfth cen-
tury court panegyrist Anvari, see Schimmel and Welch 1983, p. 90. Anvari's qasida on the
poet's journey and the importance of travel featured in one of the illustrated divdn specially
created for Akbar.
66) Ibid., p. 91; 197.
definition of manhood. In his quest for

worldly power and eminence, and seek t
beyond the mutability of material succ
tuous character, and good manners are t
of fortune and reversions of Time.' The
sonal fortitude that would enable him to encounter life's inevitable vicissitudes
with dignified equanimity. Thus, 'the individual who gallops his steed of cour-
age in the field of contentment should be considered a man. He is neither exhil-
arated on having material things, nor expresses regrets on their loss.'67)
If BAqir said a lot about what it was to be a man, he also contrasted this
with womanhood, in a range of interesting ways. At one level, his references to
women strongly echoed the hostility to women of other works in the genre.68)
BAqir repeated their warnings about women's faithlessness, their intellectual
weakness, their obsessions with worthless and petty things. As we have seen
above, the striving of a man was contrasted with the trivialities with which women
concerned themselves. As he elaborated these contrasts, Baqir borrowed
freely from such stock images of women. Thus women's loyalty and their phys-
ical charms belonged to the world of transitory things: 'the summer cloud, fra-
grance of a garden, beauty of comely faces, and the fidelity of women.'69) The
company of women was amongst those things in the world that always entailed
dangerous consequences: 'imperial service without peril; worldly wealth with-
out pride; harmony without effort; company of women without disaster; and
association with scoundrels without disgrace. No-one traverses the path of sen-
suality and does not fall to temptation. No man associates with a woman and is
not carried away by diverse temptations.'70) In another very common image, the
world of transitory material attractions was also an old, husband-killing woman,
who 'displays herself to the people in the garb of newly-wed brides and entraps
the hearts of unwise and haughty individuals with her short-lived charm and
ephemeral adornments.71)
At the same, time and in the light of his discussion of manhood, Baqir may
be here have been doing rather more than simply repeating the formulaic male-
dictions of the Persian literary tradition. For his theme here was not only the
67) Ibid., p. 95; 201.

68) For a discussion of this hostility in a range of medieval Iranian literatures, see Southgate
1984, pp. 417-25. For a broader discussion of traditions of bawdy and satirical writing in
medieval Persian that have been suppressed by modern literary criticism, see Sprachmann
1995.
69) Bdqir, p. 98; 204.
70) Ibid., p. 81; 177.
71) Ibid., p. 97; 203.
contrast between women as a trivialising and deficient sex, and the men of
endeavour and discernment who were drawn to the challenge of imperial serv-
ice. The language of sexual difference served in much wider ways to give
meaning to his vision of rulership and its service. Thus he presented the quest
for rulership as itself very like the drive to sexual conquest, full of the same
urgency and the same jealous rage against rivals. Empire was a virgin, whom
rulers strove to possess in the face of competitors and enemies: 'Victorious em-
perors satisfy their driving passion for the virgin lady of sovereign rule only
when the glare of their flaming sword has erased from life's tablet the name of
their malicious enemy.'72) If rulers were the jealous conquerors of this alluring
lady of empire, imperial servants were her admirers and lovers. Thus emperors
must always increase their numbers of retainers and servants, for empire's
splendour, just like that of a woman, increased the greater the numbers of its
lovers: 'It is said that the position of an empire is that of beauty and elegance.
The more lovers of a charming beloved there are, the more increased splendor
there is in her appearance.'73) Not only, therefore, were men most truly men in
the pursuit and service of empire. The latter also stood as a kind of idealised
sexual outlet, where men's sexual energies could be transmuted into a striving
for power and eminence as compelling as the drive to conquer beautiful women.
In Baqir, then, we have something like a vision of imperial service and the
manhood of taking part in it. In developing it, he situated himself clearly within
a pre-existing tradition of reflection on these themes, and drew frequently on
the sentiments and maxims he found already elaborated. His evident debts to a
much older tradition do not devalue his writing as a source for the early sev-
enteenth century. They point rather to the longer term commonalities in the
experience of those seeking state service in early modern India, and to the
strengthened relevance in the early seventeenth century of older normative lit-
eratures linking kingship, imperial service and ideal manhood.
Changing Codes in the Later Seventeenth Century
I want now to turn to look at how some of these meanings of manliness in

the context of imperial service may have changed over the course of the next
half century. I want first to explore what seems to be a gradual change of
emphasis in the codes of ideal manly identity associated with imperial service
which may have emerged out of the more self-conscious cultivation of luxury
72) Ibid., p. 49; 151.

73) Ibid., p. 69; 174.
in the Mughal court under the emperor

oration of much more formal and hie
see the development of much more com
masculinity: man as sophisticated gent
rience, refined in literary and poetic s
dress, and intent on his own bodily cul
ual self-concern. These later seventeent
sometimes radically change the concerns
mation of travel as a means to person
of cosmopolitan experience, as providing
of people, places and commodities. His
ment for the ambitious is replaced by
ful arrangement of the home and dom
conducive to the inner cultivation and out
and relations with peers were still imp
on the values of mutual loyalty and
shifted instead to the maintenance of g
of hospitality, the shared attractions o
minded men to one another, and inten
ical boundaries with the culture of se
service still mattered for this changin
much more as a source of income and
dities that a man could command, of his
edge of the right etiquette for differe
imperial service invariably desirable: it
less trouble and distraction, and subor
mise of a dignified gentleman's indepe
Some at least of these connections sho
vious century of expansion in Asian tr
efficient information networks, of gr
skills to offer and of cultural envoys
commercial information. Against this
tlemanly prestige, cosmopolitan know
seas markets and an ebullient ethic of
in imperial centres throughout Wes
into Europe.74) These shared cultural d
urbanisation have also in recent years
74) For these themes in the Indian conte

1997, pp. 155-70, and in the European and O
pean exceptionalism, and to suggest parallel patterns in state building and the
formation of elite cultures in early modem Europe and Asia."7) As Peter Burke
has argued, there are striking Eurasian parallels in the emergence of elite cul-
tures of conspicuous consumption between the late sixteenth and the early
eighteenth centuries, as royal courts sought to tie their nobles more firmly to a
culture of competitive display, and as the consolidation of urban centres around
the court made the newly wealthy a more prominent feature of social life.76)
Neither was the growing importance of commodities and cultural knowledges
from Safavid and Ottoman territories and beyond necessarily in tension with
the forging of patrimonial connections within different parts of the empire
that underlay earlier patterns of consumption at the Mughal court. Given the
frequency of contact between these imperial centres, and the careful cultivation
of diplomatic links between the Mughal and Safavid courts in particular, these
circulations of commodities could themselves be viewed as a magnified system
of gift exchange, affirming the power of both of these royal houses by simul-
taneous demonstration of access to distant markets and patronage of domestic
manufactures.77)
In the north Indian context, these shifts carried complex and ambiguous im-
plications for the construction of male virtue and power. There is no escaping
the sense of dominance and control here: a gentleman is defined both by his
knowledge of manners, commodities and cultural repertoires, and by his ability
to command, to savour and consume them as connoisseur. Humoural under-
standings of the body, and a strong sense of the psychic effects to be achieved
through bodily disciplines, continued to be important here. These forms of con-
noisseurship enabled a man to create the pleasing physical environment most
conducive to inner equilibrium, to surround himself with textures, fragrances,
colours, tastes and sounds that would foster an ever greater emotional and
spiritual refinement. The dynamic thus established between body, person and
environment also implied a stronger sense of bodily individuation, expressed in
sensuous engagement with a wider and more diverse world of accessible com-
modities. At the same time, however, the very exquisiteness of these forms of
refinement, the overriding concern with personal dignity, the aversion to all that
For a wider discussion of the significance of these flows of commodities, see Appadurai
1986, pp. 3-63.
75) These new 'connective' histories are discussed in Lieberman 1997.
76) Burke 1993, pp. 148-161. See also Wills 1993, pp. 133-47.
77) Thus, for example, correspondence between Jahangir and Shah 'Abbas I frequently
refers to the exchange of gifts, and gratitude for the procurement of a whole range of rare
articles--goblets, astrolabes, horses, rubies, clocks, medicines-from Middle Eastern and
European markets. See Islam 1979, pp. 143-219.
was vulgar and low, and the reduction

a set of social conventions, lent itself v
the suggestion that these forms of ma
course, the sense of tension between the
and the plain brotherly solidarities of th
long been an important part of mediev
into a complex theory of the rise and
courtier Ibn Khaldfin.78) However, it i
specific north Indian critique developin
Knowledge, Connoisseurship and Cons
Evidence about these codes emerges in

larly in biographical accounts of indiv
connoisseurs, their refinement in mann
Most directly helpful, however, is the
the later seventeenth and early eight
mirzd'i, 'gentility' or 'gentlemanliness
of mirzd, used as a suffixed title for k
was widespread in India as elsewhere in
tury. In India, it was applied particular
to others with Timurid or Safavid ance
official title of khan was beginning to
pally amongst men with Iranian or Tur
distant relations of the Mughal reign
many other Iranis with real or pretend
ants of the most distinguished Turani
assumed by men who pretended to th
by the emperor, as it was when Akbar
Jahan bestowed it on the famous Rajpu
In India, however, mirzc and the qual
increasingly to have a rather differen
to the sense of personal cultivation in
78) The Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldfin is di

79) The Ma'dsir al-umard is the richest sing
etiquettes, but see also Dhakhirat ul-Khawa
took much of his information.
80) Ahmad 1975, pp. 108-110. As it became more strongly identified with Persian courtly
refinement and literary skill, the term also shifted from its postposed Turkish to its preposed
Persian use: Perry 1990, p. 221.
and cultivation in mirzd'f rested on the same implicit connection between out-
ward bodily deportment and inner moral life. It also carried the same intense
emphasis on personal cultivation, on the infusion of every action with spiritua
awareness in the quest for self-perfection. Yet there were also important differ
ences. As an ethic, mirzd'f was shaped by the particular social meanings which
grew up around the title of mirzd, as the longstanding association between Persianate
culture and ideals of civility broadened the title to denote the social and spir
itual refinement of any 'gentleman' of high birth with aspirations to taste and
culture. Thus, mirzd'f implied the moral and personal cultivation of addcb,
but its meanings were also coloured by their association with particular kinds
of social pretension, and this gave the term a narrower semantic range and a
greater social specificity. In one sense, mirzd~' was itself a kind of dddb, the
ethic of a gentleman, usually but not exclusively an imperial servant, anxious to
cultivate the moral and social refinement associated with princes and great
nobles. However, its content was inevitably influenced and given substance by
the particular north Indian urban setting of these socially aspirant groups, by the
styles of domestic and material life they considered desirable, and by the forms
of sociability, religious sensibility and sexual self-expression whose mastery
was seen as important for the cultured imperial servant. Shaped by this setting
mirzd'i came to imply self-cultivation carried to a particularly exquisite pitch of
spiritual and sensuous awareness, in which a man strove for perfection simul-
taneously in his physical environment, his social deportment and his inner
moral self, and fastidiously avoided disturbance and contamination by the
world of plebeians and the bazaar. Here too, the wider world of cosmopolitan
knowledge and access to new commodities were important both in constructing
the right material setting, and in providing the mirzd with a range of differen
possibilities through which he might express his own individual sense of phys-
ical and moral perfection. Not that great material luxury was essential: in many
ways the connections made here between physical and moral beauty shared much
in common with sufi spirituality, and many sufi mystics were known for their
qualities of mirzc'i. These associations with a very particular social context also
imbued mirzd'i and the model of the mirzad with important social tensions not
present in the concept of ciddb: its very self-conscious virtuousity opened it to
parody. Mirzd'i was also, as we shall see, a self-consciously gendered concep-
tion, an ideal of personal cultivation specifically marked out as exclusively and
inherently masculine in a way that dcdb, for all its typical associations with male
elites, was not.81) Despite these differences, however, the more general concep
81) For women's development of addb, see Metcalf 1984, pp. 184-95.
of adab remained extremely important

in providing cultural authority for its em
ing out a wider semantic field in which
These developments in the term, and
manuals describing, defining and some
provide important insights into some
associated with elite manliness in the l
the consolidation in Delhi and other no
fied urban elite, of greater and lesser
merchant households. These categories
Mughal imperial servants invested the
directly in the purchase of goods, ofte
capital advances to merchants. As we
that emulated them provided, along wi
sources of demand for luxury commod
ily in many types of building besides
sardy for travellers to mosques, garden
ical sources of employment to very la
men and specialist retainers, and acted
for poets, scholars, physicians, music
are the finer social gradations that em
strata of urban society and particularl
associated with them. Most significantl
it as a status and set of aspirations to a
from the high-ranking amir to the lo
elaboration itself of a model for socia
new classes of lesser amirs, inferior im
chant classes, anxious to know how to
ers examined here confirm this impres
define the boundaries of mirzd't agains
pass themselves off as mirzd, but wh
social and spiritual cultivation that a
There is no doubt that conduct book
interpret. We need to ask how far th
addition, we cannot read social practice
and the codes it offered must always h
82) Chandra 1986, pp. 205-17; Ali 1997, pp

raries such as the Dutch factor Pelsaert also
teenth century: see Moreland and Geyl 1925
than a rigid template for behaviour. On the question of novelty, Indo-Per

literature contains conduct manuals of many different kinds, from the akh
sufi and 'mirrors' genres discussed above, to the commonplace books a
works on household management often compiled by Mughal writers. The lat
also frequently contain guides to a whole range of gentlemanly skills, such
archery, divination and letter writing, and to the appropriate uses of comm
ties such as perfumes, cosmetics and intoxicants.83) Nevertheless, there do s
to be themes that are distinctive and novel in the Mirza Namah texts, which
connect both with what we know of the emergence of much more fin
stratified gentry groups in the towns and court centres of north India, and with
the growing sense of threat to the exclusivity of imperial service, which is
represented in other sources.84) What marks these texts off from earlier gen
is their self-conscious sense of connection not only with this particular urb
milieu, but with lesser gentry and much humbler imperial servants within
and with the ways in which these might aspire to the manners of their soc
superiors, but on much more modest salaries. Their concern with commodit
extended beyond instruction in their use, or assessment of their qualities, t
very precise account of their significance and nuances in social settings. In
other ways too, there does seem a real social specificity in these very deta
works, which may give them some value as sources for normative masculini
Contemporaries often described men of great culture and refinement as p
sessing all the talents of mirzd'f, and the title was often claimed in its prep
Persian form."8) Lastly, the elements of satire in some of these texts sugg
that these codes and their implications for gentlemanliness were indeed in so
form part of the cultural currency of Mughal imperial servants, their resonance
recognised even with the briefest or most mocking of reference.
I focus here on two of these conduct books, which contrast in interestin
ways. The first, available in the British Library, is anonymous, and probab
composed around 1660.86) The second has as its author one Mirza Kamr
whose title played deliberately on the word kdmrdn, meaning successful, fortuna
83) Some of these bayaz are listed in Marshall 1985, p. 577.

84) See, for example, the Tdrikh-i Dilkasha of Bhimsen Burhanpuri, who accompan
Aurangzeb on his Deccan campaigns: 1972, p. 232.
85) See, for example, the description of the early eighteenth century poet and sufi m
tic Mirza Jan-i Jindn in the Muraqqa'-i Delhi of Dargah Quli Khan, Ansari 1982, pp. 6
Interestingly, while he is described as 'having all the arts of mirza'i,' dddb was the term
author used to denote the skills of the woman singer NOr Bai: pp. 102-3.
86) Rieu vol. 2, 1966, p. 826. Rieu dates the BM copy as 1739, but the only other co
in the library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, is dated 1660, so it seems likely that the
copy reflects writing of this early date. Ahmad 1975, p. 99.
voluptuously happy.87) It is difficult t

but it probably belongs also to the late
themselves the same task. The BL Mirza
as a manual to demonstrate the differences between the true mirzd and the
debased impostors the author saw trying to pass themselves off as such
Mirz& Kamran explained that he had travelled through Hindustan, after h
visited Kashmir and Lahore, and observed that 'a body of reckless men of
country' had begun to give themselves new social pretensions, and in pa
lar to pretend to the dignity of mirza't. 'As this slave [the writer] had
rightful claim to this position, my sense of honour did not allow me to le
great revolution and disorder undermine the rules and regulations on whic
rank of a Mirza is based,' and so he wrote his own guide.90) Althoug
details of proper accomplishments for the mirzat each gave were very sim
the two authors approached their subject in markedly different ways. T
Mirza Namah was an earnest composition dealing with the subject with c
and respect. Mirza Kamrdn's work was in large part a wonderful satire on
ideal of cultivated manliness, his words 'mixed with wit and humour,' t
duce a deliberate parody, and conclusions 'each one of which may be
the guide of Plato and the helper of Avicenna.'91) He had many precedent
doing so, and his reference to Greek antecedents suggests that he was aw
them. The classical Persian traditions of ethical and political writing had
generated their own parodies, most notably in the work of the fourteenth
tury satirist 'Obayd-e Zakani, whose Akhlaq al-ashraf, 'Ethics of the nob
lampooned the morals of post-Mongol Iran's ruling elite.92)
Thus, the BL Mirzd Namah proposed a serious definition of the basic q
fications for mirza'i: a pure family pedigree, a social position of dignity
mansab of at least a thousand, or income from elsewhere such as comme
sufficient to maintain a proper style of life. But wealth alone did not m
mirzd: rather, 'purity of soul and uniqueness of attributes distinguish a m
whose actions are wholesome, who is pure in outward appearance and vir
in habits.' Interestingly here too, the writer suggested a move away from
Mughal values of devoted personal service. For the gentleman connoisseur
87) Steingass, p. 1009.

88) Husain 1913, p. 1. From stray internal references, Husain dates it to 1608, but
suggests the late seventeenth century, which seems more plausible as its descripti
mirzd are too elaborated for such a early date.
89) Ahmad 1975, p. 100.
90) Husain 1913, pp. 2-3.
91) Ibid., p. 3.
92) Sprachmann 1989, pp. 226-248.
demands of high rank and personal bondage to the emperor implied not eleva-
tion, but subordination and servility: 'If a mirzd has enough for his status, he
should be grateful for it more than being a commander of seven thousand,
because service and subordination is degrading for a mirzd. He should not be
beguiled by the attraction of the greater mansabs and the multitude of horse-
men and footsoldiers in the service of great nobles. The lesser the headache of
high status, the better.' For the real mirzd, therefore, it was actually far better
to hold the rank of an inferior amir than to aim for great office, for lesser
prominence would leave him freer to pursue his own real refinement of body
and spirit. Interestingly here, the author described in great detail the kinds of
men who aspired to mirzd'i, but without success. Failed aspirants to mirza'i
came from a range of social backgrounds: descendants of nobles who held
lesser ranks in the imperial service and lacked wealth, but whose refined tem-
peraments made them aspire to it: these were men who deserved sympathy.
Then there were foster brothers of kings, noblemen or great lords, intoxicated
with what was actually a very insecure and dependent position. Then there
were men who had accumulated mere wealth out of love of money, and would
soon lose it and their pretensions through quarrelsomeness and cupidity. Other
people again thought that being a mirza meant 'pinning flowers to one's head-
gear and wearing a greenish or semi-greenish turban and strolling through a
garden.' Real mirzd'i was actually a spiritual and sensual experience of much
greater depth: it was 'to inhale and imbibe the fragrance of the flower.'93)
Mirza Kamran, on the other hand, dealt with the 'serious' intellectual and artis-
tic accomplishments of the properly educated and cosmopolitan mirzd--knowl-
edge of God, philosophy, grammar, correct speech, the Gulistdn and Bostdn of
Sa'di by the age of thirty, the Arabic, Persian, Hindustani and Turkish lan-
guages, composition and accounts-in the form of a brief and deliberately slap-
dash list, reflecting as it were the incongruity of such profound matters having
come to be the fashion accessories of men with pretentions to gentlemanli-
ness.94) He then passed on to a much longer and fuller discussion of what he
clearly felt to be the real substance of mirzc~'i: correct manners, proper deport-
ment with superiors, inferiors and friends, taste, dress, sensibility and connois-
seurship of fine things and places.
Both authors, then, dealt at length and in great detail with food, drink, the
etiquette of bathing and dining, the appropriate ways of furnishing a house and
garden in different seasons, the kinds of smells and sounds proper to like and
93) Ahmad 1975, p. 100.

94) Husain 1913, pp. 3-4.
dislike, bodily comportment, huntin

Namah, what defined a mirza was no
the ability to command commodities, b
manners and spirit in the use of these
everything that was coarse, vulgar or un
sophical knowledges were important, b
gious mirzd is even more insigificant in
an impecunious mirza.' The mirza shoul
poses and naskh for copying the Qur
should spend some hours in this occu
train horses and falcons. On the qualitie
Mirza Namah had only a short paragrap
tion that a Mughal nobleman was a so
ferred sport should be chawgan, the fav
soldierly mirza is better than an unsol
to enjoy merely watching marksmansh
choose the ignominy of running away;
firm like a soldier, even though he b
choose his weapons carefully so as not
learn to recognise the qualities of swor
He should not be all that inclined to us
pleasant smell of its fuse may not reac
edges were important too: in music, the
and styles of music to like, and which t
ple who are shallow and ignorant and l
a great art, but the mirzd himself shou
sonally taking part. He should not disg
unskilful singing, besides which 'Singin
sarily to other disgraceful and ignomini
It was in the home and the hospitality
bination of knowledge, display and bod
an environment perfectly conducive to r
here convey a very vivid picture of th
and upper gentry households, the comm
clients they supported, and their role in
tal social ties amongst the elites of the
mirzd was most suitable in the privacy
95) Ahmad 1975, p. 101. Chawgdn was the

cavalry.
96) Idem.
should keep his own bottle separate rather than join in the general circulati
of the common bottle. He should pay careful regard to temperature, drinki
wine only when the weather was cool or damp. Colour, taste and fragr
were all critical to the pleasure of his discerning guests, who should be able
enjoy a gold emboidered table cloth, the shape and shine of glass and gold v
sels, and the translucence of the wine. Tastes were carefully graded: quinc
pomegranate provided the best relish with wine, with pistachios an accept
alternative. The mirzd 'should always provide perfumes in his parties: and t
to keep his party fragrant with them. All sorts of vases full of flowers in every
season should be on view. He should keep his feast colourful; so that whoe
departs from it may feel that he has been to the feast of a mirzd; that is to
he should depart bearing the fragrant smell of scent and flower.'97)
Similar etiquettes governed the art of dining. Here, knowledge about th
varying qualities of imported and more local articles of consumption coun
as much as manners at table. He should have appropriate sour condiments w
his meals according to season. To drink with his meals he should like juice
pomegranate, mango, lemon and orange, especially that from Kashmir. Delic
pilaffs were very appropriate: the writer described his having dined with a great
amir, who had particularly recommended pilaff 'because it did not grease
hand and he did not have to try hard to cleanse his hand with a towel, wh
was disgusting.' Some vegetables were much more fitting than others: coo
turnip, even in winter, was too coarse for a mirzd, as were thick broths of
meat or barley. Delicately flavoured broths and vegetables such as beetroo
offered a preferable alternative, for 'beetroot is a food fit for a mirzd, bei
agreeable, colourful and sweet.'"9) He should know which were the best frui
pickles and accompaniments for different dishes, such as 'the fruit of Ku
Bihar and the Sumatra of Akbarabad,' which were delicacies made especiall
for the mirzd. He ought to enjoy sugarcane from Bihar and Akbarabad, 'on c
dition that he does not pile up the chewed refuse in front of himself.' Ot
foods, such as the radish, should be avoided at all costs, for 'the belch which
follows the eating of radishes is worse and more unpleasant to the mind t
the sound of a gunshot and the smell of gunpowder.' Similar sorts of offe
to his sensibility could be caused by an ignorant or gluttonous companion, w
did not clean his teeth or face and hands after a meal, or who talked with
mouth full of betel, thereby spraying the dress of fellow diners: 'the comp
of such a person is distasteful and disgusting' and should be avoided.99) An
97) Ibid., pp. 102-3.

98) Ibid., p. 103.
99) Ibid., pp. 103-4.
even as he enjoyed these pleasures, t

should stop eating while he is still hu
home rather than outside, 'for eatin
bazaar.' "00)
The mirzt should also attend to the physical environment of his house, in its
appearance, perfume, temperature and texture. It should be carefully secluded
from the bazaar, for 'a house without curtains and screens is like an open shop
in a bazaar.' A fire of aloe wood should be kept alight in winter, and good qual-
ity carpets used: those from Kirman if he could afford them, and those from
Kashmiri pattu if he could not. In summer, he should have a cooling khaskhanah,
fans, a cotton floor covering and rose perfume. His garden offered further pos-
sibilities for pleasure, refinement and spiritual cultivation. A mirza 'was bound
to be attracted by a garden.' It ought to be filled with the right sounds, sights
and fragrances. 'In every corner of his garden there should be colourful chirp-
ing and singing birds like nightingales and parrots. He should hear unpleasant
voices of other birds from a distance, because a mirzd's temperament cannot
bear listening to such noises.' The writer concluded by associating these in-
tensely emotional effects with one of the Persian literary tradition's most famil-
iar images of beauty and spiritual love. 'The beauty of these flowers and birds
is not merely for external view: the beauty of every bird leads one to the con-
templation of its Maker, and its singing leads the heart to the anguish (of divine
love). 10)
Particular etiquettes also governed riding and hunting. For the author of the
BM Mirza Namah, the palanquin was 'most harmless of all the rides available
to a mirzd,' for one risked falling off a horse or elephant, 'but in the rainy sea-
son, an elephant ride is the best; as both in the palki and on the horse there is
the risk of getting soaked in the rain, or of the mud and dirty water from the
rooftops soiling the head and headgear and trousers.' Out hunting, a mirza
should ride a black and white horse with a long mane, and prefer the sparrow
hawk above other hunting birds. He should make sure that his animals were
accoutred so as to be distinct from those of the vulgar. He should not gallop
his horse too hard, for 'One may well be enamoured of hunting and absorbed
in it; but life is more precious than the spectacle of hunting, which is not worth
falling from one's horse, or the falling off of one's headgear or the breaking of
one's neck.'102)
In the high parody of Mirz Kamran, on the other hand, all this delicacy and
100) Ibid., p. 104.

101) Idem.
102) Ibid., p. 105.
self-consciousness connoisseurship were there to be lampooned. If a mirzd h

pened to sit at table with a man of prestige like a lawyer, he should eat noth
at all, 'and in case he dies of hunger, he shall have a great reward in the n
life.' He reeled off what ought to be the proper preferences of the cultiva
mirzd: 'Ruby should be regarded by him as the best among all jewels, and
palanquin as the best of all conveyances. He should keep a watermelon as th
best of all fruits.' A mirza 'should regard Lahore as the best of all the tow
in India. He should recognise the fort of Agra as unequalled in the wh
world. If there be no controversy or dispute on that point, then he must th
Isfahan as the best town in Persia.'103) Conventions about personal consump
and display came in for similar satire, with the uncomfortable realities of l
as a low-level imperial servant in India set against the inflated ideal of mirz
Much more sceptical than the author of the BM Mirza Namah in his approac
Mirza Kdmran was in no doubt here that actually those for whom these refi
ments were important were not all amirs of a thousand rank or over, but a
much more middling gentry, concerned to negotiate their relationships w
social superiors in approved ways, and to avoid the risks of incautious mix
with others. 'With the rank of a centurion, the Mirza must not cause the co
of his hubble-bubble to be made of silver and put silver on the reins of h
horse, because they would not remain with him.'?4) For lesser imperial ser
ants, hospitality could be fraught with peril: 'If he be in service, then as lon
he does not get the rank of five hundred, he must not take guests to his house; a
in times of trouble, let him avoid being a guest of low people, for this will e
in insult.' Conversation needed careful handling too: 'In company he should
take part in controversies, especially religious ones. Let him keep his religious vie
quite secret, lest they cause him some bodily injury.' Even finding a house
India carried pitfalls for the unwary; the mirzd 'must not be in search of m
architectural beauty, but must pay due consideration to its stability, lest he m
not suffer an untimely death in the rainy season.'105) As for military qualit
the fastidiousness of the mirzd became a straight target for mockery. 'The mirza
must value life and should not go near war. If he happens to be on a battlefi
he must not pursue the defeated and flying army; on the contrary if his pa
suffer a defeat, he must run away as fast as he can."6)
There were also very careful prescriptions for dress, and here, very inter
ingly, one sees a more overt consciousness in the BM Mirza Namah that th
103) Husain 1913, p. 5.

104) Ibid., p. 7.
105) Ibid., p. 6.
106) Ibid., p. 5.
minute attention to style and self-con

blur proper distinctions between men
critique, the BM Mirza Ndmah seems
mind: that of young men who delibera
rying the fastidious refinement of mi
sensitivity to the homoerotic possibilit
masculine refinement raises the questi
tion of mirzd'i, and by implication the
Mughal court society more widely. I c
here, but three broad points are worth
the sexual comportment of high imper
Akbar had sought to distance the form
promote an idealised image of imperia
ual householders, a model for authorit
keeping with local Hindustani norms
sexual attachment. 07) Yet the latter pr
many imperial servants proved resistan
sexual attachments with favourite youn
dence points to an inclusive approach
ful boys were seen as one amongst a
rather than denoting a particular and
this does not mean that sexual identitie
same social tolerance extended to all v
sources as well as the new norms for
tinued to attract considerable social d
tensely at the passive partner, the cata
difficult to read, there do seem to ha
Delhi and other north Indian courts w
erotic styles. Sometimes these were y
valued for their skills at mahfil entertain
sexual availability; sometimes wealthy
107) O'Hanlon, forthcoming. See also Naim

108) This emerges both in normative liter
Qdbis Ndmah recommended enjoyment with
summer amd the latter in winter: Levy 19
experience. See, for example, Abfi'l Fazl's Ak
eenth century example, Dargdh Quli Khan's
109) For Sa'di, for example, see Murray a
pp. 413-52. These were persistent themes i
reflected them in his description of one of t
encountered in Fergana, 'who, although he
with the sword.' Thackston 1996, p. 287.
tions for their sexual connoissership as well as the range of their cultural accom
plishments and the sensual pleasures of their hospitality.' 10)
The author of the BM Mirza Namah negotiated his way very carefully
around these sexual complexities, taking care to affirm the principle of mirzd'
as a form of cultivated masculine power. Thus the mirzd 'should avoid the
company of such [self-proclaimed], self-opinionated, bastard mirzas who tie
their turbans with great delicateness, who talk with the movement of head or
with the gestures of body or of eyebrows, who are over-emphatic in speech.'
Such people 'who turn away with affected delicacy from whatever is invigo-
rating, who do not clean their teeth without looking in the mirror, who clad
themselves in the single layer of a thin and transparent upper garment and wea
trousers of satin and kamkhab (many-coloured, embroidered cloth), and who
have the habit of eating pan frequently and blackening their teech with missi.
Such mirzas are no good. Mirza-hood is to be mirza khan or mirza-beg; not to
be a mirzada-begum or mirzada-khanum."")
These emphases on the manliness of personal restraint were reflected in other
prescriptions for dress. Interestingly, the writer recommended plainer and mor
natural materials, in place of the glossy fabrics or elaborate ornaments usually
associated with luxury and prestige: a kind of conspicuous abstinence in which
the sophistication of an understated style and the need for economy met in
happy coincidence. The mirzd 'should use pearls for buttons, for pearl is nat-
ural while other jewels have to be cut. In winter, he should wear a shawl, either
plain or imprinted with gold and silver leaves.' His garments should be threaded
with silver, rather than of emboidered brocade, cloth of gold or satin. The same
considerations applied to flowers in the turban: 'He should not wear flowers in
his turban, as it is effeminate to do so. It is a blemish for the mirza, who is a
[masculine] lover.' But he could occasionally, and in privacy, put a bunch of
feathery nafarman flowers in his turban, which looked becoming. Restrained
dress of this kind also had the advantage of being less costly: there were work-
shops which produced high quality striped cloth for turbans at very low prices.
The mirzd should certainly avoid trousers of satin or cloth of gold, which were
not dignified: these were better fitted for pillowcases or curtains or for giving
away as a ceremonial dress.'12) The dagger or jamddr, an essential item of
court dress worn tucked into the sash, was likewise obligatory for the mirzd, as
110) DargMh Quli Khan is an excellent source here: see, for example, Ansari 1982, pp.
92-3 for Taqi, the gregarious eunuch and master conjuror who attracted numerous pederasts
and beautiful catamites to his mahfil, and pp. 56-7 for the amir Sadiq Quli Khan, famous
for his patronage of musicians and his connoisseurship of beautiful faces.
111) Ahmad 1975, p. 105.
112) Ibid., pp. 105-6. Pious Muslims were often warned against the sensual temptations
of silk: see Bayly 1986, pp. 290-2.
were rings of ruby, emerald, turquoise

olent effects on the body.13)
This kind of manliness also manifest
conduct of the household and sexual lif
giving a chance to his male friends an
his private concubines; otherwise, it w
a great deal of mischief.' The dangerou
ticularly emphasised. To avoid temptat
'he should regard a bearded cupbearer
bearer,' while 'the attendant at dinne
appearance, who offers his prayers reg
or good looking boy as a dinner atten
and is imprudent. For it may induce
the salt-bottle.' And there should be a
the tobacco from a pipe, and after the
and he has listened to some music, he
time to go to bed; and then he should
Friends and good company were ind
needed to be carefully chosen. 'He sho
of great men, since this is undignif
like himself, both to enjoy the pleasur
refinement of sensibility. 'All his qua
his stature his dress looks becoming;
generosity he is ahead of others so th
come.'116) With his costs sometimes r
needed to avoid familiarity with peop
money, whatever their rank. But those
only 'in gratitude of the means which
and give on a superior scale marked t
those mirzas who "spend little and sit
from anyone, in return of which he d
greater value.'"117)
Set against this intimacy with friend
gested extremely elaborate boundarie
113) Ahmad 1975, p. 106.

114) Ibid., p. 102.
115) Ibid., p. 101.
116) Ibid., p. 100.
117) Ibid., p. 106.
and the bazaar. 'He should not trust the cleanliness of his cooks; but should t
every possible care in the investigation that they are clean.'"8) Even his ga
dener might be a source of contamination: 'If he wants a flower to yield f
grance, he should himself pluck it from the bough. He should not accept it f
the hands of the gardener, for there is no hand cleaner than the hand of
mirz.'"19) In the bath, 'he should not allow a bearded bath attendant to rub
body with the brush: for the sweat which falls from his hair and beard is as
pleasant as water with brimstone.'120) The mere physical proximity of a me
or vulgar person offended him: 'he should not look at such a person if
stands in front of him; and he should regard his presence as disturbing to t
mind.' Even his servants should remove themselves from his sight as soon
possible, and he should not have actually to speak to them, 'but communic
through gesture.'121)
Here, then, we have a very interesting and internally complex set of di
courses about ideal manliness in the imperial service. In these later seventee
century developments, there was still a strong sense of connection between form
of ideal cultivated manhood and the imperial service, an unstated assumpti
that imperial servants were those most likely to possess these forms of kno
edge and sensibility, and to be able to command prized commodities. Yet the
were also important, if sometimes implicit, shifts in style and social referen
What mirzda' offered was a model for social and spiritual refinement access
not only to great nobles but also to lesser amirs and inferior imperial servan
particularly in the dilute and routinised forms expressed in the mirzc neamah lit
erature. What also put this kind of mirzd'f within reach of the humbler imperia
servant was that its personal cultivation was declared, to some extent at leas
to be independent of income: gentlemanly refinement was a state of mind, which
with the right sensibility could be cultivated on a very moderate income. If t
was a more socially accessible model, it was also one with a much stronger e
phasis on the bodily and moral self-cultivation of the individual, through careful
deployment of the right kinds of domestic environment, commodities, knowledg
and social connections. Here, indeed, the elements of tension and ambiguit
described above meant a wide range of possibilities for individual interpre
tion and self-expression. At this level, mirzd'f offered not so much a unitary
rigid model, so much as a set of related themes, which individuals might ne
tiate in very different ways. As suggested above, individual engagement w
118) Ibid., p. 103.

119) Ibid., p. 106.
120) Idem.
121) Idem.
its values was not a question of adherenc

but much more a personal negotiation o
tant sense the mirzd was a bricoleur, as
self-cultivation in the commodities he k
disciplines, norms for dress and compor
and sexual preferences, and his handling
tial bearing and personal refinement. From
ined above, of course, this was precisely
ple were calling themselves mirzd when
interpreting its codes of behaviour in so
ways. For the BM Mirza Namah, the po
between the real mirzd on the one hand,
tard' mirzd'i of men effeminate in dress and love, on the other. For Mirza
Kamran, the whole routinisation of mirzd'i, and the affections of parvenus who
identified with its values, offered an open invitation to parody and ridicule.
Conclusions
Why did these novel codes for elite masculinity emerge in this way from
later seventeenth century? This is a complex question, to which only very te
tive answers can be suggested here. These codes emerged in the context of
court culture in which consumption and display were important indicator
authority. Here, new classes of moderately wealthy imperial servants and gen
were seeking ways of assimilating their own social styles to those of court el
even as their sense of personal connection with imperial authority weaken
and a degree of dignified moral and personal independence seemed more app
priate for a man of culture. Its fusion of moral and spiritual refinement w
the pleasures of gentlemanly living also made mirzdi a particularly approp
ate ethic in the more conformist religious culture of the seventeenth centu
court: a mirzd could integrate the qualities of a pious sufi mystic perfectl
within his daily life as a cultured gentleman. Perhaps most importantly, th
new codes developed within a cultural world already accustomed to making
art of mundane living and infusing it with moral significance, and in which
links between elite manliness and imperial service were already well-forged
These developing discourses were to have important implications for the
wider cultural authority of Mughal imperial service, at a time when Aurangz
prolonged campaigns in the Deccan placed existing loyalties as well as s
ries under strain. At one level, their effect was undoubtedly further to strength
the position of the court as a cultural arbiter, and the image of the ideal im
rial servant as embodiment of cultivated manliness. The etiquettes of mirz
helped to disseminate new and more accessible styles of personal refineme

and conspicuous domestic display, whose cultural referent was still the impe
court, and whose reliance on a wide range of commodities as the means to p
sonal cultivation strengthened dependence on imperial salaries. In two partic
lar ways, however, these shifts may have posed serious problems. As describ
above, mirzd'i represented a move away, at least implicitly, from the older e
of the khcnazfdd. It emphasised instead the dignified independence of a cul
vated gentleman, whose inner equilibrium was likely to be disturbed by th
anxieties of high office. Moreover, cultivation of the self took priority over
tivation of imperial superiors for the mirzd, for whom it was undignified
dance attendance at the houses of great men. His command over the right co
modities enabled a mirzd to display his personal accomplishments to his pee
to give individual expression to his bodily virtuousity, and at the same time
pursue his own inner quest for spiritual refinement. In these new contexts o
expanded and more accessible world of commodities, older theories about t
body still held good: a man's spiritual and emotional states were most pow
fully affected by techniques of the body, and by careful control of his phys
environment. But this was now a much more individuated body, marked out
such by carefully chosen forms of knowledge and consumption, and deplo
more self-consciously as an instrument to perfect the soul. For all their cultu
ties to the imperial court, and their material dependence on imperial salar
these more individual forms of bodily and personal self-cultivation were i
undeniable tension with older ideals of absolute personal devotion and subor
nation to the emperor.122) At the same time, the internal ambiguities in these id
of personal cultivation may have weakened their potential as models for auth
itative masculinity. In the hands of some men they seemed dangerously cl
to a kind of feminisation; carried to extremes by others, they became fit m
rial for parody. Here, earlier Mughal strategies to make the qualities of id
manhood the monopoly of imperial servants were at risk of being turned ups
down, mocked for their anxious self-concern, even stigmatised as debased
deviant. Nor was this sense of tension only an internal one. As I have argu
elsewhere, other critiques were emerging in the very different forms of norma-
tive military masculinity associated with Maratha, Sikh and Afghan warband
as these brotherhoods of warriors contrasted their own martial and egalitar
styles with the luxury and hierarchy of the Mughal court.123)
122) For important contemporary parallels in South Indian court culture, also develop
around an emerging sense of the gendered body as instrument for new forms of subjec
ity, see Narayana Rao et al. 1992, pp. 113-168.
123) O'Hanlon 1997, pp. 8-12.
There may, therefore, have been a furth

integration of Mughal service morale f
Richards among others has described."2
obligation and reward did appear to los
Aurangzeb's prolonged absences in th
older model of the imperial servant a
to have fractured. Some of its fragme
powerful conception of man as sophisti
less easily with an ethic of absolute p
Rather, the inner dynamic which conn
in this conception implied a strengthen
self-cultivation as both ambition and re
ened rather than weakened over the fir
drastic collapse of the emperor's person
able flowering of a wider and more ov
ure at the imperial capital.125)
These seventeenth century developme
for the study of other early modern s
text of the new 'connective' histories referred to above. Lieberman and others
have proposed important parallels between the ways in which many European
and Asian states sought to create new kinds of cultural allegiance and shared
loyalty amongst their military and urban elites. These efforts at political conso-
lidation emerged around a range of cultural markers: language, religious ritual,
dress and bodily comportment, styles of consumption and modes of learning.
Their study certainly does much to blur hard distinctions between premodern
political loyalties and those of the era of 'modern' nationalism, of the kind favoured
a decade ago by Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson.126) This willingness to
question old paradigms and to forge new connections make it the more remark-
able that these new histories have yet really to pose the question of gender and
the state in a focussed way, or to explore the potential for discourses about ideal
manhood both to create new solidarities, and to help fix the cultural boundaries
between urban and military elites and their social inferiors. If the Indian exam-
ples above have any value, they surely suggest that these questions are worth
posing in other early modern Asian contexts.
124) Richards 1984, pp. 286-8.

125) This culture is most vividly described in the descriptions of the Hyderabadi official
Dargah Quli Khan, who stayed in Delhi during the period of Nadir Shah's invasion:
Muraqqa'-i Delhi, Ansari 1982.
126) Liebermann 1997, p. 492.
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Manliness and Imperial Service in Mughal North India

Author(s): Rosalind O'Hanlon

? Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1999 JESHO 42,1

traditions, and have very often formed

2) Tosh 1994, p. 180.

pervasive and attractive, moreover, is

Gender and the Meanings of Manliness in Mughal North India

The north Indian context naturally reveals enormous regional complexity

infusion of all mundane activity with

16) Metcalf 1984, pp. 2-5.

20) Lawrence 1994, p. 153.

essentially spiritual distinction between

25) Quoted in Schimmel 1975, p. 426. These

elements in the political discourse of the Sultanate--Persian 'mirrors for prin

friendship and alliance in the overwh

Reworking Tradition: Muhammad Bdqir Najm-i Sdni

Shah Jahdn, serving as governor of Patna, Bihar, Bengal, Orissa, Guju

between the adddb of personal striving

40) For sufism in the early modem Indian

wa pur-dili, 'self restraint and courage.'43) Many of his anecdotes illustra

43) Nasihat al-Mulfk, tr. Bagley 1964, p. 119.

these corporations embedded themselv

Rather, he integrated his account of w

47) A good introductory discussion to the

would take an interest in the inner st

of poverty and austerity."55) Poverty he saw unambiguously as a source of dis-

into view the beauty of one's [desired

shape and decoration came to be powerful signifiers of personal allegiance

Either we step over the sky to achieve our goal

definition of manhood. In his quest for

67) Ibid., p. 95; 201.

Changing Codes in the Later Seventeenth Century

I want now to turn to look at how some of these meanings of manliness in

72) Ibid., p. 49; 151.

in the Mughal court under the emperor

74) For these themes in the Indian conte

was vulgar and low, and the reduction

Knowledge, Connoisseurship and Cons

Evidence about these codes emerges in

78) The Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldfin is di

of adab remained extremely important

82) Chandra 1986, pp. 205-17; Ali 1997, pp

than a rigid template for behaviour. On the question of novelty, Indo-Per

83) Some of these bayaz are listed in Marshall 1985, p. 577.

voluptuously happy.87) It is difficult t

87) Steingass, p. 1009.

93) Ahmad 1975, p. 100.

dislike, bodily comportment, huntin

95) Ahmad 1975, p. 101. Chawgdn was the

97) Ibid., pp. 102-3.

even as he enjoyed these pleasures, t

100) Ibid., p. 104.

self-consciousness connoisseurship were there to be lampooned. If a mirzd h

103) Husain 1913, p. 5.

minute attention to style and self-con

107) O'Hanlon, forthcoming. See also Naim

were rings of ruby, emerald, turquoise

113) Ahmad 1975, p. 106.

118) Ibid., p. 103.