Aspects of Mughal society through contemporary paintings, 1550-1650
Creators: name: Asadullah, Pervin
Publisher: name: The Australian National University
Year: 1979

description: An attempt has here been made to study some aspects of Mughal society of the 16th and 17th centuries through analysis of the Mughal paintings of this period, using these as historical source material. This is obviously fraught with risks and pit-falls, particularly due to the limited scope of Mughal art. But, instead of making any definite statements, the emphasis has rather been on exploring possibilities regarding socio-cultural developments and trends and weaving them into the fabric of history by comparing them with other more conclusive evidence. Obviously, the methodology has had to be mainly descriptive and narrative, but throughout the work, the information gleaned from the paintings has been examined with the aim of relating them to historical data. The subject has been approached from the historical perspective not the sociological. To a large extent, the illustrations act as corroborative material, clarifying and identifying facts and information gathered from other sources. This, in itself, constitutes a valuable argument in favour of using these paintings for the study of social history But they also occasionally reveal certain facts or developments which, though having no direct bearing on the main currents of historical research, are nevertheless significant for a complete understanding of the social life of the period. Much of this evidence is not found in the historical literature of the time, simply because the chroniclers did not consider it worthy of recording. Hence,for these aspects, the illustrations remain our only source of information and thus, as important documents, they cannot be ignored. The observations made in this study,on the basis of the miniatures, are obviously mostly applicable to the court and the class on its immediate periphery. This places limitations on the scope of the work . But even allowing for these limitations, it has been possible to explore and analyse socio-cultural patterns as they emerged under the enlightened guidance of Mughal rule. The meagre information concerning the lower classes of society, has been gleaned from accidental or casual inclusion of members of these further research. The period covered in this study is from about the mid-16th to the mid-17th centuries . The conception, growth and maturity of the culture and social patterns which emerged under the Mughals may be traced in its entirety in these hundred years. The advent of the Mughals heralded an era of intense intellectual, philosophical, spiritual and cultural activity. The political authority exercised by the Muslims for the preceding three and a half centuries had already prepared the ground for the growth of a new tradition and heritage. Different systems of political and social organisation, religious philosophy, modes of conduct and sets of customs and beliefs had already been introduced to the peoples of India by the hordes of foreigners of Persian, Turkish and Afghan origins . But while these races had overpowered the major Hindu political forces and held sway continuously for a period long enough to establish a distinct society of their own, it was left to the Mughals to integrate and unify the various elements - all existing side by side, sometimes conflicting and exclusive of each other, often divisive, infrequently overlapping - into a pan-Indian socio-cultural pattern. The order that emerged enfolded almost all the racial and social groups and moulded them into a homogeneous heritage. The major featu res of that heritage were uniformly applicable to almost all secti ons of the Indian nation and affected the lives of all groups. This heritage had far-reaching consequences which affect the peoples of the Indian region even today. Thus the changes wrought by the Mughal dynasty were of great significance. The process of fusion and synthesis between the various parallel social orders was put into gear under the liberal statesmanship of Akbar. The thirty years before his succession were not of much significance as far as this is concerned. That period has been taken into consideration, however, in order to trace the earliest sociological factors which were introduced in to the land by the Mughals. By the end of the 16th century, the form of that synthesis had taken definite shape. But it reached its peak by the middle of the 17th century, when Mughal culture was definitely Indo-Muslim in character and uniformly applicable to most parts of the Indo-Gangetic plain. There were; of course, regional variations and deviations, but the main outlines of the pattern were assimilated widely over the area defined. Geographically, the study is confined to the North Indian provinces, as this was the major centre of Mughal sway and greatly influenced the direction of socio-cultural growth in the other parts of India. Thus the cut-off point for thi s study is roughly the middle of the 17th century. The major purpose of our study being to trace and analyse the birth and maturation of Mughal culture, the last fifty years of the 17th century during which the position was more or less static, have been only briefly summed up in the chapters where relevant and in the conclusion. This study is by no means conclusive, complete or all-encompassing. Due to the very limited nature of the source-material, it is not possible to st udy all aspects of social life. The economic, intellectual and administrative spheres have been deliberately lett untouched, as the miniatures offer minimal information on these. Even the fragments of society which have been dealt with, are treated with caution and hesitation, as any observations or comments based on such a type of material are bound to be tentative. Even so, the information gathered is sufficient to justify close analysis, comparison and corroboration with other literary, numismatic and archeological evidence. For the facets of society well beyond the circle of the court, the miniatures do provide inci dental information when the artists turned to their contemporaries for models while they were illustrating texts which included representatives of those classes. These textual requirements afford us rare glimpses into the lives of the lower orders about which there is very little or no mention in the chronicles. Here the value, meagre though it may be, of these pictorial evidences is undeniable. The approach to the subject has been thematic. Separate groups or classes of society have been treated on the basis of their functional identities. Such divisions have been made for the convenience of treatment alone, without imply"ing any sociological classification. The only section which has been approached slightly differently is the circle of the court which here includes the person of the emperor, the prince and the Mughal elite. The nobility or aristocracy have not been treated separately, but are here considered as an integral part of the court. The other functional groups are considered as components of the general social body. Each group has been treated chronologically, the changes and developments over the hundred years being noted and analysed.