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ABSTRACT
Various types of labour providers were employed at the Mughal imperial dining spaces and kitchens that provided food for everyday consumption and on the occasion of feasts. These labour service providers can be classified into two broad categories: the imperial officers in charge of the kitchen and allied departments (such as the water and beverages department), and the domestic servants including food servers, cupbearers and cooks. The location of the kitchen and dining spaces determined which gender and what sartorial fashions would be allowed there. The duties performed by all these service providers, the etiquette they were expected to follow, the knowledge, skills and concomitant training they had to acquire were intrinsically linked to the salient notion of food as the conduit for shaping one’s inner-self. It was believed that the food one consumed affected the body’s humoral composition and brought about a qualitative – physiological and psychological – change in the being of the consumer.
Acknowledgments
This paper is based on my doctoral thesis on food practices at the Mughal court and I am grateful to my supervisor, Professor Francis Robinson, for his unwavering support and encouragement. This paper was presented at the Second International Conference, Servants’ Pasts, 11-13 April 2018, Berlin and has benefitted from the feedback of conference organisers, Nitin Sinha, Nitin Varma and Pankaj Jha, and fellow participants. The ever generous Pasha M. Khan helped fix my transliteration errors.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Khwandamir, Qanun-i-Humayuni, 35.
2. Ibid., 35.
3. For a detailed discussion on this topic, see Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, 4–15; Robinson, “Ottomans-Safavids-Mughals”.
4. See Blake, Shahjahanabad, 44–51; Rezavi, Fathpur Sikri Revisited, 91–118.
5. Blake, Shahjahanabad, xii, 1–25.
6. Rezavi, Fathpur Sikri Revisited, 28–33.
7. Rezavi, “Revisiting Fatehpur Sikri,” 175.
8. Ibid., 176.
9. Ibid., 179.
10. Ibid., 179.
11. Monserrate, The Commentary of Father Monserrate, 29.
12. Rezavi, “Revisiting Fatehpur Sikri,” 178–79.
13. Rezavi, Fathpur Sikri Revisited, 106.
14. Ibid., 94, 108.
15. Ibid., 108.
16. Athar Ali mentions that Bakāwal Begi is styled as Mīr Bakāwal in ‛Ain-i Akbari. Both these terms were used for the superintendent of the imperial kitchen. Ali, The Apparatus of Empire, xi.
17. Faẓl, The Ā’īn-i Akbari, 61.
18. Pelsaert, Jahangir’s India, 68.
19. Bhakkari, Nobility under the Great Mughals, vol. 1, 52. It is also mentioned that Abul Fazl appointed his son, Abdur Rahman, as the sufrachi of his own establishment in Deccan.
20. See note 17 above, 59.
21. See, the lower left panel of the miniature, Birth of Jahangir by Bishandas, Opaque watercolour on paper, 1620, (Museum of fine arts, Boston). The red curtain represents the entry point to the harem and a eunuch dressed in white robe, a shawl and a headgear can be seen stationed as the guard. The red curtain clearly marks out the male and female domains of the household.
22. Manucci, Storia Do Mogor, 35.
23. Ali, The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb, 39. However, in the case of Rajput Rajas recruited in the Mughal bureaucracy, their original territories or watan were deemed as hereditary and non-transferable.
24. Ali, The Apparatus of Empire, 40.
25. Ali, The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb, 39.
26. Khan, Maasir-i-Alamgiri, 64.
27. Sani, Advice on the Art of Governance, 88.
28. See note 17, above, 60.
29. Ibid., 60.
30. Bilimoria, Ruka‛at-i-Alamgiri, 60.
31. See note 21 above , 202.
32. For examples of such instances, see Aftabachí, Tadhkiratu’l-Wáqíát, 156; Khan, The Shah Jahan Nama of ʻInayat Khan, 62–63, 252; Khan, Maasir-i-Alamgiri, 22, 64, 96, 100, 172; Nagar, Futuhat-i-Alamgiri, 209.
33. Manrique, Travels of Fray Sebastien Manrique, 209; Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 364; Manucci, Storia Do Mogor, vol. I, 63–64; Norris, The Norris Embassy to Aurangzib, 136–37, 206–207, 266.
34. Flatt, “Spices, Smells and Spells,” 10.
35. Ali, “The Betel-Bag Bearer,” 543.
36. Shīrāzī, ‘Fawāʾid al-Insān,’ f.102a, Or.683; Titley, The Niʻmatnāma Manuscript, 49; Gode, “Reference to Tāmbūla in Indian Inscriptions,” 113–20; Gode, “The Attitude of Hindu Dharmasastra towards Tāmbūla-Bhoga,” 131–38.
37. See, Vermani, “From the Court to the Kitchen,” 73–85.
38. See, Ibid., 156–174.
39. Khan and Ḥayy, The Maaṯẖir-ul-Umara, 607.
40. Ali, The Apparatus of Empire, 14, 190, 245.
41. Fazl, Ā’īn-i Akbarī, 60–61; Babur, The Baburnama, 193, 367.
42. Bayat, Táríkh-i-Humáyún, 52, 73.
43. Babur, The Baburnama, 367.
44. Ibid., 368.
45. Khan, The Shah Jahan Nama of ʻInayat Khan, 306, 500; Elgood, “A Treatise on the Bezoar Stone,” 73–80; Jackson, Lockhart and Arberry, The Cambridge History of Iran, 605.
46. Aftabachí, Tadhkiratu’l-Wáqíát, 163.
47. Âlî, The Ottoman Gentlemen of the Sixteenth Century, 79.
48. See note 1 above, 81.
49. Fazl, Ā’īn-i Akbarī, 61.
50. Bilimoria, Ruka‛at-i-Alamgiri, 141–42.
51. Bayat, Táríkh-i-Humáyún, 43.
52. Ibid., 29, 50, 52, 73.
53. Ibid., 52.
54. See note 45 above , 123.
55. Akbar commissioned these texts to serve as sources for his larger imperial history-writing project that finds culimination in the Akbarnama. See, Mukhia, Historians and Historiography during the Reign of Akbar, 155–160, 165–169.
56. Fazl, The Akbarnama of Abu’l-Fazl, 822.
57. Khan and Ḥayy, The Maaṯẖir-ul-Umara, 623; Bhakkari, Nobility under the Great Mughals, vol. 1, 176.
58. Bhakkari, Nobility under the Great Mughals, vol. 2, 107.
59. Elliot, The History of India, 123.
60. Ibid., 123.
61. Khan and Ḥayy, The Maaṯẖir-ul-Umara, 575.
62. Ali, The Apparatus of Empire, 14, 190.
63. Kaicker, “Unquiet City,’” 304, 308.
64. Ibid., 308.
65. See note 23 above, 245.
66. See note 41 above, 73.
67. Khan and Ḥayy, The Maaṯẖir-ul-Umara, 607.
68. See, Seyller, “Recycled Images,” 50–80.
69. The male exclusivity of such feasting domains was punctured by the presence of female performers of various categories. These professional performers, who were not domestic servants, ranged from Dominis to Lulis. While the former performed in both male and female (domestic) domains due to the lack of sexual dimension to their formal role, the latter performed in male space and provided both musical and sexual entertainment for men outside the harem in the intimate musical gathering of the mehfil and, on public occasions, in the court or open air. See, Schofield, “The Courtesan Tale,” 154, 156.
70. Ahmad, “The British Museum,” 102.
71. Chatterjee, “Alienation, Intimacy and Gender,” 65–66.
72. See, O’Hanlon, “Manliness and Imperial Service in Mughal North India”.
73. See, Anooshahr, “The King Who Would Be Man”; and Chatterjee, ‘”Alienation, Intimacy and Gender,” 61–76.
74. Losensky, “Sāqi-Nāma”.
75. See note 69 above, 102.
76. See note 46 above, 97.
77. See note 69 above, 106.
78. Fazl, The Akbarnama, 308.
79. Young boys were castrated and made into eunuchs, who were then purchased as slaves. Through the course of their career some of them rose to the status nazīr (head eunuch) and exercised much power and influence in the harem or the andarūn. Head eunuchs were in-charge of retinue of other young and old eunuchs, out of which some were stationed as harem guards. For a detailed discussion on the role of eunuchs in mughal harem and court, See, Moosvi, “Domestic Service in Pre-Colonial India,” 569; Faruqui, Princes of the Mughal Empire, 90; Lal, “Harem and Eunuchs”; Bano, “Eunuchs in Mughal Household and Court”; Hambly, “Trade in Eunuchs in Mughal Bengal”.
80. See note 21 above, 351.
81. See note 69 above, 104.
82. Moosvi, “Domestic Service in Pre-Colonial India,” 568.
83. An interesting set of miniatures depicting female cooks of the harem wearing kamarband can be found in a late fifteenth century, pre-Mughal cooking encyclopaedia, entitled the Ni‛matnāma. This text eventually found its way into the Mughal imperial library. The sartorial styling of these women is reflective of the way their identity was fashioned by the patron, Sultan Ghiyath Shahi of Mandu Sultanate. Ghiyath Shahi set up a female entourage of five hundred Abyssinian slaves and Turkic girls who were dressed in male attire. They were trained in various kinds of arts, including cooking and wrestling, and were appointed as heads of royal kārkhāna-hā and would join the Sultan at his daily meals. The feminine bodies of these slave women were adorned with masculine attributes and thus, we can see the role of kamarband coming into play. See, Titley, The Niʻmatnāma Manuscript, Introduction; Skelton, “The Nimat Nama,” 45.
84. Moosvi, “Domestic Service in Pre-Colonial India,” 568.
85. Faruqui, Princes of the Mughal Empire, 88.
86. For instance, see, Mir ‘Ali, Jahangir and Prince Khurram entertained by Nur Jahan, Opaque watercolour, ink and gold on paper, 1640–50 A. D. (Freer Sackler gallery, The Smithsonian’s Museums of Asian art, Washington).
87. Manrique, Travels of Fray Sebastien Manrique, 215–16.
88. Ibid., 217–18.
89. Ibid., 218.
90. Ibid., 218.
91. Ibid., 218.
92. Moosvi, “Domestic Service in Pre-Colonial India,” 569–70.
93. As noted in the Spink & Son catalogue, April-May 1992, Also, see, Publiée Dans Connaissance Des Arts, September 1973, 94, Fig 16.
94. Fazl, Ā’īn-i Akbarī, 61. For instance, Madhav Khurd and Basavana, Feast for Babur hosted by his half-brother Jahangir Mirza, Opaque watercolour with gold on paper, 1589 A.D.(The Cleveland museum of art, Ohio).
95. Moosvi, “Domestic Service in Pre-Colonial India,” 577.
96. See note 69 above, 103.
97. Fazl, Ā’īn-i Akbarī, 60.
98. Ibid., 60.
99. Rezavi, Fathpur Sikri Revisited, 106.
100. See note 46 above, 56.
101. Flatt, “Young Manliness,” 158.
102. Keyvani, Artisans and Guild Life in the Later Safavid Period, 40.
103. Nurollah, Dining at the Safavid Court, 17, 23–24; Âlî, The Ottoman Gentlemen of the Sixteenth Century, 56.
104. Nurollah, Dining at the Safavid Court, 23.
105. Ibid., 54.
106. See note 21 above, 68.
107. Fazl, Ā’īn-i Akbarī, 60.
108. See, Vermani, “From the Court to the Kitchen,” 156–174.
109. Vermani, “Feasts in Mughal India,” 93–126.
110. It is important to specify here that the holiness of the cow and strictures against eating its meat were not built into the Vedic conception of Hinduism. It was only with the rise of Brahmanic variant of Hinduism, which accompanied the changing political and economic terrain of the post-Vedic agrarian society that sacred status came to be bestowed on the cow along with a ban on its consumption. Buffaloes were exempted from this haloed status and consuming their meat did not cause any stir. In this changed scenario, the original prescriptions about benefits of beef recorded in ancient Ayuvedic texts were relegated to the margins and the negative effects of beef consumption highlighted. These readjustments and Brahamincal Hinduism became fossilized as acceptable norms by the early part of the first millennium A.D. See, Jha, The Myth of the Holy Cow.
111. Bilimoria, Ruka‛at-i-Alamgiri, 12.
112. Nurollah, Dining at the Safavid Court, 54. Also, considering the fact that Nurullah has already established himself as specialist in the art of making pulāv, it is possible that he is referring to himself as the ustād and these instructions could be directed towards his pupils.
113. Nurollah, Dining at the Safavid Court, 4.
114. Ibid., 5.
115. Ibid., 6.
116. Ibid., 6.
117. Ibid., 8.
118. Ibid., 8.
119. Ibid., 8.
120. See note 42 above, 193.
121. Fazl, Ā’īn-i Akbarī, 9.
122. Manrique, Travels of Fray Sebastien Manrique, 184–87; and Bernier, Travels in the Mogul Empire, 250.
123. See note 69 above, 103.
124. See, Mukhlis, Safarnama-i Mukhlis. An English translation of the first part of Mukhlis’ journey, from Delhi to Gadh Muktesar, by William Irvine, was published in Indian Magazine and Review (1903), pp. 66–71, 102–106, 116–121, 151–56 and 169–72; Alam and Subrahmanyam, “Discovering the Familiar,”.