1. For the development of Akbar’s religious and political policies, see Iqtidar Alam Khan, “The Nobility under Akbar and the Development of His Religious Policy, 1560–80,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, pts. 1 and 2 (1968): 29–36. [BACK]

2. As is well known, Akbar banned activities offensive to Hindus, such as cow-slaughter. He also abolished discriminatory taxes such as those levied on Hindu pilgrims, admitted Hindu sages into his private audience and Rajput chieftains into his ruling class, ordered the translation of Hindu sacred texts into Persian, and celebrated Hindu festivals. Sri Ram Sharma, The Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors, 2d ed. (London: Asia Publishing House, 1962), 19–24. [BACK]

3. For a useful summary of the factors that helped shape Akbar’s political ideology, see Douglas E. Streusand, The Formation of the Mughal Empire (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), esp. 123–81. [BACK]

4. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fols. 49a, 60b; trans., 1: 120, 153. [BACK]

5. Ibid., text, fol. 78b; trans., 1: 205. These political rites also carried the danger of encouraging loyalty to provincial governors at the expense of the larger loyalty due the emperor. This possibility was not lost on Jahangir himself, who at one point issued an edict forbidding governors to compel others to salute or make obeisance to them, to hold reviews with a jharokhā, or even to sit on places higher than half a human height above the ground. In a political universe in which the substance and symbolism of power overlapped, if not coincided, such niceties of elevation above ground level were far from trivial. Ibid., text, fol. 103a; trans., 1: 213. [BACK]

6. Daniel Potts, “On Salt and Salt Gathering in Ancient Mesopotamia,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 27, no. 3 (October 1984): 228. [BACK]

7. The Lord commanded both Moses and Aaron to include salt in holy offerings made by the people of Israel: “you shall not let the salt of the covenant with your God be lacking from your cereal offering” (Lev. 2:13). See also Num. 18:19. [BACK]

8. “The Lord God of Israel gave the kingship over Israel forever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt” (2 Chron. 13:4–5). [BACK]

9. Ezra 4:14. The Bahman Yast, composed most probably in the Achaemenid period (553–330 B.C.), stated that men at the Zoroastrian End of Time “have no gratitude and respect for bread and salt, and they have no affection for their country” (Pahlavi Texts, trans. E. W. West, vol. 5 of The Sacred Books of the East, ed. Max Müller [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1880], pt. 1, p. 204). I am indebted to Said A. Arjomand for this reference. [BACK]

10. Ali Akbar Dihkhuda, Lughat-nāma (Teheran: University of Tehran, 1341 Solar [1962]), 30: 790. [BACK]

11. Ibid. [BACK]

12. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 213b; trans., 2: 460. “Mā ham mīdānīm ābrū ba bād rafta wa mīravad, valī chi-kunam? ḥuqūq-i namak khūrdagī dāmangīr shuda. ” [BACK]

13. In the modern Persian language, as in Mughal Bengal, the metaphor of “salt” still expresses pervasive ideas of patronage, clientage, loyalty, and betrayal. It reflects a society deeply concerned with the fragility of human relationships—especially across different strata—and with how such relationships can be established, maintained, or broken. Thus namak khūrdan, “to eat salt [of someone],” means to accept, acknowledge, and enjoy the benefits of a patron. Conversely, namak-dān shikastan, “to break [someone’s] salt vessel,” means to betray a patron. Similarly, namak shinās, “acknowledging [someone’s] salt,” refers to one who is loyal to a patron; whereas namak nā-shinās, “not acknowledging [someone’s] salt,” refers to one who is disloyal to, or even betrays, a patron. [BACK]

14. Ibid., text, fol. 260b; trans., 2: 596–97. “Chūn namak-i Jahāngīrī khūrda shahādat-rā sa‘ādat-i dārain-i khūdimān mīdānīm. ” [BACK]

15. F. W. Buckler, “The Oriental Despot,” Oberlin Alumni Magazine 22, no. 5 (February 1926): 15; and 22, no. 6 (March 1926): 14. Reprinted in Legitimacy and Symbols: The South Asian Writings of F. W. Buckler, ed. M. N. Pearson (Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, No. 26, 1985), 177. The idea that imperial servants were “the eyes and the ears of the king” extends far back in the political tradition of the ancient Near East; it was introduced into Perso-Islamic notions of statecraft via Iran’s Sasanian dynasty. [BACK]

16. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fols. 75b-76a; trans., 1: 197. The phrase “according to their status” given in Borah’s translation does not appear in the Persian text. “ṣubḥ-ash kūchīda qarār dād tā ham dar manzil-i avalīn hamagī Afghānān-rā mihmān sākhta, namak-i Bādshāh-i dīn-panāh ba khūrd-ashān badahad, ki az ḥaqq-i namak bārī zīāda-tar dar gardan-i Musalmān namībāshad. ” [BACK]

17. Buckler in Legitimacy and Symbols, ed. Pearson, 181 [BACK]

18. Voyage dans les deltas du Gange, 333. Just as the ideology of salt, although of foreign origin, harmonized with Indian ideas of reciprocal obligations between people of different occupation or social rank (e.g., jājmān and kamīn), so also the donning of clothing already worn by the ruler/donor paralleled indigenous conceptions of religious authority. In the context of the ordinary Indian pūjā ceremony, the religious devotee accepts and eats prasād, or the leftovers of a meal offered a deity by the devotee. As these leftovers are considered ritually touched, discarded, and hence “polluted” by the divinity, ingesting them, like wearing the robe worn by a donor, expresses subordination to the divinity. Therefore, even though the terms namak and khil‘at were foreign to India—one is Persian, the other Arabic—both found ready reception in the broader context of Indian culture. [BACK]

19. M. Athar Ali, The Apparatus of Empire (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985), xx; and id., The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1966), 16–17, 34–35. [BACK]

20. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fols. 203b-204a; trans., 1: 440. [BACK]

21. Ibid., text, fol. 140b; trans., 1: 256. [BACK]

22. Ibid., text, fol. 143a; trans., 1: 262. [BACK]

23. Ibid., text, fol. 165a; trans., 1: 323–24. Earlier, when Mirza Nathan’s father had been ill, a kabirāj from Alapsingh, in Mymensingh District, was similarly called upon. Again the patient’s astrological signs were studied, his pulse taken, and a poisonous brew dissolved in ginger and lemon juice administered. Ibid., text, fol. 14a-b; trans., 1: 39. [BACK]

24. In 1583 Mirza ‘Aziz Koka, one of Akbar’s early governors, grew so disgusted with the delta’s soggy weather that he pleaded for and won a transfer. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans., 3: 594; text, 3: 401. Military men, particularly cavalry officers, faced special difficulties moving men and equipment in a terrain utterly unlike the plains of North India. Mirza Nathan describes becoming hopelessly lost in a “swamp which appears in the whole country of Bengal during the rainy season. He found no way out of it and wandered about in that deep water in the whirlpool of perplexity.” Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 15b–16a; trans., 1: 43. [BACK]

25. Mahmud b. Amir Wali Balkhi, The Bahr ul-Asrar: Travelogue of South Asia, ed. Riazul Islam (Karachi: University of Karachi, 1980), 48. [BACK]

26. See A. Halim, “An Account of the Celebrities of Bengal of the Early Years of Shahjahan’s Reign Given by Muhammad Sadiq,” Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society 1 (1953): 355; Nazir Ahmad, “Muhammad Sadiq Isfahani, an Official of Bengal of Shah Jahan’s Time,” Indo-Iranica 24 (1972): 103–25; S. N.H. Rizvi, “Literary Extracts from Kitab Subh Sadiq,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Pakistan 16, no. 1 (April 1971), 1–61. [BACK]

27. Moreover, Dhaka’s Muslim elite was overwhelmingly Shi‘a, whereas the older ashrāf of Rajmahal had been generally Sunni. The predominance of Shi‘as in Bengal became even more evident during the 21-year governorship of Prince Shujā‘ (1639–60), who according to later traditions brought three hundred Shi‘a nobles to Bengal and even turned Shi‘a himself. Halim, “Account,” 355–56. See also Jadunath Sarkar, ed., History of Bengal, 334–35. [BACK]

28. Abu’l-fazl ‘Allami, Akbar-nāma, trans. Beveridge, 3: 427; text, 3: 290. [BACK]

29. Typical were those of Robert Orme, written in 1763: “The abundance of advantages peculiar to this country,” he wrote, “through a long course of generations, have concurred with the languor peculiar to the unelastic atmosphere of the climate, to debase all the essential qualities of the human race, and notwithstanding the general effeminacy of character which is visible in all the Indians throughout the [Mughal] empire, the natives of Bengal are still of weaker frame and more enervated disposition than those of any other province.” Orme, History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan (reprint, Madras: Pharoah, 1861), 2: 4–5. Passages like this are often cited as representative of Orientalism, or of a British “colonial discourse.” Whether located in the modern imposition of European rule over the peoples of Asia or traced to the writings of Dante or even Homer, this discourse has been identified as peculiarly European in origin and character. However, passages like this one from Abu’l-fazl suggest that at least some of its elements were rooted not in Europe but in India itself, and specifically in Mughal culture as articulated in or with reference to Bengal. Rather than bringing to Bengal ideas that were “inherently” European, men like Orme appear to have appropriated and assimilated values and attitudes that were already present in India, and that were associated in particular with Bengal’s former ruling class. For a useful discussion of the Orientalism debate, see Aijaz Ahmad, “Between Orientalism and Historicism: Anthropological Knowledge of India,” Studies in History 7, no. 1 (1991): 135–63. [BACK]

30. Imam al-Din Rajgiri, Manāhij al-shaṭṭār (Khuda Bakhsh Library, Patna, Pers. MSS. Nos. 1848, 1848-A), 2: fol. 383b:

	Bangāla zamīn kharāb va dil-tang;
	Rū fātḥa khwān va manumā;mzī dirang.
	Andar bar-o baḥr jā-yi āsāyish nīst,
	Yā hast dahan-i shīr, yā kām-i nahang.

31. The shaikh was connected with the highest levels of power in the province. Having met the governor when the latter was once hunting in the Malda region, Shah Ni‘mat Allah requested and received a grant of four hundred bighas of land. Later, Prince Muhammad Shuja‘, son of Emperor Shah Jahan and governor of Bengal from 1639 to 1660, became a disciple of the shaikh’s, while his servants and descendants amassed such fortunes from the ancestral grant that they were able to acquire horses, elephants, camels, and hunting animals. Ibid., fols. 384b-385a. [BACK]

32. Salim, Riyāzu-s-Salātīn, trans. Abdus Salam, 21. [BACK]

33. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 278b; trans., 2: 650–51. Emphasis mine. [BACK]

34. Ibid., text, fol. 18a; trans., 1: 51. [BACK]

35. M. Athar Ali, The Apparatus of Empire: Awards of Ranks, Officers and Titles to the Mughal Nobility, 1574–1658 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985), 32. Abu-l-Qadir Ibn-i Muluk Shah al-Badaoni, Muntakhabu’t-Tawarikh, trans. and ed. T. Wolseley Haig (1899; reprint, Delhi: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 1973), 2: 300. [BACK]

36. Manrique, Travels 1: 40. [BACK]

37. Asher, “Inventory,” in Islamic Heritage of Bengal, ed. Mitchell, 120. [BACK]

38. Ibid., 120–21. [BACK]

39. Ibid., 55. [BACK]

40. Catherine B. Asher, “The Mughal and Post-Mughal Periods,” in The Islamic Heritage of Bengal, ed. George Michell (Paris: UNESCO, 1984), 203–4. [BACK]

41. All but the mosque, dated 1649, were built between 1678 and 1684. Ibid., 200–201. [BACK]

42. See Catherine B. Asher, “The Architecture of Raja Man Singh: A Study of Sub-Imperial Patronage,” in The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture, ed. Barbara S. Miller (New Delhi: Oxford University Press of India, 1992), 191–96. [BACK]

43. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 302b; trans., 2: 716. [BACK]

44. Akbar’s patronage of the Chishti order was most visibly expressed in his pilgrimages to the shrine of Shaikh Mu‘in al-Din Chishti at Ajmer, which the emperor performed nearly every year between 1568 and 1579. Iqtidar Alam Khan, “Nobility under Akbar,” 34, n. 28. [BACK]

45. “Faqīrī ki kasb-i buzurgān-i māst.” Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 60a; trans., 1: 152. [BACK]

46. Ibid., text, fol. 60a; trans., 1: 150. [BACK]

47. Ibid., text, fol. 60a; trans., 1: 152. [BACK]

48. Ibid., text, fol. 161b; trans., 1: 313. In A.D. 922, Mansur Hallaj was publicly executed in Baghdad on the grounds that his theologically unorthodox ideas threatened the stability of Abbasid society and government. However, throughout his execution his love of God never faltered, providing subsequent generations of Muslims with a model of steadfast devotion to God despite social or political persecution. [BACK]

49. Ibid., text, fol. 328a; trans., 2: 786. [BACK]

50. Manrique, Travels, 1: 44. [BACK]

51. Shamsud-Din Ahmed, ed. and trans., Inscriptions, 4: 256–305. [BACK]

52. Ibid., 163. In 1609 Mirza Nathan, while in the midst of military operations in northwestern Bengal, paid his respects to this shrine, noting that the marble footprint had been purchased and brought from Arabia by one of the sultans “so that the people of Bengal and everybody else, who were destined to come there, might attain eternal blessing by kissing the holy footprint.” Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 58a; trans., 1: 146. [BACK]

53. ‘Abd al-Rahman Chishti, Mirāt al-asrār, fol. 517b; Nizamuddin Ahmad, ṭabaqāt-i Akbarī, text, 3:270; trans., 3, pt. 1: 443. [BACK]

54. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 15a-b; trans., 1: 42–43. [BACK]

55. Ibid., text, fol. 299b; trans., 2: 707. [BACK]

56. Ibid., text, fol. 60b; trans., 1: 153. “Tā tū Hindū būda, chūn mushtamal bar fasād kamarbast-ī? ” [BACK]

57. Ibid., text, fol. 219b; trans., 2: 476–77. [BACK]

58. In 1679 Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707), the most controversial of Mughal emperors, imposed the religion-sanctioned jizya tax on all non-Muslims of the empire. Theoretically required of non-Muslims in return for state protection, the jizya had never previously been imposed or collected in Bengal. But in early 1681 Dutch observers noted that imperial officials had begun collecting the jizya from the Hindus of Dhaka “ever so strictly.” Dagh-Register gehouden int Casteel Batavia vant passerende daer ter plaetse als over geheel Nederlandts-India (Batavia: C. Kolff, 1928), A.D. 1680: 121. And in Cossimbazar, at that time the center of Bengal’s flourishing textile industry, officials forcibly demanded the jizya from Hindu silk workers, which disrupted the local textile production business and drove the city’s “little people” into the interior. Bengal’s dīwān, or chief revenue officer, demanded that even resident European officials of the Dutch East India Company, as non-Muslims, pay the tax. Generale missiven van gouverneurs-generaal en raden aan Heren XVII der Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), 4: 391, 445, 564. [BACK]

59. Fray Manrique, who was in Dhaka in 1640, wrote that both mullās and Sufis had urged the Mughal government in Dhaka to prosecute European Christian missionaries on grounds that they had been encouraging Muslims to break Islamic injunctions against taking pork and wine. But both Shah Jahan and the governor rejected these appeals. “These attempts at persecution,” the friar observed, “would have succeeded had the [Christian] Brethren not obtained the support of the Emperor and consequently of the Nababo [governor].” Manrique, Travels, 1: 46–47. [BACK]

60. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 10b; trans., 1: 32. [BACK]

61. The following narrative is drawn from Manrique, Travels 2: 95–115. [BACK]

62. Manrique wrote that the birds had been strangled to death. But for Muslims, the taking of life in this manner is unlawful; the bird would have to have been properly decapitated with a knife. Either Manrique’s Muslim assistant was not aware of the unlawfulness of his action, or, as is more likely, Manrique recalled this detail of his account incorrectly, substituting strangulation for a proper killing. [BACK]

63. This is the town listed in the ā’īn-i Akbarī as Narainpur. It was a pargana headquarters of some considerable size and importance, for Abu’l-fazl mentions that it had a strong fort on a hill, and that it maintained one hundred imperial cavalry and four thousand imperial infantry. ā’īn-i Akbarī, trans., 2: 156. [BACK]

64. Manrique, Travels, 2: 111–12. [BACK]

65. Ibid., 115. [BACK]

66. Manrique’s own words are “in a Hindu pargana” (em pragana de Indus). As the translator remarks, the friar “must be recording the actual Hindi [i.e., Bengali] words as he remembered them, since the expression pargana is not one he would have used in giving a mere paraphrase” (Travels, 2: 112n). This is all the more likely given that Manrique referred to his persecutors not as “Heathens” or “Unbelievers,” as was his usual practice when referring to non-Muslims of India, but by the Bengali word “Indu .” Hence the phrase em pragana de Indus is probably a nearly verbatim representation of the shiqdār’s own words as recalled by Manrique, Hindu parganae, “in a Hindu pargana.” [BACK]

67. Bir-Hamir, the zamīndār of Birbhum, which lay to the immediate west and southwest of Gaur, readily submitted to a Mughal army of two thousand cavalry and four thousand infantry. So did Shams Khan, the zamīndār of Pachet, located in the Damodar valley, in the present Bankura District. Salim Khan, the zamīndār of Hijli, which roughly corresponded to the present-day Midnapur District, ignored the advice of Afghans who counseled resistance; instead, he presented a tribute payment (pīshkash) to Mughal officers, who “conferred upon him the right of administration of his whole territory.” Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 6b; trans., 1: 19–20. [BACK]

68. Ibid., text, fol. 61b; trans., 1: 156–57. [BACK]

69. The architecture of these brick temples also points to Vaishnava influence: whereas classical Hindu temples in Bengal had been small, single-doored structures intended for little more than housing the deity’s image, those built from the late sixteenth century on featured larger rooms, multiple doorways, porches, and additional chambers intended to accommodate the sort of convivial religious gatherings typical of Vaishnava devotionalism. Hitesranjan Sanyal, “Temple-building in Bengal from the Fifteenth to the Nineteenth Century,” in Perspectives in Social Sciences, ed. Barun De, vol. 1, Historical Dimensions (Calcutta: Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, 1977), 131–32. [BACK]

70. The distribution is as follows: Hooghly, 49; Burdwan, 43; Bankura, 35; Jessore, 18; Howrah, 16; Midnapur, 17; Birbhum, 12; Twenty-four Parganas, 8; Murshidabad, 5; Nadia, 6; Pabna, 4; Khulna, 4; Dinajpur, 4; Rangpur, 3; Purulia, 2; Kushtia, 1; Bakarganj, 1; Bogra, 1; Dhaka, 1. George Michell, ed., Brick Temples of Bengal: From the Archives of David McCutchion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 195–254. [BACK]

71. Mukundaram, Kavikaṅkaṇa Caṇḍī, 347–61. [BACK]

72. Smith, One-eyed Goddess, 56, 73, 133, 173. [BACK]

73. Bhattacharya, “La Déesse,” 40, 41; Wise, “Hindus of Eastern Bengal,” 8. [BACK]

74. Ray, “Medieval Bengali Culture,” 90. [BACK]

75. Muslim commanders had invaded Kuch Bihar, Kamrup, or Assam in ca. 1206, ca. 1238, 1257, 1321–22, 1332–33, 1457, 1493–94, and 1567–68. The longest period of the sultanate’s domination of this region followed ‘Ala al-Din Husain Shah’s 1494 invasion and conquest of Kuch Bihar and Kamrup. Coins minted by the Husain Shahi government continued to mention “Kamru” until 1518, and from evidence in Ahom chronicles it appears the sultans remained in control over these frontier regions until 1533, when they were decisively defeated by the Ahom kings and forced to withdraw from Kuch Bihar and Kamrup altogether. See Sudhindra Nath Bhattacharyya, A History of Mughal North-east Frontier Policy (Calcutta: Chuckervertty, Chatterjee & Co., 1929), 52–80; and Momtazur Rahman Tarafdar, Husain Shahi Bengal, 1494–1538A.D.: A Socio-Political Study (Dacca: Asiatic Society of Pakistan, 1965), 40–80. [BACK]

76. Bhattacharyya, Mughal North-east Frontier, 6–9. [BACK]

77. Buchanan-Hamilton MSS., “List of Papers Respecting the District of Ronggopur” (India Office Library, London, Eur. MSS. D 74, vol. 1), bk. 2, 127–31. [BACK]

78. K. L. Barua, Early History of Kamarupa from the Earliest Times to the End of the Sixteenth Century (Shillong: n.p., 1933), 284–88. [BACK]

79. Buchanan-Hamilton MSS., “List of Papers,” bk. 2, 133–38. [BACK]

80. See Amalendu Guha, “The Medieval Economy of Assam,” in The Cambridge Economic History of India, ed. Tapan Raychaudhuri and Irfan Habib (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 1: 483–85. [BACK]

81. Buchanan-Hamilton MSS., “List of Papers,” bk. 2, 128, 137–38. [BACK]

82. These included the Afghans formerly loyal to ‘Uthman Khan of Sylhet, Raja Satrajit, Bahadur Ghazi, Suna Ghazi, and the forces of Musa Khan. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 105b; trans., 1: 222–23. [BACK]

83. An exasperated Mirza Nathan, who played a leading role in this expedition, complained of Mughal forces during this siege “wallowing perpetually in mud like buffaloes.” Ibid., text, fol. 112b; trans., 1: 236. [BACK]

84. Ibid., text, fols. 116b–118b, 153a-b; trans., 1: 248–53, 292. [BACK]

85. Ibid., text, fol. 147a; trans., 1: 272–73. [BACK]

86. Ibid., text, fol. 152a; trans., 1: 288–89. [BACK]

87. Gautam Bhadra, “Two Frontier Uprisings in Mughal India,” in Subaltern Studies II: Writings on South Asian History and Society, ed. Ranajit Guha (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983), 55n. [BACK]

88. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 181a; trans., 1: 370. [BACK]

89. Ibid., text, fol. 183b; trans., 1: 378. [BACK]

90. Ibid., text, fol. 184b; trans., 1: 381. [BACK]

92. Buchanan-Hamilton MSS., “List of Papers,” bk. 2, 138. [BACK]

93. Nathan, Bahāristān, text, fol. 40b; trans., 1: 97. [BACK]

94. “Ba tākht-i nawāḥī rafta, ra‘āyā-rā ba khūd īl mīgardānīd wa har ki rujū‘ namīnumūd mīkushtand wa asīr mīsākhtand.” Ibid., text, fol. 40b; trans., 1: 97. [BACK]

95. Ibid., text, fol. 41a; trans., 1: 98. [BACK]

96. Ibid., text, fol. 53a, trans., 1: 131–32. [BACK]