India in Early Modern English Travel Writings: Protestantism, Enlightenment, and Toleration 9789004448261, 9789004420960

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India in Early Modern English Travel Writings

Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions Edited by Christopher Ocker, Melbourne In cooperation with Tara Alberts, York Sara Beam, Victoria, BC Falk Eisermann, Berlin Hussein Fancy, Michigan Johannes Heil, Heidelberg Martin Kaufhold, Augsburg Ute Lotz-Heumann, Tucson, Arizona Jürgen Miethke, Heidelberg Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer, Tucson, Arizona Ulinka Rublack, Cambridge, UK Karin Sennefelt, Stockholm Founding Editor Heiko A. Oberman†

volume 226

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/smrt

Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

India in Early Modern English Travel Writings Protestantism, Enlightenment, and Toleration By

Rita Banerjee

leiden | boston

Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

Cover illustration: Akbar being weighed on his lunar birthday in 1577, from the History of Akbar (Akbarnama), by Abu’l-Fazl. Production date: 1603–1605. Artist Mukund, Agra. Courtesy Chester Beatty Digital Collections, object in 03.245. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov lc record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2021027129

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1573-4188 isbn 978-90-04-42096-0 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-44826-1 (e-book) Copyright 2021 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau Verlag and V&R Unipress. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

For my father

∵

Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

Contents Acknowledgements ix List of Illustrations xi Introduction 1 1 Evolution of the Genre through Antiquity and the Middle Ages to the Renaissance 3 2 Present Volume: Aims, Content, and Methodology 20 3 Prior Texts in the Area 22 1 The Travel Writers: Audience, Ideology, and Class 24 2 The Mughal Court over the Years: Riches, Festivities, Law, and Governance 50 1 Hawkins and Jahangir’s Court 50 2 Thomas Roe’s Construction of the Mughal Court 53 2.1 Absence of Laws and Absolutism 55 2.2 Private Property 60 2.3 Corruption 64 2.4 Metaphor of the Theatre 67 3 Mughal Festivities and Show of Riches: Roe and Bernier 72 3.1 François Bernier’s Account 73 4 European Witnesses to the Weighing Ceremonies of the Emperors: Roe, Coryat, Terry, and Thévenot 76 5 Barbarity and the Mughal Court 78 3 India: A Seventeenth-Century Trading Destination 81 1 Profitability of Indian Trade 81 2 Impediments to eic Trade and Complaints of Corruption 86 3 Growth of eic Trade over the Years: Removal of Impediments 89 4 East Indian Trade and European Rivalry 94 5 Trade and Colonization  96 5.1 Colonization and the Necessity of Force 99 6 eic: Privateering, Monopoly, Interloping, and Private Trade 103 6.1 Private Trade 106

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4 Reason and Religion during the Enlightenment in England: Scientific Enquiry, Deism, and Toleration 108 1 Empiricism, Mathematical Inquiry, and Natural Philosophy: Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, and the Royal Society 109 2 John Locke, the Rejection of Innate and Universal Ideas, and Diversity of Customs 114 3 Faith, Reason, and Toleration 116 4 Toleration and Protestant Colonization 121 5 Rise of Deism or Natural Religion and Toleration 123 6 Jesuit “Accommodation,” Universal Religion, and Toleration 130 5 Religion, Society, and Customs in India 133 1 Islam and Falsehood: Mughal Court and Christian Doctrine 133 2 Terry, Gentile Religion, and Grace 142 3 From Courtly Religion to the Practice of the Masses: Hindu Temples, Gods and Goddesses 145 3.1 Idolatry, Devil-Worship, and Superstition 145 3.2 Hindu Rituals, Irrationality, and Irreligion 154 4 Gentile Religion and Monotheism: Jesuits and Other European Travelers 157 5 Caste, Pollution, and Ethnography 166 6 Women in India: The “Sati” and the Harem 173 1 “Sati” 173 2 The Harem 198 7 European Historiography and Mughal Reign 209 1 Roe and Jahangir’s Reign 210 2 Succession War during Shah Jahan’s Reign 214 2.1 French Representations of the War of Succession: Bernier and Tavernier 215 2.2 Comparing Manucci and Bernier 224 2.3 John Ogilby’s Version of the Fratricidal War 231 3 English Valor and Indian Barbarity 235 8 Conclusion: Constructing Selves and Others 239 1 Barbarity, Racism, and Alienness 244 1.1 Parochial versus Cosmopolites 248 References 253 Index—India in Early Modern English Travel Writings 266 Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

Acknowledgements This book began as a project on India in seventeenth-century British culture, while I was on a Smuts Fellowship at the University of Cambridge in 2008– 2009. I am grateful to Wolfson College, Cambridge and especially Gordon Johnson and Sheila Betts for extending a concurrent fellowship at the College and enabling me to visit Wolfson later for a few summers to carry out my research. In 2016, I was on a research secondment at Trinity, Dublin while teaching at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi and am grateful for the funding and assistance that I received. Most of the research for this project was done at the University Library, Cambridge; British Library, London; National Library, Calcutta; Nehru Memorial Library, Delhi; and Trinity College Library, Dublin. I frequented the Rare Books Room and the Commonwealth Room of Cambridge ul, and I would like to thank the staff there. Parts of this book have been presented at seminars and talks in various places. Brent Nelson invited me to present a paper on “Seventeenth-Century English Representations of India, Ethnography, and Enlightenment Thoughts” at a Colloquium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon in March 2016. I benefited from the useful questions and comments of the faculty and the students, especially David Parkinson and Brent Nelson. Christoph Heyl also invited me for a talk on the subject at the English department, University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany in March 2018. I am grateful to him for the opportunity and for the queries and observations of the students and the faculty. I also thank Christoph for sharing his own work in the related area with me and for our many fruitful exchanges. I have gained considerable insights from my discussions with Jane Ohlmeyer, Pramod Nayar, Christian Feser, Alan J. Guy, Udaya Kumar, and Prasanta Chakravarty, and I acknowledge gratefully their assistance. I owe a great deal to Daniel Carey, who had read a few chapters and whose valuable work in the area and illuminating suggestions helped me shape the book. I am also extremely grateful to Joan-Pau Rubiés for sharing his own extensive work in the area with me, extending useful information, and making insightful suggestions. I must acknowledge here the help I received from Brill. The comments of the two anonymous reviewers have helped me improve my book substantially. Most of all, I am grateful to the previous editor of the smrt series, Andrew Gow, whose valuable advice regarding the framing of the chapters, several suggestions, and constant encouragement helped this book materialize. My gratitude also goes to the current series editor, Christopher Ocker, whose careful reading of the chapters and relevant suggestions helped improve the book.

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I thank Meredith McGroarty for carefully copy-editing the book, and above all I thank Ivo Romein for helping me in every possible way in all stages of the book’s production. Parts of the book have appeared in earlier published works. Part of chapter 6 is a modified version of “Encountering the ‘Sati’: Early Modern English Travel Narratives and the Politics of Exoticization,” published in Cultural Histories of India: Subaltern Spaces, Peripheral Genres, and Alternate Historiography, ed. Rita Banerjee (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2020), 35–51. I gratefully acknowledge the permission granted by Routledge, Taylor & Francis to reprint it. Also, a part of chapter 2 had appeared in “Thomas Roe and the Two Courts of Emperor Jahangir and King James,” in Études Anglaises 70.2 (2017), 147–166. I thank the editor of the journal for his kind permission to reprint my article. Finally, my gratitude to my family members: my mother, who passed away a few years back and who would have been very happy to see this book; my husband, who has helped out on several occasions; and my daughter Suparna for her help, love, and encouragement that led me to believe that I could do it. This book is for my father, whom I lost early in life but whose memory and inspiration have been behind everything worthwhile I have ever tried to do since.

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Illustrations

Figures

1 Roshanara Begum. From John Ogilby, Asia 75 2 An Indian Merchant or Baniyan. From Thomas Herbert, A Relation of Some Yeares Travail 148 3 Outcastes. From John Ogilby, Asia 172 4 A case of Sati at Surat in 1630. From Peter Mundy, The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia 1608–1667 187 5 A Sati in the flaming pyre. From John Ogilby, Asia 195 6 “Sati” in British India. From James Peggs, India’s Cries to British Humanity (1832) 196



Maps

1 Trade and goods in parts of Bengal, Assam, and Bhutan. Cartography by Mappa Mundi/Erik Goosmann 91 2 Commodities found in Gujarat. From Irfan Habib, An Atlas of the Mughal Empire 93

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Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

Introduction This book looks at representations of India by early modern Europeans, especially the English, who traveled to India as traders for the East India Company (hereafter eic), like Peter Mundy; as an ambassador, like Thomas Roe; as clerics or chaplains, like Edward Terry and John Ovington; as professionals, like the surgeon John Fryer; or as independent, itinerant visitors, like Thomas Coryat.1 It aims to examine the representations in light of the contemporary scientific discoveries and intellectual and ideological developments associated with the Reformation, republicanism, Deism, and the Enlightenment. European travelers, for example, François Bernier, Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Jan Huyghen van Linschoten, Niccolao Manucci, and Italian Jesuit missionaries, are discussed for purposes of comparison and contrast. In order to understand the ideology of seventeenth-century English travel narratives on India, we should begin by searching for a definition of travel writing, as it was then understood. Because of the amorphous nature of the genre, it resisted a precise definition. Today, travel writing may range from guidebooks and itineraries to real-life or even fictional accounts of journeys one has undertaken. However, as Paul Fussell claims, travel narratives, unlike a novel or romance, “claims literal validity by constant reference to actuality” (1980, 203). According to Zweder von Martels, travel memoirs may “appear in prose and poetry, and are often part of historical and (auto) biographical works” (cited in Borm 2012, 4: 2). 1 The writers named here were chosen with a view to differentiating the categories to which they belonged. Thomas Roe was appointed as the ambassador on account of his proximity to the king and the court in England. He was the only son of Robert Roe, a prominent and affluent haberdasher and landowner. On his father’s death, his mother, Eleanor Jermy, the daughter of a gentleman in Norfolk, married Sir Richard Berkeley of Stoke Gifford, near Bristol, a widower with several children. As Sir Richard’s stepson, Roe lived at the family home of Rendcombe Manor near Cirencester. Sir Richard was even honored by the brief stay of Queen Elizabeth i at his manor house during her summer progress (Strachan 1989, 1). Roe had the education befitting a gentleman, and his high-level contacts would account for his employment as an ambassador. Both Mundy and Fryer were employees of the eic. While Fryer was an educated professional, Mundy was a sailor and an under-factor. As clergymen, Terry, who was ambassador Roe’s personal chaplain, and Ovington, who came towards the end of the seventeenth century, belonged to the same occupational background. Coryat stood out as an independent traveler and seventeenth-century globe-trotter who visited Mughal India out of personal interest. The diverse backgrounds of these travelers would account for their varying perspectives.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004448261_002

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Therefore, travel writing may be categorized as a mixed genre. Utilizing the concept of a “dominant” aspect to characterize “mixed genres,” Jan Borm defines a “travel book” as “any narrative characterized by a non-fiction dominant that relates (almost always) in the first person a journey or journeys that the reader supposes to have taken place in reality while assuming or presupposing that author, narrator and principal character are but one or identical” (2012, 4; italics in the original). Moreover, travel writing combines different forms of presentation: “narration is intermingled with description, exposition and even prescription.” Travelogues flaunt generic “hybridity” in a scale scarcely exceeded by other forms of writing. “Crossovers with the essay, the letter, reportage, the sketch, anecdote or treatise are frequent” (Korte 2000, 9). Although travelogues or travel narratives profess to be authentic records, there are also literary narratives which adopt journey as a theme. Beginning with the Odyssey, such literature of travel includes Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and V.S. Naipaul’s books, which, he claims, are not descriptions of “routes” as in olden times, but which narrate his journey of “inquiry,” on a “theme” (cited in Borm 2012, 4: 8). The hybridity of the travel narrative points to its mixture of fact and fiction. Translating “mimesis” as “representation” rather than “imitation,” Borm points out the representational nature of even nonfictional narratives and not only fictional ones (see Borm 2012, 9–10). Since one cannot make any watertight distinction between the writer as the subject and the written work as the object, the traveler does not, we must assume, present India, but his or her India. The traveling self, therefore, clearly pervades the narrative that he produces and the representation of the Indias that we are discussing here. Travel, therefore, is also about self-fashioning, just as it is about constructing others. Since movement would involve change, the traveler progresses from one mode of existence to another. As Jean-Didier Urbain says, on the one hand, a person who travels is primarily someone who has an idea of what travel is; and on the other hand, since such an idea depends on the imagination, projection, anticipation or retrospection of another universe, another world, another life, travelling is about changing life stories before it is about changing places. Prior to any specific consideration of spatial extent and/or temporal duration, travelling is about changing an individual style of existing in the world before it is about changing the world itself. 2012, 4: 38; italics in the original

We must not consider journeys as involving merely physical movement from one location to another but must examine the socio-cultural significance of Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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travel as an activity. Interest in and motivations for travel had changed over the years, and it is the changing views towards travel that enable the traveler to choose what they see and decide how they see it, understand it, and judge it. The Western traveler figure underwent several changes in the course of years. Depending on the various notions of travel that prevailed at a particular time, the traveler evolved from the pilgrim to the adventurer, to the merchant and explorer/ethnographer, during the mercantile period, appearing in more recent times as the tourist. However, any one figure often contained some traits of the others. It would be useful to understand what led to the emergence of the early modern and Enlightenment traveler. Since European travel to the East began many years before the early modern period, in this introductory chapter I attempt to trace briefly the evolution of travel writing (originating in classical antiquity) from the medieval period of pilgrimage, crusades, and quest for the marvelous to voyages for trade and geographical and scientific exploration in the Renaissance and early Enlightenment. The development demonstrates the changes in the form, content, persona, and ideology of the narratives. The growth of rationality in the Enlightenment, while it led to a tolerance of diversity in alien lands, sometimes reinforced prejudices towards what was constructed as irrational. The book aims to analyze the changing constructions of selves and others in light of the new ideas about rationality and religion and growing knowledge about the material and the social universe that occurred during the Enlightenment. 1

Evolution of the Genre through Antiquity and the Middle Ages to the Renaissance

It has taken a long time for the travelogue to establish its credentials as a genre. But even from the times of Greek antiquity, voyage had featured as an integral element of fictional plots, and the traveler was a central character. The Odyssey suggests that the theme of voyage and the voyager figure were of cardinal importance in antiquity. The narrative of Odysseus’s voyage, resembling the picaresque form, depicts encounters with many wonders and marvels— Cyclopes the one-eyed giants; Circe, the sorceress who changed human beings into animals; Scylla the monster; and Charybdis the whirlpool. Travel writing has probably had a more enduring relation with fiction in its complex past than with science or history. In fact, Odysseus prefigured the goals as well as anticipated the plight of many pilgrim-travelers later during the Middle Ages. Jás Elsner and Joan-Pau Rubiés argue that Odysseus’s “journey brought inner as well as outer fulfilment, return to a spiritual plenitude lost in the travails of life, as well as success in Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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the sense of worldly achievement” (1999, 9). The spiritual goal became important for medieval travelers. Travelers during the Middle Ages in Europe came from various categories: scholars and students traveled from university to university, merchants and apprentices traveled for trade, and above all in “cultures deeply rooted in Christianity,” travel for religious purposes, like pilgrimage, crusades, and missionary travel, were held in high esteem (Korte 2000, 23). During the Middle Ages, Jerusalem as the center of pilgrimage figured in Christian travel narratives. Although Jerusalem was believed to be at the center of the earth, according to the Western conception, most of the East lay at the periphery of the civilized world. The illustrated mappae mundi placed the “images of the Plinian monstrosities” “at the far edges of the world at the shore of the Ocean Stream, mostly in the North and South.” In the world comprising concentric circles, “Jerusalem occupies the exact geographical center of these disc-shaped images, and Europe is contained in the oikumene or inner circle.” Macrobius’s “zone theory” “divided the world into habitable and uninhabitable climatic regions.” As per Macrobian legacy, the northern Mediterranean region comprised the “temperate zone,” where art and culture flourished. Even nature was amenable to reason in these areas. “The farther one got from Home, the temperate, reasonable mean, the more outlandish, unheimlich, became the bodies and manners of men” (see Campbell 1988, 65). Pilgrimage, as has been said, emerged as an important goal of travel in medieval Christian Europe. While Rome remained the capital city, and a new imperial capital was founded in Constantinople (founded in ad 330), “the spiritual centre of the Christian empire” “was relocated to a spot of truly parochial insignificance on the eastern periphery: the Palestinian landscape in which Christ’s life, miracles and passion had taken place” (Elsner and Rubiés 1999, 15–16). In the accounts of the pilgrims, geographical “landmarks acquire their significance by being interpreted in the light of the Biblical text.” The sites did not arouse interest for their own sakes so much as they were remembered as historical sites of occurrences, narrated in the Bible. In ad 333, a pilgrim from Bordeaux visited Palestine and left an account of the pilgrimage site “Sychar,” where Christ demanded water from the Samaritan woman: A mile from here (Mt Gerizim) is the place called Sychar, where the Samaritan woman went down to draw water, at the very place where Jacob dug the well, and our Lord Jesus Christ spoke with her. Some plane trees are there, planted by Jacob, and there is a bath which takes its water from this well. cited in Elsner and Rubiés 1999, 16

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The pilgrim’s task was to explore existing geographical objects in order to identify them with biblical landmarks. In the natural course of things, the process would involve a liberal use of imagination. The biblical name of the place, “Sychar,” and the presence of the well testified to the truth of the Bible and the authenticity of the location described in St. John: “Now Jacob’s well was there” (4: 6). The bath and the trees are not mentioned in the Bible, but the pilgrim seeks to invest them with importance in view of their connection with the biblical well, drawing on oral tradition and even on his imagination. The contemporary landscape of Roman Palestine loses its actual historical authenticity by being interspersed with scriptural geographical references. There is little interest in Palestine as an alien land which excited the traveler’s curiosity. “Palestine has little significant present tense, and the significance of its past tense is overwhelming” (Campbell 1991, 6). With the spread of Christianity and the rise in the number of Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem, the actual geographical site of the holy place lost its importance. The aim of the pilgrim-traveler was to identify a site and recognize the truth of the Bible. The pilgrims desired a physical encounter with the various places Christ had passed through and places intimately associated with the biblical relation of his experiences. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, transformed from the hitherto allegorical to the literal center of the world, as expressed in sacred cartography, became the desirable goal for Christians, who hankered for a “literal, physical encounter as support for the allegorical meditation on the spiritual significance of the Christian mystery” (Elsner and Rubiés 1999, 22). Since human life was metaphorized as a journey to God, pilgrimage served as paradigm of travel. And the sacred became literalized in the search for an identification of the sites of biblical crucifixion and resurrection. Moreover, since outside Palestine there were no sites directly linked with Christ’s actions in the Bible and none could serve as effective places of pilgrimage, the church fathers sought to provide places of pilgrimage by developing the cult of saints’ lives and invested with significance the places where the saints had lived, where they ended their lives, the burial grounds, along with objects associated with saints as relics (see Elsner and Rubiés 1999, 17–18). The sacredness of Jerusalem, which lay in a pagan land because the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem rendered it somewhat inaccessible to Christians, led to the desire for the conquest of Jerusalem. Crusade and pilgrimage were therefore related, both forms of travel were motivated by the desire for salvation and the attainment of Jerusalem. However, unlike pilgrimage, the Crusades were associated with military strength and desire for conquest. The success of the First Crusade in 1099 led to a spurt in pilgrimage to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. However, in 1187, it was retaken by an Islamic conqueror, Saladin of

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the Ayyubid dynasty. The First Crusade, proclaimed by Pope Urban ii in 1095, was specifically addressed to the armed knights of Latin Christendom who were summoned to free Jerusalem from the shackles of the infidels. Elsner and Rubiés argue that “crusades remained fundamental to the identity of Latin Christendom and inspired a political vision of profound influence over many centuries” (1999, 24–25). Significantly, preoccupied as they were with religious aspirations and attaining salvation by accessing or freeing the holy land of Jerusalem, the crusader and the pilgrim both showed a lack of ethnographic curiosity about the places and objects encountered in their travels. One occasionally glimpses interest in ethnography and curiosity about alien land and people in the writings of travelers like William of Tyre (1130–1186) and Gerald of Wales (1145–1223)—who were of mixed ethnicity and lived in a frontier society. An important example of a travelogue which describes a pilgrim’s journey is that of John Mandeville.2 His work presents a fourteenth-century pilgrimage to Jerusalem, although it had the unprecedented additions of a journey to the East, which included India, Cathay, the land of Prester John, and islands in the far East. Written originally in French, The Travels was rendered into Latin before being translated into English. The semi-fictional text has made large appropriations from other works. The editor A.W. Pollard maintains that Mandeville’s narrative is heavily indebted to those of three friars, John de Plano Carpini, William de Rubruquis, and the Franciscan Odoric of Pordenone (Mandeville 1915, ix).3 But the religious nature of the sources authored by ministers of the church and the character of pilgrimage establish the persona of the pilgrim. The Travels of Mandeville demonstrates a difference from that of other pilgrim-travelers who sought to find sites mentioned in the Scripture and showed little interest in the places as they appeared at the time. Mandeville 2 In a bibliographical note, A.W. Pollard refers to the three extant versions of the text of Mandeville: the first printed around 1499, the second text in 1725, existing as the Cotton ms in the British Library, and the third, belonging to the Egerton collection, printed in 1889 (Mandeville 1915, v). 3 Friar John de Plano Carpini was sent by Pope Innocent iv to the great Chan in 1246. Friar William de Rubruquis’s travel in 1253 was undertaken for Louis ix of France. Odoric of Pordenone (whose narrative appeared to have been used by Mandeville in a major way) was a Franciscan Friar of North Italy “who dictated an account of his travels in 1330.” According to Pollard, “in his Second Part, Hakluyt adds ‘The Voyage of Friar Beatus Odoricus to Asia Minor, Armenia, Chaldaea, Persia, India, China, and other remote parts,’ Odoric being a Franciscan of Pordenone” (see Mandeville 1915, ix–x). At this point Pollard does not mention the edition of Richard Hakluyt to which he is referring. However, in his edition of Mandeville, Pollard includes the text of “The Journal of Friar Odoric” from the ‘1598–1600 Edition of Richard Hakluyt’s “Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries”’ (1915, 211).

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not only refers to places that are known in the Bible, and points out the biblical allusions that pertain to them, but he also simultaneously talks of them as contemporary cities which he has seen. In the Version of the Cotton manuscript, we have the following description of Acre: Also from Akon, above-said, go men forth four journeys to the city of Palestine, that was of the Philistines, that now is clept Gaza, that is a gay city and a rich; and it is right fair and full of folk, and it is a little from the sea. And from this city brought Samson the strong the gates upon an high land, when he was taken in that city, and there he slew in a palace the king and himself, and great number of the best of the Philistines, the which had put out his eyen and shaved his head, and imprisoned him by treason of Dalida his paramour. MANDEVILLE 1915, 22

Mandeville combines the biblical history of Samson and Delilah and the former’s revenge on the Philistines in Gaza with the picture of a contemporary city and its location all in one breath. We see another instance in which Mandeville locates the Church of “our Lady” at Babylon, which he describes by reference to biblical incidents; for example, Nebuchadnezzar’s act of putting “three children into the furnace of fire, for they were in the right truth of belief, the which children men clept Anania, Azariah, Mishael, as the Psalm of Benedicite saith: but Nebuchadnezzar clept them otherwise, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that is to say, God glorious, God victorious, and God over all things and realms.” However, he also locates the soldan’s castle in the same place, describing it as a “fair castle, strong and great, and well set upon a rock,” where six thousand men of the soldan stayed, drawing their “necessaries off the soldan’s court” (Mandeville 1915, 23–24). In a bid to establish the credibility of the persona and his narrative, Mandeville writes: “I ought right well to know it; for I dwelled with him as soldier in his wars a great while against the Bedouins. And he would have married me full highly to a great prince’s daughter, if I would have forsaken my law and my belief; but I thank God, I had no will to do it, for nothing that he behight me” (1915, 24). He seeks not only to establish his credibility as a narrator, but also his integrity as a Christian who conquers temptation, thus drawing attention to his persona as that of a Christian pilgrim. We witness this clearly in the conclusion of the book. At his homecoming, Mandeville visited Rome and the pope and “shewed” his life to the “holy father” “and was assoiled of all that lay in my conscience, of many a diverse grievous

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point; as men must needs that be in company, dwelling amongst so many a diverse folk of diverse sect and of belief, as I have been” (Mandeville 1915, 207). Diversity of people, of sects, and beliefs makes him aware of the strength of his own religion. He ends his book with a plea to his readers that they might pray for his salvation just as he would for them. According to Barbara Korte, “Mandeville’s Travels thus follows authentic pilgrimage texts in its description of a Palestine travelled with Biblical blinkers.” Officially, “curiositas—that is an enthusiasm for this world rather than the one hereafter—was held by Christian doctrine to be a suspect motive for travelling, particularly unfitting to the pilgrimage” (Korte 2000, 27, 26). However, as I have shown, despite the “biblical blinkers,” Mandeville often includes physical details of locations and material details about kingdoms and governance. And the Travels shows ambivalence in reporting cultural diversity while putting it to the service of reflection and introspection or moralizing. Mandeville’s book points towards Marco Polo’s travels in some ways. Marco Polo projects the vision of the traveler, interested in observing and reporting the cultural diversity of different places. As we see, religion, as the primary aim of travel, gradually gets superseded by the need for empirical observation. When we move to Marco Polo, a Venetian belonging to the thirteenth century, whose family was connected with trade and commerce, we see a different kind of traveler. His father and uncle had first visited the court of Kublai Khan, the Mongol emperor, in quest of profit, and on a second journey, Polo accompanied them. The young Polo was well-liked by the emperor for his abilities and he was sent on several missions to various parts of the empire—China, Tibet, Kara Koram, the old capital of Mongolia, and many of the southern states of India. Noting Kublai Khan’s interest in hearing of strange lands and customs and manners of people, Polo carefully observed and recorded physical features of the countries he visited along with the ethnological characteristics of the various tribes and people that inhabited them. His narratives were therefore concerned not only with the official tasks with which he was charged but also the physical, political, and social details of the people he visited (see Yule 1998, 15–21). Marco Polo’s references to the specific locations of places, calculation of their distance from points, the description of landscapes and the crop-yield serve to bring his narrative close to later early modern descriptions. For instance, “after you have travelled those 20 days through the mountains of Cuncun  … then you come to a province called ACBALEC MANZI, which is all level country, with plenty of towns and villages.” Polo informs us that the country yields wheat, rice and other corn as well as large quantities of ginger. The “people are Idolaters, and live by trade and industry” (1998, 2.2: 26–27). Similarly, he

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gives an authentic description of making the beverage from date-palm in the kingdoms of Samara and Dagroian: “When they want wine they cut a branch of this, and attach a great pot to the stem of the tree at the place where the branch was cut; in a day and a night they will find the pot filled” (1998, 2.3: 274). Polo also describes social and religious customs of places in detail from first-hand observation. For instance, he characterizes the people of Malabar (Maabar) as “Idolaters” who “worship the ox, because (say they), it is a creature of such excellence. They would not eat beef for anything in the world, nor would they on any account kill an ox” (1998, 2.3: 325). Talking of “Tebet” (Tibet), he writes of their “strange” marital practice: No man of that country would on any consideration take to wife a girl who was a maid; for they say a wife is nothing worth unless she has been used to consort with men. And their custom is this, that when travellers come that way, the old women of the place get ready, and take their unmarried daughters or other girls related to them, and go to the strangers who are passing, and make over the young women to whomsoever will accept them; and the travellers take them accordingly and do their pleasure; … the traveller is expected to give the girl who has been with him a ring or some other trifle, something in fact that she can show as a lover’s token … And those who have most tokens, and so can show they have been most run after, are in the highest esteem, and most sought in marriage. 1998, 2.2:35

Unlike a pilgrim like Mandeville, Marco Polo was a secular traveler who traveled to fulfill official missions for profit and took an avid interest in people and customs both for his royal audience’s sake and his own, and made the information available to a wider European audience later.4 Polo’s narrative signifies a shift towards close observation of places and people, their customs and characteristics for their own sake. According to Elsner and Rubiés, even pilgrims from the fourteenth century filled their accounts with empirical observations of distant lands and customs of the East along with accounts of the Holy Land and miraculous stories of Christian faith (1999, 39–40). In their view, the difference between Mandeville and Polo “exemplifies the key issue of how an empirical travel literature centred upon the description of anthropological 4 Polo was apparently persuaded by a fellow prisoner from Pisa at the Genoese prison, Rusticiano or Rustichello, to record the history of his travels. “In any case it was he who wrote down those experiences at Marco’s dictation.” (See Yule 1998, 50.)

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and natural diversity rose against a dominant religious background” (Elsner and Rubiés 1999, 39). Along with narratives of pilgrimage and secular interest, however, there were travelogues which represented the East as a land of wonders and marvels. There exist three British manuscripts of a medieval text, Wonders of the East, one written in Old English, another in Latin, and the third in both languages. The text consists of brief collections of sketchy and often “disconnected descriptiones,” of “unusual human and animal ‘races,’” and some “strange” plants of the East (Campbell 1988, 57). It resembles a micro-encyclopedia with “paragraph-length chapters” which talk of animals, birds, plants, minerals, and people (Campbell 1988, 64). The design of the Wonders of the East suggests that its apparent purpose is to provide information, and it is “heavily dependent on Pliny’s Natural History” (Campbell 1988, 59). Therefore, it maintained the show of ethnographic reporting, while actually introducing fictional exaggeration. The “fragmentary” nature of the text invites an interpretation along allegorical lines.5 However, the factual representation of the strange figures that Wonders offers as well as the distance it maintains from morality deters one from searching for inner truths that one finds in allegories. It has “copious and fantastic illustrations,” which would bring it close to fictional literary texts. It presents what Campbell calls “grotesque figures.” The way the text takes its readers from Africa to Asia and back without any regard for a plausible itinerary suggests that it does not seek to represent the “East as a travelable geographic area” (Campbell 1988, 64). The three texts are bound in different miscellanies. While two are scientific in theme (they are bound with scientific works, maps, and tables in the Miscellanies, 1988, 62), the third (Cotton Vitellius, axv) is literary in nature, containing Beowulf and Judith (Campbell 1988, 57). However, its presentation of the data in the Wonders suggests that it aims to present what it considers facts. And, as Campbell writes: “the text does not seem intended to produce what we call an aesthetic experience” (1988, 62). However, the absence of Scriptural references and lack of moralizing signal Wonders’ anomalous nature. It “does not preserve enough distance from fact for us to be comfortable with its grotesque appeal, and yet it preserves so much distance from theology as to seem, in its own context, subversively literal” (Campbell 1988, 60). The East that exists in the margins has plenitude and abounds in the marvelous. Its monsters and marvels exist in a “sphere outside 5 According to Angus Fletcher, fragmentary texts appear as “coded messages needing to be deciphered” (cited in Campbell 1988, 59). Since the text of Wonders of the East is fragmentary in nature, it is possible to read it as allegory.

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the moral and the eschatological” (Campbell 1988, 85). It is a world in opposition to the real world as the Westerners knew it, and “its subversive delightfulness lies in its stark presentation of what is Other, Beyond, and Outside” (1988, 84). Significantly, sometimes even pilgrimage narratives of the medieval period came alive with tales of strange creatures, plants, and animals. It is difficult to separate travel writings with secular and religious aims into two watertight compartments. Even pilgrims’ tales, like Mandeville’s Travels, introduced giants who ate men, women whose gaze could kill, and other grotesque figures in the islands of the Far East in a manner which suggests the presentation of facts drawn from personal observation: After this, beyond the vale, is a great isle, where the folk be great giants of twenty-eight foot long, or of thirty foot long. And they have no clothing but of skins of beasts that they hang upon them. And they eat no bread, but all raw flesh. Mandeville 1915, 187

Another isle is there toward the north, in the sea Ocean, where that be full cruel and full evil women of nature. And they have precious stones in their eyen. And they be of that kind, that if they behold any man with wrath, they slay him anon with the beholding, as doth the basilisk. Mandeville 1915, 188

The East has been associated with the strange, the grotesque, and the marvelous even from the antiquity. The Hellenic concept of the oikumene combines the senses of ‘world’ and ‘house.’ The Greek conception of the world by Herodotus comprises “‘Scythia’ in the north to Ethiopia in the south, and from ‘Asia’ in the east to Gibralter in the west.” According to the eighteenthcentury philosopher Giambattista Vico, “the Greek image of the ‘world’ was literally bound by their geographic ‘home’” (see Gillies 1994, 5). Aelius Aristides, a second-century Greek orator, conceived of Athens as the center and the “nation’s common hearth” (cited in Gillies 1994, 7). As John Gillies elaborates: “To Aristides, Athens seems the focus of Hellenic culture because, situated ‘in the middle of all Hellas … it is she alone who purely represents the Hellenes and to the barbarians remains most alien’” (1994, 9). The home, as symbolized by the goddess Hestia, represents the center of the “domestic sphere” but also the center of the habitable world. The discourse of difference distinguished between the central or nodal point and the border lands. Similarly, Herodotus

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conceived of the edges of the word as “eschatia,” “end-zones or waste lands” (Gillies 1994, 8), as diametrically opposed to the oikumene, or the center of the Hellenic world. Elaborating on the opposition between the center and the border lands, Gillies argues: The logic of exclusion leads to a generic description of all eschatia as the home of thoma or ‘wonders’, a term which fuses the monstrous (in the sense of the physically grotesque) with the marvellous (in the sense of remarkable and precious products such as balm, incense, spices, gold, jewels and drugs). By contrast, Hellas, while lacking in thoma of either variety, will be plainly superior to the end-zones (particularly those of the frigid north or the torrid south) in its fruitfulness and temperateness. 1994, 8

The European travel narratives of the medieval period exhibit this sense of wonder at encounters with alien societies. And the sense of the marvelous associated with the East persists in the early modern travel narratives, where it is often countered by the impression of barbarity that the marvelous evokes. The difference between the climates of the two zones corresponds with the difference in the nature and culture of the people. While Hellas represented the abode of the civilized and cultured, the distant borderlands were the home of savages and barbarians. Greek imagination as embodied in their mythology often narrated the conflict between the civilized Greeks and barbarians, occasionally depicted as grotesque. For example, the battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs, sculpted in the Parthenon Marbles, shows such an encounter between the civilized Lapiths and intemperate and savage centaurs, grotesque figures that had the head, arms, and torso of a human being and the body and legs of a horse. The mythology of the Greeks in the fifth century established the binary of civilized versus savage by predicating Hellenic superiority as opposed to non-Hellenic inferiority, subsuming all non-Hellenes under a single category, which led to the establishment of the concept of the barbarian (Hall, 1989, cited in Gillies 1994, 8–9). The binary “would become systematically appropriated by the ethnographic and imperial discourses of Rome and Renaissance Europe” (Gillies, 1994, 9). However, along with the pilgrim and the narrator of wonders, the ethnographic recorder was gaining ground. According to Rubiés, “After the fifteenth century, the pilgrim lost ground steadily to more secularized travellers—to the practical reporter with specific aims, and eventually to a first-person curious observer free from any obvious external sources of authority” (Rubiés 2000, 85).

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Pope Eugene IV’s secretary, Poggio Braccioloni (1380–1459), was a humanist whose report and usage of the travels of Niccolo Conti (1385–1469) in India in the last section of his De varietate fortunae, “composed between 1431 and 1448,” sought to provide historical and geographical information. Although the work was designed to show the changes of fortune in diverse places (as the title implies) and might have been expected to provide moral advice, like the other works of Poggio, it was concerned with “actual evidence of human behaviour and its moral implications.” This suggests interest in the life and practices of people even though the text examines morality. One notices, therefore, a “secular and often relativistic morality” “flourish[ing] in a parallel space” during this time (Rubiés 2000, 89). Of the many sixteenth-century travelers who had a secular perspective, one may refer to the embassy of Gabriel Aramon to Constantinople. Frédéric Tinguely states that the “‘corpus aramontin’ move beyond the borders of Christendom without making of that move either a pilgrimage or a crusade. In narrating their experiences and experiments, the writers patronized by or otherwise benefiting from Aramon’s embassy established modes of enquiry into the natural world, which were not bound by the conventions of inherited sacred and generic forms” (cited in Williams 2016, 40). Although they were writing of Jerusalem, which lay at the center of Christian pilgrimage, they focused on the natural and the material world. Again, travel narratives like The Itinerary of Ludovico di Varthema of Bologna from 1502 to 1508 are marked by the disregard of Jerusalem, although they cover adjacent lands of the East. Varthema’s Itinerary recounts his journey overland to Mecca, the site of Haj pilgrimage (probably disguised as a Mamluk), Egypt, Syria, Persia, Calicut, Bengal, Pegu, The Spice Islands, and other places. In this connection one would need to understand the importance of curiosity and wonder in the production of early modern travel narratives. Neil Kenny discusses the semantic shifts and instability of significance of the word curiosity: “‘the behavior of ‘curiosity’ has much in common with many other ‘concepts’ which served, in early modern contexts and times, to construct knowledge and / or desire: ‘interest’, ‘wonder’, ‘marvel’, ‘strangeness’, ‘subtlety’, ‘secret’, ‘rarity’, to name but a few” (cited in Marr 2016, 2). Curiosity, therefore, was associated with strangeness and wonder. For Krzystof Pomian, on the other hand, “the history of curiosity is that of cognitive behavior … the desire to learn or know, embedded in geographically and historically specific socio-cultural environments.” The habit of collection of natural or artificial objects which aroused the travelers’ interest denoted a love of curiosities. Pomian discovers a “culture of curiosity” among natural historians, alchemists, travelers, and collectors who were motivated by their

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curiosity in exploring and collecting novelties and objects of interest for acquiring knowledge (see Marr 2016, 13). While the fear of forbidden knowledge dominated the medieval era, as, for instance, displayed in Faustus’s desire, the travelers’ discoveries and scientific experiments of the late seventeenth century were spurred by legitimate curiosity as “useful knowledge.” According to Pomian, during the period between the fourteenth and the late-seventeenth century, curiosity was expressed through “collecting habits, types of enquiry, devotional practices” (see Marr 2016, 13). Curiosity or the desire to know about material objects around us, although it was not lacking in pilgrimage narratives like Mandeville’s, found a natural home in secular travel writings, whether the travel was undertaken for official purposes or personal interest. Just as the concept of curiosity was shifting and unstable, the word wonder was also fraught with ambiguity in the early modern world. Wonder was closely related to the marvelous. No clear definition of the marvelous was available. According to Peter Platt, “no unified vision of the marvelous existed: it was a concept full of inconsistency and variety in the Renaissance” (see Marr 2016, 2). We read of marvels in early seventeenth-century English drama like Othello (1603–1604), where the veteran soldier describes to Desdemona the sights that he had seen: “of the Cannibals that each other eat, / The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads / Do grow beneath their shoulders” (Shakespeare 2006, 1.3.143–145, p. 224). The grotesque here is closely allied to the marvelous. The Wonders of the East speaks of the marvelous, and when Western travelers and employees of the merchant companies went on a voyage to India, they probably had expectations of marvelous sights. The search for El Dorado and sightings of Amazonian women in travelogues are cases in point. Although with the passage of time, marvels lost their credibility, they continued to remain in currency in many parts of Europe even in the eighteenth century. According to Paola Bertucci, the “‘love of the marvellous’ was strong enough in mideighteenth-century Italy to prompt the undertaking of a tour to ‘debunk’ marvels and curiosities by the experimental philosopher John Nollet” (see Marr 2016, 8). During the early modern period, European travelers emerged as merchants, diplomats, colonizers, pilgrims, and missionaries. The generic forms that related accounts of journeys ranged from letters, official and informal, and narratives intended for publication, to journals or logs kept by merchants. Travel writers professed to write from personal experience but often mixed it with hearsay and rifled preceding texts for various circulating narratives. The discovery of the New World of America as well as the rediscovery of the distant lands of Asia and Africa through new routes, the splurge in map-making and interest

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in cartography led to increasing interest in and production of travelogues. The growth of the printing industry led to an increase in publication and the desire to reach out to a large audience. The printed books acquired a new appearance with “new types, more elaborate title pages, dedications, prefaces and footnotes, and new kinds of engraved images” (Rubiés and Ollé 2016, 270). The aim of writing travelogues as well as the audience for them was changing. The inculcation of humanist values contributed to methodical and systematic elucidations of objects in the narratives, while more practical concerns of the merchant companies enabled the addition of descriptions of markets, buyers’ choices, transportability of goods, and their salability in the European markets, the climate and the periods of accessibility of countries from which goods were procured. As we shall see in the next chapter, the authorial intention to publish dictated modifications in the content and style of the narratives. Moreover, travelogues attracted new readers. The expansion of lay readership beyond humanists, clergy, and aristocrats to the middle class, which enabled merchants, artisans, shopkeepers, rich peasants, and women to join as readers, indicated a new sociological trend (see Rubiés and Ollé 2016, 272). The expectations of this new audience led to new developments in the form and content of travelogues. Although some travelogues or essays based on travelogues, like those of Michel de Montaigne, engaged in philosophical speculations, many European travel narratives during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries sought to present descriptions of exotic lands and people, their customs, dress, food, manners, and religion through empirical observations to readers at home. Ethnography or the “scientific description of nations of men, with their customs, habits, points of difference” (oed) formed the chief concern of travel narratives. The manner of presentation, ideally, was objective, without letting individual emotional responses intervene. The travelers tried to be “a reliable witness” or “an insightful interpreter of an exotic reality” (Rubiés and Ollé 2016, 276). The travelogues of the seventeenth century were often called a “relation.” In English it signified a narrative, report, or recital, descriptive in nature (oed). It was, as Rubiés suggests, widely used by Italian and Iberian travel writers during the sixteenth century to convey geographical information about countries less well known or recently discovered in Asia, America, and Africa (2002, 244). The French traveler Jean de Thévenot’s narrative contained “The Relation of Indostan” in the title. Again, the Englishman Thomas Herbert’s travelogue is titled A Relation of some Yeares Travaile (1634, title page). But many English travel writers preferred the word “account” (very similar in nature to “relation”), as we see in the travelogues of the eic surgeon John Fryer, and traders like

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Thomas Bowrey and Alexander Hamilton. Bowrey explicitly mentioned that it was a “geographical account.” Others, like the eic under-factor Peter Mundy (although he did not publish his manuscript), divided the text into sections, titling them as Relations. Geographical discoveries were important for the expansion of historical knowledge. During the early modern period “historia” included ethnography, geography, and natural history (Grafton 2005, 41–74). And travel literature advanced empirical knowledge, although collections followed the humanist’s systematic ordering of editorial methods. In the interdisciplinary knowledge system of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, cosmography was held in high esteem, but it was the travel collections that made important contributions to the sphere of cosmography. Richard Hakluyt’s studies in geography, history, and cosmography led him eventually to compile his volumes of travel collections. In the preface to the first volume of the enlarged Principall Navigations, Hakluyt declares that “geography and chronology” were “the sun and the moon, the right eye and the left, of all history.” In his dedication of the volume to Lord Howard, he related how he had “waded on still farther and farther in the sweet study of the history of cosmography,” linking such study with the enterprise of exploration of unknown lands by the patriots of his country (cited in Williamson 2016, Kindle). European travel writing during the early modern period was also associated with the growth of nation-building. Hakluyt’s project of compiling reports of travel and description of exotic lands and people was related to the growth of nationalism in England. The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation was conceived to make known to the world the “high courage and singular activity” of the English nation “in the search and discovery of the most unknown quarters of the world” (Williamson 2016, Kindle). The competition about the success of geographical discoveries and trade between nations in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries was intense. And the success of projects for exploration and discovery was eagerly awaited by the sovereign and the people. Hakluyt’s dedication of the Principall Navigations to Francis Walsingham makes explicit claims of the achievements of the English nation in the field of geographical exploration: “in this most famous and peerlesse gouernement of her most excellent Majesty, her subiects through the speciall assistance and blessing of God, in searching the most opposite corners and quarters of the world, and to speake plainly, in compassing the vaste globe of the earth more then once, have excelled all the nations and people of the earth” (1589). Coming a long way from pilgrimage narratives and quests for marvels, European travel narratives in general were moving towards geographical

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discoveries, empirical observation, and knowledge production, thus leading to national prestige. Ines G. Zupanov suggests that the explorations in the early modern world created the need for a certain kind of expert in the “Catholic Iberian Monarchy,” one who traveled all over the world and produced treatises, letters, and historical accounts. Some of them were “clients of colonial and metropolitan administration,” while others were amateur naturalists. “Their practical, expert knowledge of the world, which gave them a sense of personal pride” and entitled them to certain privileges in Catholic kingdoms “was thus based on empirical, positivist, secular discrete sense data” (Zupanov 2006, 1–2). Similarly, while French Orientalism initially represented the Middle East as an Oriental land of romance and fantasy and restricted itself to courts and salons, at the end of the eighteenth century there was a shift “from exoticism to science in the discourse of French Orientalism” (Behdad 2012, 49). Ali Behdad cites the instances of Claude Etienne Savary and Constantin-Francois de Volney, who, unlike earlier travelers who were missionaries or ambassadors (or traveled in like capacity at the behest of the king), journeyed like modern-day tourists for interest or education. He traces this shift to the influence of positivism, empiricism, and Enlightenment philosophy in general. The eighteenthcentury traveler viewed travel as an educational experience. Both Savary and Volney argue the instructive value of travel. Savary writes: “It is by travelling that he is able to know his fellow men; it is by living with other peoples, by studying their customs, their religion, their government,” that he is able to compare the characteristics of his own country with those of others (cited in Behdad 2012, 50). Travel writing, therefore, comprised both ethnography (defined earlier) and ethnology (“the science which treats of races and peoples, and of their relations to one another, their distinctive physical and other characteristics,” oed). The instructional value of travel does not only pertain to the individual traveler but extends to his readers for whom the travel text provides an enlightening experience and knowledge about other cultures. Behdad argues that this comparison with the other enables “self-realization.” Increasing knowledge about other cultures meant a better understanding of one’s own culture. He characterizes the traveler as a knowledgeable person, the “enunciating subject invested with the authority to discourse about the other” (2012, 50). The traveler figure here has developed from a curious, amateur visitor to a serious, authoritative observer of another culture. “The knowledge of geography enables the scientific traveller to situate the Orient in spatial terms, while his historical knowledge allows him to locate it in time” (Behdad 2012, 51). Significantly, the English travelers, even many of those who worked for the eic like Mundy, took an interest in ethnographic recording. Although they

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were required to maintain a diary or log detailing the transport of merchandise and transactions regarding procurement of goods and payment of money to brokers for the Company, their writing was far from being confined to mercantile transactions. Many travelogues suggested the intended design of publication and the data appeared to be collected and recorded with that end in view. Some others, like the chaplains Edward Terry and John Ovington, undertook writing travelogues due to their own interest. The Enlightenment discourse of acquisition of knowledge through ethnographical data and the latter’s contribution to science was beginning to be recognized even during the latter half of the seventeenth century. As Daniel Carey states, “the search for a comprehensive account of nature, projected by many as the goal of ‘new science’, required the contribution of travellers exploring near and exotic destinations; travel in turn shared with experimental philosophy, at least in principle, an inductive and experiential dimension” (2006a, 270). However, in seventeenth-century England naturalists did not care very much about “the evidentiary status of travel literature” and were often ready to welcome the “singular, the novel, and the curious.” Even the “monstrous” was not excluded (Carey 2006a, 271). One is struck by the resemblance with the adjectives used by Behdad to characterize the seventeenthcentury French travelogues, namely the “le merveilleux, l’inconnu, and la curiosite” (2012, 47). But, if curiosity about the strange and novel motivated these travelers, their ethnographic recording (often written in a neutral style, free from exaggeration, markers of superlatives, and expressions of astonishment) demonstrates their contribution to the process of knowledge-building. Unlike in late eighteenth-century France, the desire for systematizing knowledge production and transmission did not motivate or direct English travel at the beginning: “travel frequently directed the course of knowledge, simply by disclosing unfamiliar phenomena” (Carey 2006a, 271). Carey argues that the “interests and understanding” of naturalists “often took shape according to the results of actual journeys” and the exotic items, including animals that were brought back by ships. Knowledge of nature, therefore, was a shifting entity reorganized and reshaped according to the changing specimens brought back by returning ships. “The character of natural philosophy, viewed in this way, is episodic and miscellaneous rather than ordered and predictable, the pattern more of a peregrination rather than a rigorously organized enterprise” (Carey 2006a, 276). Rubiés makes a distinction between the “practical ethnographical ‘science’ of merchants, navigators, missionaries, and colonial administrators” and the “emergence of an academic discipline of scientific anthropology,” suggesting that “the first preceded the other, accompanied it, and was finally buried by it” (2002, 257–258). However,

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as we have seen, it was travel and the novelties that it produced that shaped scientific knowledge, and the early modern period scarcely witnessed such watertight divisions between the two branches of scientific knowledge. The nature of the relationship between travel and natural science appeared to be symbiotic. The English eic travelogues often follow a chronological pattern, giving dates of actual travel and describing experiences. Several narratives, for instance of those of Mundy, Fryer, and Ovington, contain descriptions of natural phenomena, like monsoons, and of plants, flowers, fruits, fishes, and animals along with their sketched outlines for the benefit of their readers. They claimed to have observed these during their travel and stay in parts of India. But despite the emphasis on first-person authority, it is possible that they had borrowed partially from others also. Significantly, people with foresight and acumen like Francis Bacon sought to direct travelers to acquire information on specific items or topics as early as 1620. In his Instauratio Magna, he demonstrates travel as a mode for investigating nature and advocates a “cooperative approach.” Bacon identifies the necessity of a number of fields for investigation: “lightning and thunder,” “winds and the air, rainshowers, storms, and other ‘sudden blasts.’” During the middle of the century, Robert Boyle, who might have used Bacon as a source, added a vast number of topics like “seasons and temperature, the ‘Shape and Compass’ of the Earth and sea, earthquakes, the history of fossils, fish, trees, shrubs, flowers, fruits and vegetables, together with birds, quadrupeds, serpents, and insects.” Boyle also extends Bacon’s suggestion of the study of human beings to include physical features, “humours,” and “affections, intellectual faculties” (see Carey 2006a, 273). Similarly, the Royal Society urged the acquisition and transmission of such scientific knowledge. In 1661, it constituted a committee composed of notable individuals like Viscount Brouncker, Sir Robert Murray, Boyle, John Wilkins, John Evelyn, and Oldenburg to frame suitable questions which would contribute to generating knowledge. The Royal Society proceedings show that questions were formulated for various regions of the world, which included the West and the East, like Brazil, Guiana, the Caribbean, Iceland, Greenland, Transylvania, Surat, and Persia. And travel narratives collected information to answer these questions. The travel narrative had evolved from pilgrims’ tales and semi-fictional stories of marvels into a genre which aided scientific knowledge-building by providing directed sample collection wherever possible, systematic classification of data, arrangement and ordering of specimens, and above all by emphasizing the importance of empiricism. And knowledgebuilding was not limited to the sphere of science and natural philosophy but extended to ethnography.

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Present Volume: Aims, Content, and Methodology

The early modern travel narratives considered in the present volume engage in the transmission of knowledge about the natural world as well as about political diplomacy and ethnography—government, politics, trade, religion, and customs, sometimes for a limited audience but often for a wide readership. Some of these travelogues were published then, and some, like Roe’s and Mundy’s much later, though the authors had, in all likelihood, contemplated their publication at the time. This book aims to analyze the ideology of the narratives and to discover how the writers’ respective backgrounds partially shape their ideology and how the changing intellectual developments in the course of the century explain the perspectives of the writers. The book seeks especially to examine how the alien or the other is constructed by the travelogues as well as the way the narrators fashion their selves. The first chapter examines the writers’ family and educational backgrounds, class affiliations, and professions and considers to what extent the works would have been determined by these individual and social factors. The readership is also taken into account, demonstrating how the audience’s interests shaped the writings. For instance, Sir Thomas Roe (who will be discussed in more detail in the following chapter) came from a well-known gentry family. He had been a Gentleman of James’s Privy Chamber and had been in the service of Princess Elizabeth (Mitchell 2000, 102, 99). His ambassadorship was evidently the result of successful negotiations with powerful patrons from secular and ecclesiastical spheres. Although he had also been a member of the Parliament he was moderate in his opinions. His class background and his proximity to the court circle evidently shaped the framework of his Embassy, which continuously engages in showing contrasts between the English court and the Indian one, with the former as the norm. In this respect, Roe’s narrative sets the pattern for several of the later narratives, and his informed assessment of several issues, ranging from politics to trade and Islam, makes him an important figure in this book. Chapter two looks at how the narratives, especially the early ones, present the emperor and his court. At the beginning, the work of the merchant was concerned with diplomacy, gaining admittance to the country as merchants, and acquiring permission to build factories. As ambassador of the eic and King James i, Roe focused on the court of Emperor Jahangir, the court rituals and practices, the prevalent property system, and the rule of law or its absence. He seeks to present the Mughal court and the English in terms of binaries, as noted above. This chapter compares Roe’s presentation with those of his

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chaplain and the independent traveler Coryat, and the Frenchmen François Bernier and Jean de Thévenot. The third chapter discusses the profitability of East Indian trade, situating it in the context of debates about bullion drain from England and the rationality of the use of force to further trade. Since an important purpose of travel to India, especially for the eic employees, was trade, the book discusses the changing features of India as a trading destination and the growing interest in her over the years. One notices a desire to deny existing similarities in the pattern of trade in both nations—the use of gifts and bribery. The chapter also discusses the problems related to interloping and the story of the merger of the two eic s. The following chapter discusses how scientific advancements and new trends in thinking introduced by the Enlightenment impacted the lateseventeenth-century understanding of the world, divinity, and the rationality of religion. This chapter looks at the coexistence of Protestantism with natural religion and radical thoughts and the growth of the concepts of secularism and toleration in the latter half of the seventeenth century, examining the divergent understandings of non-Western practices and non-Christian religions in the context of these thoughts. Chapter five examines the variant presentations of religions and social practices of India in the narratives, comparing them and relating the perceptions to the ideologies of the period. The chapter also analyzes the perceptible shift towards ethnography and empiricism in the later narratives, especially during the second half of the century, suggesting the development of a secular trend, moving towards the acceptance of non-Western customs. However, the traditional Protestant perceptions of the idolatrous races persist alongside the newer perceptions. In the Protestant construction of the other, there is an attempt to disregard certain similarities in practices. The next chapter considers issues related to Indian women—the Hindu practice of widow-burning and the Islamic custom of women’s confinement in the harem—and how they are used to construct the other in the context of the ideologies of the period. However, in the attempt to exoticize and condemn alien social practices, the presence of similar European values towards women is often overlooked. The penultimate chapter analyzes how Europeans write the history of the Mughal reign and especially the War of Succession between his sons during the reign of Emperor Shah Jahan, the son of the monarch Jahangir. It shows the similarities and the differences in the narratives of writers like Bernier, Niccolao Manucci, and John Ogilby, the cosmographer, who draws upon Bernier, focusing on changing historiographical practices. The narratives tend to construct

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the East in opposition to the West. The chapter also contrasts European presentations with that of the approach of Mughal historians. The concluding chapter reviews the European constructions of the West and the East, the Christian and the non-Christian in the book, looking at the fashioning of and relation between selves and others. Corresponding European values are disregarded in the construction of the Oriental other in most instances. However, the rational ideas of the Enlightenment enable the positive appraisal of some aspects of India and the condemnation of the irrational in all religions in liberal thinkers like Bernier. The neutral approach of ethnographers like Mundy looks forward to Enlightenment trends. A writer like Ovington evinces a remarkable difference in his appreciation of the positive aspects of India, showing the presence of Lockean ideas of variety as well as belief in the natural goodness of human beings. The study combines different approaches and is essentially interdisciplinary in nature. Selections from the travel texts are subjected to detailed analysis, while being simultaneously read in conjunction with philosophical and literary texts and scientific and trade treatises. The approach is largely historicist. But, the construction of selves and others draws on contemporary theory to an extent, while representations of women utilize approaches related to feminism. 3

Prior Texts in the Area

I shall conclude this Introduction by glancing at a few related works on the subject of the European view of India in early modern travelogues. The existing works suggest a gap in scholarship which this book seeks to fill. By and large, works which discuss representations of India in European travel narratives do not focus on the seventeenth century. Excellent works like Pramod K. Nayar’s English Writing and India, 1600–1920 (2008) and Kate Teltscher’s India Inscribed (1995) devote only a section to seventeenth-century narratives since they span much longer periods. Jyotsna G. Singh’s book (1996) is also similar in scope. Joan-Pau Rubiés’s erudite and enlightening study Travel and Ethnology (2000) focuses on South India and covers a much earlier period, beginning with the mid-thirteenth century. The edited book, titled Indography (2012) by Jonathan G. Harris, contains only an isolated essay relevant for this field. Harris’s 2015 book deals with individual case studies of early modern foreigners who had adapted well to India. Therefore, this book breaks new ground for which there is a necessity. Many of the authors discussed here have been

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neglected in earlier studies, although a few authors like Roe, Bernier, and Terry have appeared in isolated journal articles, works, and book chapters. The aim and scope of the existing studies also differ from my objective of relating the ideology of these narratives to seventeenth-century European thought. Notably, Sanjay Subrahmanyam’s recent, brilliant study Europe’s India (2017) stands out as a study of the cultural encounters between Europe and India from 1500 to 1800. In the course of examining how Europeans viewed and understood India between 1500 and 1800, Subrahmanyam looks at the Indo-Portuguese interactions during the sixteenth century, the understanding of “Gentile religion” in India during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the researches of a scholarly individual of the eighteenth century, and “closely follows the vicissitudes of a series of diverse Europeans” during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (xiii–xv). My book is much less ambitious in scope, is more intensively focused on the seventeenth century, deals chiefly with English travel writers, especially the eic employees. I seek to examine here how seventeenth-century Europeans, especially the English, of various classes and backgrounds viewed different aspects of India and sought to understand her from the divergent perspectives of their time, professed ideologies, and experience. A brief note on the editions cited and used. For early modern European texts, wherever I have referred to old-spelling-editions, I have retained the spellings given, regularizing ‘s.’ However, I have omitted overscores and a few symbolic characters in Indian words and names in the text, including in quoted texts.

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The Travel Writers: Audience, Ideology, and Class During the sixteenth century, travel narratives became an important vehicle for the production and transmission of information and knowledge. When Spain required information about her territories in America, the “Council of the Indies (Consejo de Indias), which administered the Spanish crown’s New World possessions,” directed the development of questionnaires which required information on the “natural and moral history of the Americas,” as well as political information regarding the “governance of territories under the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru” (see Carey 2012, 74). Richard Hakluyt also published travel instructions to serve the interests of trading companies, merchants, and those responsible for colonial settlement (see Carey 2012, 73). These instructions directed travelers who were employees of trading companies like the eic to collect knowledge in specific areas. The purpose as well as the readership of the travel narratives enables us to understand their ideology. This chapter discusses the familial, educational, economic, and professional backgrounds of the writers as well as the audience they catered to in order for us to assess the attitude of the travelogues and their perspectives on India. As employees of a trading company, the eic factors and other workers were often required to keep diaries and journals where they would relate events of importance and their journeys, and keep accounts of merchandise. Mundy records journeys from one place to another with the description of roads, transports, and locations, facilities offered to the traveler, atmospheric information, related to wind, rain, and monsoon, and prices and descriptions of trading goods. When they were undertaking voyages, even ambassadors like Roe tried to record the locations (including latitudes and longitudes) of the places they landed in, and nautical information about the directions taken by the ship and the depth of the sea at certain points. The narratives are amorphous in nature. At times they took the form of reports specifically meant for the eic management which contained correspondence addressed to the managers and colleagues stationed in India as well as in England and day-to-day logs while on a journey. For instance, Mundy’s narrative of his stay in India provided miscellaneous information, like details of trading journeys and the difficulties and dangers faced, including the looting of goods and altercations with the bullock-cart owners who transported the goods.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004448261_003

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But apart from business information, the narratives also often provided knowledge about people, customs, religious practices, social structures, kings, and courts as well as the physical characteristics of the land, including the flora and the fauna. While the narratives of ambassadors like Roe and pioneering voyagers like William Hawkins1 focused on the court, its ceremonies and rituals, the palaces and darbars, and the various intrigues of the court factions, the accounts of Mundy, Fryer, Ovington, and Thomas Bowrey sketched the lives of the common people, as well as their customs and conditions, and described the land that they inhabited. The audience was diverse, for although the ostensible purpose of writing was to keep accounts for and supply information to the eic managers, many of the narratives suggest that the writers had a larger readership in mind. Hawkins’s manuscript was in the form of a report to the eic. However, by Samuel Purchas’s account, it was a “large journall,” “written at sea-leasure, very voluminous, in a hundred sheets of paper,” which Purchas edited and pruned at his discretion (cited in Foster 2012, 70). It was Purchas who published it, since Hawkins had died on his voyage back from India. Some of the sixteenthcentury travelers like Ralph Fitch,2 who took a different route from that of the early-seventeenth-century eic men, were pioneering explorers who sought to investigate possibilities of trade with Iraq, Persia, and the East Indies. On his return to England, Fitch presented to “Lord Burghley” (William Cecil Burghley) an “ample relation of his wonderfull travailes,” as Hakluyt mentions “in the Dedication of the second volume of the Principall Navigations (1598–1600)” (Foster 2012, 6). An account of his travels was published in Hakluyt’s collection (Foster 2012, 8) from which Foster reprinted the text. Fitch’s narrative3 aided the negotiations for the grant of a charter to the new Levant Company, which, 1 Hawkins was “in all probability” a Levant merchant who was conversant in the Turkish language. On account of his experience and knowledge of Turkish, he was chosen to deliver King James’s letters to the Governor of Aden and the “Great Mogul” and to negotiate eic trading facilities. On the third voyage of the eic to the East, Hawkins went as the captain of the Hector in March 1607 (Foster 2012, 60–62). 2 Fitch, along with a few companions, had sailed to Aleppo, Basra, and Ormus, and was sent to Goa, where he and his friends were imprisoned by the Portuguese viceroy. They managed to escape and went to various parts of India, including Bijapore, Golkonda, Agra, and Fatehpore Sikri. Fitch traveled to Bengal by way of Allahabad, Benares, and Patna, explored the eastern region, and even went to Pegu. Hakluyt probably printed the same narrative that Fitch presented to Lord Burghley. It appeared in the second edition (1598–1600) of Hakluyt’s Principall Navigations (vol. 2, part i) (Foster 2012, 6, 8). 3 The Levant Company was granted “monopoly of the trade by land through the Turkish dominions ‘into and from the East India’, as discovered by Newberry and his companions”

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when it came into being in 1592, combined the two associations that traded to Turkey and Venice (Foster 2012, 6). So Fitch’s travelogue would have been primarily intended to further trade, but he must have also borne in mind the general readership of Hakluyt. An early traveler who had met Fitch in Goa and helped procure his release in Goa, was the Dutch Jan Huygen van Linschoten, “with the patronymic of Linschoten, a village in the province of Utrecht, whence his family probably originated.” He was born around 1563 in Haarlem, which was brought under Spanish subjection in 1573. Linschoten, who was much interested in “the reading of histories and strange adventures” and also wished to see the world, went to join his brothers in Spain at the age of sixteen. As an adventurer who had to change jobs for his maintenance, he left a job at a merchant’s house in Lisbon and sailed in a fleet bound for Goa, which was carrying Vincente de Fonseca, “the newly appointed Archbishop of Goa.” His brother “procured him a place in the suite” of the archbishop (see Burnell 1988, xxiii–xxv). He stayed in Goa for five years in the employ of the archbishop and managed to aid the release of the English sailors, John Newberry and Fitch. After the death of the Archbishop, he tried to go back and after a few misadventures and a two-year stay in the island of Tercera, returned home (see Burnell 1988, xxv–xxix). After his return, he sought to publish the details of his journey in a book, for which he received a license from the States-General, and the book was completed in 1596 (Burnell xxix). I discuss Linschoten’s descriptions of temples and certain Indian customs in later chapters, showing his interest in the things observed and his noting of customs with additions from classical and other sources. As a Dutch Protestant traveler belonging to a relatively early period, he offers useful comparison with the English and other voyagers. The English travel narratives on India demonstrate a difference from those of some other countries. For instance, writing on Spanish travel writings on East Asia, especially the Philippines, Rubiés notes the preponderance of religious writers in the colonies: “What is perhaps more striking in the body of ethnographic literature generated by this colony is the overwhelming predominance of religious writers” (2004, 96). In their quest for the conversion of Filipino Indians, the missionaries stayed with the people in “rural areas, learning their languages and presiding over their communal lives.” In this way they “generated a specialized ethnography which went beyond the superficial observations of occasional visitors” (Rubiés 2004, 97). However, during the seventeenth century, by and large, the English travelers to India were not (Foster 2012, 6). The charter mentioned that Fitch was a member of the Company, and the charter of 1605 showed a continuation of this privilege.

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missionaries. The majority were connected to the eic, a trading company. Nor were they (with the exception of Roe) the state’s emissaries. Unlike the Catholic religious orders like Franciscans, Jesuits, and Dominicans, Protestant chaplains like Edward Terry4 were far from being preoccupied with empire-building. Interestingly, Terry wrote two narratives, designed for different audiences at different times. Within a few years after his return from India in 1619, he presented the manuscript of his brief travel account to Prince Charles in 1622. A version of it was published in Purchas His Pilgrimes in 1625, reappearing in 1655 in a greatly expanded form. Evidently, the 1655 expanded edition was designed for a much larger readership, although the audience of Purchas was also large and had interest in geography and history. Since he was not on a mission for conversion despite being a devout Anglican ecclesiastic, Terry was, on the whole, fair in his representations. The clergyman recounted a specific instance when a drunken English cook accosted the governor’s brother in Surat as “Now thou heathen dog,” and although his interlocutor, not understanding English, gave not the slightest provocation, the Englishman struck him. Disarmed and sent to prison, the cook would have been in dire trouble, for ambassador Roe (as Terry relates) refused to intervene or excuse his English servant’s misbehavior, had not the aggrieved party allowed him to go back unpunished. Terry moralizes for the benefit of his English audience: “it will not be amiss to enquire who was the Heathen dog at this time; whether the debauch’d drunken cook, who call’d himself a Christian, or that sober and temperate Mahometan who was thus affronted” (1777, 163–164). Terry condemned idolatry and the supposed devil-worship of the Hindus. However, he was quick to criticize those Christians who, despite possessing the light of true religion, were not ruled by that light. Even later, although English travelers perceived the figures idolized by Hindus as monsters and condemned their religion as devil-worship, they showed little missionary zeal in the conversion and “saving of souls.” Since they did not entertain the unrealistic notion of conquering India and extending Christ’s religion at the time, they did not look at Indians as souls waiting to be saved. But, Terry’s account shows relatively little observation of ethnographic details at first hand. He discusses practices of Islam and Hinduism, but these are based on hearsay and not close observation. Terry’s view on Indian religion will be discussed in more detail in chapter five.

4 After acquiring an ma degree from Christchurch, Oxford, Terry took orders and in 1616 went to India as an eic chaplain. He became Roe’s chaplain on the death of John Hall, the ambassador’s first chaplain, and stayed in India until 1619, publishing an account of his stay later. After returning to England he became rector of Great Greenford, Middlesex, in 1629.

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Moreover, the title page of his 1655 travelogue mentions that “Some Things are taken Notice of, in our Passage Thither, but Many More in our Abode There” “Mixt with Some Parallel Observations and Inferences upon the Story, to profit as well as delight the Reader” (1777, title page, emphasis added). The Horatian dictum of instruction and delight suggests a general readership and a desire to sell well by attracting readers, while fulfilling the moral purpose of instruction and counsel. Since Terry was a chaplain and not an employee who was connected with the business of the Company, he was not expected to maintain a record of transactions related to merchandise. The travelogue was a carefully organized and edited version, one which would expectedly include moral exhortations for the benefit of the readers. In the address to the reader in the 1655 edition, he claims that although the book was published so many years later, he had written the account of his travel in 1622 shortly after his return from the East Indies and presented it to Prince Charles. The statement suggests that he wrote the narrative while what he saw was still fresh in his memory and he had not made a belated memorial reconstruction thirty-three years later, where he would perforce have resorted to invention to fill in gaps. Terry’s book has the customary address to the reader, reproducing the original dedication to Prince Charles as a part of the section, and verses in honor of the author. He divided the book into three sections. The first is more or less a chronological record of his travels, keeping to the peregrinatio tradition. The second discusses many specific topics with respect to India, like the commodities, soil, towns and villages, military prowess, and religious ceremonies, and the final section, titled “The Corollaries and Conclusion,” discusses the moral and spiritual import of his account and “reflects upon the significance of India through the lens of faith” (Raiswell 2017, 171). Travelers like Terry claimed authenticity to attract their readership, distinguishing themselves as eyewitnesses, as opposed to those who have traveled “India in England, or Europe.” The latter have taken “Wares on trust,” relying on other narratives whose authenticity was not verified so that having been caught up in the web of deception themselves, they would have to practice it on others (see Dedication to Prince Charles, 1655). By contrast, Terry claims, truth is the essence or soul of his narrative and challenges an encounter with “armed falsehood,” which the “simple and naked” truth of his own account would defeat (1655, 1). Terry’s moralistic claims point to his vocation as a clergyman. It is in keeping with Terry’s vocation as a pastor that he declares the value of books lies not in their sale but in their utility, which would be moral instruction. He suggests that travel narratives inform and instruct readers. By contrast, the

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clergyman avers that romances and some pamphlets “ejusdem farinae, of the like kinde, which do not inform, but corrupt rather the minds of those, which look so much into them” (1777, vii–viii) attract readers. Terry justifies his narration of his East Indian voyage to his readers by declaring that “he that shall please to read it, in our passage to East-India may observe very large foot-steps of the Almighty, in his works of creation and providence” (1777, x). He professes to discover God’s hand in the design of the universe even in remote places. In his view, the true objective of travel writing is seeing all places as part of God’s providential pattern. He fashions his narrative persona as a morally upright, God-fearing, and truthful writer whose sole concern is to report facts without exaggeration, explore God’s design in the places he visited, and use the travelogue as a means of moral instruction. Unlike his chaplain Terry, Roe had a relatively secular perspective. He had studied in Magdalen College, Oxford, as “a commoner” and later completed his education at the Middle Temple, soon after becoming a servant of the queen. Roe had literary and conversational abilities and counted John Donne and Ben Jonson among his friends (Strachan 1989, 1–3). Roe’s powerful patrons, like the Archbishop of Canterbury and friends among the royal family and nobility, might have contributed to his selection as James’s ambassador. Although he had also been a member of the Parliament he was moderate in his opinions and had no reputation for entertaining extreme opinions with regard to the supremacy of Common Law and the Parliament. Like Terry’s narrative, Roe’s journal, “with a few letters or portions of letters,” was first published in Purchas His Pilgrimes (vol.1) (Foster 1926, lxxiv). But, unlike Terry, Roe did not publish his journal in the form of a book. Roe’s letters principally catered to his immediate audience, sometimes, royalty like King James i or Prince Charles; sometimes religious heads, like the Archbishop of Canterbury; sometimes noble patrons, like Lord Carew; and often the managers of the eic. His letters were suitably modified in content and style for the consumption of different audiences. When writing to James i about the Indian court he hopes that the stories will entertain the king, although he alternately magnifies and trivializes the experience to simultaneously flatter and interest his reader: “To relate the customes of this cuntry, the state of the court or their goverment, were fitter to beguile the wearines of the way (like a tale) at Your Majesties stirrup then for a discourse in earnest.” Yet, he concedes that “this King is one of the mightyest Princes in Asia, as well in extent of territory as in revenew; equall to the Turke, far exceeding the Persian” (1926, 102). Again he writes in a similar vein to the Archbishop of Canterbury: “A discription of the land, customes, and manners, with other accidents, are fitter for wynter nights. They are eyther ordinary, or mingled with much barbarisme” (1926, 104). But,

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later he adds “in revenu doubtlesse he exceeds eyther Turke or Persian or any Easterene prince. The summs I dare not name” (1926, 105). Evidently, the secular and clerical heads of the government and Roe’s noble patrons wanted to satisfy their curiosity about the king and the politics, the laws, the customs, and the religions as well as the court intrigues of this alien Eastern country, and Roe’s letters were designed to satisfy their curiosity. By contrast, his eic audience expected a detailed account of the trade and merchandise of India, the commodities that would make the East Indies trade profitable for England, and news about the factories they needed to establish in the land of the Mughals. Roe’s letters and the journal entries he made during his tenure in India show the demonstrably different expectations of the two groups of the audience and the significantly different portrayals of the Mughal court to satisfy both.5 In his letters to the eic, Roe’s account of the negotiations with the court to facilitate and promote trade is based on empirical observations and is concerned with meeting immediate exigencies, like the appropriateness of the gifts for the Mughal emperor, the reception of the English by royal officials, and the difficulties of getting a firman (royal mandate or decree at Islamic states). These letters and entries show a degree of candor and pragmatism, which seems to be missing in the narrative he writes for his elite aristocratic audience. For instance, while he frankly acknowledges the poor quality as well as the paucity of the presents sent by the eic to the Mughal court in his correspondence with the Company, he shifts his stance in his letters to his noble patrons and critiques the insatiable desire for novelty and possession that urges Jahangir to demand more and more gifts from his subjects and foreign diplomats. Colin P. Mitchell writes that Roe tried to reconcile the two different narratives: “it seems possible that Roe wrote his journal to appease both the Company’s expectations and his own personal Humanist ambitions” (2000, 33). Moreover, he might have had in mind a larger readership. That Roe had “fair copies” made of his journal and sent to England from time to time would indicate that Roe had wished his journal to cater to a larger readership (Foster

5 On Roe’s dual audience, see Richmond Barbour (2003, 192) and Rahul Sapra (2011, 63). The latter refrains from positioning Roe’s correspondence as Orientalist discourse but overemphasizes the “contradiction” between the contents of what Roe directed to the two audiences. Roe scarcely shows the “Mughal empire as a civilized partner,” even in his letters to the Company. Nor does he discuss governance and political institutions substantially with them.

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1926, lxxii).6 It is evident from the Embassy that Roe wished to project himself to his English readers and his royal and aristocratic correspondents, as an esteemed ambassador at the Mughal court, one who was perceived as superior to others of his status like the Persian ambassador, and England as politically superior to most other European powers (see, for instance, Chida-Razvi, 2014, 269–274). The letters to his noble patrons point to a possibly larger audience, one interested in learning about the customs and politics and the monarchy of the Orient, with its fabulous wealth and grandeur. In his letters to his patrons, Roe always assumed the stance of introducing India, an alien land, to an English or European audience, while he set England as an ideal, departures from which indicated degrees of civility or lack of it. Unlike the other English travelers, Thomas Coryat, “the Odcombian GalloBelgic leg-stretcher,” as he called himself, referring to his birthplace and his incredible feat of globe-trotting, did not travel for trade or employment but entirely because of a desire to see the world. Not having sufficient means, he traveled on foot most of the time. Belonging to a Somersetshire clerical family, Coryat was educated at Winchester and Oxford, where he acquired “great knowledge of the Classics.” He secured a small post in Prince Henry’s household and became known in literary and court circles, often being mocked because of his “loquacity” (Foster 2012, 234). He had good observational powers and a habit of taking notes. Extracts from the first part of his overland journey to the East were published in Purchas His Pilgrimes, Volume 2. A good deal of the remaining notes and observations are lost; only four letters written from India were later published as Thomas Coriate, Traveller for the English Wits: Greeting, and the fifth as Mr. Thomas Coriat to his Friends in England sendeth Greeting. “Large portions of the first, third, and fifth” were reproduced in Purchas His Pilgrimes (part i, book iv, chap. 17) in 1625 (see Foster 2012, 234–241). One may discern significant differences between the tourist Coryat with inadequate means and the other writers, mostly eic employees. In the later years of the seventeenth century, the description of the East, especially of the Great Mogol’s court, probably gained more prestige. Instead of apologizing for his subject, as Roe does, writers of gentle birth like Thomas Herbert sought to present sketches of alien countries, especially the East, to their readers, expecting them to be interested. Roe was writing often for an 6 Foster suggests that Roe had probably taken down notes for his journal on loose sheets, of which “fair copies” were made for folio volumes (Foster 1926, lxx). Significantly, “besides the fair copy made for his own use, Roe had others prepared from time to time to send to England” (1926, lxxii). Copies were circulated among a select audience.

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immediate, specific audience, whereas Herbert was writing for an unknown readership, namely all those who would choose to buy and read his book. Moreover, the focus was moving away from the court to the habits, religion, and ceremonies of a distant people. Travel narratives were gaining in importance as a genre. Like Roe, Thomas Herbert came from a well-known gentry family, his relations being aldermen and merchants. The family’s connection with the earls of Pembroke explains the dedication of his book to Philip, Earl of Pembroke. In fact, the third earl, William Herbert, had given Thomas Herbert (henceforth by Herbert I shall refer to Thomas Herbert and write the full names of others by the same last name) the opportunity to visit Persia in the entourage of Sir Dodmore Cotton, who went on a diplomatic mission to Persia as ambassador to Shah Abbas’s court, accompanied by Sir Robert Shirley (dnb, 725). Herbert had been educated at Oxford and Cambridge and studied at the Inns of Court for a while. On the way to Persia, he had visited places like Goa and Surat, and after Cotton’s and Shirley’s unexpected deaths (see Parr 1996, 16–17), he had traveled to the hinterlands of Persia. On his return journey he had seen the Coromandel Coast and Ceylon (currently Sri Lanka). Shortly after his return to England in April 1630, probably unhappy and despairing of promotion at his patron’s death, he again went on a three-month trip to France. However, by dedicating his book to Philip, the new Earl of Pembroke, he sought continued patronage by the Pembroke family. The verses written in his honor, which were attached to the publication A Relation, laud the achievements of the earlier Persian voyage. Herbert seemed to have been ideologically affiliated with the parliamentary party, although he served as the Gentleman of the Bedchamber to Charles i from 1647 until the latter’s death in 1649, and apparently grew attached to the king. Much later, in 1678, he wrote the Threnodia Carolina, an account of the last two years of Charles’s life. But his loyalty was not questioned during the Interregnum, and he was sent to Ireland, where he served as parliamentary commissioner and in various other important offices, like the secretary to the Governing Council of Ireland until the Restoration, when he returned to England in the hope of a general pardon. Herbert was received well and Charles ii made him a baronet. His book on Charles i was probably an attempt to show his attachment to the royal family in the changed situation and a vindication of his stance during the Civil War. Herbert’s class, education, and prestige account for the shape of his book, the verses written in his honor, including the one in Latin. Rubiés discusses the relationship between the “spontaneous ethnographies” of uneducated and uninformed writers and the “complex theories of more educated writers engaged

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in moral, philosophical, or scientific debate” in the evolution of the genre of travel writing (Rubiés 2002, 252). Although he does not engage in philosophical debates like Bernier, Herbert’s narrative suggests the stance of a sophisticated traveler who is aware that he edifies while he pleases readers. The address to the reader concludes: “Since then Varieties please God and Men; / Thank him whose sweat and cost demonstrates them.” Ethnographic description appears as the objective of Thomas Herbert’s work, A Discription of the Persian Monarchy Now beinge: the Orientall Indyes. The frontispiece shows two turbaned figures—an “Abdall or Preist,” sandaled and sparsely dressed, and a Shiite Safavid militant “Coozel-bash” (or Qizilbash), dressed and shod in the typical Islamic fashion with the characteristic headgear of the Shiite group—on either side of the engraved title. The soldier flourishes the sword in his hand, while the priest holds his finger up towards heaven. The plinth of the columns shows a cow being worshipped on one side, and a seated human figure with the head of a beast being worshipped on the other. In the middle we see a gallant ship braving the waves of the sea. The frontispiece appears to focus on diverse clothing habits and religious practices of the world, Islamic as well as Hindu sects, the latter with the idolatrous worship of beasts that Europeans deemed funny and abhorrent. The ship represents European maritime power, visiting Asiatic lands. The more specific title which follows, “A Relation of Some Yeares Travaile”7 in Africa and “greater Asia,” especially Persia and some parts of the “Orientall Indies,” professes to be a description of the “Religion, Language, Habit, Discent, Ceremonies” of the people in these lands (Herbert 1634, title page). That the information was divided into several categories or heads suggests a methodical organization of the travel narrative. Moreover, the presence of specific categories demonstrates conformity with other narratives which sought to provide ethnographic information. Herbert’s travelogue describes Indian castes, dresses, Brahmanical religion, and various rites of worship. While Roe, the English ambassador, restricted his observations to the court, a couple of decades later, Herbert has clearly moved towards ethnography. However, like Roe, who discusses the politics at Jahangir’s court, Herbert talks of the battle for succession in the court which brings Prince Khurram or Emperor Shah Jahan to power. 7 “In 1634 Herbert published the first edition of his book of travels, entitled A description of the Persian monarchy now beinge: the orientall Indyes Iles and other parts of greater Asia and Africk. The book appeared in an expanded second edition in 1638 under the title Some Yeares Travels into Divers Parts of Asia and Afrique” (https://www.oxforddnb.com). However, in the eebo, the latter is shown as printed in 1634. Therefore, I use 1634 as the year of composition.

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The emphasis in the verses of honor as well as the address to the reader (which bear resemblance to many literary works) is on the tribulations of the traveler who imparts knowledge to readers and gives pleasure to them. In the work itself, Herbert further elaborates on the traveler-narrator figure: “And Trauellers haue enough to doe with varietie, In men and manners, which make vp a Librarie to themselues; besides the scituations and present beings of Cities and Territories, seeming better then to labour in vncertaine stories, which not only perplexe the hearers, but beget incredulitie, oftentimes amongst the credulous” (1634, 2). The author claims superiority for travelogues over fictional works on account of the reality they show. Fictional stories, by contrast, mislead readers into believing what is false. The verses lauding the author, especially those in Latin, demonstrate an effort to uphold the author as an established man of letters and suggest the increased prestige of travel narratives as worthy of catering to a discerning readership. The address to the reader (which comes from the pen of C.H. rather than Herbert himself) defends variety among people all over the world. Although variety might be a characteristic almost stereotypically associated with travel writing, it suggests that diversity was something that one should welcome and accept as essential to life. “Those very children whom one wombe doth frame, / Varie shape, nature, vse; to expect the same / In euery worke, is Gods great worke to blame” (1634, Address to the Reader). Since the rationale for travel narratives is showing the diversity that exists in the world, defense of variety is a defense of travel and associated literature. In his dedication to Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Mountgomerie, Herbert professes to seek a guide or pilot, while imaging himself as a storm-tossed “barque” or ship, who fears censorship while in land. Interestingly, the image of the ship is pervasive in his work, for at the beginning of his work, he compares the product of the travel, the book, to a ship negotiating its way amongst many dangers, like readers’ adverse criticism: “each Booke, sent into the World, is like a Barke put to Sea, and as liable to censures as the Barque is to foule weather” (1634, 1). The dedication appeals to the nobleman to be his guide, in a characteristic gesture of honoring a patron, but the image of the traveler as a ship needing a guide also suggests the necessity of judgment for a traveler. And this message is carried forward in the verse written in Herbert’s honor by hh, who reiterates the image of the ship: “Thy iudgement rigg’d thee forth, made thee hoyse sayle, / Put thee to Sea, made danger sport, bewayle / Those who sit here to censure, and scarce know / Whether there be a Persia or no.” Herbert’s “judgment,” or discretion, which is linked earlier in the poem with virtue, makes the traveler far superior to the ignorant people who do not even know about the existence of alien lands like Persia. The verse praises Herbert’s

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courage and inclination for adventure and risk-taking, while decrying those who lead a sedentary life and seek to acquire the knowledge of the traveler at the small expense of buying a book. The adventurer figure gets modified into the rational traveler and virtuous acquirer of information who benefits others by spreading knowledge. However, the intended audience that would buy geographical knowledge at the price of a book was fairly large. Although many writers might have intended the narratives for a wider readership, a number of the travelogues remained unpublished during the writers’ lifetime, like Mundy’s and Fryer’s. The objective of a later traveler, Mundy, was widely different from that of Roe or Terry. To Mundy, a traveler and diarist as well as employee of the eic, gathering, recording, and tabulating knowledge painstakingly about alien lands, customs, and artifacts was an enjoyable task for its own sake. The son of a pilchard merchant in Cornwall, he had been educated at a free school in Penryn and learned French at Gascony. His background was therefore very different from that of Roe, Terry, Herbert, or even Fryer. Mundy’s interest in describing curious natural phenomena or novelty in dress is seen in the accounts he wrote of the tidal bore on the Seine and of a woman’s headdress along with its sketch on his visit to France as a child (see Pritchard 2011, 5). When he was about fourteen years old, Mundy worked under Captain John Davis as “a cabin boy” or “an apprentice trader,” going to San Lucar in southern Spain and Seville (Pritchard 2011, 6). He acquired substantial experience as a factor in Spain and Constantinople before he obtained employment in the eic in 1627, serving initially as a writer and then as an under-factor. He journeyed to the Mughal court in Agra. During his early years he had developed the habit of taking notes during his journey, which he continued in later life. He evidently worked on some parts of the journal during his visits to places and the voyage back home, while others were completed after his return home.8 The manuscript was titled Itinerarium Mundy. Mundy’s Journal gives the impression that it was being written during his travels. However, according to Richard Pritchard, “Some of the writing is contemporaneous with the events described, but much of it was amplified later on, at different times in Mundy’s life” (2011, 2), when he had realized the importance of writing the travel journal for the benefit of a wider readership rather than only the Company management and factors. Some parts of the work were written during journeys back 8 Mundy’s unpublished manuscript, concluded in 1667 and comprising 510 folio pages and 117 illustrations, many of which were “drawn and inserted after 1639,” although possibly derived from earlier sketches, six engravings, and six double-page maps by the geographer Hondius, was acquired by the Bodleian Library in 1734 (ms Rawl. A. 315) (See Pritchard 1911, 2).

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from India or China. “Major revisions and expansions took place in 1640, 1650, 1654 and the early 1660s. The whole was divided into 36 chapters, or ‘Relations’, as he called them, with several appendices, some transcribed in a clear italic script and some in his own, rather old-fashioned and more difficult hand” (Pritchard 2011, 2). The Journal was evidently intended for a larger readership, but according to Pritchard, it was neither designed “for general publication,” nor “as a private journal, like Pepys’s diary.” Pritchard assumes that Mundy “anticipated it being read by others interested in foreign travel and trade—friends or relations” (2011, 3). However, in my view, Mundy’s manuscript was designed to provide important information to contemporary as well as later travelers and scientists, and to readers interested in exotic plant and animal life as well as foreign customs, religions, and forms of government, and not just for a set of intimate acquaintances. His impersonal tone suggests that. That he wanted to publish the manuscript is suggested by his interest in revising and making fair copies of the text, as was clearly stated by him. After his return, on 16 December 1654, while on a trip to London, he wrote: “My intention is, if God spare me life and leisure, to copy out this book over again, as well to rectify what is amiss, according to my ability, as also to insert many things omitted by me” (cited in Pritchard 2011, 194). Mundy appears to have made a second trip to India, and in March 1655 he wrote that “having had sundry crosses, losses, hindrances and discontents at home by bankrupts, repairing of ruinated houses, redeeming land sold, paying old debts (none of mine own)” he was “determined to seek some employment abroad” and was offered employment by “the worshipful Robert Abdy, Esquire, and Company (or by a committee in his and their name) to proceed for India as an assistant to the worshipful Edward Knipe, on the Alleppo Merchant” (Cited in Pritchard 2011, 194–195). Mundy had known Knipe before, and Abdy, the son of a member of the eic, headed “a separate syndicate which had chartered the Alleppo Merchant and the Rose pinnace for a private venture” (Pritchard 2011, 195). Mundy’s interest in sailing to India was certainly to gain an income, but it also suggests his interest in travel to exotic places for the curiosities they offered. Of course, Mundy provides some of the information for the benefit of eic employees, who needed trade-related information as well as better acquaintance with the customs of the people with whom they were trading. But, as Rubiés points out, “the description of peoples in their variety was one of the most valued parts of the narratives of travel that proliferated after the Renaissance, both for the entertainment value of the depiction of curious behaviour, and for the philosophical issues which this evidence for variety

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raised about the existence, or not, of universal human traits” (2002, 243). Mundy, however, does not raise any philosophical issues like Bernier, the French doctor who visited Shah Jahan’s and Aurangzeb’s court and other parts of India. But he describes not only natural life, plants and animals, and roads, inns, and buildings, but also relates religious customs, rituals, caste and marital practices scrupulously and dispassionately without showing his own reactions, and in general not indulging in adverse comments, as many of his compatriots do. Mundy’s “relations” show his interest in ethnography or the depiction of people’s habits and customs for its own sake. Both ethnography and ethnology (as defined in “Introduction”) have related purposes. “Ethnography embraces the descriptive details, and ethnology the rational exposition, of the human aggregates and organizations” (Encyclopedia Britannica viii. 613 s.v. 1878, oed). Rubiés suggests that ethnology became a subject of academic discourse in the nineteenth century. Both ethnography and ethnology informed the humanistic disciplines of early modern Europe, like cosmography, history, and the genre of travel writing, often giving rise to “specific debates—about the capabilities and origins of the American Indians, the definition of ‘natural man’, the influence of climate on national characteristics, or the existence of stages in the history of civilisation” (Rubiés 2002, 243). Curiosity about the impulses or capacities of the “natural man” is found even in fictional narratives, like that of Edmund Spenser’s epic The Faerie Queene.9 Since the colonizing expeditions to Virginia and the growth of tobacco plantations there and in other places of North America had begun in earnest, the necessity for knowing the habits and tendencies of Amerindians had gained urgency, less perhaps for philosophical than for the practical purpose of surviving close to them in the vast expanse of America. The interest in natural life, religion, customs, and social practices of Indians that we have seen in Mundy reappears in Fryer, who wrote travel memoirs towards the end of the century. However, as we shall see, despite his learning, Fryer’s account was far less dispassionate and impartial than his compatriot’s. Fryer was educated at Trinity and Pembroke College, Cambridge, and took two degrees in Medicine, an mb in 1671 and an md twelve years later (dnb 21: 120), and he mentions his degrees in the title page of his book A New Account. Later, in 1697, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. But this was after his return 9 In book 1, canto 6, when Una is about to be ravished by Sansloy, the satyrs of the wood protect her and pledge obedience. They were “salvage people,” rude, but essentially good-natured (Spenser 1609, book 1, canto 6, verse 19). Satyrane, the natural man born of the union between a gentle woman and a satyr, was a knight, “Plaine, faithfull, true, and enemy of shame,” who comes to visit his kinsmen, champions Una’s cause, and accompanies her in quest of the Redcross Knight (Spenser 1.6:20).

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from India and Persia. His professional background accounts for the contents of his travelogue. Appointed by the eic as a surgeon at 50s. per month, he left England in 1672, arriving in India in 1673. Fryer’s visit to India and Persia, comprising nine months, led to interesting observations of nature and society in the region, which he reported in his book A New Account of East India and Persia. Fryer claims novelty, divine instruction, and patriotism as incentives for his readers. Many other travel accounts had been published in other languages, and a number of them had been translated into English as well, and he feared some repetition in his own account. However, since the preceding travelers had not all visited the same places that he had nor dwelt for a long time there, he ventured “to offer some Novelties, either passed over by them, or else not so thoroughly observed” (Preface 1698). In the preface, he mentions his predecessor, Thomas Herbert, who had traveled the same way, hoping he could discover some novelties, for his readers, not related before. He also sought to enlighten his countrymen, to set before them “the True State of their Trade in East-India and Persia.” However, as a god-fearing Christian traveler, he echoes Terry in seeking to make his readers view and reclaim atheists by demonstrating “the Beauty, Order, and admirable Disposition of the Universe” (1698, Preface) so that they would acknowledge its Creator. Finally, Fryer appeals to the patriotism of his readers to support his endeavor of successfully rivaling the attempts of the travelers from other countries. Like Herbert, he dedicates his work to a nobleman, John Holles, Duke of Newcastle and Earl of Clare. Fryer traveled to Goa and saw various parts of what was then considered Carnatick country by the English. Desirous of observing oriental customs closely and intimately, undisturbed, Fryer sought to merge with the crowd of pilgrims at Gokarna by exchanging his English clothes for “Moors Cloaths” so that they would be “concealed and pass for Moguls” and “see without being taken notice of” (1912, 4: 33). Fryer’s narratorial persona is that of an amused and erudite traveler and a man of letters, familiar with classical literature, a keen observer, and also possessed of botanical and zoological knowledge. He quotes freely from writers like Ovid, Propertius, and Pindar. For instance, being caught in the midst of a fire in the woods he draws on Ovid for a “portraicture of Hell,”10 proceeding soon after to “an happy Elysium, or Plain, that was bounded by the immense Ocean” (1912, 4: 31). Fryer describes travel narratives as hovering somewhere between history and fiction: 10

This is a quotation from Ovid, Metamorphosis, ii, 231f. See Crooke ed.4: 31.

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As to the Method I have taken, it is unconfin’d (it being the Privilege of a Traveller) not bounded with the narrow Terms of an Historian, nor loosely extravagant, like Poetical Fictions, but suited both to Time and Place, and agreeable to the Nature of the Relation: And herein I have followed Busbequius; which though it may make some Unevenness in the Stile, as where the Ruggedness of the Ways interpose, or the Subject-matter is varied, it must happen, yet the Warp quite through is most of the same Thread; which being the Clue to so many and intricate Meanders, trodden by a few, I am the more pardonable, when I slip: Though I do declare my desire is, To shew my Diligence in collecting, and Sincerity in compiling what may make the Road more easy to the next Adventurers, and satisfy the present Enquirers. 1698, Preface

By this account, Fryer is primarily a collector and compiler of information. The phrases “Diligence in collecting,” “Sincerity in compiling,” and “satisfy the present Enquirers” suggest acquisition of knowledge pertaining to natural sciences, which would also extend to ethnographical and geographical information. Broadly, history then included all these domains. However, the first part of the statement also indicates that he attributes to travel narratives an intermediate realm between history and fiction. Unlike Terry, who professes to conform strictly to facts, Fryer claims a free hand. While Terry actually makes use of literary imagination and rhetoric, his conception of travel writing is based on facts and truth, which pertain to the discovery of divine design. As a man of science, Fryer is less concerned about God’s design in various parts of the earth, but his parallel between history and travel writing focuses on the importance of facts and the scope of the genre. However, the genre of travel writing also acquires literary dimensions in Fryer’s conception. When he says his method is “unconfin’d,” unlike that of a historian, though not “loosely extravagant” like the fiction writer, he appears to point towards an unrestricted domain, perhaps going beyond the strict realm of facts, although not extending to the vast imaginative scope of fictional works, but still preserving the semblance of verisimilitude, of the probable, as suiting time and place. He refers especially to his style, which needs to be agreeable to the reader. His literary and classical analogies function precisely in that capacity. Fryer’s attempt to define the status and characteristics of travel writing indicates that by then, travel writing was a distinct genre. He wishes to satisfy the desire for knowledge of the interested audience and provide information upon which later travelers can build. He also wants to supply practical information to the traveler-adventurer who would follow in his wake.

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Fryer’s information regarding the climates, the seasons, the flora and the fauna, minerals, and jewels follows the pattern of travel narratives in describing the natural world of the places he visited. Although his emphasis on “collecting” and “compiling” information points towards ethnographical inquiries and empirical investigations, his frequent inclusion of circulating narratives and hearsay for comical or curious anecdotes indicates his desire to mingle fact and fiction, to delight as well as to instruct. Talking about the bravery of the Rajput clan and the caste-specific skills of the warrior, he relates the expectations of people and even their wives from them: “their very Women disdaining to own them for their Husbands, when they once turn their Back upon their Enemies.” He relates the “Story” of one of these “Viragoes.” Her husband had made an “Escape honourable enough for a prudent Retreat” from the battlefield. When he came home to her, she served him food with a brass ladle, although earlier iron ladles were being used. When he enquired the cause, she tartly replied: “Lest the sight of Iron should turn your Stomach from your Victuals, as it had done from Fighting” (1912, 107; italics in the original). This story, which formed the general repertoire of travel writers, referred to Jaswant Singh’s queen, who treated him thus contemptuously when he returned after a defeat.11 I include some European travelers for purposes of comparison; and the French doctor Bernier, who visited India during the last part of Shah Jahan’s reign and stayed in the country during Aurangzeb’s reign, holds a special status on account of his ideological affiliation and the diverse audience to whom he was catering. Bernier’s Travels in the Mogul Empire AD 1656–1668 was written in the form of a series of letters addressed to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, François la Mothe Le Vayer, Jean Chapelain, and M. de Merveilles. The history of the War of Succession, which is placed at the beginning of the book, was dedicated to King Louis xiv. The title does not give away that Bernier had visited India or that his text is a result of direct and personal observations of the land. Instead, he poses as a historian, “a learned scholar of the Mughals who intends to instruct his readers about the ‘latest revoluion’” (Beasley 42). Bernier’s work exemplifies how narratives may vary according to the expectations of diverse audiences. Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a minister of the king of France, and Chapelain was a follower of Colbert. “At this time Colbert was not only Superintendent of Finance but a kind of minister of trade, industry and culture.” And he was 11

See note 1 in Crooke’s edition (2012, 4: 107). The story refers to Raja Jaswant Singh when he returned defeated. The same story seems to have been circulating, for Bernier, too, recounts it. For his version, see Bernier 2008a, 40–41; see also Elliot &Dowson, 1877, vol. vii, 231.

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interested not only in developing trade connections with the Middle East but also in launching a French East India Company along the lines of the English and Dutch Companies, which would be able to compete with these forerunners (see Burke 1999, 132–133). Peter Burke suggests that Bernier sought a connection with Colbert through Chapelain “because he wanted employment.” He tried to get an interview with the king through Colbert. “Bernier’s letter to Colbert, unlike those to Chapelain and La Mothe, was in the style of a diplomatic report about the Mughal empire, its economy, its military forces and its administration” (1999, 133). In his letter to Colbert, the tone was flattering, almost invariably insinuating, and often asserting European superiority. As Burke points out, when writing to Colbert or Chapelain Bernier speaks of the superiority of the beautiful and magnificent edifices of cities like Paris and speaks of the “corruption of justice” in India or “lack of good laws,” like that of primogeniture, which left the “succession to the throne unregulated” and produced unfortunate wars of succession (1999, 131–132). Writing to Monseigneur Colbert, he rejoices: “How happy and thankful should we feel, My Lord, that in our quarter of the globe, Kings are not the sole proprietors of the soil! Were they so, we should seek in vain for countries well cultivated and populous, for well-built and opulent cities, for a polite, contented, and flourishing people” (2008a, 232; emphasis added). The eulogistic tone here is very similar to that of Roe in his letters to King James, Prince Charles, and his noble patrons. Like Roe, again, Bernier addresses some of his letters to a different audience set. The French traveler was a member of the salon of Marguerite de la Sablière. The latter took an interest in Bernier because he was a disciple of Pierre Gassendi and a visitor from India, and therefore a potential tutor and conversationalist for her salon. Faith E. Beasley suggests that Bernier might have written the letters in fragments while in India, and “then developed these works as a member of this salon milieu. He chose which letters to publish and composed the two non-epistolary narratives. The four volumes that he eventually published from 1670–1 would, in this scenario, represent a collaboration with the worldly public of La Sablière’s salon” (2018, 40).12 Beasley argues that Bernier wrote his work specifically bearing in mind the interests and tastes of the salon members. Having the reputation of a free-thinker, Bernier offers an interesting

12 Significantly, in 1670, Bernier’s first work, Histoire de la dernière révolution des états du Grand Mogol, was published by Claude Barbin, who had the reputation of publishing such writers as Boileau, La Fontaine, Lafayette, Racine, etc “in editions that were destined for the court and the worldly milieu, as opposed to the scholarly world” (Beasley 2018, 40).

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and useful contrast with many of the eic employees who demonstrate a more conservative attitude towards Eastern and non-Christian customs and religion. Significantly, in his letter to Monseigneur de la Mothe le Vayer, who was a member of the salon of Madame de La Sablière and a supporter of Michel de Montaigne and therefore a skeptic like Bernier himself, Bernier would proclaim a cultural relativity, saying that the inferiority of architectural skills that Europeans find in Delhi is misplaced. He argues that “different climates require different styles of architecture; that what is useful and proper at Paris, London, or Amsterdam, would be entirely out of place at Dehli” (2008a, 240). Unlike Roe, who had found fault with all the buildings in India, Bernier proclaims while describing the architecture and interior decorations of the good buildings in Delhi: “I think it may be safely asserted, without disparagement to the towns in our quarter of the globe, that the capital of Hindoustan is not destitute of handsome buildings, although they bear no resemblance to those in Europe” (2008a, 248). This demonstrates a contrast with Roe’s comments on Mughal India: “The buildings are all base, of mudd, one story high, except in Suratt wher are some stone houses.” Although Roe concedes that the king’s houses are “in good forme and fayre,” he declares that the nobility live in tents or “houses woorse then a cottager” because they do not own any property (1926, 105). Moreover, without any display of a sense of French superiority, Bernier sometimes discusses the inappropriateness in diplomatic behavior by his countrymen at the Mughal court. If he refrains from saying things directly, in order not to give rise to any suspicion of sedition, he, as Beasley says, “constructs his text to be in dialogue with his other narratives” (Beasley 2018, 63) so that the import of his message becomes clear. In the chapter on “Remarkable Occurrences Or an account of the most important events after the war during five years or thereby, in the States of the Great Mogol,” Bernier describes the reception of Tartar ambassadors at the court of Aurangzeb in detail (2008a, 117–121). According to Beasley, Bernier had intended to set off his account of this incident in “dialogue” not only with the 1669 visit of the Turkish envoy, Soliman Ferraca, to the court of Louis iv but also with the visit of two emissaries from the French East India Company, Beber and La Boulaye, to the Mughal court in 1665. The incidents bring out the similarities and contrasts of diplomatic expectations and behaviors on the parts of the Tartars, the French, and the Turks, and the narratives subtly convey diplomatic advice to Bernier’s compatriots. Aurangzeb received the letter of their sovereign not directly from the Tartars but from one of his own courtiers, and the ambassadors had to do a “salaam” in the Indian fashion, and they accepted both conditions with equanimity, while the French emissaries insisted on delivering the letter directly to Emperor Aurangzeb and refused to do the obeisance required by local custom. This had Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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considerably soured relationships between the two countries. Significantly, Bernier also relates the diplomatic behavior of the Dutch on a visit to Aurangzeb’s court. Monsieur Adrican, the chief of the Dutch factory at Surat, a gentleman of “integrity, abilities, and sound judgment,” did not disdain to perform the “Indian ceremony of the Salaam” at the Mughal court and did not resent that Aurangzeb received his letter via an “Omrah” (2008a, 127–128). It seems that Bernier offered “a lesson on how the French should have behaved at the Mughal court, a lesson that comes out of the conversation between Bernier, his readers, and their particular context. India is portrayed in such a way as to underscore the similarity between its protocols and those of Bernier’s native court” (Beasley 2018, 62). Like La Boulaye, the Turkish envoy had also insisted on delivering the letter to Louis xiv directly, while the latter had refused to accept it on the grounds that the diplomat’s credentials were somewhat suspect and it would have demeaned the monarch to receive letters directly from his hands. But this created a great deal of confusion and diplomatic discomfort at the French court. For the benefit of the French trading Company, Bernier as well as JeanBaptiste Tavernier afterwards suggests that local customs should be observed without resentment. Speaking of the Tartars’ reception, Bernier writes: “It should indeed be observed that it would have been unreasonable to insist upon saluting Aureng-Zebe according to the custom of their own country, or to expect that the letters would be delivered without the intervention of an Omrah: these privileges belong exclusively to Persian ambassadors; nor are they granted, even to them, without much hesitation” (2008a, 119–120). Bernier advises the directors of the French Company to observe local customs as good diplomacy and to make it appear that La Boulaye and Beber, being young and inexperienced, had acted beyond orders (Beasley 2018, 62). He pointed out that the only foreigners allowed to deliver letters directly to the Mughal emperor were the Persians, who did not seek any gain from the former and were there only “par honneur.” “The relationship between Persia and India is elevated above that between France and les Indes orientales. Even more striking, France in this description merits no special consideration from an India that is as revered by Persia as France hopes to be by the world” (Beasley 2018, 62). Like Bernier, his compatriot Jean de Thévenot visited the country during Aurangzeb’s reign. But he seems to have traveled extensively in the southern and western parts of the country. In January 1666, he landed at Surat, traveled overland to Cambay and Ahmedabad, and later went along the Deccan peninsula, traveling to Masulipatam, passing through Burhanpur, Aurangabad, and Golkonda on his way. He also visited the temples of Ellora, earning the distinction of being the first European to describe these caves (see Sen 2011, xix). His description of the architecture of the caves, by which he was clearly Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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much impressed, suggests a careful recording of observed details. He regrets that his visit was limited to two hours so that he could not see all the caves or all the temples. Thévenot was an “ardent student of geography and natural sciences,” and enjoyed reading accounts of early travelers, like his uncle, who compiled and published travel collections like Hakluyt and Purchas. However, unlike his uncle, Thévenot was interested in actual travel to distant lands and writing about them. “A man of independent means he could travel wherever he liked without any financial worry” (Sen 2011, xvii–xviii). In this the French traveler poses a contrast with the English who were, by and large, employees who sought a livelihood in India as eic employees. However, despite Thévenot’s record of observations of various temples, towns, and customs, he also shows his reliance on other travelers’ tales and classical authors like Herodotus. On his journey to Dabka in Gujarat from Bharoch, he reports of the inhabitants of the town that they “were formerly such as are called Merdi-Coura or Anthropophagi, Man-eaters, and it is not very many Years since Mans flesh was there publickly sold in the Markets” (Thévenot 2011, 9). Thévenot’s “Merdi-Coura” refers very likely to Persian “murdakhor,” who eat dead bodies, or “maradkhor,” who consume human flesh. However, since he was evidently not present at the time (“it is not many Years since”) and appears to speak from hearsay, it is very likely that he was “imposed upon.” Gujarat had no reputation for cannibalism (See Sen Annotations 2011, 283 n 29). The search for a source would lead us back to Herodotus’s assertion that there were cannibals in India (Sen Annotations 2011, 283). Despite his move towards ethnography, Thévenot’s description indicates his implicit tendency to perpetuate the stereotypes regarding the savagery of the East. Inaccuracies in Thévenot’s descriptions suggest faultlines in empirical knowledge and reliance on erroneous sources. For example “he confuses the Chenab with the Jhelum and makes it flow into the Indus at Attock,” in describing Kashmir. It is very likely that he draws on Bernier, although the latter “does not mention the name of the river that flows by Srinagar but correctly indicates its course” (Sen 2011, xxxii). As a natural scientist, Thévenot was interested in the flora and the fauna of India, and “he essayed a separate scientific work in which each of the plants was to have a full and graphic description” (Sen 2011, xx). His narratives were “issued” in separate parts from 1664 to 1684, Relation de l’Indoustan, des nouveaux Mogols et des autres peuples et pays des Indes being published in 1684.13 13 According to Sen, his book “was first rendered into English by A. Lovell and printed in 1687 at London by H. Clark for H. Fairborne, J. Adamson, C. Skegnes and T. Newborough, Booksellers in St. Paul’s Churchyard. It was in three parts (i) Turkey (ii) Persia and (iii) The East Indies” (Sen xx). Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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Since he went as an independent traveler and had been interested in the genre of travelogue itself, as he had read other works from a young age, it is more than likely that he had planned his volume well in advance. He refers to his older compatriot Bernier’s work with respect and sometimes suggests that he was filling gaps which Bernier had left and was not interested in repeating what his predecessor had written at length about: Though I have had Memoirs given me of the Palace and that Throne [the Peacock Throne], yet I’ll say no more of them, because I make no doubt but that Monsieur Bernier, who hath lived many Years at the Court of the Great Mogul, in an honourable Employment, and commodious for having a perfect knowledge of the Fort, Palace, and all that is in them, will give a compleat description of the same. I am confident also that he will not omit the Town, the chief places whereof are the great Mosque with its Domes of white Marble, and the Carvansery of Begum-Saheb, that Princess whom we mentioned before. Thévenot 2011, 60; emphasis added except in proper names and titles

Thévenot’s reasons for omitting items suggest a fraternity of travelers with similar and connected interests, and travel writing related to a particular place appears as a continuous project, in which more than one traveler participates, for the benefit of a community of readers. Unlike his compatriots Bernier and Thévenot, Tavernier was a jewel merchant who visited the Mughal court and India to buy and sell jewels. He was no philosopher but sought to please general readers as well as the monarch, with whom he needed to maintain good relations. Also, unlike the English eic employees, he was an independent merchant who sought to find his contacts at court for his interest. Although both Bernier and Tavernier dedicated their books to the monarch, Tavernier clearly excelled his predecessor in the art of court flattery. In his dedication to the king of France, he writes that his object was not merely “to assuage public curiosity,” but he had a nobler end in view. “In all the countries which I have traversed, my strongest desire has always been to make known the heroic qualities of Your Majesty, and the wonders of your reign, and to show how your subjects excel by their industry and by their courage all other nations of the earth” (1995, 1: lxix). Tavernier’s eulogy is much more flattering than Bernier’s, and he states that he had risked his “fortune” and “life” in “exalting” the French king “above all the monarchs of Europe and these Kings of the East,” even in the “presence” of the last (1995, 1: lxix–lxx). In his writing, the objective of travel has become propagating national glory and the privilege of entertaining his royal audience for “some moments” (1995, lxx). Noblemen Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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and high ranks of the gentry, whether English or French, like Roe, Bernier, and Tavernier, adopted the same mode of royal flattery by belittling the subject of their narration, which they presented as meriting merely the brief attention of the European royalty. Tavernier’s Six Voyages was published in 1676. “The interest aroused in these works was considerable, and the number of editions which appeared in rapid succession  … amply attest the popularity of the work” (Crooke 1995, xxv). According to William Crooke, the editor, Tavernier’s popularity was greater than that of Bernier, Thévenot, and Chardin, although he was not as well educated as they were: “it is apparent that the reading public preferred his facts and personal observations to the philosophic speculations which were added to the facts recorded by his rivals” (1995, xxv). Tavernier belonged to a Protestant Huguenot family, his father having migrated from Antwerp to Paris to escape religious persecution in 1575. Tavernier’s uncle Melchior as well as his father was a geographer, but his father was also a merchant. As a child, Tavernier’s curiosity about foreign lands arose while he listened to the conversation between his father and other learned men (see Crooke 1995, x–xii). His descriptions of the places he had visited are minute and detailed. Unlike the merchant Tavernier, Pietro della Valle (1586–1652) was an Italian from an aristocratic family in Rome. He was a versifier and a composer. On a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he sailed from Venice to Istanbul in 1614, where he learned Turkish and Arabic. After visiting Jerusalem, he went to Damascus and Baghdad, where he took to wife a Syrian Christian woman, who later died during his travels. His interest in Oriental languages and his marriage to an eastern woman suggests he suffered less from inhibitions towards foreigners. He arrived in Surat and for about a year traveled along the coast of Calicut (Kozhikode), returning to Rome in 1626. In Rome, he published his travel memoirs in the form of letters in three volumes, Turkey (1650), Persia (1658), and India (1663) (Encyclopaedia Britannica). Niccolao Manucci was an Italian as well, a Venetian by birth, who visited India before Aurangzeb had come to the throne and had even fought in the War of Succession. Unlike the aristocrat della Valle, he required money for his upkeep, and he took employment with Prince Dara Shikoh and fought as a soldier in his army. His manuscript had given rise to several problems.14 Although 14 There are several versions of Manucci’s text. According to William Irvine, “Parts i., ii., and iii. were written in 1699 and 1700, Part iv. between 1701 and 1705, Part v. between 1706 and 1709.” “He [Manucci] began the work at the instigation of Francois Martin and Boureau-Deslands … and the intention evidently was to send it to Europe for presentation

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an Italian, he had written parts of his manuscript in French, and even in Portuguese. He declares in the Zanetti (folio 364 of Codex xliv) volume: “Owing to the want of an Italian copyist, I have been obliged to continue my work in French, and even in Portuguese. The latter is far from correct, there not being any scribes here who are careful to seek always for the meaning of words; I leave the matter to the goodwill of the learned” (Irvine, lxix). Manucci’s work is of especial importance in the book because he gives a detailed account of the War of Succession during Shah Jahan’s reign, as he participated in it, being in the employ of Prince Dara Shikoh. While the two European travelers, the French Thévenot and the Italian della Valle, were men of means who undertook travel for interest or on pilgrimage, John Ovington, the English pastor, belonging to a family of Yorkshire yeomen farmers, needed a job to sustain his travel. But like them, and his compatriots Terry and Fryer, he had received university education. He was entered as a sizar (a student who received financial help from the College and was often required to perform menial duties) at the time at Trinity College, Dublin, where he subsequently took his ba and ma degrees. He also studied at Cambridge University and joined the eic as a chaplain to fill a casual vacancy when he boarded the ship. On his visit to Bombay, he was utterly repulsed by the immorality, disorder, and lack of cleanliness among the eic employees. His reaction reminds us of Terry. However, he evidently lacked the deep Calvinist leanings of Terry, who critiques Indian customs which go contrary to the teachings of Christianity. Ovington examines native customs with interest and impartiality and often does not ascribe supremacy to Christian practices, as we shall see. to Louis xiv., in the hope that he would direct its publication” (lxxii). Manucci wrote to the Venetian Senate that the manuscript and sixty-four pictures that he had sent through a friend to Father Eusebius fell into the hands of Jesuits (because his friend died on the way), who translated selected parts of his work. Francois Catrou sent his “Histoire,” based on Manucci’s work, to Manucci himself, who indignantly complained to the Venetian Senate later that “they only set forth what was comparatively of little value in the book, and what was best they kept to themselves” (Irvine xxxiii–xxxiv). Manucci then sent the original of the first three parts along with part iv, written in French, which remained with him, to the Venetian Senate through the Capuchin Father Eusebius in 1705 and requested the “Serene Highnesses” to arrange for its publication. The manuscript was apparently handed over to Lorenzo Tiepolo, the then ambassador of the Venetian Senate in Paris, Under Tiepolo’s auspices as a librarian, Antonio Maria Zanetti prepared a catalogue of the San Marco collection in which features codex xliv, in folio, listing the “‘Historical Memoirs of the Mogul Empire,’ by Venetian Niccolo Manuzzi, Veneziano, divided into four parts, written partly in Italian, partly in Portuguese, and partly in French” (Irvine, xxxvii–xxxviii). Irvine based his edition and translation of Manucci, parts i–iii partially on the text of Berlin ms, Phillipps No. 1945, and part iv on the Venetian Codex XLIV (see xxxii, xliv).

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Unlike those who were on the payroll of the eic, like Roe, Terry, Mundy, Fryer, and Ovington, Thomas Bowrey was not a regular employee of the eic but a free merchant, of whose parentage very little is known. The editor of the manuscript, Sir Richard Carnac Temple, had great trouble identifying the author as Thomas Bowrey from the initials T.B. until he discovered that Bowrey had published a Dictionary of English and Malayo, where he specifically mentions that he was in India for nineteen years and returned in 1688. That would indicate that he had come to India in 1669, which coincided with the date mentioned in the title of the manuscript, A Geographical Account … Bay of Bengal 1669 to 1679. Moreover, as Temple points out, the “Dialogues” at the end of the Dictionary echo passages in the ms, which point to a common authorship (xviii–xxii). The facts known about him indicate that Bowrey was a sailor and he seemed to have commanded ships. He generally resided at Fort St. George at Madras and traveled to places like Cuddalore, Masulipatam, and Balasor. He also sailed to Ceylon and Indonesia, from where he brought merchandise, which he sometimes sold to the eic for a profit. They even bargained about prices, as, for instance, when we find Bowrey unwilling to sell the Company his Borneo pepper at 20 pagodas per candy, the Company’s price, charging 23 pagodas until his voyage in Bengal led to a mishap and he had to return to Madras. He seemed to have a cordial relationship with the eic, however, because when he was in trouble with the local government and was imprisoned by an official unlawfully, the eic merchants took up his case forcefully. Bowrey was finally liberated and the unlawful charges against him withdrawn (see Temple xxix–xxxv). Bowrey’s contribution to travel writing on early modern India lies chiefly in his choice of areas, which have been largely omitted by other English writers— “Choromandel,” “Golcondah,” “the coast of Gingalee,” and “Bengala,” which included Orissa. As he calls his travelogue a “geographical account,” he gives navigational details of the rivers Ganges and Hughly, descriptions of sea ports and river ports, and coastal areas, along with the flora and the fauna peculiar to places, and customary popular drinks, like the country liquor arack. Like later travelers interested in ethnography, he also gives eyewitness accounts of Hindu festivals peculiar to the regions where he stayed, their devotion, penance, and other religious customs. An examination of the background, education, and employment of the travelers as well as the audience to whom they catered or for whom they designed the travelogues reveals the objectives of travel writing during the period and how they vary or get modified from person to person to an extent. One senses a growing awareness about the importance of the genre which produces and transmits knowledge while it entertains readers. The scrupulous note-taking,

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careful collation, and extensive revisions undertaken by the travelers suggest that they were desirous of cultivating a wide readership and attracting them. Moreover, it is interesting to see how differences in audience shaped the content and style of writers like Roe and Bernier. The increasing interest in land distribution, commerce, exotic customs, rituals, and especially religions as well as the political events associated with the East shows how early modern travelers journeying to India and their audience jointly constructed the other during the period.

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Chapter 2

The Mughal Court over the Years: Riches, Festivities, Law, and Governance The employees of the East India Company who came to India at the beginning sought to establish long-term trade relations with India. They tried to get permission to build factories and negotiated with the officials of the emperor for firmans. Roe, who was the first English ambassador, and before him, Hawkins, who claimed to be one, visited Jahangir’s court in order to persuade the emperor to permit the English merchants to build factories and allow them trading privileges. They had a fairly close acquaintance with the court and its festivities and had conversed with Jahangir. This chapter examines the portrayal of the Mughal court in European writings and compares the perspectives of various writers, focusing on their presentation of self and other. 1

Hawkins and Jahangir’s Court

Since Hawkins knew Turkish, Jahangir had called him to the Diwan-i-khas (Hall of Private Audiences) and had discussions with him. Moreover, the emperor also extended to him an annual maintenance of three thousand and two hundred pounds sterling, treated him very well, and later even persuaded him to marry an Armenian Christian lady. Hawkins writes: According to command I resorted to the court, where I had daily conference with the King. Both night and day his delight was very much to talke with mee, both of the affaires of England and other countries, as also many demands of the West Indies, whereof hee had notice long before, being in doubt if there were any such place till he had spoken with me, who had beene in the countrey. 2012, 82

Hawkins’s catalogue of the king’s wealth, comprising his annual income from land, his jewels, horses, elephants, and other animals, including hawks, lions, and cattle, indicates his desire to appear as a precise chronicler, catering to a larger readership than the eic officials. From time to time we get a glimpse of the Englishman’s astonishment at the scale of the Mughal’s possessions, the

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004448261_004

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extent of his land, and the number of the people. Often he uses England, its cities and court, climate and vegetation, as a measure of comparison to enable English readers to comprehend the unknown East. But unlike Roe’s, in his comparison, India is generally not characterized as negative: When hee rideth on progresse or hunting, the compasse of his tents may bee as much as the compasse of London and more; and I may say that of all sorts of people that follow the campe there are two hundred thousand, for hee is provided as for a citie. This king is thought to be the greatest emperour of the East for wealth, land, and force of men, as also for horses, elephants, camels, and dromedaries. 2012, 106; emphasis added

Hawkins, like many others after him, attempted to chronicle the dynastic wars of the Mughal reign, although he often misstated facts, which were no doubt gleaned from rumor and hearsay. Both Hawkins and Roe recorded that Akbar had nominated his grandson, Prince Khusrau, as his successor and related the latter’s rebellion against his father, Jahangir. However, the nomination, though reported by many people, is of doubtful authenticity. Hawkins states that the prince was blinded by his father, as punishment for his misdemeanor. Roe, on the contrary, claims to have met Khusrau, who conversed with him intelligently and spoke of Christians very favorably. Roe’s account does not mention the Prince’s blindness at all. Both Hawkins and Roe describe the daily routine of the emperor, the details being fairly similar. The daily cycle consists chiefly of prayers; a public display of himself, at the jharokha or interview window (“jarruco,” as termed by Roe) at the break of dawn, and at the Diwan-i-am (Hall of Public Audience) in his throne of state, for the benefit of his subjects; dining and resting with his women; and conferring and drinking with a special elite audience in the Diwan-i-khas in the evening. Both Hawkins and Roe claim to have been present at the private room, as it was a matter of prestige. Hawkins asserts that he attended the king at the Diwan-i-khas for “two yeeres together” (2012, 116). Roe avers that he has had occasion to do business in the private chamber. The Diwan-i-am, by contrast with the private chamber, allowed universal access to the Emperor. However, the hierarchical arrangement of standing decided the status of the nobles and ambassadors. The arrangement has been commented on by many Europeans who had visited the court. The fairly detailed description of the hierarchy of positions in the narratives and especially the reference to their own positions suggest that it was a matter of prestige for the Englishmen as to where they were known to station themselves.

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Hawkins describes the king and the court in a matter-of-fact tone and takes hierarchy as a natural order of things: the King comming forth in open audience, sitting in his seat-royall, and every man standing in his degree before him, his chiefest sort of the nobles standing within a red rayle, and the rest without. They are all placed by his Lieutenant-Generall. This red rayle is three steppes higher then the place where the rest stand; and within this red rayle I was placed, amongst the chiefest of all. 2012, 115

Hawkins shows pride and pleasure in portraying himself standing “within” the “red rayle,” “amongst the chiefest of all.” While Hawkins was a merchant and felt highly honored by being placed among the noblemen of India, Roe’s reaction in a similar predicament was very different, as we shall see. Despite his elevated status and Jahangir’s goodwill, however, Hawkins fails to make any headway with regard to trading privileges in India. He shows Jahangir as a wavering person, who would grant favors to him and the English and change the next moment if his noblemen advocated the cause of the Portuguese and represented the English as capable of endangering his kingdom. Like Roe after him, he suggests that the Great Mogul’s court was full of people greedy for presents, as the emperor himself was. For instance, after Hawkins gave presents to the vizir and his son and also a ruby ring to Jahangir, the latter granted the English the right to establish factories and freely trade in Surat, “willing the Vizir that with all expedition my commandement be made” (2012, 94). However, soon after, a nobleman, a favorite of the king, who was also “the dearest friend that Mocrebchan1 and likewise Abdall Hassan had,” made a speech warning the king that the “granting of this would be the utter overthrow of his sea coasts and people” and suggesting that it would be dishonorable for the king to “contradict that which he had granted to his ancient friends the Portugals, and whosoever laboured for the English knew not what he did.” To his disappointment, Hawkins perceives that his “businesse once againe was quite overthrowne, and all my [his] time and presents lost” (2012, 95). The king disallows the English “trade at the sea ports, for the inconvenience that divers times had beene scanned upon,” only granting Hawkins his promised 1 Mukarrab Khan was in charge of Customs of the ports of Surat and Cambay in Mughal India during the time of Emperor Jahangir. He was one of Jahangir’s favorites, being useful for his expertise in surgery and field sports. Both Hawkins and Roe found it difficult to negotiate with him, and charges of taking bribes were laid at his door.

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maintenance and allowance, provided the latter remained in Jahangir’s service. Hawkins refuses this personal favor and decides not to remain among “these faithlesse infidels” (2012, 95). A few years after his departure, the eic sends an ambassador to the Mughal court for promoting trading privileges. 2

Thomas Roe’s Construction of the Mughal Court

Perhaps the most extended discussion of the Mughal court and monarchy in the seventeenth century comes from the pen of Roe,2 who arrived in 1615 at Emperor Jahangir’s court. He had been selected by the fledgling eic to facilitate trade with India by negotiating with the Great Mogul. He worked, therefore, effectively in a dual capacity, as an employee of a mercantile company and an ambassador for a king. In chapter 1, I have discussed the two sets of audience that Roe dealt with and their different expectations. It is in his communications with the king, the archbishop, and the nobility that we find Roe theorizing on the politics and economy of India and the condition of the people. These letters show a speculative, intellectual, consciously European, and patriotic Roe, educated in humanistic ideals, who assesses India on the basis of an implicit comparison with Jacobean England. As critics like Kate Teltscher have observed, Roe’s strategy is to construct a set of binaries that presents the Mughal court as the polar opposite of the English. His binaries anticipate what Edward Said discusses in Orientalism (1978). According to Teltscher, “Both Terry and Roe are typical in projecting images of English society onto Indian society and recording the differences. For most part, the representations follow Said’s model of binary opposition: India is presented negatively, as the inverse of England” (1995, 26). Roe’s construction of identity in terms of binaries looks forward to Edward Said’s “Orientalism.” But Said’s elucidation implicitly associates “Orientalism” with power. The desire to understand spatial difference in terms of differences of identity had been prevalent in European thought long before imperialism came into play. It was during the Hellenic era that the distinction between oikumene and the 2 The original manuscript of Roe’s Journal has disappeared. Michael Strachan writes: “the only extant copy of Roe’s full journal comes to an end on 11 February 1617 though it includes copies of some of his letters up to 9 October. The remaining volumes have disappeared” (104). According to Foster, “A ‘catalogue of damaged papers,’ compiled at the East India House in 1822 and still preserved at the India Office, contains the following entry: ‘1616. Journal of Sir Thomas Roe at the Court of the Mogul’” (1926, lxxiii). As Foster says, volume 1 of Purchas His Pilgrimes first publishes Roe’s journal in a drastically abbreviated form (see 1926, lxxiv).

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eschatia prevailed. The stereotypes about the Orient that travelers’ tales and other works propagated reinforced Roe’s distinctions. The table below shows the major differences between the English (or European) court and nobility and the Indian (or the Orient) that Roe sets forth: England / West India / East Rule of Law Tyranny Constitutional Monarchy Absolutism supported by theory of the king’s divinity Established Nobility and Gentry Noblemen hold their offices at the pleasure of the sovereign Private Property and Ownership Mansabdari3 system, the king has the power to dispossess at pleasure Honesty Corruption Although critics like Teltscher, Jyotsna G. Singh, Bernard S. Cohn, and Pramod K. Nayar have noted the contrasts, by and large they tend to see them as the product of the divergent perspective of a Westerner.4 According to almost all these critics, Roe’s account of India in the Embassy is characterized by the difference and the contraries he actually discovered in the Mughal court and Indian society. I would like to argue, however, that Roe chooses to disavow the likeness that he finds between James’s court and Jahangir’s, and the contrasts that he depicts suggest an effort to displace onto the other all that he disapproves of in 3 The mansabdari system was an administrative system, prevalent during the time of Babur and his descendants and improved under Akbar, which enabled noblemen to earn the revenue from the land allocated to them for services rendered by them, although it did not allow them full authority over the land. 4 Teltscher generalizes the perception of Roe and his chaplain as “typically” Western. Cohn suggests that this happens because of the existence of different forms of cognition. According to Cohn, “the meanings and the premises on which the Indians constructed actions were far different from those of the British.” Moreover, “Europeans of the seventeenth century lived in a world of signs and correspondences, whereas Indians lived in a world of substances” (1997, 18). Singh argues that Roe’s “representations of Mogul India reflect a continuing sense of wonder about, as well as desire for mastery over, its manifestations of otherness, both ‘exotic’ and ‘barbaric’” (1996, 39–40). Nayar discovers an uneasy combination of positive and negative reactions in the first stream of travelers to India: “Thus the marvellous plenty of India, approximating to an earthly paradise teeming with plant and animal life, is now imaged as a dangerous wilderness in the second moment” (2004, 24). He suggests that “one mode of underscoring the marvellous profusion of India was through the use of the rhetoric of intensification and incomparability” (2004, 13). “Incomparability” suggests “otherness.” Both unusual profusion and “dangerous wilderness” indicate something alien and dissimilar.

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the Jacobean court. His endeavor to construct a civilized England, upheld by the rule of law and a high standard of morality, designed to please his immediate noble audience as well as the larger English public he might have in mind, results in the perpetuation of the binaries, which sets up the Orient as a contrast to England. The dual strategies of magnification and erasure provide important tools for the procedure. Presence and absence become interchangeable. On the one hand, the negative characteristics of India are magnified while silence erases their presence in England, and on the other, indifference to facts propagates the myth of the absence of any positives that may exist in the East. 2.1 Absence of Laws and Absolutism In Roe’s view, the despotism in India was caused by the absence of laws. As an Englishman, he prided himself on the strength of English laws. As early as January 1615–1616, he wrote to Lord Carew: “They have no written law. The King by his owne word ruleth, and his governours of provinces by that authoritie. Once a week he sitteth in judgement patiently, and giveth sentence for crimes capitall and civill” (1926, 89). This is a reiteration of the stereotype perpetuated by Europeans that oriental monarchy is, by definition, arbitrary, tyrannical, and characterized by an absence of laws and instability. Thomas Smith’s The Common-wealth of England characterizes Turkey as a kingdom where the king enslaved his subjects; therefore, it could not be termed a “common-wealth.” The king is “rather to be reputed onely as one that hath under him an infinite number of slaues or bondmen, as among whom there is no right, law, nor commonwealth compact, but onely the will of the Lorde and segnior” (1601, 12). Roe accuses the Mughal emperor as well as his deputies in the provinces of despotic and arbitrary rule. In the letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury in January 1615, he writes: “His [i.e., Jahangir’s] governors of provinces rule by his firmanes, which is a breefe letter authorising them. They take life and goods at pleasure” (1926, 104). Roe’s concept of arbitrary government was connected, on the one hand, with his notion of the absence of private property and law, and on the other, with theories of absolutism. Roe characterizes India as a land of despotism without laws: “They are governed by noe constant lawe, which in all new occasions is received from the Kings mouth, and, farr distant, from his vizeroyes. No man hath proprietye in land nor goods, if hee please to take it; soe that all are slaves” (1926, 271). The similarity with Smith’s language is evident. However, this is evidently an over-simplified and distorted view. Like all other Islamic states, Mughal India was governed by Sharia law (the moral and religious laws that ruled the members of the Islamic community). These laws covered a variety of subjects, like crime, politics, marriage contracts, trade, and economic transactions, as well as personal matters, like hygiene and diet.

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Moreover, “in all those matters where the Quran is either silent or does not give a clear injunction, the authority of the Sunnah or Hadis is unchallengeable” (Srivastava 1984, 537). With the expansion of states, as the laws became inadequate to meet the demands of the state, they had recourse to two other sources: “the Ijma or consensus of opinion or universal consent (not of laymen but of learned mujtahids or jurists) and the Qiyas or analogy, that is the analogical reasoning with regard to the principles of the Quran and the teachings of Muhammad.” Growth in complexity and several interpretations gave rise to some schools of jurisprudence in orthodox Islam, like Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafii (Srivastava 537). Therefore, Roe’s observation that there was no law in India except that which was derived from the king’s mouth lacked justification. Moreover, to an extent, the Hindus were allowed to follow their personal law, although they were ruled by an Islamic state. This principle of toleration shows the prevalence of a justice system and existence of diverse and recognized laws in the country. “The personal law of the Hindu (majority) community remained always Hindu. On the other hand the relationship between State and subject was governed by Islamic principles. So was criminal law” (Alexandrowicz 1967, 93n). However, Islamic Law in India had made its own synthesizing compromise by absorbing Hindu tradition to a certain extent. According to C.H. Alexandrowicz, the idea of sovereignty, as it belonged to the Hindu tradition, was based on Kautilya. “The elements of sovereignty had been defined by Kautilya in his treatise Arthasastra (fourth century bc) and rules of inter-State dealings” were set forth there. These formed a “code of provisions from which usages and customary rules were derived during later periods” (Alexandrowicz 1967, 28). It may be said, therefore, that law in India had a beginning in the fourth century bc. Roe’s pronouncement that each individual king’s arbitrary word was law is far from true. Additionally, since European nations made treaties with Islamic states like Persia and Turkey it is very likely that the oriental states worked in consonance with the law of nations. The total absence of laws and arbitrary despotism of Eastern sovereigns was rather a notion that the humanist Roe wished to transmit in order to assert the superiority of the Western nations, to please his monarch, and possibly the larger English readership as well. Sanjay Subrahmanyam contends that “despotism as a political topos” was transferred to “another landscape, on which Europeans projected their fears,” often when “their own political systems were under challenge both at the level of ideas, and of internal social and political movements” (2002, 69). It might be an overstatement to say that the English political system was facing a serious challenge, but it is worth remembering that during the early seventeenth century, the “country party”

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of the parliamentarians was in conflict with the court party of the royalists, and the monarch’s prerogatives, subjects’ rights under law, and royal taxes and impositions on taxpayers were often being questioned and disputed (see Zagorin 1970, 83–88). While Roe showcases England as a delectable state, preserving a balanced division of power between the monarch and the parliament, the lawmaking body, he was clearly aware that James i had serious reservations about parliamentary supremacy. If we look at James’s views about monarchy, one finds little difference from the treatises of so-called oriental despots. I would like to draw attention to the similarities that confront us when we look at James’s speeches in the parliament and that which is elaborated in Abul-Fazl Allami’s preface to Ain-i-Akbari.5 In fact, the laws that Roe assumes as the distinguishing mark of England had often been cited by his monarch as the creation of kings: “Yet how soone Kingdomes began to be setled in ciuilitie and policie, then did Kings set downe their minds by Lawes, which are properly made by the King onely.” (James i, 1994, 183; emphasis added). The statement that Mughal law was received “from the King’s mouth” echoes James’s statement about kings setting down “their minds by Lawes.” Almost all theories of royalist absolutism, be it oriental or occidental, derive justification from the descent of sovereignty from God. In a speech to both Houses of the Parliament, James expounded the privileged status of monarchs. Not only have kings been chosen by the Deity, they appear as divinity incarnate: Kings are not onely Gods Lieutenants vpon earth, and sit vpon Gods throne, but euen by God himselfe they are called Gods…. Kings are iustly called Gods, for that they exercise a manner or resemblance of Diuine power vpon earth: For if you wil consider the Attributes to God, you shall see how they agree in the person of a King. God hath power to create, or destroy, make, or vnmake at his pleasure, to giue life, or send death, to iudge all, and to bee iudged nor accomptable to none: … And the like power haue Kings: they make and vnmake their subiects: … Iudges ouer all their subiects and in all causes, and yet accomptable to none but God onely. James i 1994, 181

5 Abul-Fazal ibn Mubarak was the grand vizier of Akbar, the Mughal emperor. He wrote the Akbarnama, the official history of Akbar’s reign in three volumes. The third volume, known as A-in-i-Akbari, gives us a detailed picture of the economic, political, and social practices of contemporary Mughal India.

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The preface to A-in-i-Akbari uses a similar vocabulary about the divinity of kings. Royalty is a light emanating from God, and a ray from the sun, the illuminator of the universe, the argument of the book of perfection, the receptacle of all virtues…. It is communicated by God to kings without the intermediate assistance of any one, and men, in the presence of it, bend the forehead of praise towards the ground of submission. Allami 2011, 1:3; emphasis added; overscores omitted

Abul-Fazl establishes the rationale for sovereignty by arguing that it provides stability to the realm, and he traces the function to the origin of the term padishah (a royal title of Persian origin, derived from pad master and shah king): royalty is a remedy for the spirit of rebellion, and the reason why subjects obey. Even the meaning of the word Padishah shows this; for pad signifies stability and possession, and shah means origin, lord. A king is, therefore, the origin of stability and possession. […] Shah is also a name given to one who surpasses his fellows, as you may see from words like shah-suvar, shah-rah; it is also a term applied to a bridegroom—the world, as the bride, betrothes herself to the King, and becomes his worshipper. Allami 2011, 1: 2; overscores omitted

The rationale for monarchy is stability, an idea which recurs in the West. More importantly, we find the concept of the kingdom as the bride to royalty being prevalent in Mughal India as well as Jacobean England. The similarities in concepts and vocabularies demonstrate that theories of absolutism were common to both the Mughal and the English courts despite Roe’s desire to disavow the likeness. Royalty in both the East and the West had sought to legitimize itself by deriving its roots and descent from the divinity.6 Oriental as well as occidental monarchs alike sought to construct myths around the institution of monarchy to boost their imperial image, power, and magnificence. 6 Mitchell points out that “by the sixteenth century, dynasties like the Mughals and the Safavids had formed a political ideology which was essentially an amalgamation between the Islamicized Sassanian metaphor of sun and kingship and the shî’î theory of divine designation (nass)” (2000, 120). Similarly, in Europe, King Philip ii of Spain sought to identify himself with the sun god Apollo (see Gunn 2004, 116). There were many similar attempts to trace royal origins from divine dynasties, as elaborated in chapter 5. Even King James i, as we see, in his speeches (above), attempted to show how royalty is derived from God.

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While Roe tries to present the Stuart government as a fruitful mixture of royal authority and representative government and, of course, the norm, to be contrasted with the arbitrary despotism and greed of the oriental monarch, he resorts to selective omission and discreetly overlooks the debatable statements of James and royalists. To the educated readership in England, he seeks to showcase Albion as possessing a mixed government and a happy balance of power that the classical and humanist ideals prescribed. It would be interesting to relate Roe’s political theories to his class and political affiliations. Roe’s sympathies as a parliamentarian might have induced him to denigrate absolutism. However, Roe was no republican. Although he represented the borough of Tamworth in the “Addled Parliament” of 1614, having been nominated for the seat because of his many influential friends in the government and the Church, he was, on the whole, moderate in his opinions. According to Michael Strachan, his biographer, “when the House came to discuss the dangerous question of impositions7 he appears to have discreetly held his tongue” (1989, 54, 51). Roe trod cautiously and maintained his connections in the government and court and never challenged the monarchy’s rights nor questioned the policies of the government in the Parliament. Nevertheless, he had friends among the parliamentarians. We might try to understand Roe’s opinions in the light of his divided loyalties. As Mitchell points out: On the one hand, his access to the court was made possible by men who were staunch advocates of Stuart absolutism, including Archbishop Abbot, the Secretary of State, Sir Ralph Winwood, and the Lord Exchequer Lord Carr. On the other, he still managed to continue his friendships with Sir Edwin Sandys, Nicholas Fulbrooke, and Sir Dudley Digges, men who had dedicated their parliamentary career to reversing what they considered arbitrary rule. 2000, 99

Therefore, Roe was dependent on royal favor and connections with noble patrons, who were royalists. But he was also very likely to have been influenced by the opinions of the parliamentarians, who advocated the liberty of subjects, the Parliament’s right to grant subsidies to the monarch, and restraints on the unimpeded exercise of royal power. The king’s prerogatives were the subject of

7 Impositions are “customs duties levied by the King without Parliament’s consent” (Strachan 1989, 51) and were the subject of debates in various parliaments.

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a wide-ranging debate during the Jacobean era and ultimately led to the Civil War during the Caroline period. Writing to his noble and royal patrons about India, Roe appears to have discreetly refrained from recognizing the similarities between the Mughal and the Jacobean courts, which would have compromised the ideal picture of his own monarch. If Roe’s humanist training and concealed sympathy for the “country party” made him averse to James’s absolutist claims, his inclinations would have found a convenient outlet in the denigration of the Indian monarch and his tyranny, leading him to deflect onto Jahangir’s alien, Oriental court the elements that he disliked in the Jacobean court. 2.2 Private Property The notion of an established aristocracy and heritable private property are inevitably connected in Roe’s view. eic officials like Hawkins and Roe spoke in similar terms about the status of noblemen in India and the lack of property rights which, they believed, characterized the Indian polity. Hawkins had stated that on the death of a man, his property did not pass on to his descendants like his wife and children but to the king, though the latter generally left the natural heirs in their possession unmolested, aside from some exceptional cases. Hawkins also maintained that the eldest son inherited certain privileges: “commonly he [the emperor] dealeth well with them, possessing them with their fathers land, dividing it amongst them; and unto the eldest sonne he hath a very great respect, who in time receiveth the full title of his father” (2012, 104–105). Roe had, however, more extreme notions about the king’s despotism and what he calls the slavery of Indian nobles. His birth, education, and upbringing would speak for his views on the sanctity of private property and the status of a gentleman and a nobleman. In a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Roe writes: All the land is his [the king’s]; no man hath a foote. He maynteynes by rents, given of signoryes counted by horses, all that are not mechanique; and the revenews given to some are a German princes estate. Secondly, all men ryse to greater and greater seignoryes, as they rise in favour, which is only gotten by frequent presents, both rich and rare. Lastly, he heyres all mens goods that dye, as well those that gayned by industry (as merchants) as those that lived by him; and takes all theyr mony, leaves the widdow and daughters what he pleaseth, gives the sonnes some little seignorye and putts them anew to the world, whose fathers dye woorth two or three millions. 1926, 105; emphasis added

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The hyperboles and overstatements like “hath a foote” and “German princes estate” reinforce the sense of contrast, and unlike Hawkins, he does not wish to mitigate the negative critique by mentioning what actually takes place in practice as opposed to theory. By contrast with the English or the European nobility, the supposed aristocrats to whom Roe refers are not of noble blood but “favourites raised,” who are enriched, albeit during their lifetime, by the king. Roe explains the mansabdari system: the King assigneth them so much land as is bound to maintaine so many horses as a rent, each horse at five and twentie pounds sterling by the yeere; which is an incredible revenue given away … But as they die, and must needs gather, so it returneth to the King like rivers to the sea, both of those he gave to, and of those that have gained by their owne industry. 1926, 89

The cycle rests on the repetition of gift-giving, bestowal of land, and reappropriation. Importantly, Roe’s understanding of the vast country comprising Mughal India was, to all appearances, very limited, and he probably lacked knowledge of the intricacies of the land-owning system. If the facts were available to him, his journal selectively overlooks them since they ran contrary to his conclusions about the state of India. His hyperboles and exaggerations also suggest that he did not have the ethnographer’s curiosity or painstaking desire for knowledge. Roe was working with stereotypes and secondhand information, available to him possibly through early travel narratives like that of Hawkins and things that he might have heard of at the Mughal court. He appears to have generalized as he wished. His primary aim, as I indicated, was to build a set of contrasts, which presented the East in a negative light. Available documents in India indicate that there was no “sanction” for such royal ownership as envisaged by Roe and others in ancient Indian law or Islamic law. Abul-Fazl Allami’s (1551–1602) argument that the king had the right to impose taxes because of a “social contract by which the sovereign obtains his ‘remuneration’ through taxation in return for providing protection and justice to his subjects,” does not cite royal ownership as a reason. Not only is there no record of the king or his officials claiming such ownership, but there exist records of zamindars and townsmen as maliks selling land to each other and to the king as well (Habib 1999, 123–125). The prevalence of the zamindari system in Mughal India suggests the right to heritable property. “The word zamindar is a Persian compound, meaning literally the controller or holder of zamin or land.” It originates in India and is Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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used in the early fourteenth century as a synonym of marzban, which meant “overseer (shahna) of a territory” (Habib 1999, 169; overscores omitted). One of the synonyms of zamindar was malik. In several documents “milkiyat and zaminidari” were “coupled together as names of a single right.” “‘Malik’ is an Arabic term which has its own distinct sense in Muslim law, namely that of ‘proprietor’. Milkiyat is, therefore, what in English would be called ‘private property’” (Habib 1999, 173). Therefore, ownership of landed property did exist in India. Moreover, there were two classes of zamindars in Mughal India, namely the zamindars of territories who were under the direct imperial Mughal administration and the “tributary chiefs” (Habib 1999, 208), who were largely autonomous and independent, called rajas, ranas, raos, rawats, and the like. Even these zamindars, or “bumis,” who were above the class of peasants, had a right similar to what may be called “proprietary” right in some sort of form to the land, which was not delegated to them by the emperor’s administration. As Irfan Habib says, this right “had originated independently of the existing imperial power,” and it entitled them to claim “a share in the produce of the soil, which was distinct from, though it might be laid side by side with, the land revenue demand of the state” (1999, 222). And, like the autonomous chiefs, these zamindars too “held some territory” they could regard as their “own,” and had armies to protect their “possessions” (see Habib 1999, 223). Finally, the zamindars as a class had “hereditary” right over their land. They were not upstarts who had managed to gain the favors of the Mughals, as Roe and Bernier state. According to Habib, “though clan movements or sales might interfere with zamindari possession, a zamindar normally would have deep roots in the land belonging for generations to his family” (1999, 207; overscores omitted). Nor was private property absent in India. So, the widespread practice of appropriation that Roe charges the Mughal king with lacks substance. He relies on stereotypes perpetuated by others rather than factual information for characterizing and critiquing India. Significantly, describing Aurangzeb’s reign, several years later, Bernier repeats Roe’s claim: It should also be borne in mind, that the Great Mogol constitutes himself heir of all the Omrahs, or lords, and likewise of the Mansebdars, or inferior lords, who are in his pay; and, what is of the utmost importance, that he is proprietor of every acre of land in the kingdom, excepting, perhaps, some houses and gardens which he sometimes permits his subjects to buy, sell, and otherwise dispose of, among themselves. 2008a, 204

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Like Roe, Bernier emphasizes that the noblemen are not “noble” by birth because the newcomers who acquire wealth at the king’s pleasure, “are often not even descendants of Omrahs.” The “King being heir of all their possessions, no family can long maintain its distinction, but, after the Omrah’s death, is soon extinguished, and the sons, or at least the grandsons, reduced generally, we might almost say, to beggary, and compelled to enlist as mere troopers in the cavalry of some Omrah” (2008a, 211–212). Like Roe, Bernier too might have acquired his knowledge through stereotypes and hearsay. In his view, it is a sign of its degradation that India cannot boast of ancient noble families, of “Dukedoms” or “Marquisates” (2008a, 211). Bernier avers that the right of property is “the basis of all that is good and useful in the world,” and he feels that the lack of property rights leads to “tyranny, ruin, and misery” found in the three great Islamic states, Turkey, Persia, and Hindustan (see 2008a, 232). However, when we consider the similarities between Bernier’s argument and that of Roe, we must also remember that Bernier had addressed this letter to the politically powerful Colbert of high rank, whom he desired to please, just as Roe sought to inform and please the powerful spiritual head of the state by hinting at the inferiority of the Oriental system. When catering to similar audiences, therefore, the European attitudes to India show remarkable similarity. Moreover, much more than Roe, Bernier’s accounts vary a great deal when he writes to different audiences. Also, his portrayal of Danishmand Khan, his employer, belies his characterization of Indian noblemen as upstarts, henchmen, and slaves. However, European authors like the Jesuit António Botelho had shown that Bernier’s or Roe’s argument was incorrect. Although the king initially seized the property of jagirdars (“those who possessed a jagir” or “rent-free grant”) (Flores 2016, 63 n74), it was for the purpose of checking whether the nobleman owed a debt to the “royal treasury.” However, “later, at his discretion, the King gives back to, and takes care of his children and wives” (cited in Flores 2016, 63). Despite similarities of views with regard to property rights, however, the contrast between Roe and Bernier is seen in their appraisal of the cities in India. Roe ascribes the lack of “fayre” buildings in India in comparison to European cities to the absence of private property: “but his great men build not (for want of inheritance)” but live in nomadic habitations like tents or shabby houses (1926, 105). He suggests that the king’s despotism prevents the growth of wellbuilt cities. If Agra has a reputation for splendor, he attributes it to the king’s arbitrary whim: “Yet where the King affects, as at Agra, because it is a cytty erected by him, the buildings are (as is reported) fayre and of carved stone” (1926, 105). Roe cites the destruction of property belonging to the earlier kings as another instance of Mughal despotism. He describes the ruined city

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of Chitor, destroyed by the Mughals but containing “such reverend and brave reliques of imagerie and carved workes, that few or hardly any where can be equalled.” In his view it is the envy of Jahangir that prompts such destruction: “the King seeketh the ruine of any thing not begunne by his ancestors” (1926, 90). Roe, therefore, makes a summary judgment of the inferiority of Indian cities, stating that there are very few good buildings in Mughal India. By contrast, in his letter to La Mothe le Vayer, Bernier argues that the style of architecture of buildings depends on climatic conditions (see chapter 1). Defending Indian cities against the charge that they were inferior in beauty to European cities and buildings, he answers that the “beauties” of the latter are “suited to a cold climate,” whereas the Indian architectural design was more appropriate for a “warm climate” (see 2008a, 240). In his tolerance of difference and refusal to criticize arbitrarily, Bernier shows an acceptance of diversity that Roe’s account clearly lacks. 2.3 Corruption Roe’s most stringent critique was directed at corruption and bribery in the Mughal court. His narrative shows the entire court—from the king himself to the noblemen and employees of high rank—expecting presents. Hawkins had also earlier explained that, knowing the “custome of these Moores that without gifts and bribes nothing would either goe forward or bee accomplished” (2012, 94), he always took care to procure presents for the king and his officials before pleading for firmans. The compulsion to give presents in order to get firmans for the benefit of free trade irked Roe the most, and his letters are full of complaints about the practice, which he associates with bribery and corruption. However, we need to remember that the English were seeking a favor from the Mughal emperor in the form of trading rights in his kingdom. In India, British goods were not in demand, nor did Indians look for European traders. The eic carried on an import-oriented trade, and goods acquired in India brought immense profit when resold to European countries. So, it was in the interest of eic to procure firmans for trading facilities by paying officials. Roe evidently understood the relation between gifts and commercial benefits in diplomatic circles. As Mark Osteen notes, contemporary theorists like Marcel Mauss, Jacques Derrida, and Pierre Bourdieu argue that “all gifts arrive burdened with obligations, and hence that a truly free gift is impossible” (2002, 2; emphasis added). Mauss argues that in many societies and not just “primitive societies,” “exchanges and contracts take the form of presents,” which may appear “voluntary,” but “in reality they are given and reciprocated obligatorily” (cited in Osteen 1990, 3). Writing to the Company in 1616, Roe clarifies that “the rule is at every arrivall of a fleete the Mogol, Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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[and] the Prince during his signory in our port, will expect a formall present” (1926, 305). Examining the role of artifacts in the formation of English identities at the Mughal court and relations of power between the Mughals and the English, Nayar discusses how “particular objects play a significant role in social interaction, the negotiation of power and the engagement with the Other’s culture” (Nayar 2010, 186). However, as I shall try to show here, such objects (mostly gift items) played a similar role in almost all “negotiations of power” and exchange in Renaissance Europe, thereby emphasizing its affinity rather than difference with the Orient. It was not the royalty alone who expected presents (as Roe found to his annoyance and mortification); various officials at different levels who were in charge of procuring permissions delayed the payments for goods sold at court in order to get a share of the bargain. For instance, Roe’s quarrel with “Zulpheckcarcon” (Zulfikar Khan) about the payment of money at last brought an acknowledgement from the latter that “those royalls sent up were 2000 m. (mahmudis or silver coins after Mahmud Begada, current in 17th century Gujarat) paid in royalls to him for license to transport up our two caravans of cloth, hereby confessing the bribes playnly” (Roe 1926, 173). However, one wonders at Roe’s indignation at such payoffs, given the fact that he could not but have known that similar payments were made to officials in England. One is struck rather by similarities rather than differences in the practices of gift-giving and bribery in Jacobean England and India. Gift-giving or bribery was an established practice in England and in Europe. According to Linda Levy Peck, “Access to resources at the early Stuart court was controlled by major patrons. Access to them was often controlled by brokers” (1990, 40; italics in the original). When the king was the patron, his privy counselors and favorites acted as brokers. Of these brokers close to royalty, few were so great as Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, the father-in-law of the Earl of Somerset, King James’s favorite. After the fall of Somerset, due to several complaints, Suffolk, his wife, and an Exchequer official, Sir John Bingley, were charged with corruption in the Star Chamber. “The Suffolks and Bingley were accused of ‘bargaining, delaying, persuading, threatening etc, saying no door could be opened without a golden key.’” They expected merchants, customs farmers, courtiers, and recipients of grants to “kickback to them between 5 per cent and 15 per cent of the value of the grant” (Peck 1990, 182). Therefore, Zulfikar Khan’s admission should not have surprised Roe. Although Suffolk and one of the gift-givers, Allen Apsley, argued that the money and presents given were free gifts, or “gratuity,” “given freely without any contract,” the judges refused to accept this categorization: “if they would not have them termed extortions but gratuities, it was but to clothe a hare in a fox’s skin, and that they were but cloaks lined with bribery” (cited in Peck 1990, 182). Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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Not only were such bribes commonplace in England, but European diplomacy was characterized by payoffs. Peck categorically declares, “such expansion of official gift-giving was a fact of life of seventeenth-century Europe.” Around 1604, “Cecil ordered Parry to try to bribe French ministers, wrote to Sir Charles Cornwallis that he was thought to be bribed by the Spanish, and the English were accused of demanding payments from everyone” (Peck 1990, 40). In Roe’s Embassy, therefore, we detect an attempt to disavow a likeness which he could not but have discerned in the two societies. The text suggests a desire to displace onto the Orient, which served as a convenient traditional emblem for wantonness and corruption, all the characteristics that were perceptibly present in the Jacobean court and which might have been embarrassing for Roe to acknowledge. The ambassador portrays the Mughal court as virtually the epitome of corruption in a letter to Prince Charles: Witchcraft, sorcery, juggling, yea, all cunning that the Divell can teach, is frequent, eaven in the court, wher is wanting noe arte nor wicked subtillty to bee or doe evill; soe that, comparing the vices of some cittyes in Europe, which I once judged the treasuries and sea of synne, I find them sanctuaryes and temples in respect of these. 1926, 271

Roe’s attempt to displace corruption onto a remote land and hold it as the diametrical opposite of England complicates the process of othering and results in the demonization of the other. Roe’s meticulous effort to construct the Indian other through the set of binaries parallels what Stephen Greenblatt describes as a systematic attempt by the Spanish Bernal Díaz (who worked under Hernán Cortés), to derecognize the similarities which existed between the Spanish and the Aztec in the sixteenth century. Referring to Bernal Díaz’s The Conquest of New Spain, Greenblatt writes: The Conquest of New Spain depends upon a radical distinction between Spanish practices and Aztec practices that are disturbingly homologous. That the kingdom Bernal Díaz serves was militarily aggressive and expansionary does not inhibit his characterization of Aztec society as militarily aggressive and expansionary. That the captain he serves was systematically duplicitous does not inhibit his condemnation of Aztec duplicity. That the church he serves was ruthlessly persecuting heretics, Jews, and Moors does not inhibit his intense horror at the inhumanity of Aztec and Mayan priests. 1991, 130–131

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Greenblatt lists two distinctive discursive strategies to characterize “alterity” and self in an encounter with an alien culture. The first involves a “movement” from “radical alterity—you have nothing in common with the other—to a selfrecognition that is also a mode of self-estrangement: you are the other and the other is you.” The discursive strategy followed by Columbus and Bernal Díaz is the alternative one that provides “articulations of the radical differences that make renaming, transformation, and appropriation possible. The movement here must pass through identification to complete estrangement: for a moment you see yourself confounded with the other, but then you make the other become an alien object, a thing, that you can destroy or incorporate at will” (1991, 135). Roe’s disavowal of similarities suggests a similar strategy. Although Roe is neither in a position nor shows any desire to “appropriate” India at this time, the construction of the alien other enables him to siphon off the disturbing and negative traits of the self onto the East, which was stereotypically associated with them. In other words, he engages in the politics of disavowal and transference to present a self, purged of disturbing traits. In this connection, it would be useful to examine the image that Roe frequently uses to deflate the institution of monarchy in the East, the metaphor of the theater. I argue here that the usage of the metaphor actually undermines the sanctity of sovereignty in England, which he upholds so eagerly. 2.4 Metaphor of the Theatre In his journal, Roe repeatedly used the metaphor of the theater to characterize the Mughal court and show its contrast with the Jacobean court. The image and its associations with the various spheres of religion, literature, stage, and cartography had formed part of the Western culture for a long time. The pervasiveness and the universal implications of this image precluded its usage as a defining and distinguishing feature of the Oriental court that Roe intended. Roe especially applies the metaphor to the spectacle of Emperor Jahangir’s public display of himself in the diwan-i-am. His view of it, imaged recurrently through the metaphor of the theater, emphasizes the unreality of the vision. Hawkins’s description and tone (see above) are significantly different. Here is Roe’s first glimpse of Jahangir: The place is a great court, whither resort all sorts of people. The King sitts in a little gallery over head; ambassidors, the great men and strangers of qualety within the inmost rayle under him, raysed from the ground, covered with canopyes of velvet and silke, under foote layd with good carpetts; the meaner men representing gentry within the first rayle, the people without in a base court, but soe that all may see the King. This sitting Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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out hath soe much affinitye with a theatre—the manner of the king in his gallery; the great men lifted on a stage as actors; the vulgar below gazing on—that an easy description will informe of the place and fashion. 1926, 87; emphasis added

This sketch of Jahangir’s court is a longer and more spectacular version of Prince Parwiz’s court at Burhanpur, which Roe had first visited on the way to Agra. There, too, Roe had recourse to the image of the theater: “To discribe it [Parwiz’s court] rightly, it was like a great stage, and the Prince satt above, as the mock kings doth thear” (1926, 71; emphasis added). The term “mock kings” enhances the sense of fictiveness. Even where the image is not used explicitly, it is implicit in the narration. Teltscher rightly points out that Roe’s representation of the emperor’s birthday celebrations suggests the staging of a play, a sham spectacle, where one could not be sure whether the supposed bags of gold, silver, and other “so-called riches” against which Jahangir was weighed actually contained those materials or were mere “stage props in the spectacle” (1995, 20). “But, I must believe,” says Roe, “for they were in fardles [i.e. bags or bundles]” (1926, 379). Roe wishes to show himself as the only detached observer at such spectacles, whether by refusing to pick up the silver pieces that Jahangir throws at his noblemen or refraining from the servile gestures of reverence, like those performed by the Persian ambassador. He projects himself as the figure of “sincerity and sober reality” (Teltscher 1995, 22). Roe had an excellent opportunity to prove his point about the theatricality and the pretentiousness of the Mughal rituals when, on one of his visits, Prince Khurram (later Emperor Shah Jahan) presented the English ambassador with a dress he had worn once or twice as a mark of honor. Roe writes: “By and by came out a cloth of gould cloake of his owne, once or twice worne, which hee caused to bee putt on my back, and I made reverence, very unwillingly. When his ancester Tamerlane was represented at the theatre the garment would well have become the actor” (1926, 294). Not only does Roe liken the princely dress to cheap trumpery, he also implies that Shah Jahan is playing a role as a mock prince. Like the suggestion implicit in such images, the prince is only a shadow, a pretence of kingship. Cohn maintains that “Roe interpreted the court ritual of the Mughals in which he was required to participate as a sign of debasement rather than an act of incorporation in a substantive fashion, which made him a companion of the ruler” (1997, 18). Although Roe might have misunderstood the implications of the court ritual of gift-giving that led to his undervaluation of Prince Khurram’s gift, his attempt at deflation of the status of the prince by the theatrical associations

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evoked by the gift was conscious and deliberate. Cohn’s interpretation suggests that Roe’s failure to understand the Oriental court ritual leads to his mockery of the royal gesture. But I would contend that it gave him an opportunity to extend his theatrical metaphor to areas other than hierarchical arrangements of positioning at court and enabled him to reinforce the sense of the unreality and fakeness that he seeks to show is pervasive in the Mughal court. Ironically, however, the theatrical metaphor had been associated with England’s king as well. The London theater satirized not only Oriental monarchs but also James i and his court. While Roe laughed at Jahangir’s ancestors being represented and derided on the English stage, he could not have remained ignorant of the stage mockery of King James’s predilection for knighting his Scottish subjects, in plays like Eastward Ho (1605), which led to the imprisonment of Roe’s friend Ben Jonson and George Chapman. That English monarchs were also represented on stage sometimes and not necessarily on complimentary terms ironically undercuts the purport of Roe’s analogy. Moreover, Roe’s selection of a metaphor which was common in religious treatises, literature, stage, cartography, and cosmography and generally applied to the world itself served to undercut his exclusionist representation of the other. The concept of the world as a stage derived from classical philosophy and reappeared in Christian sources. St Augustine viewed the material world as a theatrical spectacle. In the early modern period, the image lost its religious associations and became more secularized. The metadramatic images in Elizabethan drama applied the concept of role-playing to the entirety of humankind. Jacques’s speech on the Seven Ages of Man in As You Like It (1599) is an oft-quoted instance: “All the world’s a stage, / And all the men and women merely players” (Shakespeare 1975, ii.vii. 139–140; 55–56). The theater of the world also was an image widely used in cartography and cosmography. For instance, the English cartographer John Speed’s atlas The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine (1610/11) represents the British empire as a theater comprising England, Scotland, Wales, and parts of Ireland. Gerard Mercator’s 1636 Atlas has a frontispiece recognizably featuring the architecture of the open theater of the public stage. The divine audience at the top comprises the sun, the moon, and the stars, and sages discussing the globe, with Atlas at the top of the central portion, bearing the armillary sphere. The frontispiece emphasizes the contrast between the celestial audience on a higher plane and the earthly inhabitants of the human globe. The similarity between cartographic visuals and the Elizabethan and Jacobean theater’s architectural structure is evident. Noting its cartographic structure, Gilles writes: “No less than the first Renaissance atlas, then, it [the Globe theater] represents a prototypically Renaissance idea of ‘a theatre of

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the world’” (1994, 91), which is expressed very appropriately in what has been claimed as the motto of the Globe, Totus mundus agit histrionem. Since the world as the theater is a concept found in various realms of seventeenthcentury life, the universal significance of the image undermines its selective application that Roe attempts. Moreover, it is ironic that the theatre image, which Roe uses to denigrate the Mughal court, was one widely used to characterize courts in Europe as well. The Elizabethan and Jacobean courts were no exception. Both Elizabeth and James used pageants, progresses, and court masques as show businesses to exhibit the power, wealth, and prestige of the court. As Greenblatt says, “royal power is manifested to its subjects as in a theatre, and the subjects are at once absorbed by the instructive, delightful, or terrible spectacles, and forbidden intervention or deep intimacy” (1995, 44). Display is the essence of theatricality. The theater of monarchy in the seventeenth century was indeed one without borders, for European and Oriental monarchs alike depended on visibility and display to awe their subjects. Although James was conscious of the discomforts of being perennially in the public eye, he had probably realized that it was a necessary evil for a monarch who wished to have privacy while simultaneously desiring the attention of his subjects: “kings being publicke persons, by reason of their office and authority, are as it were set upon a publicke stage, in the sight of all the people” (2012, 5; emphasis added). While a royal court was meant to distance royalty from the populace, the show was put up specifically to impress the latter. Roe’s use of the theater image has received extensive critical attention. According to Teltscher, “Roe’s representation of the Mughal court as a theatrical sham presided over by ‘Mock Kings’, does not so much raise doubts about the nature of kingship, as legitimate the court of Roe’s own sovereign— King James” (1995, 22). Jonathan G. Harris states that Roe “used metaphors of theatre” chiefly to “underscore his conviction that what he saw in India was somehow fraudulent or deceptive. Mughal power, in his view, was a dubious form of theatrical imposture” (2015, 197). Both noblemen and gentry appear as puppets, playing their role as well as the audience. “For Roe, ‘Mock kings’ were both theatrical counterfeits of kings and real kings who make a mockery of their status by surrounding themselves with mere stage properties— canopies, carpets” (Harris 2015, 197). On his first visit to the emperor’s court in Ajmere, he describes the spectacle as an ethnographer. By removing himself “from the frame of the scene he describes,” where spatial positioning of bodies (Jahangir’s body is positioned above other bodies in the scene) determines the deployment of power, Roe “grants himself a sovereign power as ethnographer” (see Harris 2012, 137). He poses as the detached, discerning observer, viewing

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the spectacle with amused scorn and with a comforting sense of his power of deciphering reality. However, I would argue that this attempt at equating himself with the superior observer of the Oriental theater is belied by the eagerness Roe sometimes demonstrates to be part of the show. Forgetting the role that he had designed for himself and unaware of the contradiction, he vies with others for a position in the unreal theater of the Mughal court. The journal entry on 26 March 1616, for instance, relates the ambassador’s visit to the ‘Gusell Channe’ assembly (ghusl-khana, “a bath-room;” “used by some of the Great Mughals as a place of private audience,” Yule and Burnell 1994, 388) of Jahangir, and a quarrel with Asaf Khan,8 the elder brother of Nur Jahan, the favorite and most powerful queen of Emperor Jahangir, about the place which Roe could legitimately occupy. Nur Jahan, Asaf Khan, and Prince Khurram formed the dominant faction at Janhangir’s court and were responsible for making important decisions. Asaf Khan wanted to use his power to remove the ambassador from a place of eminence in the assembly, which the latter had chosen. He objected to Roe’s standing alone near the king and asked him to stand with the other noblemen. But the ambassador declined and, despite threats, retained his ground. Eventually he went and stood beside Prince Khurram and the young Rajput Ranna, deciding that “if I must rancke, I would rancke with the best” (1926, 133). Despite being convinced of the emptiness of the charade, therefore, Roe is not averse to playing a role in the drama, albeit one that he deems appropriate rather than the one that is designed for him by Asaf Khan. His intent was to score a victory over the influential Mughal nobleman. Therefore, the image that he calls up here is not that of a detached metatheatrical commentator, or an Asper figure in Every Man Out of His Humour, but a fully committed actor, challenging his position in the power contest that was being staged at the Mughal court. Shorn of his neutrality and objectivity, therefore, Roe loses his moral authority to comment on the unreality of the spectacle in which he participates. Moreover, as Richmond Barbour points out, Roe’s own precarious existence at the Mughal court required him to engage in theatrical display to justify his presence: “Roe’s bid to impress Moghul India depended, like his 8 Asaf Khan’s daughter, Mumtaz Mahal, was the chief queen to Prince Khurram, later crowned as Emperor Shah Jahan. As the Vakil, or highest administrative officer of Emperor Jahangir, Asaf Khan was entrusted with the duty of writing and sanctioning various firmans for the English and had been initially involved in quarrels with Roe. Roe later understood that he could not alienate their group and carry on eic trade successfully, so he made overtures of peace and ultimately was able to negotiate with Asaf Khan so that the prospects of eic trade improved.

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identity as the true ambassador from a country of consequence, on rhetorical and theatrical demonstration” (1998, 345). It is surprising, therefore, that he should select the theatrical image for denigrating India as fake and unreal. According to Barbour, it is his fear that he himself might be targeted as “a maker of useless shows” that induced Roe to ironize and mock Indian shows (Barbour 2007, 178). In my view, his own and his monarch’s involvement in theatricality calls into question the appropriateness of applying the theater as a metaphor of unreality exclusively to the East. Not only do the actual conditions in Jacobean England belie the validity of the opposition that Roe designs and suggest an underlying affinity in place of difference, but the pervasiveness of the image (that he uses as a vehicle of differentiation) in the Western world undermines the agenda itself. 3

Mughal Festivities and Show of Riches: Roe and Bernier

The Europeans viewed the celebrations of festivals at the Mughal court as a show of wealth and grandeur. In October 1616, Roe wrote to Prince Charles “In jewells (which is one of his felicityes) hee is the treasury of the world, buyeing all that comes, and heaping rich stones as if hee would rather build then weare them” (1926, 270; emphasis added). As a man of discerning taste, Roe seeks to belittle the grandeur and signify the inanity of the emperor’s wealth and his lack of taste and cultivation. Metaphors like “heaping” and “building” jewels suggest crassness rather than show good taste and discretion in “wearing” them. While Roe cannot deny the Mughal court riches and splendor, he detracts by critiquing taste, judgment, and morality. Roe’s description of the celebration of Parsee ‘Narose’ or New Year’s Day provides a useful example. Standing within a little rail before the king’s throne in the richly decorated canopy, Roe “had leysure to veiw the inward roome and the bewty therof; which I confesse was rich, but of so divers peices and so unsuteable that it was rather patched then glorious, as if it seemed to strive to show all, like a ladie that with her plate sett on a cupboord her imbrodered slippers” (1926, 127). His well-chosen adjectives and the comic analogy emphasize incongruity, discord, and a lack of taste and beauty. From criticizing the flamboyance, Roe moves to questioning the morality of the display of material wealth. He witnessed the show of wealth and jewels, rich gifts being given to the king by nobles who were advanced consequentially, the presents of silver and gold offered by the son of the Rana

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of Udaipur, Jahangir’s “new tributary” (1926, 127), followed by a show of elephants, and performance by some dancing girls, whom Roe called “whoores,” criticizing the immorality of the atmosphere. Roe comments on the transience of the show of wealth and glory: “Sic transit gloria mundi” (1926, 128). Roe’s descriptive strategy here is reductive rather than “intensificatory,” as claimed by Nayar (2004, 13). 3.1 François Bernier’s Account Bernier’s description of the court on days of rejoicings is not condemnatory like Roe’s. On the contrary, he remarks: “Never did I witness a more extraordinary scene.” His depiction of the am-kas in his letter to Monsieur de la Mothe Le Vayer, as it appeared “on the occasion of the rejoicings” “after the termination of the war,” focuses on the king’s “most magnificent attire” and a report of the peacock throne. (2008a, 268). He draws attention to the king’s “turban of gold cloth” with “an aigrette whose base was composed of diamonds of an extraordinary size and value, besides an Oriental topaz, which may be pronounced unparalleled, exhibiting a lustre like the sun” (2008a, 268). The superlatives are marked by an absence of Roe’s skepticism. The throne had, as Bernier writes, six “massy feet, said to be of solid gold, sprinkled over with rubies, emeralds, and diamonds.” In his estimation, the value of the throne, sporting “a confusion of diamonds” and other precious stones, was four crores of rupees, amounting to “sixty millions of pounds [livres] or thereabouts” (2008a, 268–269). Tavernier has a more accurate and precise description of the parts of the peacock throne and estimates it at “one hundred and sixty millions five hundred thousand livres of our money” (Appendix Bernier 2008a, 473). Neither Tavernier’s nor Bernier’s description is condemnatory, and both seek to convey the impression of precision and care. However, Bernier does indicate a lack of tasteful execution at times. Like Roe’s comment, the phrase “confusion of diamonds” (quoted above) suggests disharmony and lack of artistry, just as Bernier’s denigration of “the construction and workmanship of the throne,” being “not worthy of the materials,” suggests a lack of skill on the part of the Indian craftsmen. However, Bernier judges the two peacocks, which were designed by a Frenchman who had duped European princes with fake jewels and fled to the Mughal court, as “well-conceived and executed” (2008a, 269). While emphasizing the wealth and riches of the Mughal court, Bernier sometimes detects a lack of skill and artistry in the craftsmen. However, later in the same letter, Bernier describes the progress of Mughal princesses and ladies of noble birth in a way that shows his enjoyment of the

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grandeur of the show. He does not find such sights as lacking in aesthetic beauty either: Je ne serais m’êmpecher de vous dire que dans ce voyage j’ai pris un singulier plaisir à considérer cette pompeuse marche du sérail. En effet, on ne peut concevoir rien de plus superbe que de voir Raushanara Begum marcher la première, montée sur un grand éléphant de Pegu dans un mikdember tout éclatant d’or et d’azur, suivie par cinq ou six éléphants avec des mikdembers presque aussi éclatants que le sien, pleins des principales officières de sa maison, quelques eunuques des plus importants bien vêtus et montés à l’avantage à ses côtés, la canne à la main…. 2008b, 386

Not only does Bernier profess to take a remarkable pleasure at the sight of the Princess Roshanara’s colorful procession through the streets, his choice of words like “plus superbe,” the reiteration of “éclatant” and later “grand et de royal,” and “magnificence” suggests his wonder at the grandeur of the show. Constable’s translation is prolific in the use of stronger superlatives, like “stupendous” (instead of “grand”), “blazing” and “resplendent” (instead of éclatant); the depiction suggests that he seeks to convey the tone of the original in his description. The entire spectacle seemed to Bernier to be indicative of royalty and stateliness: There is something very impressive of state and royalty in the march of these sixty or more elephants; in their solemn and, as it were, measured steps; in the splendour of the Mikdembers, and the brilliant and innumerable followers in attendance. 2008a, 373

Analyzing his own reaction to the scene, Bernier avers that such sights might inspire poetic imagination, had it not been for his philosophical indifference: et si je n’eusse regardé cette magnificence avec une espèce d’indifférence philosophique, je ne sais si je ne me serais pas laissé aller à ces sentiments extravagants de la plupart des poètes indiens qui veulent que tous ces éléphants portent autant de déesses cachées. 2008b, 388

If not for his philosophic equanimity, he would have indulged in “flights of imagination” like the Indian poets (2008a, 373), who felt that the elephants

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Roshanara Begum From John Ogilby, Asia

carried some goddesses. We perceive, therefore, a distinction between the English ambassador’s attitude towards the Mughal court and that of the French doctor, philosopher, and free-thinker who refrains from reiterating stereotypes when writing to an audience of similar-minded people. While Roe critiques the splendor of the Mughal court, Bernier is clearly impressed by it.

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European Witnesses to the Weighing Ceremonies of the Emperors: Roe, Coryat, Terry, and Thévenot

The weighing ceremony of the Mughal emperors was a customary practice which had been in vogue for a long time. The cover illustration shows Akbar being weighed against bales, which presumably contained material of value. Significantly, Akbar’s fairly simple dress and lack of jewels and precious stones in the painting suggest a god-fearing and unostentatious disposition. By contrast, his descendants indulge in a show of wealth and splendor, as we see in the descriptions of the Europeans. In September 1617, Roe witnessed the event of the weighing ceremony on Emperor Jahangir’s birthday. The site for the ceremony was a large and beautiful garden, in the midst of which there was a “pinacle,” which displayed the scales for weighing. Roe describes them as “hung in large tressels,” the “crosse beame plated on with gold thinne, the scales of massie gold, the borders set with small stones, rubies and turkey [i.e. turquoises], the chaines of gold large and massie, but strengthened with silke cords” (1926, 378). Roe doubted the spectacle since the items against which the emperor was weighed were not visible, and the ceremony was invested with fakeness and theatricality (see above discussion). Moreover, Roe’s description of the king and the ceremony is fraught with irony as characterized by vanity, show, and vainglory. He appears here as a zealous Protestant, sermonizing on the inanity of earthly glory. The king is portrayed as “clothed, or rather loden, with diamonds, rubies, pearles, and other precious vanities, so great, so glorious!” (1926, 378; emphasis added). The laudatory attributes “great” and “glorious” with the added modifier “so” are patently ironical, coupled with the preceding oxymoron “precious vanities.” The word “loden” is carefully chosen to demonstrate the impropriety of heaping jewels on oneself without regard for decorum and taste. The motif of inappropriateness runs as an undercurrent throughout the entire portrayal, yet dual signals are sent with the reference to “rubies as great as wal-nuts (some greater), and pearles such as mine eyes were amazed at” (1926, 379). Here Roe’s contempt at the display of worldly wealth appears to vie with his amazement at its magnitude, and the contending emotions suggest a duality in the reaction of the ambassador, one which was clearly not apparent to him. In contrast to Roe, Coryat, who visited the Mughal court out of curiosity, leaves a brief and straightforward account of the ceremony. His account shows freedom from the skepticism and doubt of the ambassador:

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his [Jahangir’s] nativitie daie having beene celebrated with wonderfull pompe since my arrivall here; for that daie he weighed himselfe in a paire of golden scales, which by great chance I saw the same day (a custome that he observeth most inviolablie every year) laying so much golde in the other scale as countervaileth the weight of his body, and the same he afterward distributed to the poore. 2012, 245

Roe’s chaplain’s account is expectedly more critical of the show of wealth and grandeur and is especially ominous in presaging doom. Like Roe, Terry sounds slightly doubtful about the “jewels” the king was weighed against. He modifies “after that against jewels” by the familiar qualifier “as they say” (“then was he weighed against gold; after that against jewels, as they say”), and he implicitly corroborates Roe’s account of the emperor’s being weighed against silken bags, which evidently contained things hidden from sight (see 1777, 377). More characteristic of the clergyman, however, is his use of biblical analogues, which focus on the immorality of display and ostentation: “When I saw him in the ballance, I thought on Belshazzar, who was found too light, Dan. 5.27” (1777, 377). According to Daniel, chapter 5, as Bel-shazzar feasted and drank wine out of the vessels brought from the “temple of the house of God” (5:3) the writing that appeared “against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the king’s palace” (5:5) was “MĔˊNE, MĔˊNE̱ , TĔˊKĔL, Ṳ-PHÄRˊSĬN” (5:25) Daniel interprets “TĔˊKĔL” as “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting” (5:27).Terry thinks that the “weight” of the riches and wealth of a mighty king like Jahangir cannot compensate for his moral “lightness.” Like the powerful Bel-shazzar, the “great Mogol” is found “wanting” spiritually. The Bel-shazzar reference also extends to the interpretation of MĔˊNE as “God hath numbered thy kingdom, and finished it” (Daniel 5:26). In like vein, Terry pronounces his sentence on the Mughal kingdom and the transience of earthly glory. Unlike Terry, the French traveler Thévenot does not morally denounce the show of grandeur but demonstrates skepticism about the reality of the claims. Although his book was published in 1684, the journey on which his account is based was undertaken in 1666–1667. He had reached the Surat Bar in January 1666 and “sailed for Bandar Abbas in February 1667 en route to France” (Sen 1949, xix). However, writing several years after Roe, during Aurangzeb’s reign, Thévenot appears as skeptical as the Englishman of the weighing ceremony. In fact, his disbelief might well have derived from Roe, for he draws a similar distinction between hearsay and proven fact. “They say that

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the Chains are of Gold, and the two Scales … appear likewise to be of Gold, as the Beam of the Balance does also … though some affirm that all is but Guilt.” The difference between appearance and reality is enhanced by verbs related to hearsay, “they say” and “some affirm” (emphasis added). It is all conjecture because nobody knows for sure. The king is weighed against bales, “so closely packt, that one cannot see what is within them” (67). Thévenot elaborates: The People are made believe, that these little bales (which are often changed,) are full of Gold, Silver and Jewels, or of Rich Stuffs; and the Indians tell Strangers so, when they would brag of their Country, then they weigh the King with a great many things that are good to eat; and I believe that what is within the Bales, is not a whit more Pretious. 1949, 67; emphasis added except in “Indians”

It is a world of make-believe, of appearances and seeming, of pretence and falsehood: “when one is at the Solemnity, he must make as if he believed all that is told him” (1949, 67). Just as Roe sought to emphasize the unreality and pretention of kingship and greatness in India, Thévenot’s account recreates the aura of doubt and illusoriness. However, the European insistence on the evidence of sight for everything goes against the Indian system of reliance on tradition, reputation, and belief. The emperor was not expected to deceive his subjects about the money or the gifts he was distributing among them. Nor was he required to provide proof of the extent of his generosity. Moreover, that Aurangzeb’s revenue was probably more than ten times that of Thévenot’s sovereign makes it all the more unlikely that the emperor would choose to deceive his subjects about the gold and silver he wished to distribute among them once a year. The French traveler’s skepticism suggests perhaps a similarity in the reactions of a particular class of Europeans towards the Orient. Significantly, Ovington, who was writing in the late seventeenth century, was one of the very few European writers who did not seek to trivialize the grandeur and authority of the Mughals. He seeks to draw a parallel between the riches of Asia and the grandeur of the Asian, especially Indian, monarchs: “And as the Riches and extent of Asia surpass the other Quarters of the World; so has it rais’d its Monarchs to a point of Grandeur equally glorious and Renown’d” (1690, 166). 5

Barbarity and the Mughal Court

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with a taste for blood, and therefore with barbarity. Hawkins relates how the emperor in a capricious and willful manner caused the injury and death of a brave Pathan who had desired employment at court, as well as several other brave watchmen in his employ, by asking them to grapple with a fierce, wild lion, while watching the cruel sport with evident enjoyment (2012, 110–111). Similarly, in a letter to the archbishop, Roe charged the emperor of watching the “execution done by his eliphants” on condemned criminals “with too much delight in blood” (1926, 104). Apart from Jahangir’s taste for blood, Roe perceives barbarity in the way the king moved from one place to another at certain periods. Accustomed to seeing a settled capital city like London and a royal palace, which was the fixed abode of James i, he found it strange that the Mughal emperor should move around the country sometimes and come back to his palace at Agra afterwards: I am yet followeing this wandering King over mountaynes and thorough woods, so strange and unused wayes that his owne people, who almost know no other god, blaspheame his name and hers that (it is said) conducts all his actions. Ther is noe hope wee can settle any where this ten weekes. 1926, 337

Although Roe lays the blame for “wandering” entirely on the fickleness of Queen Nur Jahan, Jahangir probably took these sorties to discipline the recalcitrant kings and feudal retainers on the fringes of his empire. On 18 January 1617, Roe was forced to camp under a tree until he found his tents by midnight because the king had made his way through woods, passing between two mountains, and the baggage was left behind (see 1926, 338–339). He refers to the ruler of the land, which was full of bandits, as “a Raja that desiers not to see the King” (1926, 339). Although some of the Raja’s men were caught and punished, the “strongest keept the mountaynes.” To punish the Raja, the king set fire to the town and appointed a new governor to the kingdom “to reedefye and repeople it and reduce it to civilitye.” Roe uses Tacitus as a supporting testimony: “nam neque quies gentium sine armis, neque arma sine stipendiis, neque stipendia sine tributis, haberi queant,” translated as “For neither can the tranquillity of nations be obtained without armies, nor armies without pay, nor pay without taxes” (1926, 339, n2, 339), suggesting that only a stable army and taxation produced by a settled government and laws can produce peace and stability in nations. Although Roe here suggests that Jahangir’s mission was one of securing governance and civilization (“reduce it to civilitye”), the very notion of a wandering state probably suggests to him a nomadic existence. Classical Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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historiography had emphasized the periodic invasion of the civilized Roman empire by nomadic and barbaric tribes—whether the Germanic tribes, the Huns, or the Tartars—who were nevertheless efficient warriors. Nomadic as opposed to sedentary existence suggested barbarity. Although the Mughal empire did have a settled court, Roe’s critique of the lack of durable and spacious houses of noblemen, who, despite the magnificence of their tents, lacked the security of private property to build houses, and the periodic movements of Jahangir appeared to point towards the unsettled existence of his ancestor, Timur Lang. Roe’s purpose was to contrast the lack of permanence and stability of the Mughal empire with the English kingdom. The European representations of the Mughal court, despite conceding its splendor and wealth, by and large sought to invest it with unreality, fakeness, and immorality. Similarly, the lawlessness of the Oriental kingdoms, the despotism and barbarity of Oriental monarchs, and the slavery of the subjects were long-standing stereotypes, which many of the travelogues perpetuated. Roe’s critique set the tone for many that followed in his wake. In some cases, the travelers were guilty of misrepresentation. Moreover, while critiquing the Mughal court, they often forgot to take into account the presence of similar conditions in the European courts, indicating acts of omission or deliberate denial of correspondence. That many of the narratives, like Roe’s Embassy, seek to present the self and other through a set of binaries, overlooking the affinities that exist in both, appears as an important trend in Western travel writing of the period and may be said to anticipate the colonial construction. However, the works of a few free-thinkers and liberals of the Enlightenment, like Bernier and Ovington, who chose not to go by convention demonstrate perceptivity and readiness to accept difference.9 9 The part of this chapter which discusses Thomas Roe is based on a revised version of my article “Thomas Roe and the Two Courts of Emperor Jahangir and King James,” published in Études Anglaises 70.2 (2017) (147–166). I thank the journal for granting permission to reprint.

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Chapter 3

India: A Seventeenth-Century Trading Destination From the very beginning, the English found India a lucrative trading destination. And generally their first impression of Mughal India was that it consisted of prosperous cities with markets full of merchandise from various countries. Even before the eic came into being, Ralph Fitch, one of the early travelers who came to India during the time of Emperor Akbar, wrote: “Betweene Agra and Fatepore are 12 miles, and all the way is a market of victuals and other things, as full as though a man were still in a towne, and so many people as if a man were in a market…. Hither is great resort of marchants from Persia and out of India, and very much marchandise of silke and cloth, and of precious stones, both rubies, diamants, and pearles” (2012, 18). Fitch’s picture shows us a flourishing trade with local, national, and international commercial activities going on. Evidently, India would have appeared as a desirable trading destination for an English merchant. This chapter relates the progression of eic trade in India and the changing perspectives on India as a trading nation. At the initial stage, the profitability of East Indian trade is assessed in the context of bullion drain. The high demand for Indian goods in Europe, as well as the prosperous state of intra-Asian trade and India’s dominant role in it, establishes the superiority of the condition of commerce in India and contradicts the charge of rampant corruption and absence of free trade in India, as leveled by Roe. As eic trade flourishes and becomes connected with colonization in Madras and Bombay, the use of force to drive trade is debated. However, the show of force by the English turns out to be counter-productive, reducing the English to extremities in Bombay, thus disproving the notion of the superiority of Western powers. 1

Profitability of Indian Trade

India presented an anomalous situation with regard to the phenomena of equal and fair trade, as the English conceived these. Although they had at first assumed that their broadcloth would sell in India, they found that it had no market. They soon realized that equal exchange of exports and imports would not work in India because English goods did not find a market in India, and it became increasingly apparent that it would be an import-oriented trade. Initially a relatively upbeat Roe had informed the monarch that trade was good

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in India. At this time, he had expected that direct trade in India would grow: “The trade here will doubtlesse in tyme bee very profitable for Your Majesties kingdomes, and may vent much cloth” (1926, 102). But a disillusioned Roe writes in a letter to the Company on 24 November 1616 that “cloth, lead, teath, quicksilver are dead comodytyes, and will never drive this trade” (1926, 305). The profitability of Indian trade was a crucial issue that was persistently mooted during the seventeenth century. As we see from Roe’s description, the early optimism about English goods vending in India soon faded, and they realized that the eic would have to buy merchandise with silver. In some ways, therefore, the East Indian trade was an anomaly, for it violated the equalexchange norm of the contemporary period, and yet, as we see, it generated profit for the Company. The impossibility of vending English goods in India made it undesirable for England to trade with India because of persistent bullion drain. The export of silver to buy Indian goods featured as a loss to the economy. This was realized soon after the trading enterprise began. The central premise of the orthodox economic thought of the time was that “a major goal of national economic policy should be the acquisition of precious metals.” England was expected to enhance her gold and silver reserves by trade. “One group of critics of the Company’s practices maintained that no international transactions should be encouraged unless they promised to generate an immediate enlargement of the national stock of treasure” (Barber 1975, 11). Therefore, a trade that involved the transport of silver from England would expectedly generate acrimonious debate. In the second decade of the seventeenth century, for instance, ambassador Roe, who was striving to get a firman from Emperor Jahangir, was unsure of the trade and suggested that it would continue if it could be sustained by the sale of English goods. In a letter to James i, Roe advises: If I finde by one yeares experience more that this trade may bee made, by vent of the comodities of Your Majesties kingdom or by the industrye of your subjects from divers ports, without greater exports of mony or bullion then Europe is able to beare, considering how many wayes it bleedeth to enrich Asia, I wilbee bould to confirme in Your Majesties name the treaty already begunn, and to add to yt some other conditions which shall as well make it profitable for Your Majesties estates as easy for your subjects. 1926, 464

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and even extends his boundaries to include Europe. Asian trade, in his view, results in Europe’s loss. Despite the export of silver, however, there were advantages to the East Indian trade that rendered it profitable. Writing his defense of the East Indian trade in 1621, Thomas Mun shows how much money was saved by buying pepper, spices, and other material in India and South Asia at a very low price. Before the East Indian trade, English and European consumers used to send money to Turkey to buy the same merchandise and paid much more, England losing more “ready moneyes” in that way. Showing the difference in the total costs of the goods, Mun argues that “the buying of the said quantitie of Raw-silkes, Indico, and Spices, may be performed in the Indies, for neare one third part of the ready moneyes, which were accustomed to be sent into Turkey to prouide the same” (Mun 1969, 12). The import of necessary goods from India, therefore, reduced the money, which was spent in imports from other countries. More importantly, EIC’s trade with India generated profit by sale of imported Indian goods in other countries, especially European countries. Mun emphasizes the point about profit resulting from such sale: “Forasmuch therefore as it is well knowne to many men, that monyes are thus procured by the Sales of Indian wares to profit, in the partes of Turkey, and at Ligorne, Genoway, the Netherlands, Marcellis, and other places.” So ultimately, the profit from the East Indian wares generated money: “the sayd India wares had their finall end in moneies” (Mun 1969, 28). The silver that had been transported from the country was returned to it with a large interest. These facts became more than apparent with the passage of time. In a later treatise, “England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade” (1664), Mun emphasizes the gain to England that accrues from East Indian trade. Not only does foreign trade in distant lands increase England’s shipping and provide employment to mariners, but it also results in profit because “we transport yearly unto divers other Nations to be sold at a higher price: whereby it is plain, that we make a far greater stock by gain upon these Indian Commodities, than those Nations doe where they grow, and to whom they properly appertain, being the natural wealth of their Countries” (1928, 10). Many others effectively countered the argument regarding bullion drain and impoverishment of England. Towards the end of the seventeenth century, Robert Ferguson writes: “The Exports of the Company in one year, as it was in the end of Anno 1674, and beginning of Anno 1675, may be about 430 thousand pounds, whereof about 320 thousand pounds in Bullion, and about 110 thousand pounds value in Cloth, and other Goods.” The “Returns” of the voyage brought home calico, pepper, saltpeter, indigo, silk, wrought-silks, and some drugs, which, Ferguson assesses, could be sold in England for “860 thousand Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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pounds” and more, which amounts to double the sum of 430 thousand pounds exported (see Ferguson 1677, 7). The extended title of Ferguson’s treatise itself indicates that the tract or the “Letter” was in the form of an argument showing “The East India Trade a most Profitable Trade to the Kingdom.” It was an answer to two “Letters lately published, insinuating the Contrary,” or which “insinuated” that East Indian trade was unprofitable. According to Ferguson’s calculation, some of these imported goods, roughly equaling the value of “200 to 230, or 240 thousand pounds” worth of goods, would be consumed in England. “All the rest of the Returns above mentioned, amounting in value to 630 thousand pounds, or thereabouts, are Transported to Foreign Markets, as also most part of the private Trade” (1677, 9). Similarly, Thomas Bowrey, a private merchant, proclaimed that “great quantities” of muslin and calico were transported to England for domestic consumption. But, in addition: great Stores are transported and Vended into most places of note in India, Persia, Arabia, China, and the South Seas, more Expecialy to Moneela one of the Molucca Isles, belongeinge to the Kinge of Spaine, but are Sent thither in the name and Under the Colours of The Portugals borne and bred in India, noe others beinge admitted a free trade thither.” 1905: 5

Ferguson declares that the profitability of the resale of Indian goods is immense and generates nearly a hundred percent profit: As there was carried out from England to India, about 420 thousand pounds in Bullion; so there is transported from England into Foreign Countreys, of Goods brought from India, the value of 830 thousand pounds; which with the profit arising thereupon to English-men, amounts to 890 thousand pounds…. There must undeniably be 470 thousand pounds in Bullion brought in, and added to the Treasure of the Kingdom every year, by the India Trade … over and above the benefit of all the India Commodities spent and consumed in the Kingdom…. And thus the sending out of our Treasure encreaseth it, whereas to coop it up, would render it wholly useless.” 1677, 12; italics in the original

Apart from the resale of goods procured from India, the imported goods effected large-scale savings on such essential goods as pepper. “The Pepper I reckon at 8 d. the pound; and it is the most necessary Spice, and of that use, that Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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in former times it hath sold for 3 sh. 4d. the pound: It is not to be had but from India.” In the absence of the East Indian trade, the country would have had to buy it from the Dutch, who would inevitably have raised its price. At around 16d. per pound, Ferguson calculates, “it would be annually a further expence and charge to the Nation of at least six thousand pounds” (1677, 9). Similarly, procuring Italian and French silks at almost “treble the price of India-Silks” would result in an additional charge to the nation of about 20 thousand pounds annually (Ferguson 1677, 10). The amount, thus saved by Indian exports, was a gain from East Indian trade. The profit generated by resale showed the high demand for Indian goods in the European markets and the success of India in producing goods for consumption all over the world. If Roe had found that it was a one-sided trade, it only showed Indian superiority in production and skill. The English found that intra-Asian trade was in a flourishing state, for they could easily join Asian merchants and vend goods from India in other Asian countries, get goods from there, and then sell them in India or take them home for consumption. Roe’s complaints about the baseness of trading conditions in India did not hold water. The profitability of Indian trade appeared to have dawned even on Roe later during his tenure, when, despite his objection to bullion drain, he no longer advised his Company to withdraw from India. Towards the end of his tenure in India, Roe gives his informed assessment to the Company about the profitability of specific goods and market conditions in various places: My opinion of cloth yow find in many places. Kersies are more uncerteyne sale. Some are of opinion white Devonshires would sell, as beeing a light and fine cloth. I dare not advise in any thing upon hopes of these people, except such as I see ordinarie vent or use. Lead you have furnished for five years. Tynn is good ware in Persia, and fynds but easy marketts here. Teeth will yearly sell to a small quantetie; by reprisall and specie from England I suppose here is enough for three years. Corall will give yow reasonable profitt, and not lie upon your hands, except the merchant of Suratt prohibitt your sale; which hee endeavoreth, but I have answered: if wee cannot sell, hee shall not bring in…. Spices sell to good profitt…. I wish wee had yearly 100 tunns pepper, 40 of cloves, 20 of mace, and 20 of nutmegs…. Ther is no complaynt by the Mogolls subjects that wee buy not their commoditie, but contrarie, that wee buy so much that their owne merchants want for the Red Sea. I knowe it true. Wee have raysd the price of all wee deale in, and now wee feare the Dutch will make it woorse. 1926, 450–451

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Roe has acquired practical knowledge regarding the few commodities that sell well, like coral and spices, which they brought from Indonesia and other places. The English traders engaged in intra-Asian trade supplied ports of India with merchandise from Indonesia, Ceylon, and other places and sold Indian goods in these places, both transactions involving profit. The competition between European powers raised the price of Indian goods, as Roe points out. But the competition also serves to demonstrate how coveted Indian and Asian goods were. 2

Impediments to eic Trade and Complaints of Corruption

The loss of silver (as discussed above) was not the only problem the eic employees encountered. There were other difficulties that the eic faced at the early stage in Indian trade, like denial of permission to build factories and refusal of trade agreements that they desired. We learned of Roe’s tribulations in acquiring a firman at the time the Company was seeking a foothold in the country. After a meeting with the king at the Diwan-i-khas on 26 March 1616, it was agreed that he should send a copy of his demands to Asaf Khan, who would consider them and, if they were found just and proper, they would be granted. Roe’s demands mostly aimed at facilitating good trading conditions for the English in India. They pertained to the prevention of forcible or unlawful seizure of goods or exactions from any eic employee, and prohibition against petty indignities offered to the English, like the presents sent by the king of England being opened and searched. Moreover, in the interest of free and peaceful trade, Roe demanded that when the ships came the people would be allowed to go aboard or stand outside and buy and sell goods undisturbed, and that after the duties were paid at the port the English goods might be freely transported anywhere in the country or sold at their price without intervention by the officials or the governor. Similarly, goods bought by the Company should have a right of safe passage until arrival at the port from which they were to be shipped, where after payment of the agreed customs duties “three per cento and a half for goods reasonably rated and two per cento for rialls of eight” (137), the English should be allowed to transport the goods out of the country (see Roe 1926, 134–137). There was also a demand related to the Portuguese, which bespoke the rivalry and the hostility between the two European powers. The Company, according to Roe, was ready to enter into a league of peace with the Portuguese in the interest of peaceful and free trade. But if the latter refused this league

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of peace and amity, “it shalbe lawfull for the said English on the seas as well to chastice the stubbornes of an obstinat enemie to peace, as alsoe to requite any robberyes made by them, in taking any of their shipps, boates, or goods, without any offence to the said great King of India” (Roe 1926, 137). However, Roe failed to get his demands. Asaf Khan refused to sign them on the grounds that they were “unreasonable” (1926, 138). Roe’s complaints against trade in India often included complaints against rival European states, which suggested competition and bickering among European powers for trading privileges in a land that offered coveted goods for consumption and sale. The difficulties of acquiring firmans and trade agreements were compounded by problems of corruption and bribery. Roe’s complaints about corruption in India were frequent. According to him, it was the arbitrary process of governance that set in motion rampant bribery and corruption. Roe implicitly attributed the difficulty of acquiring a firman to the corrupt process. In October 1616, he wrote of the difficulty of the survival of the English Company in India by suggesting that Jahangir’s rule was uncertain and bred evil consequences. For instance, the governor of Surat created difficulties for the English about landing goods on the ground that his present was not good enough. His complaint was “his present was little: that the Portugalls in one frigatt gave more: that they [the factors] should not land any more goods untill he had a present from the Generall to content him.” Roe declares, “Soe base are our conditions in this port and subject to soe many slaveryes, such as noe free hart can endure, that I doe resolve eyther to establish a trade on free conditions or to doe my best to dissolve yt” (1926, 49). If by “trade on free conditions,” Roe meant not having to give presents, he failed to do so and had to compromise. But he was probably right about shifting strategies. He later advised the Company against sending ambassadors, who were not treated according to their standing or quality and had to proceed with bribery and abject submission. The governor’s demand for presents at the very beginning of Roe’s visit provided an indication of what was to come. Zulfikar Khan’s debt and bribes taken had been a subject of dispute between him and the Company for a long time. We know how at a meeting with Roe, Khan conceded his withholding of 2000 mammodies as payment for licensing the transportation of caravans (1926, 173). He denies a payment of 17000 ma. which he had promised earlier, contending that his own debt was only 3000 ma. and the remainder of the money was taken by the prince and others, although he agreed to pay 12000 ma. for “a generall release” (1926, 172).

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However, as similar conditions existed in England, it would have been difficult for his readers to understand Roe’s grievances and the extent of his indignation. He refuses to acknowledge the extent of corruption in England, which went against free trade just as much as corruption hindered free trade in India. As Peck states, the “expanding role of government in sixteenth and seventeenth-century England and its constrained finances in the early seventeenth century” probably motivated government officials to make additional money by taking bribes. However, the officeholders’ values were changing and James’s reluctance to hold “high-ranking officials accountable for corrupt practices created a culture of political corruption” at the English court during the first half of his reign (see Peck 1990, 11). Officials supplemented their income with various additional commissions and kickbacks. Peck reports that during the period of the ascendancy of Sir Robert Mansell and Sir John Trevor, Mansell as the treasurer of the Navy arranged with Trevor as the surveyor to supply naval provisions to the king at inflated prices. Among their many corrupt practices, Peck notes that they “created and sold offices, paid double allowances … allowed the misuse and diversion of naval stores into private hands, increased the kickbacks extracted from suppliers, provided rotten materials and foods” (see Peck 1990, 117). As I have stated in chapter 2, the Suffolks notoriously demanded kickbacks. Roe was critiquing the Indian court precisely for such a political culture of corruption where the royalty looked the other way while officials took bribes. In characterizing Indian trade as corrupt and thereby implying that English trading conditions were just and fair, therefore, Roe was clearly denying the existence of similarities. Moreover, even though Roe could complain of the difficulty of obtaining trading privileges from the court due to corruption, he could scarcely complain of dishonesty in the process of buying and selling in the markets. That the Christians had acquired notoriety for widespread corruption in the Mughal cities is apparent from the account of his chaplain, Terry. Even though the officials in the administration were corrupt, common Indians, working at various levels, were just and honest. Terry vouched that Hindu craftsmen and other workers were “very laborious in their several employments, and very square and exact to make good all their engagements” (1777, 236). Terry’s characterization of the Hindus as honest and reference to their accusation against the Christians show the natural sense of justice and morality of the Indian traders as opposed to the Europeans: Which appears much in their justness manifested unto those that trade with them; for if a man will put it unto their consciences to sell the

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commodity he desires to buy at as low a rate as he can afford it, they will deal squarely and honestly with him; but if in those bargainings a man offer them much less than their set price, they will be apt to say, what, dost thou think me a Christian, that I would go about to deceive thee? 1777, 236–237

A Christian, therefore, in the Indian view was synonymous with a deceitful character and a cheat. Such denunciation of corrupt Christians by “heathens” ironically belies Roe’s description of Hindustan as the center of vice and corruption (see quoted passage above in chapter 2). Putting Roe’s and Terry’s perceptions together in a dialogue enables us to interrogate Roe’s complaints of corruption in commerce in India. 3

Growth of eic Trade over the Years: Removal of Impediments

However, as East Indian trade developed over the years, the teething troubles of eic disappear. We see less of the problem of acquiring firmans or building factories. Mundy talks of the dangers of transportation of goods due to robbery and extortion on the roads. Of course, Roe, too, had complained of the dangers of dacoity when he had to travel. During Shah Jahan’s reign, when they were able to transport goods within the country, the eic factors and under-factors faced the dangers of robbery and extortion of “jagat.” On a journey from Agra to Patna in August–September 1632, Mundy describes how they met rebels who demand “Jaggatt [jagat] or Custome on the way by their own authoritie, and continue soe doeinge untill, upon Complaint, some Amrawe [amir] be sent against them with an Armie, burnes their Townes, surprizes them all, whereof some are put to death and the rest made slaves, Wittnesse Abdula Ckaun [Abdullah Khan, the governor of Patna]”1 (1914, 111).While the first such attempt at extortion was prevented by the merchants’ taking Abdullah Khan’s name, another time neither the latter’s nor the king’s name had any effect. The rebels abused the king with gusto. Mundy states that the surrounding 1 Mundy’s reference to Abdullah Khan is, as Temple’s annotation suggests, probably a reference to his “expedition against Erich in 1628–29 and his slaughter of Hindus there as recorded in the Amul Saleh, i 180 f” (1914, 90). Mundy also refers to the “Rebbells” (90, 111) and thieves as “Manas” (111), who, as Temple annotates, were the “Mona (Mauna, Munha) Rajputs of the Mirzapur and Benares Districts” and therefore Hindus. Mundy himself relates how Abdullah Khan “destroyed all their [the rebels’] Townes, tooke all their goods, their wives and children for slaves, and the cheifest of their men, causeing their heads to bee cutt of and to be immortered” (90). Mundy sketches skulls of rebels stuck on the wall of a “Minnar” pillar.

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country was under the power of a Hindu Rajput king, and the rebels, as they were Hindus, could easily gather one thousand men at a call. But finally, their demand for 500 rupees was reduced to a very reasonable amount, and the English merchants were allowed to pass unmolested (1914, 117–118). Such extortion was typical of a vast empire, where many tributary states acknowledged their local sovereign as supreme and refused to obey the Mughal emperor’s suzerainty. Differences of religion also complicated matters. The ruthless measures adopted by Mughal generals like Abdullah Khan made them and the king highly unpopular, and grievances were widespread. The problems related to law and order were widespread. However, by the late seventeenth century it is evident that the English were able to negotiate better and acquire permission for their trade without having to pay customs duty in places like Bengal. They acquired a “Phyrwana” (parwana meaning grant of permission) from Sultan Shah Shuja, who was Shah Jahan’s deputy and son, ruling the eastern region; and later, during Aurangzeb’s reign, they negotiated with Nawab Shaista Khan to get their concessions confirmed. The Letters Patent of 1656 had granted that the English Company be “noe more troubled with demands of custome of goods imported or exported, either by Land or by water, nor that their goods be opened and forced from them at under rates in any places of Government by which they shall pass or repass up and downe the Country, but that they buy and sell freely and without impediment.” Moreover, the “parwana” commanded that wherever the English had “order” to build factories or warehouses in “any part of these Kingdomes” they should be aided and that officers assist in the “recovery” of their “just and due debts” (Master 1911,22). Nawab Shaista Khan also confirmed their privileges. This “parwana” not only granted the requirements of Roe regarding duty on and transportation of goods, but it also made the import and export of English goods custom free. Not only were the obstacles to trade removed over the years, but also the eic factors learned different strategies to facilitate their trade. Unlike what Roe had predicted in the early seventeenth century, the eic also learned that it was lucrative to buy merchandise from different parts of the vast country instead of staying close to the royal court. For instance, in 1676, the Councell finds that there is some quantityes of goods to come from the Inland Factoryes, as Tincall and Turmerick from Pattana, Taffaties, raw silk, tares and Floretta yarne from Cassambazar, and Mullmulls [ “Muslin,” Yule and Burnell 1994, 595] from Hugly, alsoe Sticklack [i.e., lac in a crude form], Turmerick, Neelaes and fine Ginghams yet to come in at Ballasore … it is requisite for some of the ships to hasten to Metchlepatam to take in those [? their] goods. Master 1911, 70

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A variety of goods are found necessary for trade, and the ships frequent the eastern and southeastern coasts. Map 1 shows many of the places in Bengal where different types of silk and cotton were produced in large quantities during the Mughal reign. The variety of goods available in different parts of India made Indian trade extremely profitable for the English.

Map 1

Trade and goods in parts of Bengal, Assam, and Bhutan References: G = Gold Mine; D = Diamond Mine; S = Saltpans; Sp = Saltpetre; M = Rupee mind, 1595; Craft products, e.g., Calico Cartography by Mappa Mundi/Erik Goosmann

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Even as early as 1616, Roe had conceded that although the constant bickering and disputes about debts and the difficulty of getting a firman made trading conditions in India difficult for the British, the easy availability of goods, and their cheapness and quality made India a very desirable trading destination: Agra alone sends 20 or 30 thowsand chourlles2  … yearly to Persia and Turky; many have three or foure years indico on their hands; the semianoes are in abundance and cheape; the silke of Bengala plenty at reasonable rates; muscke, civitt, and many sorts of pretty stuffs which yow never saw, made in Bengala and other parts, which in my opinion would make good profitt. Amadavaz alone is able to lade yow two great shipps, and makes many stuffs. Cambaya nere yt, with fine grograms and chamletts. And Baroch is the best cloth in India  … here yow may bespeake what sorts yow will, what length, breadth, and finenes, and buy it from the loome at best hand. 1926, 320

The commodities procured from profitable trading centers of Gujarat, like Ahmedabad, Cambay, and Bharuch, during the Mughal reign in the seventeenth century can be seen from Map 2 on pg 93. But Roe’s statement clearly indicates the thriving nature of commerce and industry in India, belying his earlier complaints about lack of skilled goods and civilized trade in India. The presidency of Surat was at the center of international trading activities of the eic in the East—buying, selling the goods of one port in another, and buying more products from ports in other areas—of which Fryer gives a detailed account. The South Sea trade involved the sale of cloth from Surat at Bantam. The “Dollars” acquired there were used for buying sugar, tea, porcelain, lacquered ware, quicksilver, and copper from China. Gold and ivory were acquired from Sumatra in exchange for corn, and drugs and “Carmania Wool” came from Persia. The Indian inland factories under the presidency of Surat provided various goods; for example, Ahmedabad supplied silk and “Atlases wrought with Gold,” and Agra supplied indigo, coarse cloth, baftas, “Siring Chints,” and “Dimities and other fine Calicuts.” Calicut provided spices, ambergris, “Granats,” opium, and “Salt Peter.” The “weightiest Pepper” also came to Surat from other parts (see Fryer 1698, 2: 86). From the time of Roe, trade had almost overwhelmingly increased in variety and quantity, and an intricate network of trade had developed in the late seventeenth century.

2 Foster annotates “the churl (bundle, or, as the English factors called it, fardle) was the unit by which indigo was bought and sold” (see 1926, 237 n1). Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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Commodities found in Gujarat FROM IRFAN HABIB, AN ATLAS OF THE MUGHAL EMPIRE. By kind permission of the author Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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East Indian Trade and European Rivalry

When Roe arrived on the scene, he found the Portuguese well ensconced in India and considered as the most favored nation for trading purposes. Unlike the English, they did not scruple to shower presents and jewels on the king and courtiers. On 28 May 1616, Roe’s journal records the arrival of “divers Portugalls merchannts from Goa with many rarietyes to sell the King and with rich presents from the Vizeroy of Goa. This is yearly theyr custome at this season to bring goods, and so to goe for Agra and invest in indico. While these presents are fresh, the English are lesse respected.” (1926, 161). The Portuguese offered a “ballas ruby” for sale weighing “13 tole, two tole and a half being an ounce,” for five lakhs, but the king was ready to pay only one lakh (1926, 162). They gave presents also to Asaf Khan and others who solicited the king on their behalf. The Portuguese had brought balas rubies, emeralds, and other jewels for sale, which, according to Roe, “so much contented the King and his great men” that the English were temporarily “eclipsed.” (1926, 162). Commercial transactions with the Indians were not merely mutual exchanges. Rival European powers, especially the Portuguese, remained a consideration. The rivalry with the Portuguese and the English fear of being attacked by them first featured as factors in all trading negotiations with the Mughal court, although Europeans like the Portuguese or even the Dutch were only third parties. We have seen how Roe’s draft of the agreement (cited above) contained a clause that gave the English freedom to attack the Portuguese if the latter should interfere with them. This draft was rejected by Asaf Khan. Later, Roe was reluctant to accept a firman from the prince that contained an objectionable clause related to the Portuguese trade. The clause gave the Portuguese the liberty to come to Surat for trade and entailed that the English should not “molest them, take their goods nor persons, without any promise or intimation that they should not offend nor assayle” Roe’s countrymen (1926, 123). Although Roe conceded that the condition appeared as just and reasonable, he felt that it would be misused by the Portuguese. “First, if they had liberty to trade, they would use yt only to hynder ours; secondly, they would lye with 100 frigatts, under colour of this peace, and take the first advantage to fier or assault our fleete, which is not to be avoyded if they obteyne this liberty to mingle amonge us” (1926, 123). Such assumptions stood in the way of any conception of peaceful free trade and created a desire for a monopoly of Indian trade rather than free and fair competition, as well as a tendency to resort to force, whenever possible. Presumably, the Portuguese considered the English in a similar light. Although Roe always found the Indians guilty of factions, quarrels, and greed to appropriate presents, bitter hostility among the European powers stood in the way of free trade, as nothing else did. Since Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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the Portuguese had hostile relations with England, Roe was apprehensive that they would attack the English in a foreign country. Even in a later proposal for a treaty with Prince Khurram, he requested that the English be allowed to bear arms, which proposal the Indians summarily refused. Not only did Roe have doubts and anxiety regarding the Portuguese as rivals in trade, but he also viewed the Dutch in much the same light, although the English apparently had good relations with the Dutch in Europe. Roe deliberately instilled doubts and apprehension in Prince Khurram and Asaf Khan regarding the Dutch traders’ design and power to make the prince fear for the kingdom’s safety. He openly avows to his employers that safety concerns for the prince were not momentous, as he represented, but one of his objectives was to create an impression that the English were concerned about the safety and well-being of the realm of the ‘Great Mogoll’ so that their relationship would improve. More importantly, however, he intended to prevent the Dutch enterprise from flourishing—perhaps, if possible, to nip it in the bud: “Secondly, I would under that pretence lay such rubbs in the Hollanders way as should not easely bee remooved, a matter of no small consequence to this trade, by whose admittance wee were utterly lost; at least I would so farr norish jealousy as to keepe them from any footing” (1926, 205). Not only did the English carry their hostilities, bred in Europe, to Asia, but they also sought to prevent other European powers from getting a footing in Indian trade. This leads to the conclusion that the European powers competed and fought with one another for trading rights and privileges in India because of their greed for profit and monopolistic trading. Mercantile trade implied competition and the intent of each power at this time was to seize monopolistic privileges. Although Roe talked of free trade, in effect he sought a monopoly for the eic in India. Competition among European powers for buying Indian commodities led to the rise of prices. Increase in competition meant the English would have to buy Indian goods at a much higher price or buy a more limited quantity, and the benefits of transportation to and sale in other European countries would be considerably reduced. Despite their advocacy of free trade in Indonesia, where they were latecomers, the English design was to acquire monopolistic trading rights in India if possible and to prevent the entry of other European merchants to the market as far as it was in their power to do so. While Roe found fault with the Indian system for inhibiting free trade, he did his best to prevent it himself in the interests of his Company. Moreover, another important end of the English was to indirectly warn the Indians of the threat posed by the eic if they were thwarted in their end by telling their own prospective story of revenge in the garb of the Dutch: “seeing Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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it is necessarie that the Prince know how wee wilbe revenged if we continew to bee misused, and yet not convenient that I deliver so much playnly, as our business now stands.” Since an open and direct threat was inimical to trade and diplomatic relationships, Roe offered to tell his “owne tale in the Hollanders person” (1926, 205). Roe’s efforts to gain monopolistic trading conditions contradict his advocacy of free and peaceful trade in India. While he sought to present India as averse to the civilized conditions of peaceful free trade and commerce and vitiated by bribery and corruption, his own actions as well as the trading conditions in England showed that the English were guilty of the charges he ascribed to the Orient. 5

Trade and Colonization

Trade and colonization in India did not go together, as they did in America. While in the eastern coast of North America, colonization began first and trade developed later to aid the colonial economy, the East Indian trade had no scope for the development of independent colonies for a very long time. Initially, as Roe and other eic employees found, it was difficult to get permission to build a factory. Moreover, the English initial policy was to concentrate on trade and not waste money on fortified garrisons as the Dutch did. However, a few decades later, colonization began in pockets to aid trade. To facilitate trade in the Coromandel Coast, Fort St George was built on the purchased or leased land in Madras in 1644 and a township was developed in the region.3 Similarly, after the Restoration of Charles ii and his marriage to Catherine of Braganza in 1662, Bombay was given to the English king as part of her dowry. In 1668, Charles ii rented the Islands to the eic. Unlike in America, the English had to depend on the local population majorly to colonize these townships and bring in revenue for development. They realized that their policy of colonization had to be different here from that of colonies like Ireland. They had to allow freedom of worship and 3 On 22 August 1639, a firman was granted to Francis Day, representative of the eic, by Nague Damela Vintutedra. “Power to direct and order the building of a fort and Castle in or about Medraspatam, as they shall thinke most Convenient, the Charges whereof, until fully and wholly finished, to bee defrayed by us, but then to bee repaied when the said English shall first make their enterance to take possession thereof.” The firman also granted the Company “full power and authority to governe and dispose of the Goverment of Madraspatam for the terme and space of two yeares Next Insueing affter they shall be seated there and possest of the said fortifications; and for the future by an Equall Division to receive halfe the Custom and revenewes of that port” (Love 1913).

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religious pursuits to encourage people to come and reside in these places, unlike in Ireland, where they aimed to forcibly Protestantize the colony. So, colonization in India in the interest of trade took a secular character even at this early stage. Despite their contempt and aversion for non-Christian religions in India, the travelers defended the secularity of the Company policy in Bombay. As a visitor, Fryer concedes that a large number of people are attracted to the place because they are offered liberty of religious worship. But he contemptuously describes them as “solemnizing” their forms of worship with a “Variety of Fopperies (a Toleration consistent enough with the Rules of Gain)” (1698, 2:68; emphasis added). Religious zeal and apostatizing endeavors clearly gave way to considerations of profit and augmentation of revenue due to increase in the number of residents. Fryer understands the contempt of the Muslims as well as the Portuguese Christians who “despised” the English for this concession, but sarcastically furnishes the defense that it is “here licensed out of Policy, as the old Numidians to build up the greatest Empire in the World” (1698, 2:68). When talking of the skirmishes between the Portuguese and the Muslims in Basein and the region around it, Fryer comments: And if such be the gasping Strength of the Portugals, to terrify the Potentest Enemies to Christianity in these Parts, what was their flourishing Estate? Whence it may easily be supposed before now all had bowed to the Cross, which yet bend under Heathenism or Mahometism, had they not been prevented by unhappy Pretenders, that (I fear) too much preferred Merchandize and private Picques, before the welfare of Religion: For it is morally probable, that had not the Dutch and we interrupted them, all might have been Christian in these parts of the World. 1698, 2:75

Faced with the choice between missionary zeal and commercial profit, the Protestant Dutch and the English chose the latter, while the Portuguese, possessed with the crusading fervor, preferred the transmission of Christianity. The eic management required colonies to be self-sustaining so that the revenue generated might be sufficient for the maintenance and defense of the colony. And an adequate number of people were required in the colony to generate sufficient revenue. Also, for defense they required a local militia. Therefore, secularism was born out of commercial considerations. The issue of the habitableness of the colonies was important for colonization. Bombay, particularly, had an unhealthy climate. According to Ovington, the “Air” of Bombay is “so very unhealthful,” especially during the monsoon season,

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that it could be considered a “mortal Enemy to the lives of the Europeans” (1990, 140). The mortality rate of the Europeans was very high. Ovington’s statistics show that more than twenty of the twenty-four passengers of the ship and more than fifteen of the “Ship’s Company” died between the beginning and the end of the monsoon (1990, 141). Ovington relates how Bombay’s unhealthy environment had given rise to the proverb that “Two Mussouns [Monsoons] are the Age of a Man” (1990, 142). He describes how the monsoon months resulted in a “prodigious growth of Vermin, and of venomous Creatures,” which demonstrated to the Europeans “the malignant Corruption of the Air, and the natural Cause of its direful Effects upon the Europeans” (1990, 144–145). The size and number of what they considered as “venomous creatures” were obviously an indicator of the unhealthy environmental conditions, for spiders were as large as a “Man’s Thumb,” and toads were the size of “a small Duck.” The abundance of frogs everywhere, even away from their possible habitat, made one believe that “it rain’d Frogs” (1990, 145). Ovington declined to stay as a minister in Bombay, despite the earnest pleas of Deputy Governor George Cook, because many of the preceding clergymen had died during the last few years. Significantly, the weather conditions improved considerably when they had completed half the voyage to Surat from Bombay. The difference between the temperate, healthful climate of England, which promotes the well-being of people, and the hot and humid monsoons in India, breeding “malignant Corruption of the Air” (as above), shows the difficulties of colonizing India. Moreover, colonization was connected to the defense of the colony and military strength. Trade in the seventeenth century often necessitated the use of force, but arms grew in importance especially in the colonies. The use of force had been a debatable issue even from the initial stage of eic trade. At this time, when mercantilism was in its heyday and military superiority decided the success of trading in places like the Indonesian islands, the English, on the whole, abstained from aggressive tactics in India. But trade rivalries often necessitated brief, periodic skirmishes. We see how Roe’s policy regarding war and trade underwent a change during his stay in India. In his letter of 29 January 1615[–16] to King James, Roe had advocated limited engagements to ensure the success of trade. Roe claims that “having twice with a great armado assaulted us and by Gods assistance repulst,” the Portuguese were in a sorry plight. The two defeats “hath so lessened his reputation (which was his strength) that his utter ruyne were an easy woorke” (1926, 102). At this point he evidently felt that military repute would give the English a muchneeded edge over the Portuguese, who were weakened by their contentions with the Dutch “below Goa” (1926, 102) and with the Persians in Ormuz. The

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English had also hurt their trade considerably so that less than “halfe the gallions” that used to ply “these parts are sett out” (1926, 102–103). A zealous Protestant, Roe advocated war “as well to abate the pride of the Spanish empire as to cutt off one maste, vayne of their wealth” (1926, 103). His suggestion reminded one of the popular sentiments of the Elizabethan court. His earnest plea to James to grant permission to attack as well as to defend themselves against a rival European and Catholic power, especially one aligned with Spain, suggests as much a desire to extend the rivalry that existed between them in Europe overseas as to ensure profitable trade in India: If Your Majestie were pleased to grant by your gratious commissions leave for the East Indya Company to assault as well as defend only … it would strike such a terror and give such reputation to our cause as would almost decide the contention for this trade at once. 1926, 103

At this time, Roe sees Asian nations like India as a space of contention between technologically superior European nations for acquiring mercantile profit and enhancing national prestige. However, this was a relatively early reaction. Roe’s attitude to trading prospects in India changes along with the policy he advocates. He later rejects war as a means of supporting trade: “A warr and trafique are incompatible. By my consent, yow shall no way engage your selves but at sea, wher yow are like to gayne as often as to loose” (1926, 303). He advises: “Lett this bee received as a rule that, if yow will profitt, seeke it at sea, and in quiett trade.” Citing the examples of the Portuguese and the Dutch, Roe says “it is an error to affect garrisons and land warrs in India … and yow should be veary warie how yow engage your reputation in yt. Yow cannot so easely make a faier retraict as an onsett; one disaster would would eyther discreditt yow, or interest yow in a war of extreame chardge and doubtful event” (1926, 304). On the whole, Roe’s policy had been followed by the eic to a large extent. During the second half of the century, however, we notice that the English had built forts in Madras and Bombay, and the gain in power made them increasingly ready to fight to defend themselves or the Company’s honor against the regional powers or even the Mughal authority. 5.1 Colonization and the Necessity of Force Although the Company sought peace in the country as a means of furthering its trade, sometimes, against its intent, it found itself embattled. Mercantile

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trade at this stage involved the ability of defense and perhaps even profitable strategies of aggression. These armed conflicts sometimes involved the Company in clashes against local leaders. In the East Indies, it had to fight with the Dutch, and during the first few decades of the century it showed off its military might against the Portuguese even in India. Later the Company had to encounter Shivaji and stave off his attempts at plunder. George Oxendine, the president of the eic, defended the merchants at Surat so well that, Fryer records, he received “a Collat or Serpaw, a Robe of Honour from Head to Foot” from the “Great Mogul” and a gold medal, commemorating his valor, from the Company. An additional benefit was the reduction in customs duty to two and a half percent. After Oxendine’s death, Gerald Aungier became the president and “encounter’d that bold Mountaineer a second time, with as great Applause,” while the “Governor of the Town and the Province durst neither of them show their Heads.” The English successfully defended their House and helped defend the Castle, although the rest of the city was set on fire by Shivaji (Fryer 1698, 2: 87). However, later, they make peace with Shivaji and send ambassadorial missions to him to facilitate trade and to reach an agreement with him. As time passes, the eic becomes more confident of its power to support its trade with arms and asserts its readiness to pick quarrels with authorities. The use of force to secure trade contradicted the notion of free trade, as envisaged by Roe. On the whole, policies differed from region to region. The Company felt that a fortified, independent settlement in Bengal would procure its safety against any attack from the Dutch, its competitors, and the Mughal Nawab’s impositions (Stern 2011, 80–81). The Company was aggrieved at the new imposition of Shaista Khan, the Nawab of Bengal, of 3.5 percent duty on exports in 1680 and a “larger tax” on the EIC’s “imported bullion” (see Stern 2011, 81). William Hedges, the previous chief, and Job Charnock, the agent in Bengal, on different occasions advocated the use of force to avail of the necessary facilities and comfortable trade needed in the eastern region. London wrote to Bengal on 17 June 1685: “we look upon the Mogulls Governours, but as Instruments, which we hope to compell by fair means, or foul, to use us better hereafter” (cited in Stern 2011, 81). Intermittent conflicts were taking place between the eic and the representatives of the Mughal army. Ships were sent from England to seize Chittagong, although the expedition failed to materialize and Charnock had to retreat. However, by 1690 the English had begun a settlement in Bengal, acquiring three hamlets, Sutanuti, Govindpur, and Kalikata on the Hughli river. And by 1698 they had begun to build their fortification, the Fort William (see Stern 2011, 81–82). Josiah Child, the governor of the eic, and his policy of the use of military strength in East Indian trade seemed to have been the driving force behind Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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armed confrontations. In October 1687, John Child, designated the Company’s general, sent thirty-five articles of complaint to Mahmet Khan, the Mutasaddi of Surat. The prominent demands included the firman, absolving them of some customs and other duties, settlement of conflicts in Bengal, and the turning in of the interlopers of the eic to the Company. There were still disagreements of policy in the eic, and the secret committee in London wrote to Bombay that the eic was a merchant Company and it “must live by trade & not by a long War” (see Stern 2011, 121). And John Child professed the same, even though the Company was taking an aggressive posture against the Mughal governor. Protesting that their business was trade, John Child stationed his ships at the mouth of the Surat harbor. But the preparations were for war. The instructions from the committees in London to Surat in 1686 were: the Governor [i.e., mutasaddi] there looks upon you now but as private Merchants, and therefore it is high tyme, that We should now make him (and officers that have abused you) know, that We are a government and have as much sense of honor, as the vindication of our rights and priviledges, as any other European Nation. cited in Stern 2011, 122

In his turn, John Child declared in 1687 that if the Government of India did not accept the conditions of the eic, “then it will become us to Seize what we cann & draw the English Sword, as well on this Side of India as the other” (cited in Stern 2011, 122). The eic policy seems to have come full circle from the time Roe had advocated “trafique” without war. The English blocked the Mughal harbors in the Arabian Sea and captured the ships, carrying pilgrims to Mecca. But Aurangzeb subsequently seized all the British factories in India so that the British were confined to their fortifications in Bombay and Madras. That John Child had considerably overestimated the naval strength of the Company was evident from his declaration that if Siddi Yakub Khan dared to attack them, the English would “pay the Siddies side handsomely and give him and his People their bellys full of sea fighting” (cited in Stern 2011, 123). A six thousand strong Mughal force under Yakub Siddi landed at Sewri on the eastern shore of the Bombay Island in February 1689, besieged the fort for more than a year (see Stern 2011, 123), and brought the English down to their knees. The famished British under John Child sent representatives to the Mughal court to pacify the emperor and promise reparation for the damages caused. Alexander Hamilton writes that the war with the Mughal emperor was fought on the advice of Josiah Child and due to the diplomatic errors and obstinacy of John Child, who began to pick quarrels with the Mughal and his Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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subjects, seizing their ships wherever they could. Hamilton presents Governor General John Child as a vindictive, jealous, and dishonest man, preoccupied with petty quarrels and bent on taking revenge for trifles. According to Hamilton, John Child sought to imprison some staff, like John Petit and George Bowcher,4 in order to satisfy personal grievances against them and because he wanted a share of their profit from private trade, but he was not able to harm them because of the protection of the Mughal governor (see 1995, 1: 194–199) for the time being. Later, Bowcher found protection from the Mughal emperor. In Hamilton’s representation of the war with the Mughals, the eic under John Child appears as completely responsible for the conflict. John Child drew up a list of semi-fictional, fabricated, and minor grievances against the Mughal officers in order to find an excuse for his acts. The English ships Charles, Caesar, and Royal James and Mary waylaid and captured Surat shipping and brought them to Bombay. The general also captured and carried off a fleet of ships that were carrying corn to the Great Mogul’s army to Bombay against the advice of most of his council (Hamilton 1995, 1:215–216). Although Siddi Yakub requested that the fleet be restored to him in fair terms, the general returned his overtures with insolence and unrelenting stubbornness (Hamilton 1995, 1:217). Hamilton’s representation of the war showcases the cowardice and foolhardiness of John Child and his henchmen. When the eic felt compelled to surrender, the embassy for peace that the governor sent to the Mughal court comprised two factors and a Surat merchant, Mir Nizam, who was befriending the English.5 They went under the name of “English Ambassadors.” After considerable time they were admitted to court by the aid of presents to officers. They “were brought to Aurengzeb’s Presence after a new Mode for Ambassadors, their Hands being tied by a Sash before them, and were obliged to prostrate.” The emperor reprimanded them severely for their behavior but granted their demands of a restoration of their firman and trading privileges and withdrawal of Siddi’s army on condition that they pay for the damages and loss of lives and property that they had caused and give 4 According to Philip J. Stern, however, Petit and Bowcher were “interlopers.” Not only did interlopers engage in private trade, which was allowed by the Company by the second half of the seventeenth century, but they rejected Company authority and sought to “forge their own diplomatic and commercial relationships in Asia.” Petit, for instance, rejected the Company’s authority to stop people that “trade to & fro in Indias” (2011, 45). 5 According to Stern, there were three “low-level representatives: George Weldon. Abraham Navarro, and Barker Hibbins.” The last was not mentioned by Hamilton. Mukhtiar Khan, the mutasaddi, or the governor, also “sent surrogates: Qazi Ibrahim, Mir Nizam, and some Surat merchants ‘with ample power to conclude peace’” (see Stern 1911, 123). Hamilton only mentions one merchant and says nothing of Mukhtiar Khan’s representatives.

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satisfaction for “Debts contracted” and “Robberies committed.” One of the conditions, according to Hamilton, was that John Child be removed from office and sent away from India within nine months (see Hamilton 1995, 224– 225). According to Stern, however, the Company had to “restore the prizes that East India ships had taken,” and “make a peskash of 25,000 rupees to the mutasaddi and 500,000 for Aurangzeb.” John Child was to come to Surat in person to receive the firman. Initially, the firman itself contained a provision of Child’s expulsion. However, the latter had made matters easier by dying before his acting successor along with others was sent to Surat (see Stern 2011, 124). Significantly, Josiah Child defended the use of force and lauded the achievement of the Company in obtaining an advantageous treaty: The Mogul being as is generally known, so great and powerful a Prince, it was vulgarly thought a Vain or rather a Distracted attempt in the Company, to make any War upon him…. Yet such hath been God’s blessing upon the Companies Armes, their unavoidable necessity, and their righteous Cause, that That War beyond all mens opinion has ended to the Eternal honour of the English Nation, in those parts of the World, and a Peace concluded upon such honourable Articles. 1689, 9

He defends the war as a “necessity,” when many of his critics thought it was easily avoidable. Child discredits the critical voice by referring to it as “vulgarly thought” and lauds the EIC’s use of force as “God’s blessing upon the Companies Armes.” The treaty, he contends, has achieved a great deal of benefits, such that “if a Blank had been delivered to the Company in England, to write down their own Terms,” they would not have asked for more than has been granted to them (1689, 9). Significantly, Child omits any reference to the compensatory sum that they had to pay the Mogul. Despite Child’s glorification of the EIC’s strength, the Mughal power to punish the recalcitrant English was clearly established by the victory. 6

eic: Privateering, Monopoly, Interloping, and Private Trade

The charter given to the eic by Queen Elizabeth on 31 December 1600 had “constituted the Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies’ a body corporate, and granted it the exclusive right of trading to the East Indies for a period of fifteen years” (Love 1913, 271). The renewed

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charters over the years effectively reinforced its rights of monopoly trading in the East Indies. However, with the growth of a new merchant leadership which sought to combine trade with colonization, the eic trade and monopoly privileges came under a serious challenge in the later years of the seventeenth century. Significantly, the privateering activities of the landed colonizers cum merchants also brought them into conflict with the eic merchants. Robert Brenner relates how the Virginia Company was dominated by two warring factions. One of the groups was led by Sir Thomas Smythe, the great merchant and first governor of the eic, Robert Johnson, alderman, and Sir John Wolstenholme. The other group was led by aristocratic colonizers like Sir Robert Rich, earl of Warwick, and his kinsman, Sir Nathaniel Rich. The privateering activities of the Rich family brought them into conflict with the City merchants in the latter’s trading ventures. In 1616, the earl had sent two privateering ships to the Red Sea, which sought to plunder a vessel of the Queen Mother of the Great Mogul. The eic ships in the region intercepted Rich’s ships and prevented the plunder in order not to earn the enmity of Emperor Jahangir and have their trading ventures cut short. But this brought them into conflict with Robert Rich (see Brenner 1993, 100). Later, during the 1630s, such acts of piracy on the parts of influential people like Endymion Porter, Thomas Kynnaston, and especially the agents of the great Anglo-Dutch merchant Sir William Courteen, brought the eic into disrepute with native rulers, and the Company was compelled to pay damages, although it was not guilty of the acts of plunder. These acts of piracy amply demonstrated that many aristocratic and influential Englishmen viewed the riches of the East as the target for plunder. The civilized English (as envisaged by Roe) were enemies to free, equitable, and peaceful trade, rather than the Indians who engaged in lawful and profitable commerce. Moreover, Courteen decided to encroach on eic trading privileges in other ways. In December 1635, “Courteen’s syndicate obtained a license to trade with all areas in the East, not previously exploited by the East India Company. In the preamble to this document, the organizers justified their voyage by reference to the new opportunities opened up by the Convention of Goa and the hope of finding a northwest passage.” They were effectively opening “an independent venture within the East India Company’s chartered privileges” (Brenner 1993, 171). Although Sir William Courteen died soon after, his son took over the company. Charles i granted the association a full royal patent in 1637, having been “secretly bribed” with a 10,000 pounds “interest in the venture” (Brenner 1993, 171). The English royalty was as prone to bribery as the Mughals were supposedly inclined to expensive gifts and offerings by Portuguese merchants.

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Although Charles later tried to stop the activities of Courteen’s venture, following pleas from the eic, he failed to do so. Later, the Parliament granted “the request of Maurice Thomson, alderman Thomas Andrews, Samuel Moyer, and James Russell to have liberty to trade in the East Indies in April 1645.” Refusing the Company’s request to put an end to interloping in the winter of 1645, they even decided not to renew the old Company’s patent in 1647 (see Brenner 1993, 178). “The interlopers were, in general, inclined toward a ‘free well-regulated trade’ rather than a joint stock monopoly’” (Brenner 1993, 181). The interlopers’ program included colonization along with trade, unlike the old directors. Moreover, they had become powerful even within the Company, and the Company could be saved only by a merger of the two groups. Although the joint stock policy was retained, a program of building colonies in several places, including India, was adopted against the wishes of the old directorate in 1649 (see Brenner 1993, 178–181). The issue of the legitimacy of monopoly was foregrounded in the famous case of the Company versus Thomas Sandys in 1682 at the Court of King’s Bench. The case raised various debates regarding “the nature of the corporation, the definition of public and private, the tension between the common and the civil law, the applicability of European law, canon law and the law of nations to English legal practice, the propriety of trade and intercourse with non-Christians, and the constitution of extra-territorial authority with English Subjects abroad” (Stern 2011, 47). According to Sandys, monopoly was illegal under Common Law, but the Company argued in defense of a well-governed trade in the interest of the general good. In its verdict in 1985, the Court ruled in favor of the Company, emphasizing the “public good” that eic advanced, and its “age,” which gave it the right of possession (see Stern 2011, 57). The Company retained the right to make political agreements with rulers of India in the interest of commerce. However, going back to the story of the old and the new Companies, we see the existence of two Companies was a continual cause of grievance to the eic. In his 1689 supplement to his 1681 treatise, A Discourse Concerning Trade and that in Particular of the East Indies, Josiah Child attributed the loss of Bantam (to the Dutch) to “that destructive Trade of the English Interlopers in India” and “those Civil Broyles between the English” (1689, 1). He further accused the interlopers of causing grievous loss to the nation when they were fighting with the legitimate Company in India: contending among themselves, like Guelphs and Gibelines, under the distinction of the Old and the New Company; which latter Appellation the Interlopers assumed to themselves, and under that Name made Contracts

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of Commerce and Alliances with Princes and Governours in India, without any Authority from their Soveraign, which our Law accounts a Crime of a high Nature, and which is in it self by the Experience and Confession of all Men, of most destructive consequence, to any Kingdom or Commonwealth Trading to the East-Indies. Josiah Child 1689, 2

The conflicts between the old and the new Companies continued long, and the parliament and the king brought into them, until negotiations effected a settlement, which led to a merger of the two Companies. The merger led to the joining of stocks of the two Companies. “In 1702 the old Company agreed to surrender its charter to the Crown, beginning a process that resulted first in the creation of a joint interim Court of Managers and then, finally, a single, joint Company in 1709, implemented in a tripartite agreement between both companies and the Crown, and an instrument known as Godolphin’s Award”6 (see Stern 2011, 162). 6.1 Private Trade The question of interloping is related to the issue of private trade. Roe had, in the early years of the seventeenth century, severely castigated the dishonesty of the Company’s servants who made a profit out of private trade. However, during the closing years of the seventeenth century private trade was permitted and well-ensconced. We see travel writers like Ovington and Fryer speaking of the beneficial effects of private trade. Ovington states that the presidents of the Company gets a salary of “300 per An” and “are permitted a free Trade to all the parts of the East.” He writes that this privilege “is indulg’d likewise to all the Companies Servants of what station soever, which is a Favour attended with considerable Benefit.” Ovington claims that it “suits well with the freedom of an English Subject” (1690, 389), and the policy compares favorably with the companies of other countries. The Dutch voc denies the right of freedom to its employees for which the factors plead in vain (Ovington 1690, 389–390). Fryer prays that the private diamond trade might “never be struck out of their Indulgence allowed to their Servants.” For the Company, according to Fryer, would never gain much profit for the trade because the “Jews, who are the chief Chapmen in England will blow upon them unless they come to their Prices.” And in the absence of English sellers, the Jews can always find sellers among the Dutch and the French, who would agree with their prices. 6 Stern explains: “Godolphin’s Award permanently grafted the Company’s capital stock into the national debt,” thus making it “a part of the state” (see Stern 2011, 163).

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“When they are publickly Invoiced, it will be at their own Wills to make their Bargains” (see 2:88). The diamond trade, in Fryer’s view, keeps the Company’s servants honest and “they grow Rich without wronging the Company” (2:88-89; my emphasis). The jewelry trade involved buying jewels in India, transporting them to Europe for “cutting” and “setting” them, and selling the jewels at a profit to the omrahs in India, and this had made jewelers like Tavernier rich. India was a land, therefore, that enriched eic servants, who were simultaneously private entrepreneurs, without depriving the Company of its profit. The characteristics of the East Indian trade show its anomalous nature, as far as trade was understood in England. It did not function as per usual expectations, but it proved to be very successful, fetching a great deal of profit for the merchants and the country, although it meant initially exporting the silver of the country to the East. Also, by providing opportunities of private trade to its employees, the Company did not suffer loss. Trade thrived and continued long, and in the course of time trade moved to colonization in areas, which proved equally profitable. Use of force to facilitate gains did not pay off, despite surmises to the contrary. The English viewed India as a land of skilled crafts, of lucrative goods in high demand in European markets, and thriving commerce. While Roe complained of corruption and the bureaucratic impediments to free and civilized trade in India, such critique was weakened in view of the existence of similar conditions of bribery and dishonesty in England, and especially by acts of piracy and plunder performed by the English. Again, later, the EIC’s readiness to take up arms belied its claim to free and peaceable trade. However, their assumption of the superiority of English force was shattered after it provoked retaliation from the Mughal Emperor, and Aurangzeb reduced the Company to abject submission in Bombay.

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Reason and Religion during the Enlightenment in England: Scientific Enquiry, Deism, and Toleration This chapter examines the intellectual and religious climate of the later years of the seventeenth century, in view of the various developments in scientific enquiry and natural philosophy along with the growth of religious ideas and divisions in the course of the century, especially during the latter half. It is important to remember, however, that the period shows an astonishing diversity of ideas, beliefs, and opinions, thus enabling the emergence of complexities and divergence in trends. In order to understand the ideology of the travelogues, it would be necessary to examine the context and to relate them to the ideas of the time, especially the growth of rationality during the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment has commonly and sometimes sarcastically been denominated as the age of reason, but people have drawn attention to various, often conflicting, aspects of the movement during the period.1 Although people have different estimates about the beginning and end of the Enlightenment, most see the movement as flourishing during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. For our purposes, it would be prudent to see if a trend towards rationality, empiricism, and toleration was developing around the second half of the seventeenth century and culminating in the eighteenth century in Europe, especially England. The present chapter has a limited objective. Here, I look at selected issues of the period which are relevant for the study of the narratives of India constructed by the travelogues under consideration, often focusing on the thoughts of a few figures which may be used as case studies, demonstrating specific trends. The period saw the emergence of various new similar and also conflicting trends in England. Historians and thinkers have often said that “the period of the so-called ‘Enlightenment’ was too diverse to be accurately presented as if it 1 For instance, a critic of the Enlightenment like Terry Castle wrote: “it is not so much an age of reason, but one of paranoia, repression, and incipient madness” (cited in Porter 2000, xxxi). Roy Porter opines that “heroes-and-villains judgementalism would be absurd” because Enlightenment was not “monolithic.” “Enlightenment thinkers were broad-minded, they espoused pluralism, their register was ironic rather than dogmatic” (2000, xxi), although the statement would certainly not apply to all. “Tolerance,” according to Porter, was central, and he agrees with Mark Goldie, who characterizes Enlightenment as a “tone of voice, a sensibility” (cited in Porter 2000, xxi).

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004448261_006

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were a coherent and unified cultural phenomenon” (Brown 1996, 2). The English Enlightenment, for instance, progressed in a different way from that of many other nations. According to Roy Porter, if one goes by the defining features of the French Enlightenment, namely, “atheism, republicanism and materialism,” which led finally to the 1789 Revolution, the English Enlightenment may be called “a misnomer” (see Porter 2000, 9–10). The Enlightenment in England, or rather Britain, was “not just a matter of pure epistemological breakthroughs; it was primarily the expression of new mental and moral values, new canons of taste, styles of sociability and views of human nature.” These often received expression in practical projects of material improvement (see Porter 2000, 14). According to William J. Bulman, “on most accounts religious Enlightenment began in England after the Glorious Revolution, when moderate, tolerant Whig divines quickly and creatively assimilated Lockeanism, Newtonianism, and natural theology into both pious heterodoxy and Anglican orthodoxy” (Bulman 2016, 8). The late seventeenth century saw the growth of scientific enquiry and investigation and the growth of an interest in the material universe. The discovery of the properties of objects and the fact that they obeyed certain laws of nature led to a desire to investigate the material universe and look for natural causes rather than supernatural intervention in natural occurrences. The scientific theories and the emphasis on rationality reduced the reliance on religion for answers to natural phenomena, initiated a spirit of inquiry into nature, and contributed to the growth of a secular outlook. In the Introduction to this book I discussed how the shift towards a more detailed description of the natural world and ethnography, including a more careful and systematic mode of classification and presentation, was induced in travel narratives by scientific inquiry. 1

Empiricism, Mathematical Inquiry, and Natural Philosophy: Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, and the Royal Society

The emergence of the corpuscular theory and mechanical theory marked a change from the scholastic philosophy of Aristotle. Boyle’s The Origin of Forms and Qualities, According to the Corpuscular Philosophy was published in 1666, which challenged the scholastic theories and “the peripatetic explanation of matter’s properties.” Boyle theorizes that all “natural bodies” have the same “matter,” “namely a substance extended, divisible, and impenetrable.” Bodies are differentiated on the basis of their “‘accidents’ or qualities” (Rogers 1996, 48). Boyle upheld the objective nature of the properties of matter, namely, color, sound,

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and other such features. Although human senses enable us to perceive the properties, they exist independently of the senses. Matter and motion were the two most important concepts which could make everything in the physical world understood. If one accepts sufficient “variety in the fundamental principles, variety of shapes and sizes, and a settled finite set of laws of motion,” then one can explain the “wide variety of events” that takes place on the basis of the “mechanical principles” (Rogers 1996, 52). According to G.A.J. Rogers, “Under Boyle’s influence especially, the mechanical philosophy became accepted by the virtuosi associated with the establishment of the Royal Society in Restoration England as the most plausible account of the natural world” (1996, 53). Boyle’s theory rejects the Aristotelian concept of the final cause: it seems manifest enough that whatever is done in the world, at least wherein the rational soul intervenes not, is really affected by corporeal causes and agents, acting in a world so framed as ours is, according to the laws of motion settled by the omniscient Author of things. Cited in Rogers 1996, 52

Although Boyle always thought of God as the prime mover, divine intervention was kept at a minimum. The fixity of the laws of nature also went a certain way to prove that natural phenomena cannot be considered as divine judgement for human moral lapses. Similarly, Newton in Principia, book 3, states that “no more causes of natural things should be admitted than are both true and sufficient to explain their phenomena” (2004, 87), suggesting that natural phenomena could be understood in terms of natural causes. After setting out Rule 3 that “those qualities of bodies cannot be intended and remitted  … and that belong to all bodies on which experiments can be made should be taken as qualities of all bodies universally,” Newton expounds: “For the qualities of bodies can be known only though experiments; and qualities that square with experiments universally are to be regarded as universal qualities” (2004, 87; italics removed). Rule 4 states that “in experimental philosophy, propositions gathered from phenomena by induction should be considered either exactly or very nearly true” (2004, 89; italics removed) until other phenomena prove more exact. Newton’s deduction about properties of bodies, therefore, is based on experiments and on empirical observation, and he relies on deducing theories through induction. Newton applied mathematical principles to knowledge gained through empirical observations. The application of mathematical principles to the functioning of the natural phenomena validates laws of nature in the working

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of natural phenomena, thereby reducing dependence on supernatural causes. But he also depended on actual experiments to deduce theories. The first two parts of the Principia “present a large number of mathematical models in which the mathematical relationship among various force laws and motions are explored” (Schliesser 2014, 64). But, his Opticks, by contrast, demonstrates that sunlight (which was earlier conceived of as one pure form of light) could be dispersed or “decomposed” into various constituent spectral colors with a prism by experimental data (see Schliesser 2014, 65). Material proofs rather than conjectures or hypotheses were important to ascertain things. The combination of mathematical and empirical data aided the determination of distance or shape of objects. Actual measurements were necessary for determining distance. Newton’s debates with other men of science, like Christiaan Huygens and Giovanni Domenico Cassini, about the shape of the earth could be settled only by “measurements far apart, as near as possible to the North Pole and the equator” (Schliesser 2014, 66). Moreover, the application of mathematics proved an asset in the calculation of the nature, path, and movement of heavenly bodies. Building on Newton’s theories about gravitational effects on comets, Edmund Halley successfully predicted the return of Halley’s (named after him) comet in 1758. The prediction and the knowledge of the return of the comet among the masses also demonstrated popular interest in scientific phenomena and the spread of the Enlightenment. Newton managed to popularize his discoveries by public addresses. “Throughout the century Newton’s theories and a culture of experimental natural philosophy were also disseminated to popular audiences, both through books and public lectures, inside and outside universities” (Schliesser 2014, 67). Scientific inquiry during the century proceeded unhampered despite ignorance about final causes. Scientific and intellectual thought also rejected the Aristotelian final cause. Newton, for instance, declared that “gravity does really exist, and act according to the laws which we have explained” but acknowledged his lack of knowledge regarding its causes. “The significance of this is that future research can be predicated on its existence without worrying about matters external to relatively autonomous ongoing inquiry” (see Schliesser 2014, 68). The Royal Society had taken a similar position with regard to collision rules. Similarly, philosophers like René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes, and Bacon disputed the notion of the final cause in scholastic philosophy. Descartes was a mathematician and a natural philosopher. He proposed “a naturalistic account of the formation of the earth and planets (a precursor to the nebular hypothesis). More importantly, he offered a new vision of the natural world

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that continues to shape our thought today: a world of matter possessing a few fundamental properties and interacting according to a few universal laws” (Hatfield 2018). “Final causes were ridiculed as presupposing mind-like attributes within matter; the commitment to final causation was seen as a superstitious anthropomorphizing of nature” (Schliesser 2014, 74). Such a position indicates the confinement of the inquiry to the material sphere of observed phenomena without delving into causes of existence or the real nature of the phenomena. In the long run, it revitalized empirical and scientific inquiry and reduced concerns about metaphysical dimensions. Writing later in the eighteenth century, David Hume avers: we must confine our speculations to the appearances of objects to our senses, without entering into disquisitions concerning their real nature and operations  … If we carry our enquiry beyond the appearances of objects to the senses, I am afraid, that most of our conclusions will be full of scepticism and uncertainty. cited in Schliesser 2014, 69

He interprets Newtonian philosophy as leading us to this understanding. Newton does not seek to identify the nature of the agency that causes gravity. It may be “material” or “immaterial.” In many places in Europe, this led to a general skepticism about the divine providential plan, thereby undermining the basis of Christianity as the one true religion. But, in England, scientists worked out a compromise. While scientists like Boyle argued on the one hand that the concept of final causes should be eliminated from natural philosophy, on the other hand, he also claimed the existence of “general, providential final causes” (Schliesser 2014, 75). Similarly, although Newton had, at many points in the Principia, talked of natural causes of the natural phenomena, in a letter to Richard Bentley he argues that the design and placement of the planets demonstrate the presence of a “natural or supernatural” “power,” which was not a “blind” force. He suggests that only a knowing and intelligent power could have positioned the sun in “the centre of the six primary planets,” “Jupiter in the centre of its four secondary planets, and the earth in the centre of the moon’s orbit,” which enabled the sun to provide light and heat to all the planets and especially the earth (Newton 2004, 95). However, despite the acknowledgement of a divine power, divine intervention was distanced from everyday living. Both Newton and Boyle in their own ways prove that the natural universe and its laws are fixed and intelligible to human beings, thus dissociating them from unaccountable divine mysteries and shifting emphasis from the divine

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to the material. The works of Newton, Hobbes, and others anticipate materialism, which is generally considered an eighteenth-century thought, although it originated in the seventeenth century. The Cambridge Platonist2 Henry More used the word in his work Divine Dialogues (1668), in his description of a character, “young, witty, and well moralised Materialist” (More, 5–6; cited in Wolfe 2014, 92). Knowledge is generated through the investigation of nature. What was called “sensationism” had as its basic tenet that senses were the origin of all ideas, “mental experience[s],” and thoughts (Wolfe 2014, 92). It was similar to empiricism. Atheism was also a related idea. And such views were derived from Bacon, Hobbes, Descartes, and Locke. Charles T. Wolfe points out that materialism was a “discontinuous tradition,” one which emerged at different periods in modified forms specific to the period. He characterized eighteenthcentury materialism as possessing three essential traits. Naturalism was one of them, which sought “to inscribe our knowledge of the mind (or soul), self, morals and beyond into a sphere compatible with experimental evidence.” While it was associated with and drew sustenance from bio-medical debates, it also adopted a speculative “Lucretian ‘science-fiction’ approach to the understanding of Nature” (Wolfe 2014, 93). I would argue that there was no sharp divide between seventeenth-century materialism and that of the eighteenth century, and that the latter drew on the former. The first characteristic of “naturalism,” which led materialist thought to rely on “experimental evidence” in relation to evolving concepts of mind, soul, self, and knowledge itself, especially acquired popularity in the seventeenth century, although it was a period when contending thoughts prevailed. Materialism and atheism were extensively criticized by many, including Samuel Clarke and Ralph Cudworth, both Cambridge Platonists. The major contention of critics was that materialists confined and limited everything to the physical substance. Cudworth disparaged atheists or materialists: “All Atheists are mere Corporealists, that is, acknowledge no other Substance besides Body or Matter” (cited in Wolfe 2014, 92). The scientific developments during the seventeenth century brought into focus the material world and the senses, the properties of matter, and the physical laws pertaining to natural bodies. The search for the Aristotelian final causes was abandoned in favor of natural causes for natural phenomena and what happened in the universe. Likewise, exploration of the providential nature of 2 The term “Cambridge Platonists” refers to a group of philosophers “liberal in their theology” who were educated at the University of Cambridge during the first half of the seventeenth century.

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happenings was largely ignored. Empirical evidence and experiments, including in some cases the application of mathematical rules for deducing universal laws, were in the forefront of scientific inquiries related to the universe. We see how the spirit of scientific inquiry impacted the Enlightenment and the search for a rational basis of human thoughts and practices, including religious practices. Even in political histories of nations, the providential design was losing relevance. Moreover, the need for the scientific investigation of nature motivated the collection of information regarding plants, animals, soil, land, and the physical features of lands where one traveled to, as I tried to show in the Introduction. For instance, the eic employees collected data related to winds and monsoons as well as the flora and the fauna in countries like India. The need for the study of society and people led to the acquisition and transmission of ethnographic data. This led to a shift in the nature of the information provided in travelogues towards the second half of the century, which focused on the social and religious practices of the people rather than the political world of diplomacy and court culture. In effect, the increasing interest in culture studies rather than political history marked the shift in historiography. Nathaniel Wolloch discovers in the later eighteenth century “a broadening of historiographical horizons,” which led to “the study of cultural, social and technological history” (2011, 82). I would argue that even during the later seventeenth century, one notices an interest in studying and recording details of society and culture in travel writing, which bespeaks a debt to a scientific understanding of the universe. Empiricism implies a rejection of innate ideas regarding even divinity or conscience, and this takes us towards John Locke. 2

John Locke, the Rejection of Innate and Universal Ideas, and Diversity of Customs

For Locke, experience forms the basis of all knowledge, and no ideas are innate, including morality and conscience. “There are two sources of experience, sensation and what he calls ‘reflection’, which provides the mind with ideas of its own operations, such as perception, thinking and doubting” (Tipton 1996, 76). Locke’s empiricism, therefore, implicitly erodes the basis of inborn ideas of divinity. He argues that if there were innate ideas, they would appear very clearly in people who cannot hide or pretend what they believe: Children, idiots, savages, and illiterate people, being of all others the least corrupted by custom or borrowed opinions, one might reasonably Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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imagine, that in their minds these innate notions should lie open fairly to every one’s view, as it is certain the thoughts of children do. But, alas! amongst children, idiots, savages, and the grossly illiterate, what general maxims are to be found? 1924, 27

Locke’s knowledge of the practice of “sati”3 in India enables him to argue that the wide variety of customs in the world lends credence to manifold social practices so that what appeared as pointless suffering and death to the Westerner was deemed as honor and glory by the Indian. It is likely that Locke was aware of Pierre Gassendi’s view,4 which was similar in many respects to his own. Carey notes that Gassendi had considered a variety of institutions and social practices all over the world, like marriage contracts, adultery, polygamy, “sati,” prostitution, funeral rites, incest, and cannibalism, to conclude that “nothing is considered unjust or shameful in one country which is not deemed honest and just in another; nothing is rejected in one place that is not recommended in another” (cited in Carey 2006b, 46). Locke rules out universality of the law of self-preservation, despite it being the “fundamental” law of nature: “But if any law of nature would seem to be established among all as sacred in the highest degree, which the whole of mankind, it seems, is urged to observe by a certain natural instinct and by its own interest, surely this is self-preservation, and therefore some lay this down as the chief and fundamental law of nature.” But the strength of “the power of custom and of opinion based on traditional ways of life” leads some people to “seek death as eagerly as others shun it.” Locke cites the examples of loyal subjects and slaves and of the Indian wife who burns herself with her dead husband: “for among the Indians the weak and timid female sex dares to make light of dying and to hasten to rejoin departed husbands by passing through the flames and through the gate of death” (1954, 173). Carey points out that when Locke used the example of “sati” in his lecture at Oxford in 1660, he was striving to refute the argument that common or universal consent about a social practice or its value proved its validity. Locke argued 3 “Sati” was a social and religious practice, followed by many Hindu widows, of burning themselves at their dead husbands’ pyre. Whether it was completely voluntary, as claimed, is certainly debatable. However, the word sati in Indian languages referred to the woman who chose to die in this way, while the Europeans transferred the signifier to the practice rather than the widow. This custom is discussed in detail in chapter 6. 4 Gassendi’s influence on Locke is debatable. “Locke quoted twelve times from Gassendi’s Syntagma philosophicum in notebook entries dating from the early 1660s, and made general references on several occasions to Gassendi’s Opera omnia. He also noted various authors who mentioned Gassendi” (see Carey 2006b, 46 n25). Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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that “it was vain to seek ‘the dictates of reason and the decrees of nature in the general consent of men’” because the idea of universal consensus was non-existent. “Things that received commendation among ‘us’ were ‘utterly disregarded and set at naught by peoples of Asia and America.’” There was no “‘internal’ law, equivalent to conscience, which might govern the moral choices of mankind…. Since actions are morally diverse, they rule out a uniform moral conscience or internal law” (see Carey 2014, 80). Locke’s lecture on natural law in which he had discussed the “sati” was developed later into Draft B of his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, “which dates from 1671.” In the Draft, Locke contends that the principle of self-preservation was neither innate nor universal. The same argument also applied to the idea of God. Carey cites Locke’s statement from the Draft for the Essay—“He that shall read the historys of the East Indies would find quite the contrary accounted a principle even of their religion, and self-murder a very necessary and glorious duty”—to show how Locke reaches the conclusion that “social practice received reinforcement from religion and was upheld, above all, as a principle” (see Carey 2014, 88). However, Locke later dropped the example of “sati” from his Essay; a possible reason for his omission would be that the example would have contradicted his contention that human desire to pursue pleasure and avoid pain was universal.5 What is important for our purposes, however, is that Locke’s arguments went a long way towards establishing that religious beliefs and practices are ultimately products of social customs and vary from society to society. Like Bernier’s observations on the eclipse and attempt to demonstrate that all religions rest on superstitions (see discussion in chapter 5), Locke’s contentions implicitly erode the supremacy of Christianity over all religions in the world and deny that it is the only true religion. Although Locke was not a free-thinker like Bernier and never questioned the existence of God or even the revelations, his statements suggest that social conditions give rise to specific forms of religion, and revealed religions would all contain elements of superstition. 3

Faith, Reason, and Toleration

During the seventeenth century there was a wide-ranging debate about the predominance of faith or reason in a revealed religion like Christianity. 5 Carey discusses other possible reasons for the omission of the example of “sati” from the later version of the Essay, citing the complexity of the case, transition in Locke’s thoughts, etc. (See Carey 2014, 95–100).

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Orthodox sections of the Protestants like the Calvinists argued that since reason was much impaired after the Fall, human reason was weak and could not enable Christians to comprehend the design of God and mysteries associated with it. However, there were rationalists like John Toland who sought to prove that there was no mystery about Christianity and everything in the Bible could be grasped by human reason. Toland defined reason as the “right Use” of the “Faculty of forming various Ideas or Perceptions of Things,” of “affirming or denying,” of cherishing what “seems good unto him” and “of hating and avoiding what he thinks evil.” But, “This bare Act, I say, of receiving such Ideas into the Mind,” for instance, “by the Intromission of Senses,” “is not strictly Reason, because the Soul herein is purely passive” (1696, 9–10). Toland declares that there are no mysteries about Christianity, and the revealed things belong to the domain of comprehensibility and are intelligible by human beings. People should not accept revealed things “only because they are reveal’d.” “Besides the infallible Testimony of the Revelation from all requisite Circumstances, we must see in its Subject the indisputable Characters of DIVINE WISDOM and SOUND REASON” (1696, 41–42; caps and italics in the original). “Whoever tells us something we did not know before, his Words must be intelligible, and the Matter possible. This RULE holds good, let God or Man be the Revealer” (Toland 1996, 42; caps and italics in the original). The doctrines of the Bible must be understood with the aid of reason so that they might be considered as authentic: “all the Doctrines and Precepts of the New Testament (if it be indeed Divine) must consequently agree with Natural Reason, and our own ordinary Ideas” (Toland 1696, 46). Moreover, Toland also asserts the possession of free will, which would differentiate his ideas from the concept of predestination of the Calvinists. He links free will with reason: “We are perswaded that all our Thoughts are entirely free, we can expend the Force of Words, compare Ideas, distinguish clear from obscure Conceptions, suspend our Judgments about uncertainties, and yield only to Evidence” (1696, 60). His narration of the process of “Deliberations,” which enables us to determine our choice, proves the active operation of reason and also that of free will: “and the Choice to which we determine our selves at last, do prove us the free Disposers of all our Actions” (1696, 60; emphasis added). Toland’s reduction of all the divine mysteries in Christianity and emphasis on rationality in religion suggest, in my view, his kinship with the Deists. Similarly, despite his endorsement of Christianity as a revealed religion, Locke’s advocacy of rationality in religion shows that he implicitly indicts all religions of irrational and emotional engagement with divinity. He finds many religions guilty, as we see, of propagating “extravagant opinions and

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ceremonies.” He writes that faith and reason are not always kept separate and distinct: If the provinces of faith and reason are not kept distinct by these boundaries, there will, in matter of religion, be no room for reason at all; and those extravagant opinions and ceremonies that are to be found in the several religions of the world will not deserve to be blamed. For to this crying up of faith in opposition to reason, we may, I think, in good measure, ascribe those absurdities that fill almost all the religions which possess and divide mankind. 1924, 358

It was the lack of reason that allowed people to “let loose their fancies and natural superstition,” leading to the “extravagant” and absurd religious practices (Locke 1924, 358). Reason alone can prove the authenticity of religions. Carey argues: “Locke’s purpose—without denying the possibility of revelation—is to ensure that reason guarantees the authenticity of the revelation according to tests in the form of testimony and proofs … including miracles.” The similarities with Toland are evident. Locke applies reason to all the religions without making a special case for Christianity. “His rigorous adherence to reason as the guarantor is therefore intended to take in all those instances of religious belief, whether Christian, Muslim or Brahmanic, that rest on appeals to direct illumination, as his journal entry of 1682 had observed” (Carey 2020, 26). The issue of the rationality of religions takes us to the mooted question of toleration. According to Sharon Achinstein and Elizabeth Sauer, “in the early modern era, toleration was not synonymous with religious freedom, but rather with the concepts of ‘permission’ and ‘endurance’, a more passive version of the classical term tolerantia. England’s history of toleration offers no evolutionary narrative toward enlightenment and liberty” (Kindle 2007). Andrew R. Murphy distinguishes between toleration and tolerance by defining toleration in terms of “social or political practices,” and tolerance with reference to “attitudes.” Toleration “denotes forbearance from imposing punitive sanctions for dissent from prevailing norms” (1997, 595–596). Tolerationists like William Penn and Roger Williams sought “the creation of a public space in which individuals and groups of differing persuasions could live out their own deepest commitments with some degree of integrity” (Murphy 2018, Kindle). It would be difficult to uphold the claim that the Protestant Reformation advanced the cause of toleration. While the Reformation enabled Protestants to put an end to Roman Catholic persecution and established the rights of

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Protestants to practice their beliefs in many European states, dissident religious beliefs (which included both Roman Catholic practices as well as the views of radical Protestants) were suppressed. This is true of England both during and after the Seventeenth-Century Revolution. Jonathan Israel shows a more conservative England because while “on the continent, arguments for tolerance moved towards freedom of thought,” “they were restricted to attacks on priestcraft” in England (see Achinstein and Sauer 2007). Importantly, although the ideas of Locke and others went a long way in helping advance the cause of toleration, there were differences in degrees in the nature of toleration extended to radical sects and atheists. What Locke meant by toleration was the freedom to worship in a form not laid down by the sovereign authority in a country (in England this would mean the Crown). However, such freedom pertained only to those who belonged to “an organized, permitted congregation,” and therefore, “in the English case,” to “Protestant dissenters, Quakers, Catholics, Jews, and potentially Muslims.” But “those who subscribe to no precise form of worship, be they agnostics, deists, or indifferenti, while not explicitly excluded, languish in a vague limbo, lacking any defined status or recognized freedom” (Israel 2002, 266). It would be difficult to say whether Locke would have extended tolerance to the Hindus or heathens. However, that he accuses many religions of the world of irrationality suggests that he certainly allows room for improvement in Christianity and would be likely to accept the merits of other organized religions to an extent. In contrast with Locke, Baruch Spinoza was ready to grant everyone the “freedom to philosophize” (cited in Israel 2002, 268). In Spinoza, “toleration has primarily to do with individual freedom” (Israel 2002, 266). According to Israel, Spinoza denies that theological doctrines, and the teachings of Churches, contain any truths at all. In his view, and following him, subsequently the radical tradition as a whole, the origin and purpose of the theological tenets is to promote obedience to the State and its laws or, as Radicati expresses it, “religion was instituted by legislators in order to give strength and credit to their laws.” 2002, 268–269; emphasis added

Spinoza would argue that “truth” can only be comprehended by “natural reason and philosophically” and not through “theological doctrines.” It is because of this that Spinoza considered “freedom of thought and speech” the “core of toleration” (Israel 2002, 269).

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If we examine the participants in the Seventeenth-Century Revolution, it is clear, for instance, that John Milton’s “vision” of toleration “differs sharply from a post-enlightenment, secularist understanding” (Achinstein 2007). The republican Milton’s writings at the time show the extent of Protestant hatred of the papists. In Achinstein and Sauer’s view, Milton could hardly be regarded as “a hero or anti-hero of tolerant thinking” (2007). His toleration had clear definable limits. In Of True Religion, Heresie, Schism, Toleration (1673), he extends the right to freedom of worship to “nonconformists” but denies “the same rights” to “Catholics.” Here “Milton provides a sharp and straightforward distinction between true and false versions of faith.” The treatise sought to “remind readers that in increasingly secularized times, they should not lose sight of the biblical basis of their existence” (Hadfield 2007). “Areopagitica’s aim is to persuade Christians that faith and reason reinforce each other, together revealing a complete truth. They are not separate, sometimes divergent entities, as, for example, the author of Anti-Toleration claims” (Hadfield 2007; emphasis added). Unlike Locke and Toland, therefore, Milton does not seek to separate the two or to think of his faith in terms of rationality. “True religion,” in Milton’s view, “is the true Worship of God and Service of God, learnt and believed from the Word of God only” (Hadfield 2007). He believes in Protestantism as the only true religion, which shows his difference from Locke and others who acknowledge that there may be a diversity of faiths in the world, which are dependent on specific conditions of society. That Spinoza’s or Locke’s stance was a significant advancement from the late-sixteenth-century “Calvinist triumphalism” is more than evident. Andrew Petigree describes how in the 1579 Netherlands the Protestants spoke of “freedom of conscience,” because Protestantism itself was the product of successful resistance of “papal tyranny.” “But to the Calvinist true freedom of religion was not synonymous with freedom of opinion. Freedom of conscience did not consist of allowing vicious sects to speak freely, thus seducing innocent hearts and creating discord. Rather the public authorities had a duty to silence those who undermined the true religion which they perversely refused to accept” (Pettegree 2002, 186; emphasis added). Executions for heresy in post-Reformation Europe give us an idea of the absence of toleration in the sixteenth century. William Monter shows that approximately 3000 executions for heresy were conducted between 1520 and 1565. About two thirds of those who died were Anabaptists, approximately 1000 dying in Germany and Switzerland, and about the same number in the Low Countries. England and Scotland maintained an average of thirty annual executions during 1555–1565 (Monter 2002, 49). Heresy executions gradually

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declined thereafter, although Holland accounted for eighty between 1567 and 1574, and Flanders and Brabant three hundred each during the same time (Monter 2002, 55). And decline in executions does indicate a gradual acceptance of the freedom of the religious pursuits by others. 4

Toleration and Protestant Colonization

But, even if heretic-burning declined during the seventeenth century due to the growth of toleration to an extent, imperialistic projects led by Protestants displayed lack of toleration in the highest degree. Despite fighting autocracy at home, a Puritan and republican England unabashedly launched an enterprise of imperialist persecution in the neighboring Catholic state of Ireland. England’s project of crushing rebellions in Catholic Ireland during the Interregnum led to the large-scale massacres at Drogheda and Wexford, perhaps in a replay of the Smerwick massacre in 1580. While many writers identify closely with Protestantism, some are able to distance themselves and think of religious practices as social customs in another country. Although his contemporaries Henry Vane and Roger Williams had “argued for toleration of idolaters” (Stevens 2007), Milton’s aversion to popery and his endorsement of the persecution of the Catholic Irish and imperialistic ventures in Ireland show little inclination towards toleration. While Milton’s works advocate toleration with regard to free speech and religious freedom with respect to radical sects in England in the Areopagitica, the difference with his stance as regards the issue of religious freedom in Ireland is clearly discernible. Paul Stevens writes: “Milton’s early prose writings are marked by a style ‘rarely equaled in violence’ among Puritan pamphleteers” (Stevens 2007). One perceives that Milton’s treatises on Ireland are especially marked by this violence. Doubtless, the killing of many Anglo-Irish Protestants in the Irish Rebellion of 1641 might have provoked the inflammatory rhetoric of Milton as also that of many other writers of the time. Sir John Temple’s The Irish Rebellion, for instance, offered a horrendous and highly exaggerated tale of tortures, which must have shaped English reaction to the Rebellion. Milton’s rhetoric in Observations upon the Articles of Peace (1649) and Eikonoclastes (1649) suggests a desire to avenge the killings. In his reply to a passage in the Eikon Basilikae in which Charles i had blamed the desperation and resistance of the Irish on the severe measures threatened by the Parliament, Milton writes: “Did not all Israel doe as much against the Benjamits for one Rape committed by a few, and defended by the whole Tribe, and did they not the same to Jabesh-Gilead for not assisting them in that revenge?”

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(1690, 107). Milton’s eulogy of Cromwell in the Observations indicates his support of Cromwell’s policies at this stage. One finds it difficult to reconcile Milton’s questioning of, on the one hand, the king’s prerogative of not owing accountability to “men naturally his equals” and to the law (1962, 307), and, on the other, his criticism of the recall of the Poynings Act in Ireland, which invested the Irish Parliament with “a law-giving power of their own” (1962, 303). Milton finds it unacceptable that the Irish Parliament could, by the recall of the act, potentially have thrown off subjection to England and claimed equality in their own land as the people of England in theirs. Milton bases the English claim to dominion on the strength of conquest, just as Edmund Spenser had done in A View of the Present State of Ireland. When it comes to Ireland, the republican Milton holds feudal rights sacred. He accuses Charles of “disallieging a whole Feudary Kingdome from the ancient Dominion of England” (1962, 307). Otherwise averse to interference by the state in church affairs, Milton blames Charles i for the release of the Irish from the Oath of Supremacy. Religious freedom could be granted to Protestants but not to the Catholics in a subject country. Significantly, in the Eikonoklastes, he defends the English against the charges of intolerance, by asking: “Who threat’nd or ever thought of their extirpation, till they themselves had begun it to the English?” (1690, 105). He even suggests that the Irish had more reason to fear Charles’s intolerance than the Parliament’s for they saw Charles “enduring no other but his owne Prelatical; and to force it upon others, made Episcopal, Ceremonial- and Common-Prayer-Book Wars” (1690, 105; italics in the original). However, almost in the same breath he declares: “Although if the Common-wealth should be afraid to suppress op’n Idolatry, least the Papists thereupon should grow desperate, this were to let them grow and become our Persecuters, while we neglected what we might have done Evangelically, to their Reformers” (Milton 1690, 105). The Protestant rhetoric of intolerance during the Interregnum is scarcely reconcilable with the republican ideals that Milton and his compatriots upheld. Moreover, Protestant imperialistic ventures during the seventeenth century included projects like Oliver Cromwell’s Western Design in America. In “Protestant Unity and Anti-Catholicism: The Irenicism and Philo-Semitism of John Drury in Context,” Jeremy Fradkin shows that Drury sought to link Britain, Ireland, Europe, and the Atlantic world in an “expansionist and international Protestant cause.” “His [Drury’s] vision for the Protestant churches was intended to counter what he perceived to be the principal strengths of early modern Catholicism: confessional unity, imperial expansion, and the coordination of missionary efforts to propagate the faith across the world” (Fradkin 2017, 275). Drury presents Jews and American Indians as victims of Spanish Catholicism, which is shown as Satanic in nature. His project calls for the conversion of Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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non-Christians to the Protestant form of Christianity. Evangelization “was to be the ‘spiritual’ aspect of a larger design for the unification and expansion of Protestantism based on its own dynamic of conquest and colonization in continental Europe, Ireland, and the Atlantic world” (Fradkin 2017, 275). These examples show how closely Protestantism was allied with imperialist and colonizing enterprises. In the cause of imperialism and colonization, even liberal Protestants could advocate intolerance. However, other groups demonstrated a more tolerant attitude. According to Norah Carlin, during the Interregnum, “more liberal principles were emerging from circles of Arminian intellectuals standing in the non-Calvinist traditions of Christian Stoicism, Erasmian tolerance and the Laudianism of Great Tew” (2002, 217). Among the more radical sects like the Levellers, there was a growing demand for toleration and a more humane treatment of Catholics, especially the Irish. Carlin finds “an undercurrent of radical views in favour of toleration for all Christians or even for all religions, and such ideas were being debated in the press at the time of Cromwell’s preparations for invading Ireland in 1649” (2002, 218–219). A tolerationist like Roger Williams declared in The Blovdy Tenent of Persecution, for the cause of Conscience (1644): It is the will and command of God, that since the comming of his Sonne the Lord Jesus, a permision of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish or Antichristian consciences and worships, bee granted to all men in all Nations and Countries: and they are onely to bee fought against with that Sword which is only (in Soule matters) able to conquer, to wit, the Sword of God’s Spirit, the Word of God. 1644,a3 italics in the original

Therefore, side by side with the growth of intolerance in the state and among many Protestants during the Interregnum, a demand for toleration was increasing among certain sections of the population. 5

Rise of Deism or Natural Religion and Toleration

It was during the second half of the seventeenth century that we notice a tendency towards a “rational religion or a rational replacement for Christianity. The deists were characteristically anti-clerical and they usually went well beyond mere heresy by rejecting the Bible or revelation as sources of truth” (Brown 1996, 8). They rejected some of the core teachings of the church, like “revelation, miracles, the means of grace, the Incarnation,” and a divinely ordained clerical hierarchy. According to Stuart Brown, “some of the ‘rationalist’ philosophers” Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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could be “identified” with “deists, as in the case of Spinoza, or showed some tendency in that direction, as did Leibniz and Malebranche” (1996, 8). He argued that the Deists “were rationalists in a perfectly clear sense, i.e., rationalizers of religion” (1996, 9). Matthew Tindal (1657?–1754) had suggested that “Christianity was not new but already contained in the ‘religion of Nature’. Its truths, such as Tindal could accept, were ones that reason could discover without the need of revelation” (Brown 1996, 9). The similarities with Toland are obvious. Some of the Cambridge Platonists played a role in the development of Deism in England. Lord Herbert of Cherbury emphasized the importance of “Natural Instinct” in grasping truth intuitively. Although reason can be important when applied properly and is of use in the processes of “generalization, analysis, reflection,” it ranks much lower than instincts in his classification (Hutton 1996, 21). “Herbert’s epistemology is connected to his religious concerns.” “In De veritate, De religione gentilium and his argument for religious tolerance in De religione laici he proposes a minimum number of fundamental beliefs, arrived at by examining the common elements in all religions” (Hutton 1996, 21–22). These “fundamental beliefs” comprise the following: the notion of a divinity, which is to be worshipped with “virtue and piety,” the necessity of repentance for one’s sins, and the view that life after death brings rewards and punishments for one’s actions (see Hutton 1996, 22). Similarly, Charles Blount sets forth the generally accepted characteristics of the natural religion: Natural religion is the belief of an eternal intellectual being, & of the duty which we owe to him, manifested to us by our reason, without revelation or positive law: The chief heads whereof seem contained in these few particulars. 1. That there is one infinite eternal God, Creator of all things. 2. That he governs the world by Providence. 3. That ’tis our duty to worship & obey him as Creator and Governor. 4. That our worship consists in prayers to him, & praise of him. 5. That our obedience consists in the rules of right reason, the practice whereof is moral virtue. 6. That we are to expect rewards and punishments hereafter, according to our actions in this life; which includes the soul’s immortality, and is proved by our admitting providence. Seventhly, that when we err from the rules of our duty, we ought to repent & trust in God’s mercy for pardon. Cited in Jacob 1983, 72

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The similarities of Blount’s ideas with those of the Cambridge Platonists are evident. According to Sarah Hutton, the “blend of Renaissance elements with seventeenth-century philosophical concerns” along with belief in “free will” and “arguments based on universal consent, are all characteristics of the diffuse group of English thinkers known as the Cambridge Platonists” (1996, 22). The Cambridge Platonists stressed the role of reason in theology. For example, More’s and Cudworth’s belief in reason and free will set them apart from orthodox Calvinists, who believed that only selected people were predestined to salvation. “Reason was conceived as a safeguard against the excesses of the fanaticism of self-proclaimed prophets, or ‘enthusiasts’.” But, their view of reason suggests a contrast with Locke, for instance, in that reason and faith are combined. They do not ascribe superiority to reason over faith, but consider “right reason” as “affective reason, directed by love towards God” (see Hutton 1996, 23–24). Also, their rationality did not extend to the materialism of Hobbes or Spinoza. Deistic thoughts about natural religion manifested themselves in various forms during the late seventeenth century, which led to less doctrinal and more tolerant ideologies. Even Hobbes says that human beings’ “natural reason only” enables them to decipher God’s existence and “teaches us to honor him with prayers and thanksgiving” (see Jacob 1983, 34). John Selden professed to believe in “a natural religion based upon God’s commands as set down in Scripture.” According to Selden, the ancient Hebrews were tolerant in believing that they themselves could be distinguished from the rest of humankind in being obliged to follow Mosaic law, while others had to practice the “seven precepts given to Noah” (Jacob 1983, 32). Selden argued that the ancient Hebrews believed that some commandments of God were given to all human beings. Whether they believed that “these were God’s commands or innate ideas ‘imprinted in the souls of all men at their original’” is not clear, but the rabbinical authorities were certain that all humankind possessed them and were obliged to observe them (see Jacob 1983, 32–33). Similarly, Henry Stubbe, a radical Protestant, “following Selden, suggested that here was the first universal, natural religion that might serve as the remote and primitive archetype or model for a civic, natural religion in England.” Stubbe himself believed in the presence of “a natural instinct for religion” in all human beings, which drew “men into churches to maintain a spiritual communion” (Jacob 1983, 33). He was the author of An Account of the Rise and Progress of Mahometanism.6 The book is a secularized history of religion in 6 The manuscript was written after 1671, when Stubbe wrote that he intended to write on the subject. In 1671, in his An Epistolary Discourse Concerning Phlebotomy, he wrote that he would

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which he shows the “whole history of religion from the origins of Christianity to the foundation and expansion of Islam, as constituting a series of ‘great revolutions.’” The history is viewed in “secular, historical terms rather than the clerical, providentialist ones of conventional historiography,” omitting all references to supernatural factors like “‘miraculous accidents, unimaginable effusions of the Holy Ghost, and such like, which no reason can comprehend nor example parallel’” (Jacob 1983, 66). Of the series of “revolutions” that Stubbe mentions, the last one gives rise to the emergence of Islam and its prophet Muhammed. “While most of Christianity was sunk in superstition and internecine war, Mohammed accomplished the fourth revolution, the invention, establishment and expansion of Islam” (Jacob 1983, 69). Stubbe characterizes Muhammad as a shrewd and wily politician especially equipped for initiating the spread of a new religion. James R. Jacob argues that the description of Islam in Stubbe’s book is similar in many respects to that of Hobbes’s “Of the Kingdome of God by Nature,” in the Leviathan, and also to the natural religion, as expounded by Blount. This has been contested, and as Nabil Matar, a recent editor of the book suggests, Stubbe did not subscribe to deism. I argue here that his representation of Islam and defense of Islamic doctrines in the book show a rational criterion of judgement. The attributes of the Islamic God, as presented in Stubbe, and closeness to the Christian doctrine suggest a tolerant attitude towards Islam. In Stubbe’s representation of Islam, God is “one God; that there is none other; that He hath no equal, no son nor associate.” Muhammad discounts the concept of Trinity. By rejecting the existence of the Son of God, he makes Jesus into another prophet. God’s “eternity hath neither beginning nor end … He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent  … His understanding penetrates into all things  … that all things in this world, good or evil, befall us according to His will.” Islam’s God shares attributes with Christianity. Islam also propagates immortality of the soul, the day of judgement, resurrection, joys of paradise, and purgatory in the grave where wicked souls suffer torments until the last day and are finally saved. So, there is no concept of hell, “but that nothing of evil, how little so ever, shall escape unpunished, nor anything of good, how small so ever, pass unrewarded” (Stubbe 2013). The concept of the monotheistic religion, denial of Trinity, and elimination of hell suggest the emphasis on rationality in the construction of Islam. write about the “political reflexions upon the rise of Mahomet,” if he had time. “Stubbe’s Account existed only in manuscript copies for two centuries before it was published for the first time in 1911” (see Jacob 1983, 64-65).

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Stubbe defends the concept of the paradise in Islam, saying that since there was very little distinction between the Islamic paradise and that of Judaism, which was “consequently avowed by the Judaizing Christians,” and “if the words be the same,” there is no reason “why they are not as liable to any equitable construction  … as anything delivered by the Jews or Christians.” Stubbe shows his rationality in his understanding of the construction of the concept: “Since all the descriptions we use concerning the senses and nature of glorified bodies are equivocal and deduced from what we are accustomed to upon earth; since God himself in scripture is described with the parts, actions, and passions of a man, I do not comprehend wherein lies the fault or ignorance in giving the like account of paradise” (Stubbe 2013). By suggesting that all religious constructions of celestial happenings or bodies depend on the knowledge of human beings on earth, he takes away the superiority ascribed to Christianity as the only true religion, and ascribes a rational basis for all beliefs. Stubbe extends toleration towards Islam and other religions and also demonstrates a rational attitude towards divinity. In his formulation of the doctrines of Muhammad, Stubbe wrote that the prophet retained in his new religion many of the “principles which the nation had imbibed” from Jews, Judaizing Christians, and other sects of Christians who were in Arabia. These included “torments on the grave, praying for the dead, and purgatory, but also of paradise and its joys, as he expresseth in his Alcoran” (Stubbe 2013). He also explains some of the elements of Islam, like fasting during Ramadan and pilgrimage, by showing the necessity of these in a military empire where abstinence and endurance were necessary. Although Muhammad features as a worldly, clever man in Stubbe’s delineation, this does not make him a mere trickster or negate his achievement in propagating and expanding the Islamic faith. In some respects, the text clearly demonstrates that Islam was superior to Christianity, namely in extending toleration and security to non-Islamic members and in practicing a more liberal form of slavery than was practiced by Christians in America. The positive valuation of Muhammad and Islam as a religion in the text suggests the adoption of rational and secular criteria of judgement and indicates the text’s freedom from the dogma of Christianity being the one true religion. In this chapter we have seen how recognition of the importance of the rationality of religion and the shaping influence of custom on religion in effect undermined the sanctity of organized religions like Protestantism. Those, like Locke, who argued for the absence of innate ideas and decried religious enthusiasm and revelation were proponents of toleration just as much as the radical sects and advocates of natural religion. Interestingly, deists like the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, who sought to refute the Lockean notion of the absence of

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innate ideas and to propound the universality of divinity and common notions of morality, shared the same perspective on rationality of religion and toleration as those whom they sought to refute. Carey writes: “In opposition to the sceptical tendencies of Locke’s critique, he maintained a Stoic confidence in human uniformity, expressed in shared ideas of virtue and the divine, consonant with the order of the universe itself” (2006b, 99). Shaftesbury argues for an inherent sense of morality involving right and wrong in all human beings: “Sense of right and wrong therefore being as natural to us as natural affection itself, and being a first principle in our constitution and make, there is no speculative opinion, persuasion or belief which is capable immediately or directly to exclude or destroy it” (1999, 179; italics in the original). He suggests that this sense of right and wrong is independent of the religious belief in a deity. In obeying religious dictums which run contrary to their sense of right, the devotee becomes aware of a contradiction. The devotee may worship despite being aware of a contradiction within him: “If in following the precepts of his supposed god or doing what he esteems necessary towards the satisfying of such his deity, he is compelled only by fear and, contrary to his inclination, performs an act which he secretly detests as barbarous and unnatural, then has he an apprehension or sense still of right and wrong” (1999, 181). The pressure of social conditioning persuades a devotee to obey the dictums of a false religion. Shaftesbury argues that belief in an evil deity can in the long run render the believer totally impervious to morality. He says that if the believer “comes to be more and more reconciled to the malignity, arbitrariness, partiality or revengefulness of his beloved deity, his reconciliation with these qualities themselves will soon grow in proportion, and the most cruel, unjust and barbarous acts will … be often considered by him not only as just and lawful but as divine and worthy of imitation” (1999, 181). Religion would therefore contradict morality and render the believer “immorally devout” (1999, 181). And religion in such a case may be the cause of a great deal of harm to humankind. Without going into doctrinal complexities of institutionalized religions, therefore, Shaftesbury finds the basis of goodness in human beings in our innate sense of morality, and of right and wrong. The natural religion denies any superiority to Christianity or Protestantism as the sole repository of truth. He feels that “having once the good of our species or public in view as our end or aim, it is impossible we should be misguided by any means to a false apprehension or sense of right or wrong” (1999, 182). While acceptance of diversity and realization of social conditioning promote toleration on the one hand (as we see, for instance, in Locke), the sense of universality of belief in

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a benevolent deity and common moral norms also lead to toleration of other non-Christian religions, on the other. Brown argues that deism declined in England in the middle of the eighteenth century because “Anglican Christianity itself had become less authoritarian or fideistic than it had been a century before and those who might otherwise have been tempted to deism could more readily be accommodated within the church. The liberal or latitudinarian wing of the Church of England became much stronger in the eighteenth century” (1996, 10). So, we see that the need for a rational religion grew further during this period. It is a measure of the contentiousness of deist ideas in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that they received a great deal of censure from pious churchmen. Humphry Prideaux writes in his address to the reader of his book The True Nature of Imposture Fully Display’d in the Life of Mahomet: And therefore that kind of Infidelity, which is called Deism, being of late impiously patronized by too many of those who govern the Humours of the Times, abundance of this sort of unthinking People have merely, out of Compliance with them, run in thereto, and confidently take upon them to call Christianity a Cheat, and an Imposture, without ever having considered, what an Imposture is, or whether any of the Marks and Properties thereof can possibly agree with this Holy Religion, or no. 1697, iii

He charges the Deists with advancing, “without Method or Sense,” “such Arguments against our Liturgies and Forms of Prayer, as have in a Manner totally destroyed the Devotion of the Nation” and condemning “the Decency and Order of our outward Worship … as Crimes” (1697, xii). Prideaux’s sketch of the life of Muhammad presents a contrast with that of Stubbe’s. If we put both pictures in dialogue with each other, we see how rationality and tolerance were countered by orthodoxy and intolerance in the two texts. Prideaux shows the prophet as an impostor who made false statements regarding his religion, painted Paradise in fictitious colors, and held out threats of persecution and hell to those who refused to follow him (see 1697, 25–27). Being unable to provide miracles to earn believers, Muhammad answered questions regarding them evasively and finally used force to compel people to be converted. He himself had acknowledged in the Quran that he “wrought no Miracles” (1697, 34). Prideaux holds it as a shortcoming and inadequacy of Muhammad (as a prophet and a preacher) that the latter worked no miracles, thereby proving that he himself endorsed all the miracles of Christianity. He

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also suggests that the Quran was written by Christians and Jews “because the Book it self contains so many particulars of the Jewish and Christian Religion, as necessarily imply the Authors of it to be well-skill’d in both, which Mahomet, who was bred an Idolater, and lived so for the first forty Years of his Life among a People totally Illiterate, cannot be supposed to be” (1697, 38). The contentions of Prideaux regarding Muhammad were similar to those of many others of his compatriots. Deism had its opponents, and the Enlightenment ideas of rationality did not produce toleration or liberalism among many churchmen and other people. But, side by side, we have also seen the emergence of trends in rational thinking and acceptance of difference in England. Therefore, seventeenth-century England presents diverse opinions and sects. 6

Jesuit “Accommodation,” Universal Religion, and Toleration

If we turn to European missionaries and travelers to India, we see that the Jesuit missionaries practiced more toleration towards other religions than Protestant zealots. The Jesuit practice of “accommodation” in India provides a contrast with those of Protestant missionaries and implicitly raises the issue of toleration. While the English Protestants who traveled to India in the seventeenth century, in general, dismissed Hindus as idolaters and devilworshippers, the Portuguese missionaries and Jesuits during this period were engaged in a mission of collecting facts about Indian society and religion. “The Jesuits who started arriving in the early 1540s invested the biggest part of their intellectual energy and practical expertise in trying to understand religious practices and beliefs which they were called to dismantle” (Xavier and Zupanov 2015, 119). Although they found fault with the high-caste Brahmans who willfully misled people and who, despite high cognitive abilities, lacked the true light of religion, they often found it necessary to “accommodate.” Xavier and Zupanov write: If the Jesuits in India and China opted for ‘cultural dialogue’ with a limited version of cultural relativism, it was because they had no other choice. Not only were they forced to act from the position of a religious minority and in competition with other major or minor religious sects in non-Christian political structures, but also, very often, to hide their European origins. It is in these circumstances in which the mirror of otherness was turned backwards that the theologically minded Jesuit missionaries decided that culture and religion were not one and the same thing. 2015, 151

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Roberto de Nobili, an important advocate of the “accommodation” theory, found three theological sects among the gentiles, one of which was atheist (Buddhist), one monotheist (Vedantics), and only one idolatrous, in which a number of sects were included (see Xavier and Zupanov 2015, 154). The Jesuit accommodation of the civil practices of the gentiles in India, which received the papal approval (Nobili and the accommodation concept will be discussed in more detail in the following chapter), suggests an intervention in the issue of toleration of religions other than Roman Catholicism. The theory of the existence of a monotheistic, non-idolatrous Hinduism suggests its similarity with Christianity and precludes an easy rejection of the gentile (see chapter 5, note 1) religions as false, idolatrous, and involving devil worship, as many Protestants sought to portray them, thereby conceding likeness rather than opposition with the other. Moreover, the idea of a monotheistic Hinduism led to the possibility of the existence of a universal monotheistic religion at the beginning. The concept of a universal monotheistic religion was introduced by Bernard Picart and Jean-Frédéric Bernard, his collaborator, in their Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peoples du monde (1723). According to Israel, the book, “which treats Judaism, Islam, and fringe Christian Churches with a remarkable degree of objectivity,” makes “one of the enduring Early Enlightenment contributions to religious toleration.” Picart, a Catholic convert to Protestantism who had left France to settle in Netherlands, was “emotionally deeply committed” to the cause of toleration (see Israel 2002, 574–575). India appears in the third volume of the 1734 English translation of the book (The Ceremonies and Religious Customs of the Various Nations of the Known World Together with Historical Annotations and Several Curious Discourses Equally Instructive and Entertaining), containing a number of texts by La Créquinière, Henry Lord, Abraham Rogerius, Charles Dellon, which had the Jesuit Joao de Brito’s work for its source.7 The discovery of the monotheistic core of Hinduism has been commented on by several travel narrators, including the English Henry Lord, Terry, Thomas Herbert, and Ovington. But importantly, accusing the Brahmans of wrongly leading the common people into wrong practices and restricting the knowledge of monotheism to members of their own caste, many writers dismissed the gentile religion as idolatrous and irrational. However, the theory that all religions 7 See Subrahmanyam 2017, 108–125. The book, as Bernard acknowledges in 1741, was an attempt to compile several “dispersed” texts (Subrahmanyam 2017, 109). Subrahmanyam rightly finds fault with many of the writers’ insufficient knowledge of the religion of the gentiles in India and shows a lack of authenticity and contradictions in their arguments. He shows how Bernard and Picart attempted to show the existence of a universal religion in the world. Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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were monotheistic initially and degenerated into idolatry later suggested a kinship between all religions, which includes Christianity. And writers like Brito (as printed in Bernard and Picart) made efforts to reconcile the Indian gentile religion with Christianity: “Such as reflect seriously on the principal Points of the Doctrine of the Heathen Indians, will soon be of the Opinion, that these Idolaters were formerly acquainted with the Mysteries of the Christian Religion; and that the Truths which were undoubtedly deliver’d to them, have been insensibly chang’d for want of evangelical Preachers” (cited in Subrahmanyam 2017, 126). The account clearly privileges Christianity as the source religion and the deliverer of “Truths.” However, it also discovers the presence of a universal monotheistic religion, closely akin to Christianity in India, which, these theorists contended, the gentiles discarded, by replacing it with polytheism and idolatry. The concept of a universal simple monotheistic creed resembles deism or natural religion. Rubiés argues that Bernard and Picart imply the presence of a parallel degeneration in Christianity in Catholicism, with its emphasis on rituals, ceremonies, and clerical supremacy. Perhaps there is also an implicit critique of the Calvinist doctrine of Grace and Revelation, which denies rationality and free will, as suggested by Rubiés (2016, 118). By “declaring a new cosmopolitan ideal, based on the restoration of a simple religious cult, of universal validity, to a ‘Supreme Being,’” Bernard and Picart suggest that the unification of mankind rests on the recognition of religion as something above local and traditional ceremonies (see Rubiés 2016, 120–121). The concept of this theory of universal religion suggests a growth of toleration towards all religions and discards the tendency to formulate binaries. However, such a concept was not accepted in many places and savored of radicalism. As we have seen, contending and contested ideas in Europe and in England during the seventeenth century presented a fractured scene, which made it impossible to look at Enlightenment as a unified phenomenon. On the one hand, discoveries of the natural causes of things and the existence of natural laws in the universe reduced belief in a providentially regulated world and led to the interest in nature and human society for the growth of knowledge. On the other hand, Protestantism as an institutional religion itself often bred intolerance and led to a rejection of other religions. Protestantism served the cause of empire-building as a counterpart of Catholicism. But the discovery and acceptance of the fixity of natural laws in the universe, the rationality of religion, belief in natural rather than institutionalized religions, and the emergence of free-thinking radical sects partially furthered the growth of toleration and respect towards other religions and people in some European cities and among some people in post-Revolution England. This chapter helps us to understand the ideology of the travel narratives in the following chapters and to see how far they reflected these contending ideas in their narration of India. Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

Chapter 5

Religion, Society, and Customs in India This chapter discusses the practices of major religions in India, like Islam, Hinduism, and Jainism, as viewed by various travel writers. The earlier narratives, like those of Roe and Terry, for instance, which center on the court, discuss Islam, as practiced by the king and the courtiers, presenting it as a fake religion, thus separating it from the true religion of Christianity. Terry also refers to the idolatrous religion of the “gentiles.”1 On the whole, the later accounts describe the gentile religion in more detail and find it an ethnological curiosity, which enables them to construct it especially as the other of Christianity. 1

Islam and Falsehood: Mughal Court and Christian Doctrine

In Islam, the post-Reformation Elizabethans and Jacobeans saw a rival religion, one which had historical connections and a shared heritage with Christianity. The common features in the two religions included monotheism, a formless God, abjuration of idolatry, and reliance on God’s words, as reported in the holy Quran or the Bible. However, the charge of falsity has been leveled by followers of both religions against each other repeatedly over the years. To the Muslims, Jesus was the Messiah, a prophet, not the son of God. They accepted some part of the beliefs regarding Christ, but categorically rejected the crucifixion and resurrection. To the Christians, Muhammad was a false prophet around whom they had constructed a mythology of fraudulent practices and deceptive miracles like his teaching a white dove to eat at his ear. Due to the fighting of several Crusades, military encounters in the Mediterranean, which both sought to control, and histories of forced conversions during military or even trading encounters, the Christians and Turks 1 “Gentiles” signified “of or pertaining to any or all of the nations other than Jewish” (oed). It also meant heathen or pagan; heathen being of Germanic origin, “assumed to be a direct derivative of Gothic haipi, Heath,” meaning “dweller on the heath,” a “loose rendering of Latin paganus (originally ‘villagers’, ‘rustic,’).” Later, “after Christianity became the religion of the towns, while ancient deities” continued to be worshipped in rural areas, it became synonymous with non-Christian (oed). ‘Heathen’ therefore refers to “persons or races whose religion is neither Christian, Jewish, nor Muslim,” while “Gentile in earlier times applied also to Muslims” (oed). The term “heathen” also retains the sense of uncultured and boorish, associated with the word rustic. Similarly, “pagan,” originally “villager, rustic,” “civilian” as opposed to soldier, refers to “one of a nation or community which does not worship the true God,” sometimes including Muslims and even Jews earlier. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004448261_007

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cherished hatred for each other. India and Safavid Iran were, of course, not Turkey, with which the Europeans shared a long history of hostility and rivalry. Also, intra-European hostilities and religious divisions complicated existing power equations. For instance, after the excommunication of Elizabeth by the pope in 1570, Elizabeth’s subjects found their queen edging towards the Ottoman Turks, who were also enemies of Catholic Spain. Yet, the Indian emperor and his court followed Islam, which was uncomfortably close to Christianity, and the sameness made it all the more imperative to emphasize differences and proclaim distinctness. Islam had traditionally been constructed as the other of Christianity, and allegations of falsehood had clung to it for a long time. To Roe, Terry, and other employees of the eic, the religion that they saw practiced at court was a religion they were familiar with and cherished a distorted view of, unlike Hinduism, the religion of polytheism and idolatry, practiced by the masses in India, which they could easily label as superstitious and dismiss. Towards the end of 1616, writing in a letter to Prince Charles that the emperor’s “religione” is “of his owne invention,” Roe elaborates: hee envyes Mahomett, and wisely sees noe reason why hee should not bee as great a prophett as hee, and therefore proffeseth him selfe soe; and yet finds not (or confesseth not) that they are both imposturs in that kind. Hee hath found many disciples that flatter or follow him. The rest are circumcised Mahomatans, and the issue of the conquerors planted by Temurlane. 1926, 270

Here Roe accuses Muhammad as well as the emperor of deceit, fraudulence, and presumption. In accusing the prophet of deceit, Roe is merely repeating the Christian accusations commonly leveled against him and seeking to emphasize the truth of Christianity. The desire to characterize Christianity and Islam as true and false religions perpetuates a polarized construction. Significantly, Roe fails to acknowledge that Oriental as well as Occidental monarchs alike sought to construct myths around the institution of monarchy to boost the imperial image. In the sixteenth century, rulers of Spain, Austria, and even England claimed kinship with or identified themselves with gods, mythical, mythological, and biblical figures, and renowned conquerors to glorify their ancestry. As Steven Gunn writes: Maximilian and Charles v proclaimed themselves blood relations of Priam of Troy and the emperors of Rome and Byzantium, of the Old

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Testament patriarchs and indeed of Christ…. Philip adopted in 1555 a personal device identifying himself with the sun-god Apollo, ruler of a reborn world, and in the last year of his reign the Italian utopian writer Tommaso Campanella explicitly hailed him as the Last World Emperor long prophesied to usher in the millenial golden age. 2004, 116

Even the theory of the divine right of kingship claims that the king is God’s appointed ruler and comes close to a prophet’s status. But, in attributing falsehood only to followers of Islam and especially Jahangir, Roe seeks unsuccessfully to distance Christian kings from such charges of imposture. One does not know if Jahangir had laid claim to the status of Prophet Muhammad. But Roe seeks support for his view by using the image of idolatry to show the adoration of his subjects: “For hee comes to bee seene at a wyndow at sunne rising to all his idolaters” (1926, 270; emphasis added). Roe characterizes the worship of the sovereign as idolatry, linking Islam with the ritual, although Islam, like Christianity, prohibited idolatry. Roe seeks to distance Christianity and specifically Protestantism from such charges, for Catholicism was likewise guilty of the veneration of the pope. Idolatry, which travelers like Roe and Terry seek to invest India with, is anathema to Protestantism. The English Protestants charged Catholic countries like Spain and France with idolatry. During the 1580s, Queen Elizabeth and the Turkish sultan had engaged in trade and commercial exchange, and both had sought to target Catholicism as the other while finding similar traits shared by Christianity and Islam. Both religions advocated monotheism and the worship of an immanent divine power as opposed to idol worship, as they sought to emphasize. However, here Roe attempts to demarcate Islam and Christianity, especially Protestantism, as opposites. He charges not only Jahangir but also his father, Emperor Akbar, with the ambition to become the prophet: “he [Akbar] thought hee might prove as good a prophett himselfe.” However, Akbar did not formally abjure Islam, “a certayn outward reverence deteyned him, and so hee dyed in the formall profession of his sect” (1926, 276). Roe equates this ambition with atheism. It is interesting to see how Coryat shows his freedom from such prejudice against Akbar in relating a story about him. The emperor had refused his mother’s request that the “Bible might be hanged about an asses necke and beaten about the towne of Agra” in retaliation for the Portuguese action of tying the Quran about the neck of a dog and beating the “same dogge about the towne of Ormuz.” Akbar refuted his mother’s argument for revenge, saying that it was

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unworthy of a king “to requite ill with ill, for that the contempt of any religion was the contempt of God” (Coryat 2012, 278). Coryat added his own moral to the story that the true religion could not be abused in this way. However, the reporting of Akbar’s words shows his tacit acceptance of the justice and tolerance of the emperor. Significantly, in the face of European intolerance, one is struck by Akbar’s freedom from such prejudice. During the sixteenth century, Akbar showed a level of enlightenment about religion and toleration of religious practices that was unknown in Europe. In a bid to unite various religions in his country, he propagated a new faith, called Tawhid-i-Ilahi (Divine monotheism), taking elements from Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity, which later became Din-i-Ilahi (Religion of God). Following Zoroastrianism, the new religion emphasized the importance of the sun, light, and fire: “Every flame is derived from that fountain of divine light (the sun), and bears the impression of its holy essence.” Akbar considered fire as sacred and claimed that “there can be nothing improper in the veneration of that exalted element which is the source of man’s existence, and of the duration of his life” (Allami 2011, 1:50). The Hindu courtier Bir Bar also impressed upon Akbar that the “sun was the primary origin of everything” (Badaon, cited in Allami 2011, 1: 192). That Akbar arranged discussions of the proponents of all religions at his court angered many orthodox Muslims. According to the orthodox Abdul Qadir Badaon, “he [Akbar] distinctly denied the existence of Jinns, of angels, and of all other beings of the invisible world, as well as the miracles of the prophet and the saints; he rejected the successive testimony of the witnesses of our faith” (Allami 2011, 1:197). Such discarding of miracles and saints’ stories and emphasis on rationality tend to align the new religion of Akbar with the seventeenthcentury natural religion. But orthodox Muslims abhorred the incorporation of ideas from other religions, the questioning of the sanctity of Islam, and the attempt at synthesis. Abul-Fazl Allami lists some of the precepts of this religion, like abstinence from flesh-eating and from sexual association with “pregnant, old, and barren women,” and “girls under the age of puberty”; giving alms to the needy; and making “provisions for the long journey” (2011, 1: 176).2 The prohibition of child marriage was a very rational precept but totally unacceptable in Islam; it infuriated Muslim priests. Prohibition of flesh-eating would have been 2 The new religion that Akbar propounded was preceptorial in nature. Other instructions were that each member should feast people “on the anniversary of his birthday.” Not only was abstinence from meat prescribed, but “during the month of their birth they are not even to approach meat.” (see Fazl Allami 2011, 1: 175–176).

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inducted from Jainism and the practices of the upper castes of Hinduism. But such abstinence also ruled against lavish indulgence of appetite. Probably in a bid to introduce some of the caste prohibitions of Hinduism, Akbar forbade the use of the same vessels, which were used by “butchers, fishers, and birdcatchers” (Allami 2011, 1: 176). The latter were castes associated with animal slaughter. The religion was monotheistic, characterized by an absence of priests, and scriptures, and urged purification of the soul. Akbar’s religion has discernible similarities with the European concept of natural religion or Deism in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. That Akbar viewed all religions in equal terms is seen in his act of the abolition of jizya tax (pilgrimage tax) on Hindus. It was characteristic of an English Protestant like Roe that he would call such tolerance of all religions, as was evinced by Akbar, atheism. Being an atheist, Akbar, Roe states, brought his son up as an atheist. Possibly following Coryat, Roe avers in his letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury that Jahangir “was never circumcised” (1926, 276; see also Foster’s annotation no. 1, 276) and adds that his father did not bring him up to any religion. Jahangir “continewes so to this hower, and is an athiest” (1926, 276). Atheism or irreligion was worse than belonging to an organized religion, even if it was not the true one. Roe criticizes Jahangir’s secular policy (which was a legacy of Akbar) of toleration, which welcomed people of all religions and permitted them the freedom to profess and practice any religion: “all sorts of religions are wellcome and free, for the King is of none” (1926, 271; emphasis added). The policy of openness and toleration is ridiculed by charging the king with irreligion and atheism, and therefore immorality, without any valid grounds for such an assertion. Roe’s criticism of the Mughal secular approach in the seventeenth century shows his Protestant intolerance. Secure in his belief that his was the only true religion on earth, Roe criticizes all other religions, and even his humanist education fails to make him understand that only a secular nation could ensure justice for all, including Christians, and further free and fair international trade, to promote which he had traveled to India. The narratives of Roe and Terry suggest the difference between the English and the Mughal courts with regard to tolerance as a policy during the early modern period. Curiously, however, Roe’s account of Jahangir’s religion is fraught with ambivalence. In his letters to his noble and ecclesiastical audience, he seeks to find blemish in the emperor’s religion and invariably draws a contrast with the true “Church, wher Hee hath vouchsafed to reveale His truth and glory.” By contrast with the atheist Jahangir, Prince Charles is “a shining lampe in

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His Church” (1926, 271). However, we notice a divergence from the derogatory stand on Jahangir in his journal. On 18 December 1616, on a visit to the court, Roe found the emperor in the company of a religious fakir, whom Roe called a “begger,” a “miserable wretch,” “clothd in raggs, crownd with feathers, covered with ashes.” The English ambassador was surprised to see Jahangir talking to the man “with such familiarity and show of kindnes that it must needs argue an humilitye not found easely among kings” (1926, 328; emphasis added). When the man gave the king a burnt cake of coarse grain, made by himself, which “a daynty mouth could scarce have” eaten, the king willingly accepted and partook of it. He shared his own food with the mendicant and gave him a hundred rupees; and at the time of leaving, he helped the man to his feet, and “embraced” him. Roe felt that “noe cleanly bodye durst have touchd” the dirty man and praised Jahangir’s religious zeal and devotion, even though misplaced: “and three tymes laying his hand on his hart, calling him father, hee left him, and all us, and me in admiration of such a virtue in a heathen prince. Which I mention with envye and sorrow, that wee, having the true vyne, should bring forth crabbs, and a bastard stock grapes” (1926, 328). This picture of humility, charity, and sincerity contradicts his earlier statement of Jahangir’s envy, atheism, and impious ambition of prophethood. The contrast is evident if we consider his other letters. Roe speaks at length of the various religions practiced in Mughal India in his letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, which was dated 30 October 1616, and therefore written before the above visit to the court took place in December 1616. That letter abounds in instances of impostures practiced in the name of religion in the country, and the king, as we have seen, is not excluded from the purview of this all-pervasive corruption and deceit (see 1926, 272). One may well understand that Roe, being a devout Protestant, would not wish to report well of Islam to the head of the Church of England. Besides, his knowledge of Islam and Muhammad was drawn from hearsay and circulating stories of Christians, which invariably vilified the prophet. In this connection, it would be relevant to refer to an anecdote, related by both Roe and Terry, which shows them triumphing over Muslims as Christians. Although both emphasize their Protestant identity through their aspersions on the Portuguese and especially the Jesuits, there are moments when Roe implicitly makes common cause with the Jesuits in claiming superiority for Christianity over Islam. In a letter to the archbishop, Roe relates how a great ape that was brought to the court by a juggler of Bengal performed the miracle of identifying Christ as the true “lawgiver” among many others by repeatedly locating a paper with Christ’s name on it among several papers mixed in a bag. When a nobleman took the correct paper away, the ape refused all the other

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names and went and grasped the hand of the offender who held the paper in his hand (see Roe 1926, 280). Roe makes light of the incident by calling it an “apish miracle” and belittles the superstitious and juggling Jesuits by affirming that, “Of this accident the Jesuitts make great account; to me they slight it, except the truth of the fact, which is not unlike one of their owne games.” Yet, Roe also declares: “yet this was acted in publique before thousands but wher the abuse was, or whether ther were any, I judg not” (1926, 280). Roe’s words suggest a duality—on the one hand a desire to distinguish himself from the superstitious Jesuit tricksters, who attribute miraculous power to an ape, and on the other, a sneaking sense of triumph as a Christian in having his religion lauded and declared as supreme to others. Terry, in his turn, has avouched the truth of this incident in a more straightforward manner: “it hath been often confirmed there by its report unto me by divers persons who knew not one another, and were differing in religion; yet all agreed in the story, and in all the circumstances thereof” (cited in Roe 1926, 280 n 3). The mention of the common agreement is designed to indicate authen­ticity of the story and an implicit approval of the supposed “apish miracle.” That Islam is by definition a false religion is the central theme of the critique of Roe and Terry. Roe’s description of Muhammad as an impostor is elaborated by Terry, who, as a priest, presumably believed it was his calling to reveal the prophet’s true character. As a clergyman, Terry describes Islam, its origin, tenets, and precepts in a fairly elaborate form, demonstrating its deceits, impostures, and heresies. He describes Muhammad as a man “of very mean and low parentage, but a man fill’d with all subtilty and craft.” He might have gathered the biographical details—the prophet’s enrichment by his “wives” and his becoming the “commander of a company of Arabian volunteers that followed Heraclius, the Emperor, in his Persian wars”— from popular Christian narratives regarding Muhammad from the medieval period onwards, as is apparent from his parenthetical remarks like “as is said” and “as they write” (1777, 242). There are some similarities between Terry’s statements and Coryat’s, who had delivered a speech in Multan on Muhammad: What thy Mahomet was, from whom thou dost derive thy religion, assure thy selfe I know better then any one of the Mahometans amongst many millions; yea, all the particular circumstances of his life and death, his nation, his parentage, his driving camels through Egipt, Siria, and Palestina, the marriage of his mistris, by whose death he raised himselfe from a very base and contemptible estate to great honor and riches, his manner of cozening

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the sottish people of Arabia, partly by a tame pigeon that did fly to his eare for meat, and partly by a tame bull that hee fed by hand every day.3 Coryat 2012, 271–72

The founder of Islam, according to Terry, “composed a religion,” with the help of Sergivus, “a heretical Nestorian Monk, and of Abdalla, a Jew,”4 which “savours of nothing so much, as of rude ignorance, and most palpable imposture” (1777, 243; emphasis added). The biblical overtones in Terry’s image of Muhammad’s religion as “a monster of many heads, a most damnable mixture of horrid impieties” remind us of his profession. Roe’s analogues evoking ridicule are here replaced by metaphors of somber warning of danger and disease: “so that in a little time, like a gangrene, it spread itself into many parts of Asia, and since that hath enlarged itself like Hell” (1777, 243). As an Anglican priest, Terry characteristically seeks to focus on a critique of Islam itself rather than, as Roe does, on Jahangir as its proponent. In his construction, Islam appears as a source of enticement because it attracts the senses and procures bodily satisfaction. It contributes to luxury and sensuality: “contains much in it very pleasing to flesh and blood, and sooths up and complies exceedingly with corrupt nature” (1777, 243). Christianity and Islam, in Terry’s view, envisage the characteristic opposition between temperance and sensual indulgence, truth and imposture. However, the catalogue of the “good things” (1777, 245–246) in Muhammad’s religion that appears slightly later, emphasizing the importance of repeated prayers and fasting in Islam, signally contradicts the charge of indulgence leveled earlier. Despite his admission of the good things in Muhammad’s precepts, Terry hastens to suggest that they are derived from the Bible, but misapplied or distorted in some cases. Terry finds the Quran “a fardle of foolish impossibilities, fit to be received by none but fools and mad-men,” and likens it to fictional romances like the 3 Coryat explains that this was an English translation of a speech he made “extempore in the Italian tongue to a Mahometan at a citie called Moltan, in the Easterne India.” The “Mahometan” had “offered” him a “discurtesie” by calling him “Giaur, that is infidell,” derived from the “Persian gaur or gabr, through the Turkish gyaur.” The man was an Indian Muslim who had been taken captive and enslaved in a Florentine galley and reached Leghorn in the dominion of the duke of Florence, where “after two yeeres he had learned good Italian.” Coryat writes: “I pronounced the speech before an hundred people whereof none understood it but himself,” although the man told parts of the speech to some other people. Coryat acknowledges that making this speech in Turkey or Persia would have exposed him to the risk of being “rosted [me] upon a spitt,” but in the Mughal kingdom, Christians were allowed certain liberties (see Coryat 2012, 271 and n1 271). 4 Prideaux also refers to some of these figures.

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“rhiming story” of “Bevis of Southampton,” the stories of Orlando Furioso, which includes Astolpho’s fictional journey to the moon, where Muhammad is supposed to have temporarily resided. However, he cites no source for the veracity of the reference to Muhammad save a parenthetical “they say” (1777, 244–245). He finds that the “Mahometan Religion” has “Will-worship for its Foundation, Fables and Lyes for its support, and a groundless presumption for its super-structure” (1655, 261; italics in the original). Significantly, Terry’s charge of invention and falsehood against Islam finds an echo in dramatic texts of the Jacobean period. Philip Massinger’s play The Renegado (1624), for instance, repeats the accusation of falsehoods against Muhammad. Vitelli, the Venetian gentleman, resists all attempts to convert him to Islam by accusing the prophet of falsehood and imposture: his base birth, his whoredoms, His strange impostures; nor deliver how He taught a pigeon to feed in his ear, Then made his credulous followers believe It was an angel that instructed him In the framing of his Alcoran.

Massinger 2010, 205: act 4 sc iii, 126–131, p.205.

Terry’s version of Muhammad and Islam appears to be drawn largely from popular notions and rumors rather than any serious examination of the subject and the Quran. He constructs Islam as the other of Christianity. Writing later, Prideaux had denied the authenticity of popular versions which attributed to the prophet large claims to miracles. Although Terry, as an Anglican clergyman, was dismissive of Islam, he was much less critical than Roe of the common people. As we have seen in his narration of the encounter between the drunken eic cook and the civil, peace-loving Muslim, he highlighted the virtues of the Indians as opposed to the vices of the aberrant Christians. In his address to the reader, Terry writes: “a man may clearly see the law of nature to be so engraved upon the hearts of very many, both Pagans and Mahometans; as that it may make multitudes, who profess themselves Christians, (if they would but turn their eyes inward) extremely to wonder how it comes to be so much worn out of theirs.” (1777, xi). Significantly, the people are not inspired to virtue by their religious dictates so much as by natural law. Terry develops the concept more fully later by saying that the moral virtues possessed by the “heathens” are derived from

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those remnants and remains, from those common impressions and notions, which are sealed up in the minds of every one that hath a reasonable soul, a part of Adam’s first integrity before his fall, a substance or blessing in a tree that seemed to be dead; little sparks raked up (as it were) under many ashes, which can never die, nor be utterly extinguished, so long as the soul liveth. 1777, 241

He refers to Roman ii, 14, 15 where the Apostle describes the gentiles: “they having not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, which shews the works of the law written in their hearts” (1777, 241). Again, Terry often finds the native Muslims and Hindus more civil than the Christian Englishmen: “The truth is, that the people there in general are very civil, and we never had any affronts or ill usage from them, if we did not first provoke them” (1777, 162). He refers to an incident that happened at the time of their first arrival at Surat. The Indians there, provoked by some wrong-doing by the Englishmen, had surrounded the English residence, but at the behest of the governor, to whom the English sent their excuses, the Indian crowd withdrew. Such behavior suggests not only civility but also discipline and good sense. By the example of the behavior of the drunken English cook, who called himself a Christian, and that of the “sober and temperate” “heathen” (see chapter 1), Terry seeks to accuse the English of falling from Grace like the Israelites and forsaking the precepts of God. However, despite conceding good behavior to its adherents, he criticizes the doctrine of Islam. 2

Terry, Gentile Religion, and Grace

Like the Muslims, Terry finds the gentiles of India civil, possessing reason and an innate sense of right and wrong. Although some Indians possessed the guiding light of natural law and reason, Terry believed that natural reason and natural religion had only limited powers. In a postlapsarian world, reason was much impaired. Richard Raiswell states that according to John Calvin, “fallen humanity is utterly incapable of fathoming anything of the nature of God” (2017, 177). For “nature without Grace” is, in Terry’s view, like Samson, who could not find the pillars of his house when his eyes were put out (1655, 537–538). Terry writes in his Voyage: These heathens in East-India (as I strongly believe) see as far with the eye of Nature as it can possibly reach, and nature it self teacheth them, and

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teacheth all the world beside, that there is a God, but who this God is, and how this God is to be worshipped, must elsewhere be learn’d. 1655, 537

In Terry’s perception, the Indians are incapable of conceiving the greatness of God merely by the guidance of natural reason. Although many people in East India “will by no means omit their frequent devotions, nor any other thing they esteem themselves bound to perform, as to God” (Terry 1655, 554), yet in lacking the true light of God, like the heathen philosophers, “they have not God, in the right knowledge and understanding of him, as he ought to be known in Christ Jesus” (1655, 537). Lack of knowledge of true God places them in the unenviable position of being unable to reach Grace ever. Raiswell argues that Terry believes that Indians are destined to live in that stage of ignorance perennially: “Indian error must be integral to God’s plan—so integral, in fact, that Terry argued that God would never allow them to be converted to Christianity” (2017, 180). He states that Terry held that “Indians were ‘meer natural men’” and they were destined to remain at that stage of “historical development” (2017, 180). The concept of such “natural men” takes us back to Satyrane in The Faerie Queene, who is not shown as attaining Grace. In Terry’s view, therefore, “God had deliberately placed them [the Indians] in that state and maintained them accordingly,” according to Raiswell (2017, 180). He argues that the situation of the Hindus in India corresponds to that of the Israelites who “lapsed into idolatry and superstition” when they entered Canaan because everyone did what they deemed right. “In India this situation has resulted in a truly wretched state of affairs with idolatry on a fantastic scale, and Indians zealously offering service to their false gods in the manner due to the true one” (2017, 182). However, the civil behavior and the aptitude of the natural man that the Hindus demonstrate only highlight the Christian lapses more strongly. I agree with Raiswell that in Terry’s text, “English sin is condemned through heathen virtue” (2017, 181). Terry contrasts Christian dubiousness often with the discussion of the good qualities of the heathens in India: Surely for moral honesty it is most true, that even those Heathens I have named marvellously exceed us in it; and oh! that Christians would be made to blush at the consideration thereof; Christians, that have the book of God for their direction, where they may run and read their duties, besides that book of nature, which is the only guide that people have to walk by; yet that these who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, should perform many of the strictest things of the law of bondage, and

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Christians who live under a law of liberty, liberty in and through Christ Jesus, liberty (I say) for all those that do not abuse it, should be so blinded with light that they perform not the things, no not of nature.” 1777, 238–239

The contrast between the heathens and the so-called degenerate Christians runs as an undercurrent though his book. Raiswell contends that Terry, being a Calvinist, feels that Grace is denied to heathen idolaters, like the Indians, and his specific design in A Voyage is to show that the riches and wealth of India demonstrate all the more her spiritual poverty. The section on Corollaries and Conclusions of the text establishes Terry’s contention that the Indians are eternally damned. However, I disagree with Raiswell insofar as to say that Terry does not consider them as irredeemable. In the section on Corollaries, for instance, Terry pities many of the Indians as “poor souls” who “walk in that little light they have, unreproveably in respect of moralities, and doubtless, if they knew better, would do better (though I am perswaded that God will never honour Jesuits so far, as to convert them unto Christianity, notwithstanding their great brags of their many Converts there)” (Terry 1655, 460).This would mean that the Indians are not congenitally incapable of seeing the light of God (for “if they knew better, would do better”). However, God will not do the “honour” of allowing Jesuits to convert them. And since the reference to the “remnants” of reason in their nature, which guides them, is derived from God, it would appear that Terry does not condemn the entire race permanently to the state of damnation. Moreover, we find a prayer that God may take pity on their ignorance and salvage them: And so may Almighty God who is infinite in mercy look in favour upon many of these poor Creatures, that go as far as they can, in shewing them Jesus Christ, and in his face beholding them; for many shall come from the East and West, and North, and South and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven. TERRY 1655, 544; italics in the original

But, Terry refrains from probing the mystery of their possible salvation, for “this is a consideration lockt up amongst Gods secrets” which he does not dare to “pry” (1655, 544). This would indicate that he considers redemption as possible for the Hindus. But his praise of the state of civility of the gentiles and their superior attainments in comparison to degenerate Christians does not

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show his tolerance for heathen practices so much as it points to an implicit critique of their lack of the true light of knowledge. 3

From Courtly Religion to the Practice of the Masses: Hindu Temples, Gods and Goddesses

We must remember that at this early stage, travelers like Roe and Terry gave us their impression of Islam as it was practiced at court because they had the opportunity to see that. Terry’s references to Hinduism for doctrinal purposes indicate the acquisition of second-hand knowledge. If later writers tended to reduce the emphasis on Islam and focused more on the intricacies of Hindu rituals, it was because they had the scope of observing them, often at first hand. Moreover, they were not diplomats or chaplains to ambassadors, but eic employees like Mundy whose travel with trading goods extended over various parts of the country, affording them the opportunity to observe the common people’s practices at first hand. A few, like the surgeon Fryer, traveled for their own interest and wrote travel accounts. Similarly, clergymen like Ovington were interested in collecting material and writing travelogues with ethnographic data. They were empirical observers, rather than travelers reproducing what they had learned in books. The interest in ethnography was associated with the spirit of scientific inquiry, as discussed in the preceding chapter. As noted in the Introduction, the Royal Society of which Boyle was a member had commissioned and encouraged travel-related empirical investigations not only of the flora, the fauna, and the natural phenomena of places but also of the people, their physical and mental features, intellectual and rational capabilities. These later narratives are full of information about plants, animals, and lands, as well as the physical appearance, habits, and practices of people. Interest in customs and beliefs arose also due to increasing curiosity in people and their ways of living. 3.1 Idolatry, Devil-Worship, and Superstition However, this increased interest was a European phenomenon, rather than a specifically English one, as we shall see when we compare the narratives of some Dutch and French travelers during the period. Moreover, the rise of this empirical interest coincided, and in some cases conflicted, with the continuity in the European tradition of thinking about the Orient. Since our purpose in this chapter is to focus on religion, I shall try to examine these dual tendencies in the representation of Hindu gods and goddesses.

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Even in the late sixteenth century, the Dutch traveler John Huyghen Van Linschoten shows interest in empirical observation. While passing through Indian villages, he saw on every hill, “stonie Rocke or hole,” “a Carved Pagode, or rather Devils, and monsters in hellish shapes” (emphasis added). Coming at last to a village where there was a “great Church of stone,” they found, on entering, “a great Table”5 hanging in “the middle of the Church [with the Image of a Pagode painted therein] so mishaped and deformed, that more monsterous was never seene, for it had many hornes, and long teeth that hung out of his mouth down to the knees,6 and beneath his Navel and belly it had an other such like face, with many hornes and tuskes” (Linschoten 1988, 1: 296; emphasis added, parenthesis in the original). The repetition of “monster” and related words, the description of features associated with devils and monsters like horns, teeth, and tusks, and the emphasis on deformity set the trend for later writers. And Linschoten being a Protestant, the association of devil is extended to the pope and Anti-Christ: “Uppon the head thereof stoode [a triple Crowned] Myter, not much unlike the Popes triple crown, so that in effect it seemed to be a monster [such as are described] in the Apocalips” (Linschoten 1988, 1: 296). Monstrosity and deformity, associated with idolatry and devil-worship, show similarities, in his view, with Catholicism and papacy. Linschoten describes the inner temple or “Sancta Sanctorum” as “close vaulted round about” and lit by “at least 100. burning lamps, in the middle whereof stoode a little Altar,”7 with the “Pagode” of gold, “of the bignes of a Puppet” sitting under it (1988, 1: 297–298). The detailed description suggests that he writes from first-hand acquaintance. In his view, however, the “Sancta Sanctorum” of the Hindu temple is ironically reminiscent of the “Diabolorum.”8 The associations of the monstrous and the devilish that Linschoten’s portrayal evokes recur in English portrayals as well. Early English travelers to India like Fitch describe how pilgrims, coming in fifties and hundreds to visit idols, wash themselves in “stinking” water, which they consider holy, before they give offerings of money to the deities. Fitch’s description of the deity called Ada emphasizes deformity and animality. “And in divers places there standeth a kind of image which in their language they call Ada; and they have divers great stones carved, whereon they poure water, and throw thereupon some 5 The explanatory note 1 for the phrase says in “Orig. Dutch”: ‘painted picture’ (‘geschildert tafareel’), of so ugly a figure that one could not….” (Linschten 1988, 1: 296). 6 The explanatory note 2 here says “that came out of his mouth over his chin” (Linschoten 1988, 1: 296). 7 The explanatory note to the word “Altar” says “Orig. Dutch: ‘… tabernakel’” (1988, 1: 298, n 1). 8 The explanatory note 7 says “Orig. Dutch: ‘Duvelorium’” (Linschoten 1: 1988, 297 n7).

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rice, wheate, barly and some other things. This Ada hath foure hands with clawes” (Fitch 2012, 21). Even in anthropomorphic images, European travelers find some kind of deficiency or deformity and relate them to bestial figures, misshapenness, monstrosity, and finally to devil-worship. Fitch continues his description of idols as “blacke,” having “clawes of brasse with long nayles,” some “rid[ing] upon peacocks and other foules which be evill favoured, with long haukes bils, and some like one thing and some another, but none with a good face” (2012, 20–21; emphasis added). Claws, long nails, blackness, and illfavor evoke reminiscences of the devil. Animal-worship is also associated with the state of degeneration of the Israelites. Significantly, despite the claim of empirical observation of the rituals and idols in India, the travel writers deliberately or unconsciously tend to reconcile popular and inherited notions of idol-worship and devil-worship with what they actually see in their travels. Such characterization continues later in the century. Writing in 1634, Thomas Herbert avers that the “Bannyans,” by which term he refers to a particular trading community of Hindus (the correct term would be Baniya or other variants), worship the devil “in sundry shapes and representations” (1634, 38). He cites his own observation of a wooden idol in the shape of a man, “painted with sundry colours,” with “legs stradling, very wide, vnder him two Lampes, not alwayes burning” (1634, 38–39). Herbert refers to these idols as generally “misshapen and horrible.” Adding to the list of objects the gentiles worship, he states “they adore the fire also, and conceiue diuine thoughts of Kine and Heifers” (1634, 39). In Herbert’s sketch of a turbaned Baniya (see figure 2), standing in front of a bearded god, the upper part of the latter is shaped like a human being, with the legs and hooves of animals and two tails on two sides; it is placed on a pedestal in a rectangular recess with a circular head. Offerings are placed before it on something like a table. The half-human, half-animal figure with horns on its head and hooves resembles the devil in medieval paintings, bringing reminiscences of animal-worship as well (see Herbert 1634, 37). It is likely that Herbert might have modified any deity he had actually seen in India in light of the medieval pictures of the devil that he had in mind when he sketched the idol. Significantly, Herbert makes very similar observations about Africans whom he met in Angola and other parts of Africa on his way to India: “In Angola the people are fearfull blacke, their Religion is Ethnick, their Idols are of great esteeme amongst them, and called Mokisso.” He finds them “wedded to Superstition,” worshipping the devil “in forme of a bloudie Dragon.” Others worship “a Ram-goat, a Leopard, a Batt, an Owle, a Snake or Dogge.” He describes their rituals as kneeling and bowing to the gods and “groueling” on the ground and throwing “dust on their faces.” The Angolans offer rice and fruits to their gods, which, according to Herbert’s report, are “deuoured by the

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An Indian Merchant or Baniyan From Thomas Herbert, A Relation of some Yeares Travail

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Witches, a Monster not a little feared and esteemed of amongst these Deuillish Sauages” (1634, 8). Despite other marks of civility among the Indians, there is little difference between Hebert’s description of the Banias’ religion and that of the “Deuillish Sauages,” as he calls the Angolans. The implicit association between blackness and devil-worship (including animal-worship) suggests a form of racism that had found support in the early modern period from the Bible. Cham or Ham, the son of Noah who had seen the nakedness of his father and had been cursed for sin, had taken possession of Asia.9 Early modern discourse often referred to the blackness of Ham or Cham and his progeny through generations as a result of the curse that descended on them. “Later, as Africa increased in importance for Europeans, Ham’s progeny became associated with that continent” (Loomba, 2002, 36). George Sandys argues that the biblical curse on Cham was the determining factor for his blackness rather than climatic impact on skin color (cited in Loomba 2002, 36). So, religion and skin color often crossed paths in the early modern efforts to construct the other. According to Ania Loomba, “the association of godlessness and blackness goes back to medieval literature and theology, but it was increasingly reinforced by the slave trade.” Inhabitants of Africa were often associated with blackness. John Lok’s voyage to Guinea in 1555 returned with the information that the people of Africa were earlier “called Aethiopes and Nigritae, which we now call Moores, Moorens, or Negroes, a people of beastly living, without a God, law, religion, or commonwealth” (see Loomba 2002, 47). Herbert had accused the inhabitants of “a nation” called “Anzigues” and “other black-faced Africans” as being “much addicted to rapine and theeuery.” He charges that “the Deuill is no stranger amongst them, whose Oracles they vse” (1634, 10). This ascription of greed and theft to black people suggests that dark people are congenitally prone to evil, thus anticipating the ethnological categorization of later years and racist denigration. Importantly, the similarities between the gods of the Indians and those of the African countries in Herbert’s account suggest that he does not distinguish between Hinduism and African religion. His account is concerned more with superficial observations

9 Mandeville writes that Cham, being mighty and cruel, “took the greater and the best part, toward the east” which is called Asia. “Shem took Africa, and Japhet took Europe.” Cham’s son Chuse had given birth to Nimrod, the Giant. “And that time, the fiends of hell came many times and lay with the women of his generation, and engendered on them diverse folk, as monsters and folk disfigured, some without heads, some with great ears, some with one eye, some giants, some with horses’ feet, and many other diverse shape against kind” (see Mandeville 1915, 145).

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and suggests a desire to reconcile stereotypes perpetuated over the years and knowledge derived from personal observations. Moreover, we notice other contradictions in Herbert’s account. Just before the sketch of the Baniya god, Herbert says: “The Bannian Priests called Bramini, are the Pythagorian Sect of the Gymnosophists. They hate Mahumed and acknowledge one God and Creatour of all things. The better sort are called Mockadams, or Masters; their behauiour very good and tolerable” (1634, 36). Not only does he confuse Brahmans who belong to a different caste altogether with “Bannian Priests,” but he also mixes up the Pythagorean doctrine of transmigration of souls with the belief in monotheism. The Hindu concept of rebirth, which many Europeans considered similar to the Pythagorean doctrine, was commonly held by people belonging to different castes and was not confined to the Brahman priests. However, as some European travel narratives aver, only a section of the society, the elite Brahmans among the Hindus, adhered to monotheism, as opposed to the common people. Herbert refers his audience to Henry Lord’s book about the religion of the Baniyas and moves on to the dress of the Baniyas and thence to their gods and goddesses, without trying to clarify different sects and their religions. Although Herbert was writing in 1634 about places in western India like Surat and Cambay, his account does not show much difference from Fryer’s 1698 narrative, largely based on “Canatick-Country” in southern India. Like the others, Fryer affirms that gentile gods “are cut in horrid Shapes,” although they are dressed in rich clothes. He declares: “though I should allow the diversity of Creatures in all Orders of the World, hath no other aim but to represent the Divinity, by whatsoever Image, yet I cannot imagine such Deformities could ever be invented for that end” (1698, 1: 44). Moreover, Fryer likens the worship of false gods like the Lingam (Shiva) to worship of Priapus and devil-worship. Emphasizing the irrationality of these superstitions and the Indian preoccupation with fertility, the narrative elaborates how women are prostituted to a false deity, which is but a “Stock” and its attendant priests: For these Blessings, as if Men were to lose their Reasons, and sink below Brutes by a base Superstition, they are ready to acknowledge a Stock for a Deity, rather than to go without, infatuated by the Delusions of the Devil, being captivated at his Will; for which cause they not only make Oblations to him, but give up their Souls and Bodies to his Devotion: As might about this time have been beheld at an Idol Worship of Priapus (where the Women prostitute themselves to him, and receive the Pleasure of Copulation, all that while being as it were possessed) at Semissar, on

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the other side of the Water from our House where he lay with Two and twenty, who reckon it a great Honour, and the Husband thinks himself happy in his Cornucopia. FRYER 1912, 4: 77; emphasis added except in proper names and “Cornucopia”

The frenzy of deluded devotion which leads to the simulated sexual orgy appears not only irrational but also suggests possession by the devil. According to Fryer, the attendant priests of this deity among the Lingayats in Karnataka are worshipped in a similar way; the deluded husbands “entertain them courteously” and “wash their Feet,” for doing their wives “a Kindness” (1912, 4: 77). Fryer shows multiple associations of devil-worship in the worship of Shiva. He narrates how the devotees construct a makeshift altar in the open under a Banyan tree with a “Dildo in the middle,” where they offer “Rice and Cocoe-Nuts to the Devil.” Moreover, the headman sacrifices a cock, fixes its head upon a ladder, sprinkles its blood, and “all dance, and beat Brass Pots with a great Shout, saying, The Devil must be pacified with Blood, God with Prayers” (1912, 4: 78). In his zeal to attack pagan religions which breed superstition, Fryer falls back on the former belief in devil-worship among the heathens. Apart from the reduction of God to monstrosity, bestiality, and materiality, devotion to spirits that exemplify the sins of lust and greed is condemned as Satanic worship. While the earlier travelers emphasize the monstrousness or bestiality of the figures, Fryer’s description of the adoration of Lingam also demonstrates that the worshippers are guilty of the sin of deifying carnality and lust. The Lingam, in his view, is Priapus, personifying excessive sexuality, and the behavior of the women devotees before the god clearly point to wantonness and passion. Again, erotic paintings and sculptures in a temple arouse Christian aversion. For instance, Fryer’s reaction to erotic sculpture in the South Indian temples is typical of Christian asceticism and the tendency to separate the sacred from the profane: “On the Walls of good Sculpture were obscene Images, where Aretine might have furnished his Fancy for his Bawdy Postures” (1698, 1: 39). Such lewd paintings in a religious site were totally unbecoming and anathema to a Christian. The European travel narratives construct the Hindu deities in opposition to God, and Hinduism in opposition to Christianity and especially Protestantism. The repeated references to devil-worship in these accounts look back to the Western traditional beliefs about Eastern deities. I have tried to argue that they tried to reconcile observation with their previous beliefs and inherited knowledge. According to Partha Mitter, “It is simply that early travellers preferred to trust what they had been taught to expect instead of trusting their own eyes.”

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The popular European stereotypes about pagan gods had been handed down from generation to generation. These stereotypes linked monsters to pagan gods. “The typical reactions of an early Western traveller were bound to reflect certain prejudices stemming from his Christian background as well as from a clash of tastes involving two very different traditions, which were further reinforced by a total ignorance of Hindu iconography” (Mitter 1977, 2). The pictures drawn of Hindu idolatry and monstrous, misshapen gods, which became synonymous with devil-worship, derived from both classical and medieval Christian traditions. The origin of devil-worship and worship of monstrous gods takes us to classical gods which later merge with the Anti-Christ during the medieval period. According to Mitter, “India survived throughout the greater part of the Middle Ages in myths and legends which ultimately went back to the Greek authors Herodotus, Ctesias, and Megasthenes, although transmitted by Pliny and Solinus” (1977, 6). Many of the monstrous Indian gods in the Western travelers’ conception owe their ancestry to The Marvels of the East, referred to in the Introduction as Wonders of the East. Marvels itself looks back to Greek authors. It “presents the common stock of monsters going ultimately back to such authors as Homer, Herodotus, Ctesias, Megasthenes, Strabo, Aelian, Photius, Pliny, Solinus, and Callisthenes” (see Mitter 1977, 288 n 14). If the Marvels goes back to Greek texts, it had a shaping influence on European ideas about the East and India, finding its way into romances as well as cosmography. According to Rudolph Wittkower, this early medieval tract about the wonders of the East “determined the Western idea of India for almost 2000 years, and made their way into natural science and geography, encyclopaedias and cosmographies, romances and history, into maps, miniatures and sculpture.” Eventually, they formed the “stock features of the occidental mentality.” While new geographical discoveries did reduce their appeal to an extent, they survived in “pseudo-scientific dress” until the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries (see Wittkower 1942, 159). The classical tradition of Eastern monstrosities and Christian beliefs regarding demons and evil spirits united to produce the Western conception of Indian religions. Mitter contends that “two traditions, the classical one of the monstrous races and the Christian one of demons, converged at some stage in medieval history,” although one cannot specify a date for the merging. “The meeting of the classical and the Christian tradition was made easier by St. Augustine’s assertion that pagan gods were mortal just like other creatures and subject to the same Divine Will which they were powerless to contravene” (1977, 10). Mitter cites an illustration in the German text of Hrabanus Maurus which mixes “classical prodigies” with the “dragon of the Apocalypse” (Mitter 1977, 10). Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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We see the merging of the two traditions in the early modern European travelers’ accounts of the Indian deformed deities. classical monsters and gods, Biblical demons and Indian gods were all indiscriminately lumped together with congenital malformations under the all-embracing class of monsters…. The indiscriminate and eclectic interest in monsters from diverse sources goes a long way to explain the consistent use of the stereotypes of demons and monsters to represent Indian gods. They were taken by travellers to be simply another variant of the multi-limbed pagan monsters and prodigies known to exist in the East. Mitter 1977, 10

The Greek mythological world was populated by satyrs, centaurs, sirens, and harpies. Wittkower suggests that the Greeks “sublimated many instinctive fears in the monsters of their mythology, in their satires and centaurs, sirens and harpies, but they also rationalized those fears in another, non-religious form by the invention of monstrous races and animals which they imagined to live at a great distance in the East, above all in India” (1942, 159). Since despite being idolatrous, the Greeks and the Romans worshipped gods that had human figures (of course there were exceptions, like Pan) and human qualities, it is the East and above all India, which was known for deities, some in the form of animals, while some evoked terror by their features, that provided the happy site for monstrosities and devils. The European view of Indian monstrous idols, therefore, derives from a number of diverse sources. I would also argue that in the European conception, idolatry as an inherently evil practice supposedly bred such worship of monstrosities, ultimately associated with the devil. Even in the Paradise Lost of John Milton, we see the identification of Satan’s associates with Eastern gods. “Wandering o’er the earth,” Satan’s associates “corrupted” “the greatest part / Of mankind” (2007, 83; 1: 367, 368) to abandon the true God and worship, in his stead, false gods: and the invisible Glory of him, that made them, to transform Oft to the image of a brute, adorned With gay religions full of pomp and gold, And devils to adore for deities. MILTON 2007, 1: 369–373; 83

Milton lists several names in the Satanic pantheon, like “Moloch, Chemos, Baalim, Ashtaroth, Astoreth-Astarte, Thammuz, Dagon, Rimmon, Osiris, Isis, Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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Horus, and Belial” (Fowler 2007, 1: 392–490, n 84–85). They are associated with infanticide, human sacrifice (1: 392–396, pertaining to Moloch), lust (1: 414– 417), wantonness (1: 452–454), “dark idolatries” (1: 456), “brute image” (1: 459), “monstrous shapes and sorceries” (1: 479), “courts and palaces,” and “luxurious cities” (1: 497, 498). Dagon is described as “upward man” and “downward fish” (1: 462–463), having the form of a “Sea Monster” (1: 462). The reiteration of monstrosities and association of idolatry with animal images is typical of the trends we have perceived so far. Egyptians abused their Maker by worshipping “their wandering gods” in “brutish forms / Rather than human” (1: 481–482). Milton’s reference to “wandering gods” makes an implicit connection with Greek mythology, as stated in Metamorphoses v, 319–331, where “Olympian gods flee from Typhoeus into Egypt and hide in the bestial forms later worshipped there” (see Fowler’s annotation 2007, 1: 477–482, 90). The Israelites become guilty of similar idolatry when, following Aaron’s advice, they offer devotions to “a molten calf” (Exodus 32:4–6). Also, these Eastern gods are clearly linked to Satan, even by way of origin. It shows how Christianity, especially Protestantism, associated idolatry with worship of animals and material objects and monstrous figures, and ultimately with devil-worship. 3.2 Hindu Rituals, Irrationality, and Irreligion In later descriptions, we notice that attention is shifting from deities towards ceremonies, rituals, customs, and systems. Fryer’s description abounds in material details regarding temples and their architecture, ceremonies, and rituals. For instance, as a visitor to temples like the one at “Gocurn,”10 Fryer describes and evaluates in graphic details the structure of the temples: “Large and of good Workmanship in Stone,” “a dark Entry at the farther end, wherein are continually lighted Lamps burning” before the deity. The worship involves offering of “Oil, Rice, and Frankincense,” and “Anointing and washing” of the deity. His humorous belittlement is expressed through phrases like the deity “seated there to represent a Glory, or Phosphorus” and the devotees making “a great pother of Anointing and Washing” (1912, 4:33). Religious processions often take center stage in Fryer’s account. In Gokarna, the deities are taken to a “Mother Pagod,” presumably the chief temple, in twostoried conveyances which are capped by a cupola, ornamented with streamers of oriental colors. Fryer describes a religious procession in detail:

10

This refers to Gokarna, a small temple town on the western coast of India in the state of Karnataka.

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Thus the Chief Naik with his Loud Musick of Horns, Trumpets and Drums waited on it, and the Brachmins with softer, of the Dancing Wenches singing, with Bells at their Wrists and Heels, and their Tamboles [“Ar. tambur, ‘a cymbal,’” 1912, 36n 5] or Tabrets: An Ensign of Red, Swallow-tailed, several Chitories [an umbrella; 1912, 36 n 6]; little, but Rich Kitsolls (which are the Names of several Countries for Umbrelloes); 500 Men, with Javelins of Brass and Steel, with Bells and Feathers, as many more with Guns under his Command; and the Naik Wherry with like fashioned Ensign of Green, … after these followed a Medley of Pots and Pans of Copper or Brass, Men clattering on them, and dancing a good measure: When the Train drew near, it was drawn by a Team of Holy Men, the People rising and clapping their Hands as it passed to the opposite Pagod; a Troop of the Gentry in Cavalcade rode after it, where having paid a Visit, it returned with the like Solemn Procession, and by discharging of Guns the Ceremony ended. 1912, 36–37

According to the editor William Crooke, such idol processions were customarily seen in South India, and other early modern travelers have described them. “Almost all Kanara temples have their yearly ‘car-days,’ when the images of the gods are mounted on great wooden cars (rath) and dragged in procession” (Crooke 1912, 36, n 1). Fryer’s satiric account of the procession shows that it was crowded, colorful, and noisy, evoking associations of festive merriment but having little connection with religious solemnity. The multi-colored flags “Red, Swallow-tailed,” “Green, bordered with a Checker of White and Green,” colorful umbrellas, “Javelins of Brass and Steel,” and people adorned with bells and feathers suggest a profusion of color. The production of noise by horns, trumpets, drums, and songs by dancing girls with the accompaniment of “Tamboles or Tabrets,” “clattering” of “Pots and Pans of Copper or Brass,” clapping, and discharge of guns creates a sense of utter confusion and disorder, which is enhanced by the deliberate choice of words like “Medley of Pots and Pans” (the choice of culinary utensils as opposed to musical instruments produces a sense of incongruity in the context and reinforces the sense of disorder and disharmony). The noise and the reference to dancing, especially “dancing wenches,” seriously deflate the sense of religious solemnity so that the word “Solemn” as applied to the “Procession” becomes emphatically ironical. Fryer’s tone is less serious and denunciatory than Terry’s, but humorous and satirical. Fryer’s “Relation” presents several instances of misguided religious enthusiasm. Apart from processions, Fryer describes deities, to whom women offer

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“Censers of rich Perfumes with huge Lights” and before whom “People possessed with Familiars ran Cudgelling themselves,” while “others in a different sort of Mummery belaboured themselves, till they could not stand, all striving to outdo others; thus blind and heated were they in their Zeal” (1912, 37; emphasis added). The devotees’ self-inflicted, misguided penance is compared with possession by “Familiars,” invoking the vocabulary of witchcraft, but the Satan-God analogy does not appear here. It is rather a critique of irrationality, and the tone is lighter than that of vehement denunciation. Words like “ran Cudgelling themselves,” “Mummery,” and “blind and heated” ridicule the form of self-inflicted torture that the devotees underwent due to their superstitious, deluded religious zeal. The highly sarcastic narration suggests the irrationality of the worshippers as well as the religion they propagated and practiced. It reminds us of Locke’s pronouncements against religious enthusiasm. There are other similar references in Fryer to such erroneous religious devotion. He relates how among the Lingayats in Karnataka, some people “slash themselves with sharp Knives, and suffer themselves to be hooked by the Muscles of the Back, and hang so some Hours upon a Vow” (1912, 4: 77). As a Protestant, Fryer shows his aversion to blind superstition and idolatry. Critique of irrationality is also characteristic of the late-seventeenth-century trend of thinking. Moreover, the characteristics of the religious ceremonies not only trivialize the gentile religion but also implicitly evoke biblical associations of the degeneration of the Israelites. As I have said, the colorful and noisy procession in Gokarna highlights the lack of religious solemnity. It reminds us of festivity, merriment, even wanton behavior. After the deluded Israelites had “offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings,” to the golden calf, “they sat down to eat, and to drink, and rose up to play” (Exodus 32:6). Religious worship signified mere indulgence of the senses and merry-making (“to play”). Similarly, the people at “Gocurn” merely make discordant noise, gather in crowds, dance, indulge in pomp and splendor, and create a festive atmosphere, their ceremony calling up reminiscences of such degenerations in the Bible. The “dancing wenches” evoke associations of lasciviousness. Despite growing interest in empirical observations and authentic eyewitness accounts of religious practices, educated travelers like Fryer sought to present intricacies of religious beliefs according to their limited understanding, drawing arbitrary parallels with Western belief systems and long-lasting stereotypes. He describes the Brahmans as “Doctors of Divinity” who teach the people the Pythagorean doctrine of the “Transmigration of Souls” from one body to another, depending on their qualities, as, for instance, “a Tyrant into a Tygre, a Covetous Man or Cruel into a Boar, a fearful Man into an Hare” (1698,

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1:33). Misunderstood or partially understood, distorted statements, which show his own additions and fabrications, appear: “The Soul of a Good Man is believed to depart into a Cow, wherefore ‘tis Sacrilege with them to kill a Cow or a Calf; but highly piacular to shoot a Kite, dedicated to the Brachmins, for which Money will hardly pacify” (1698, 1: 33). The tone is sarcastic and jocular rather than openly denunciatory. Such descriptions would entertain a Western Christian audience by perpetuating stereotypes. The process of stereotyping is a result of ignorance or half-knowledge of doctrines and superficial observation. According to Faraz Anjum, “European travellers’ depiction of Hindu religious beliefs and practices suffered from a very basic weakness. None of them seemed to have an access to Hindu scriptures.” Attributing ignorance of Sanskrit and the scriptures (the Vedas, Upanishad, and the Gita) to the European travelers, Anjum charges them with “the audacity to pass sweeping judgments on Hindu religion,” failure to appreciate “pantheistic philosophy,” and “the philosophical implications of Hindu concept of transmigration” (2017, 57). It is worth noting, however, that the travelers are able to maintain an objective stance when they describe objects not connected with religion. For instance, Fryer’s account of the architecture of a temple suggests a more matter-of-fact and observant stance. He describes the “Chappels” of a temple thus: “Those of a minuter dimension were open, supported by slender straight and round Pillars, plain and uniform up to the top, where some Hieroglyphical Portraicture lends its assistance to the Roof, flat, with Stones laid along like Planks upon our Rafters” (1698, 1: 39). 4

Gentile Religion and Monotheism: Jesuits and Other European Travelers

While most of these Protestant English travelers targeted idolatry and animalworship and trivialized the Hindu religion by resorting to stereotypes, the Jesuits were more serious about understanding Hinduism. Significantly, many Jesuits and antiquarians during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had suggested that Hinduism had originated in a monotheistic Shaivite faith. As we have seen, writers like Herbert and Terry had acknowledged the concept of monotheism in gentile religions, although their description focused on idolatry. There was a widespread belief that gentile religions were idolatrous by nature. According to Rubiés, “Gentilism, a Jewish concept taken up by Christians, encompassed a plurality of nations, rituals and deities in late antiquity, namely all those

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that involved the idolatrous worship of anything and anyone which was not the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus (including statues and other ‘carved images’, but also gods and demons, astral beings, men, and even nature itself)” (2014, 118). Although many Western nations subscribed to this belief about heathenism or gentilism that existed in India, there were differences in the way they perceived the theology, the origin, and the overt religious practices. Rubiés argues for the emergence of a “Catholic, Jesuit-led Indological moment” during the early seventeenth century that led to intensive research into the doctrinal system of the gentiles or Hindus (2016, 108). Although clerical censorship had curbed the publication and circulation of early Jesuit studies on Hinduism, the middle of the seventeenth century saw a proliferation in publication.11 Athanasius Kircher’s China Illustrata (Amsterdam, 1667), which combined observations made by Jesuit missionaries in the East and “relied on the research into Sanskrit sources by Heinrich Roth in Agra,” put forward new evidence about gentile religions although sometimes indulging in wild speculations, and, as Rubiés says, attempted to interpret “universal history from a Christian perspective.” “One of the book’s sections interpreted the religion of the Brahmans as part of a universal migration of idolatry from Egypt across the East, reaching all the way to Buddhism in China and Japan” (2016, 109–110). The French translation by Thomas Le Grue of Abraham Rogerius’s Le Theatre de l’Idolatrie ou la Porte Ouverte pour parvenir à la cognoissance du Paganisme Caché was published in Amsterdam in 1670, expanding the readership of the original 1651 Dutch and the 1663 German editions. It was based on the experiences of a Protestant pastor who had embarked in 1640 for the East Indies and remained there for six years as the minister of the Gospel of the Dutch factory of Pulicat on the Coromandel Coast (See Rubiés 2016, 110). The original edition of the book, published in Leiden in 1651, had argued that “Indian idolatry was comparable not only to ancient paganism, but also to Jewish and Christian doctrines and rituals.” Moreover, the editor clarified in the preface12 that he had sought chiefly to advance the “thesis that it was possible to retrieve the esoteric core of the religion of the idolaters, which was indeed monotheistic” (see Rubiés 2016, 110). The Brahman “Padmanaba” was his informant. Some of the annotations of A.W., the editor of the original 11

For instance, the European public accessed Father Jacomé Fenicio’s “Book on the sect of the Oriental Indians” (Livro da Seita dos Indios Orientais), written in 1609, in the 1660s via the works of Manuel de Faria y Sousa, “a Portuguese poet and historian,” and Philippus Baldaeus, a minister of the Dutch East India Company (see Rubiés 2016, 109). 12 According to Rubiés, the annotations or the preface, which had been there in the 1651 Dutch edition, were not by Thomas Le Grue, the French translator, as assumed by some, but by a learned editor who called himelf A.W. (see 2016, 110, 132 n11, n12).

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Dutch edition of 1651, indicate that the Indians believe in one God and show similarities in the beliefs of religions like Christianity and Judaism and that of the Indians. For instance, the annotation regarding the habitation of God says: “car nous avons montré par cy-devant, qu’ils croyent que Dieu est present par tout: la plus-part des Payens ont aussi creu que Dieu demeure dans le Ciel. Les Iuiss & les Chrestiens sont le mesme” (1970, 290). However, the writer also discusses in detail the concept of trinity and the three Gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Maheswar, including many other gods known as “Dewetaes,” the angels and the devils. And the book moves also to religious and social practices from the consideration of the deities. For instance, the author sets forth the different ages of the universe: “les Bramines attribuent au monde quatre Siecles,” like “Critaigom,” “Traitagom,” “Dwaparugom,” and “Kaligom” (Roger 1670, 178); he expounds the caste system (especially the duties and privileges of the Brahmans) in great detail, the burning of widows (1670, 129–136), and festivals like the Pongal (see e.g., 1670, 237–239). Therefore, the book relates the social and religious practices of the Hindus along with the more esoteric monotheistic doctrine. Of all the Jesuits who visited India and studied Indian religion, customs, and society in detail, perhaps de Nobili was the most avid researcher. Moreover, by adapting to the Indian way of living and learning the local language of Tamil as well as the classical Sanskrit, he was able to access necessary texts and learn Indian customs and rituals in detail. In his discussion of the second school of theology, which was the Vedantic tradition in “Report on Indian Customs,” he states that “the purpose of these theologians is to reject all idols and to investigate the nature of God solely by the light of reason.” This suggests a reliance on reason rather than faith or revelations, distinguishing Vedantic Hinduism from Christianity. According to de Nobili, “in the Vivaranopanyasa,”13 one finds “a prolific refutation of the plurality of gods and of sacrifices offered to idols” (2005, 84). The Vedanta school also argues for the “rational soul” and its “immortality.” In the Tattvavivekam and “a commentary on it called Advaita Dipika,” and Bhedatikkaram,14 de Nobili finds an explanation of “divine attributes” and their 13

Anand Amaladass, S.J. and Francis X Clooney, S.J. annotate “vivacanasya utpadyam in the original is unclear; we have conjectured Vivaranopanyasa, a Vedanta text by Ramananda Sarasvati, a 17th century scholar living in south India” (see 2005, 84 n 37). Nobili does not say that he is referring to specific Vedantic texts of scholars, but the phraseology of the translated text suggests that he is propounding Vedantic doctrine, stated in parts. 14 According to Amaladass and Clooney, “there is a Tattvavivekam by Nrsimharamin, a 16th century Vedantin living in Madurai, who also wrote the Advaita Dipika and the Bhedatikkaram” (2005, 85 n 39).

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“absolute character.” In the three texts, God is shown as “a self-subsistent Being” who is “eternal, immaterial,” “exists everywhere,” and “is the cause of every being” (see de Nobili 2005, 84–85). By propounding this doctrine, de Nobili acknowledges the similarities of a monotheistic religion like Christianity with Hindu Vedantic doctrine. Unlike many Christian travelers, therefore, de Nobili does not seek to construct Christianity in opposition to Hinduism, by rejecting all those who profess the gentile religion as ignorant and superstitious idolaters. Again, unlike many European travelers who accuse the Brahman priests of fraud and cheating, de Nobili claims that true Brahmans are not priests or temple managers. They are wise and learned men who impart knowledge in laws and sciences—like “logic, philosophy, the science of words, mathematics, the science which treats of the world and of God, as well as poetry and the teaching of Sanskrit” (2005, 219). The author of La Porte Ouverte makes similar statements regarding the knowledge and vocation of Brahmans. Although the Jesuit mission was an evangelical mission, by adapting to the Indian mode of living, eating, and dressing, the Jesuits showed remarkable resilience, power of accommodation, and tolerance in respect of social practices. They also improved their chances of conversion because “people of every class approached” them freely, and listened to them. Even Brahmans respected them, discussed religious matters with them, while some, “convinced of the truth” of Christianity, converted to their faith (see de Nobili 2005, 216–217). By contrast with La Porte Ouverte and de Nobili’s treatises, the English travel writers, even those who knew of the monotheistic doctrine of Hinduism, showed a cursory knowledge of the gentile religion, as they called it. Henry Lord’s A Display of Two Forraigne Sects in the East Indies (1630) narrates the creation of the world by one God or the Creator and the divine creation of Man and Woman and the four castes, pertaining to Hindu belief. However, Lord discusses the Hindu religion as the religion of the “Banians, the Ancient Natives of India,” whom he supposedly met in Surat while he was a minister in the service of the East India Company there. His first book is an “Inditement against the Banian,” who had forged a religion “according to the Minte of their own Tradition, abusing that stampe which God would haue to passe currant in the true Church.” Lord, therefore, brings the accused before the “Archbishop of Canterbury” for “censure and Iudgement” (1630, Epistle Dedicatorie). Lord characterizes the religion of the Banias as false and superstitious, running contrary to the one true religion. Insofar as he declares Christianity to be the only true religion and Hinduism as false, he conforms to the narratives of Terry, Fryer, and other Englishmen. “The great God (say the Banians) being

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alone, bethought himselfe how hee might make his excellency and power manifest to others” (1630, B3). His description of the creation of the world, the four elements, the firmament, earth, man, and woman suggests similarities with the creation of the world as related in Genesis. The description of the first meeting and growth of love between the Brahman man and the Brahman woman may be said to look forward to Milton’s narration of the love of Adam and Eve (especially the reference to the innocence of the man and woman regarding their body and sexuality) in Paradise Lost book iv. Lord’s charge of forgery in minting a false religion and “abusing” God’s true “stampe” suggests not only a false tale of creation but something which might have been appropriated from the Christian story of Creation and modified according to the Indian tradition. In the narrative of the Banias, as Lord recounts, the first man and the first woman marry and beget four children, whose qualities befit the four castes of the Hindus, namely “Brammon” (Brahman), who is interested in learning and knowledge, “Cuttery” (Kshatriya), whose inclination is for martial arts, “Shuddery” (representing the Vaishya), who is peaceable, mild-mannered, and “conuerseable,” good for trade and merchandise, and “Wyse” (representing the Shudras), “able by his first thoughts, to forme any thing that belonged to the Mechanicke or handy-crafts man” (1630, 5–6). The text narrates their respective meetings with suitable women and marriages. Much in the fashion of the biblical narrative, they people parts of the earth with their children. Lord describes the Hindu social customs and practices and reconciles their monotheistic worship of God with the devotion they render to the sun and the moon and animals like cows. He shows the worship of one god degenerating to nature worship and animal worship: Especially they pay their deuotion to the Sunne & Moone, which they call the two eyes of God; as also to some beasts which they hold more cleane then others, they giue extraordinary kinde vsage; as to Kine, and Buffalaes, to whom they attribute so much innocence and goodnesse by the soules of men entring into them, that they besmeare the floores of their houses with their dung, and thinke the ground sanctified by such pollution. 1630, 60–61

Like other European travelers, he attributes to them the belief in transmigration of souls. Despite acknowledging the monotheism of the Baniyas, Lord’s account suggests his reliance on popular notions and hearsay for the description of Indian

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customs and practices. It is difficult to say whether he really got the story of the creation from some Baniyas who spoke to him at the eic, and if so, from where they got the story. The story of the creation of mankind and different castes again appears to be a mixture of orally transmitted local narrative, sprinklings of the biblical narrative, and popular notions. Like his compatriots, Lord has sought to construct the other of Christianity in the religion that he describes here. The French doctor Bernier demonstrates both similarities with and differences from the preceding travelers. His Travels in the Mogul Empire also elaborates on the concept of a monotheistic God, as expounded by pundits. He had been informed by European missionaries about the gentile belief in the Trinity (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva), which corresponds to the Christian concept. The missionaries “maintained that the Beths [Vedas] state in direct terms that the three beings, though three persons, are one God.” The Hindus characterize the three beings as creator, upholder, and destroyer (2008a, 328). However, Bernier avers that the learned Indians were unable to explain the Trinity to him, merely stating that these “perfect creatures” were called “Deutas,” just as “our ancient idolaters, who could never, in my opinion, explain what they meant by the names Genii and Numina, which were probably equivalent to the Deuta of the Indians” (2008a, 329). The analogies of the Genie, drawn from Arabian folklore and mythology, and Numen, the Latin term for the presiding deity, which often found its way into fiction like the Aeneid, are facetious and skeptical and suggest Bernier’s mockery of Hindu beliefs, which he considered illusory. Bernier’s reaction to the more tolerant view of Indians regarding all religions is also characteristically contemptuous and resembles that of other travelers, like Roe at this time. When the pundits say that they do not claim that their “law is of universal application” or that Bernier’s religion is “false,” but explain that each religion is suited to the respective believers’ “wants and circumstances,” since God “appointed many different ways of going to heaven,” Bernier rejects their notions as absurd and “amusing.” He finds it “impossible to convince them that the Christian faith was designed for the whole earth, and theirs was mere fable and gross fabrication” (2008a, 328). If it demonstrates his Enlightenment rationality and skepticism towards a superstitious religion, it also shows his bias in completely absolving Christianity from the charge of superstition. His statement there clearly suggests intolerance of other religions. Since this letter was written to Monsieur Chapelain, it would be hard to explain the statement as specially designed to cater to a more orthodox audience’s demand. It is true that Bernier often makes fun of various Hindu doctrines like the transmigration of souls, or the Hindu concept of the material

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world being totally illusory. By contrast, he scarcely criticizes Christianity as a revealed religion. Nevertheless, Bernier seems to take pains to learn more of Hindu doctrines. Although the Hindu concept of monotheism has been explained variously by pundits, Bernier also refers to a more sophisticated version of these explanations: D’autres me donnaient une explication bien plus relevée, disant que toutes ces incarnations ou apparitions dont parlent leurs livres ne se doivent point entendre au pied de la lettre, mais seulement mystiquement, en tant qu’on expliquait par là les divers attributs de Dieu. Il y en a eu quelques-uns, et des plus doctes, qui m’ont avoué franchement qu’il n’y avait rien de plus fabuleux que toutes ces incarnations et que ce n’était que des inventions de législateurs pour retenir les peuples dans quelque religion. 2008b, 330

The learned Brahmans explained to Bernier that the various incarnations of God should not be taken literally but mystically, as a means of expounding His various attributes. They also admitted that these fabulous stories of the incarnations were fabricated by priests and law-givers to retain people within the strictures of a religion. The Hindu belief in monotheism was part of their doctrine that the human souls formed part of a pervasive divinity: “nos âmes fussent des portions ou portioncules de la divinité” (Bernier 2008b, 331). Significantly, Bernier acknowledges his debt to Father Heinrich Roth; Henry Lord; Abraham Roger, author of La Porte Ouverte; and Kircher for his knowledge of Hinduism (2008a, 333–334). He also often conversed with learned Brahmans at Danishmand Khan’s residence. This suggests a spirit of serious inquiry about the doctrine rather than a mere desire to trivialize Hinduism. By contrast, the English travel writers do not show evidence of engaging seriously with this Hindu doctrine, dismissing it as merely fabulous and focusing solely on idolatry. However, as Rubiés concedes “whilst Bernier engaged critically with the monist tradition of Advaita Vedānta perfected by Sankara, admittedly the most influential, he ignored the ‘new philosophy’ (Navya Nyāya) which flourished in Varanasi and Navadvīpa in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, even though its pluralistic realism and critical epistemology offered potential similarities to Gassendi’s atomist system” (2013, 64). It is worth noting also that although Bernier certainly considered the religion of the gentiles as full of superstition in many respects, he occasionally shows that he viewed all religions as founded on superstition. In his account

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of Hindustan addressed to Colbert or the monarch, and even to Chapelain to an extent, he refrained from expressing his criticism in this regard, although in his letter to M. del la Mothe le Vayer he is more candid. But we comprehend his stance particularly in the way he discusses the phenomenon of the solar eclipses that he witnessed in France in 1654 and in India in 1666 at the beginning of his letter to M. Chapelain. In France, the eclipse caused needless alarm among people who shut themselves up, trying to protect themselves by drugs and charms, or “flocked to their respective churches,” many fearing that the doomsday was at hand (2008a, 300–301). In Delhi, everybody bathed in the river during the eclipse, and standing in the river, “lifted their eyes and hands toward the sun,” muttering prayers (2008a, 301–302). This comparison of the superstition and irrationality of the people belonging to two different nations shows his recognition that Europeans as well as Asians were victims of superstition. The implied critique in Bernier’s juxtaposition of the two episodes stands in evident contrast to several European accounts of India and criticism directed against it. Again, unable to prevent the sacrifice of a young girl who was forced to burn herself on the pyre of her dead husband, Bernier quotes a verse from Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura, ending in “tantum relligio potuit suadere malorum” (cited in Tinguely, 2008b, 32), although he does not name the writer. According to Frederic Tinguely, Mais la citation du poète épicurien (qui d’ailleurs n’est pas nommé) ouvre en parallèle une autre perspective de lecture qui révèle l’un des traits majeurs des lettres de Bernier: à travers la critique des superstitions de l’Inde, le voyageur libertin vise peut-être aussi la dimension superstitieuse de toute religion, sans excepter le christianisme. 2008b, 32; emphasis added

Bernier’s words from the Epicurean philosopher reveals an important characteristic of his letters. The liberal philosopher-traveler’s censure of gentile superstition in India involves a critique of all religions without excepting Christianity. I agree with Tinguely that Bernier’s criticism of irrationality and superstition sometimes extends to Christianity (often to ritualistic Catholicism) as well as other religions. But I would argue that one perceives an ambivalence in the text of the Travels in the Mogul Empire which also shows a distinction between the true religion of Christianity and other fake and fictitious religions, as, for instance, in his discussion on rituals with the Brahmans. Significantly, Bernier’s critique focuses on Hinduism rather than Islam. It is possible that

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Bernier shared a rational discourse and similar intellectual and scientific interests with his Muslim employer, Danishmand Khan, while they both amused themselves at the expense of “the mysteries and mystifications of an irrational priestly caste” (see Rubiés 2013, 66). Even though Bernier was skeptical of the rationality of Hinduism, he, along with other Europeans, speculated on the element of monotheism in the gentile religion. The discovery of a monotheistic core in Hinduism led to the supposition of the existence of a universal natural religion over the world and encouraged the propagators of Deism. In the early eighteenth century, Voltaire was influenced by the theory of the ancient monotheistic religion in India as expounded by de Nobili and others. Ancient Hindu civilization, in this view, was similar in nature and scope to that of Greece, Rome, and Confucian China. The “gentile, civil tradition of the Brahmins, insofar as it did not challenge natural law, could be made compatible with Christianity on the basis of the Thomistic distinction between nature and grace. Hence Hindu dharma could be translated as recta ratio” (Rubiés 2012b, 329). As Rubiés argued, “The admirable doctrine presented in the Ezour-Vedam [referring to Yajur Veda] allowed Voltaire to claim that all peoples share a single, eminently rational moral system, even though their religious rituals may divide them. It was a typically Deistic claim built upon the Catholic (Thomist and Jesuit) distinction between natural religion and supernatural revelation.” However, this was actually a forged text which misled several people.15 The “primitive monotheism” of the work appealed especially to the Deist Voltaire who tried to show the rituals related to idolatry as later superstitious accretions (see Rubiés 2012b, 317).16 While Jesuits such as Jean Venant sought to use the data regarding monotheistic religion to combat atheism in Europe, “their analysis was selectively appropriated by authors with opposite agendas, for example Deists such as Jean-Fréderic Bernard, or, later, Voltaire” (Rubiés 2014, 113–114). Bernard and Picart’s book has been briefly discussed in chapter 4. Bernard proposed a universal model of original natural monotheism; his originality consisted in proposing a new universalism based on natural monotheism, showing the 15 Ezour-Vedam (“echoing” the Yajur Veda) was actually written by a French Deist missionary in South India, “under the guise of restoring the ‘lost’ Veda of the ancient Brahmins, and taken as authentic by a number of French orientalists” (see Rubiés 2012b, 317). 16 It may be pertinent to mention here that many years later, during the nineteenth century, Rammohun Roy, a well-known Indian reformer, and Swami Vivekananda, the ascetic Hindu sage, expounded the monotheistic core of the Hindu religion, as expressed in the Vedas. In “the Abridgement of Vedant, Rammohun Roy argued that image worship as then practiced in India was an aberration from the authentic monotheistic tradition,” as existed during the Vedic age. (Kopf 1969, 199).

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subsequent degeneration of all religions from the model. In Bernard and Picart’s vision, all recognized religions of the world, whether “Gentile or biblical,” become “comparable” due to clerical abuse and manipulations and degenerative superstitions. According to Rubiés, “The exclusive claims of the Mosaic and Christian Revelations were set aside for the dream of restoring a truly cosmopolitan and rational natural religion.” The natural religion, belonging to a pre-civilized “original natural state,” was set in opposition to the “widespread superstition of all religious systems” (Rubiés 2014, 144). Therefore, the theory of the universality of a monotheistic natural religion was used to support the sameness of all religions. The examples of Herbert, Lord, Bernier, Terry, and others clearly show that the knowledge of the monotheistic core of Hinduism was not secret. However, while the information was dismissed lightly by travelers like Terry and Herbert, belittled by Lord, and ignored by others who chose to construct Indian religion in direct opposition to and inferior to Christianity, Jesuit Orientalists took pains to study it and spread knowledge about it, and Deists used it to propound the existence of a once universal natural religion from which all existing religions have degenerated. 5

Caste, Pollution, and Ethnography

The enhanced interest in ethnography that the later works evince might be the result of the emergent thoughts of Enlightenment during the period. As I have said, a shift is discernible from court-centered writing in the earlier works to the study of social customs. While writers like Hawkins, Roe, and Terry talked chiefly about the king and his court, of laws and governance, and of military power, later writers like Mundy, Friar, Ovington, and others focused on social and cultural practices. According to Nathaniel Wolloch, “In Enlightenment historiography the important and sustainable element of civilization was no longer viewed according to the traditional historical political and military narrative, but rather based on more general cultural developments, not least on the mastery of nature” (2011, 82). I have already discussed some religious customs and ritual in connection with Fryer. Almost all European travelogues describe the caste system of India and connect it with religion, as we have seen in Lord, for instance. Often, as in Lord, the caste names are stated erroneously. However, caste and occupational characteristics are elaborated, sometimes with reasonable accuracy. Some accounts, like Fryer’s, pick on popularly known negative traits, like the niggardliness of Baniyas rather than their abilities as merchants. The ethnographic data of Mundy and later of Fryer, Ovington, Bowrey, and others provide important

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material for the cultural history of India during the period. However, although based on empirical observation for the most part, as we have seen, one does find attempts to fit the data into pre-existing patterns of concepts and ideas of Europeans. When Mundy describes the Hindu belief in pollution, which is associated with the caste practices, he uses an example he drew from actual experience. He gives us a date, 18 August 1632, just before relating the incident, showing that it occurred on that date, thus grounding the reality of the incident through details of time. While he was sitting on his cot (bedstead), five or six carters (Hindus) lit a fire to cook their food in the vicinity just to his windward so that the smoke went straight towards him. Despite his repeated objections, they did not move away. Annoyed, he threw a “tent pynn” at their pot, which landed on the fire. They immediately gave away the food to their oxen because, as Mundy understood it, “if a Christian, a Mogoll or any stranger doe enter or have but a hand or a foote within” the circle which Hindus draw around the place of their cooking, “they accompt all their meat polluted.” He elucidates: “Now my hand touchinge the Pynne, the pynn the Cow dunge and fire, the fire the pott, and the pott the meate that was in it, it was all one as I had handled there meate, which is abhominable amongst them” (1914, 91). Mundy had to give them some money to buy food in order that they did not starve. Although the section heading is “Superstition,” Mundy’s tone is not severely critical or denunciatory. His narration of the incident is based on empirical observation and is largely free of contempt and sarcasm. It shows a neutral stance and interest in cultural practices for their own sakes or for building knowledge. By contrast, Fryer’s observation of Baniyas and cow-worship is marked by contempt and a desire to make fresh observations compatible with stereotypes that he had known before. He expatiates on the niggardliness of Baniyas, a stereotypical caste characteristic, stating that “out of a penurious humour” they would crowd “Three or Four Families together into an Hovel, with Goats, Cows, and Calves, all Chamber-fellows, that they are almost poysoned with Vermin and Nastiness” (1698, 3: 92). The portrayal combines stereotypical satire on cow-worship, the prohibition of killing living creatures among Hindus and Jains, and popular knowledge about caste characteristics in order to explain and satirize Indian social practices. In another instance Fryer writes: they will fresh and fasting besprinkle themselves with the Stale of a Cow, as you behold a good Christian with Holy-water, or a Moorman slabber his Beard with Rose-water: Nay more, they use it as a Potion, or Philter, and bid the Devil do his worst after it; so stupid, that notwithstanding

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Chints, Fleas, and Muskeeto’s, torment them every Minute, dare not presume to scratch where it itches, lest some Relation should be untenanted its miserable abode. Fryer 1698, 3: 92

The facetious analogies, deliberate use of contrasts like “fresh and fasting” and “Stale of a Cow,” humorous exaggerations, and the catalogue of insects emphasize the extent of Indian “stupid[ity].” He connects the last exaggerated and humorous comment about evicting a relation who is an insect to Pythagoras’s theory of metempsychosis, which he applies to the belief regarding the transmigration of souls. Fryer uses ridicule to construct the Indian other in depicting social practices. Among the English travelers, Ovington presents Indian religious and social customs in a more positive light than others. He seeks to rationalize customs and finds some customs of Indians superior to that of Christians with respect to their being more reasonable, like the burning of dead bodies, as opposed to burying them. In his perception, the pressure of society has stifled European judgment and rationality: And were it not for the Tyranny of Custom, it seems more Honourable to have our Bodies consum’d by that lively Element, than to have them devour’d by Worms and Putrefaction … there can be no better Expedient to secure our Friends from Oblivion, than that of burning their Bodies, whereof we have either the Bones or Ashes Left, which may be preserved whole Ages. The several Nations of the World had Customs of their own, which commencing upon uncertain Principles, have been derive’d to their Posterity, and receiv’d with a Religious Fancy; and they would rather die, than do an Act of Violence to them, and believ’d it the greatest Impiety in the World to break them. 1690, 338–339

Ovington’s characterization of custom as something ossified by practice and having no sanctity of its own except what has been ascribed to them by the fancies of people suggests a reasoned deduction and willingness to concede relativity of values rather than an irrational prejudice in favor of European practices or a settled belief in the superiority of European customs. He relates how Herodotus had asked Indians and Greeks about their respective practices of disposing of their dead, and how each had defended their own practice. Ovington’s conclusion from this evidence is evidently similar to that of Locke and Bernier: “This shews how Custom is the Spirit and Genius of a Man’s

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Actions, and introduces a Nature and Religion it self” (1690, 340). But he goes beyond mere skepticism towards all customs by his willingness to ascribe value to alien practices: “and were the Prejudice of that [custom] remov’d, other civiliz’d Nations might doubtess be as zealous for burning their dead Friends, as the Bannians are now-a-days” (1690, 340). Moreover, by privileging burning over burial, he ignores the Christian belief in the awakening of the dead on the Day of Judgment, thus showing a more rationalistic bent of mind. Again, although other travelogues satirize the Baniya practice of preserving the lives of animals and worms and associate it erroneously with transmigration of souls (as, for instance, we have seen in Fryer), Ovington suggests that it is their humanity and kindness to beasts that motivates the Baniyas to look after animals: “India, of all the Regions of the Earth, is the only publick Theatre of Justice and Tenderness to Brutes, and all living Creatures” (1690, 296). He informs his readers that the Baniyas have, at considerable expense, built a hospital for the maintenance of old and sick animals, explaining their aversion to killing those animals, “which are the Nurses of our Lives, and by whose labour we live at Ease” (1690, 301). “We” here includes all human beings and suggests the necessity for a universal care for the animals. Instead of mocking the humane impulse, he tries to explain the custom by suggesting that the benefits received from the animals made the Indians cherish and protect them, even to the extent of “Consecrat[ing] them” (1690, 297). While describing many of these practices, Ovington draws parallels with customs in other lands, to show the diversity of practices in the world, and sometimes he refers to classical philosophers who had defended the practice. In this case, he refers to Plutarch, saying that the latter had defended the Egyptian custom of adoring some animals by saying that “in these Beasts, they ador’d some resemblance of Divine Perfection,” like the qualities of patience, vigilance, and utility (see 1690, 297). Although he does not seek to defend such adoration, his reference suggests understanding as well as tolerance. By affirming that “a Civil Regard, tho’ no Veneration, is enjoyn’d as a common Duty of Humanity, which forbids an Arbitrary Violence, a Cruel or Wanton Malice towards them” (1690, 297; emphasis added), Ovington has recourse to rationality, tolerance, and natural morality to show appreciation for the Baniya custom. Moreover, he shows how the Baniyas view the English custom of killing the animals in their “growing Years” which would have benefited their owners in their maturity. The Baniyas consider it a thoughtless and cruel act: “in their Opinion, a disadvantagious, as well as barbarous Action in those that kill them” (1690, 298; emphasis added). By showing the perspective of the Indians, especially by suggesting that they viewed the Europeans as “barbarous,” he maintains a neutral stance and shows an understanding of the relativity of values

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that prevail in the world. Although he sometimes states jocularly that the “Calf is the Darling animal among them” (1690, 298) or criticizes the unreasonable extremes the Baniyas would go to cherish worms which are pests, Ovington demonstrates openness and tolerance towards alien customs, rather than mocking or denouncing them as unqualifiedly superstitious or irrational. Like the Baniyas, the travelogues discuss other castes and their characteristics as well. The untouchables, or “Halalchors,” have received less attention. Ovington explains the significance of their appellation, as “Eat-alls or Eaters at large,” who have no food restrictions and “without any scruple of Conscience or of Appetite, will feed upon either Horse or Cow, and will satisfie their Stomachs as well with a piece of Carrion out of a Ditch, as with the freshest Meat that can be bought in the Bazar” (1690, 382). However, Ovington gives a sympathetic picture of the “Halalchors,” who are very necessary to the society in that they sweep and clean streets, “carry away the Dirt and Dung,” wash dead bodies, “conveying them to their proper places of Sepulture,” although they are considered as defiling people of other castes by touching them (1690, 382). For performing these essential chores, they are “accounted Vile and Mean, the most Abject and Scandalous of all the Inhabitants of Suratt” (1690, 382–383). He exposes one of the grossest injustices of the caste system when he states that despite the unjust treatment they receive, they “take all in good part, cringe and bow to all they pass by, Eat whatever is offer’d them from any Hand, and go thro’ with their Drudgery without noise and concern” (1690, 383). Although Ovington does not condemn the system at this point, his description anticipates the critique it would be subjected to later. John Ogilby,17 the cosmographer, depicted the “Halalchors” in India similarly. Ogilby was a cosmographer and his information was derived not from personal observation but from travel narratives and other sources, which he compiled in handsomely illustrated volumes for the knowledge of his readers. He tries to 17 John Ogilby was a micro-cosmographer, a translator of classics, a man of letters, and a chorographer. He was a man of versatile talents and had close connections with Ireland. He went there first as a dancing master to Lord Wentworth’s daughters, and in 1636 he became the acting manager of the theater at Werburg Street in Ireland. Ogilby fought in the royal army during the Irish Rebellion and later returned to England. After the war he went back to Ireland, this time as the Master of the Revels, in 1661 (Eerde 1976, 71). Thomas Stanley, who aided in building the Smock Alley theater in Dublin became “a copatentee with Ogilby in the monopoly of the Irish Restoration theatre” (see Eerde 1976, 75). As a cosmographer, he produced expensive, handsomely bound volumes containing engravings and maps of different parts of the world like Africa, America, Asia for wealthy readers. He had also planned a volume on Europe, but “never actually executed” (Eerde 1976, 88).

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explain the reason for the halalchor’s acceptance of the “most despicable and filthiest Employment” in the society because they are either very poor and are forced to accept any job that comes their way or because they “obey their Laws, which prescribe them such a kind of life” (1673, 115) In the late seventeenth century, Ovington, and to a lesser extent Ogilby, have tried to analyze the cause of the outcastes’ habits and way of life and attributed it to the situation they were placed in. By contrast, the Italian traveler Ludovico di Varthema in the sixteenth century had described the “untouchable Poliars as beast-like creatures” who “cover their children in dirt, so that they resemble little buffaloes and appear as misshapen creatures fed by the devils.” Although he considered Indians belonging to the higher castes as civilized, Varthema places the low castes and outcastes in a lower order (see Figueira 2004, 82). Significantly, Ogilby’s untitled picture on the page he describes the “halalchors” (see Figure 3) bears resemblances to the conception of the uncivilized wild man and especially the picture of the wild Irish in John Speed’s atlas, The Theatre of the Empire of great Britaine. Ogilby had been in Ireland as one of the royalist party. His stay in Ireland appears to have made him receptive to the presence of the supposedly “wild Irish,” as opposed to the civilized Irish folk. His sketch (if it pertains to the outcastes of India) indicates a likeness between them and the wild Irish. Despite his awareness of the severe constraints faced by the “halalchors,” Ogilby’s depiction suggests that they belong to the less civilized category of human beings. So, we see a diverse range of reactions to the Indian customs and religions in the travelogues. Despite being aware of the monotheistic core of Hinduism, many, like Lord, Terry, and others, dismissed the idea as not worthy of attention, constructing Hindus as polytheistic and idolatrous, in contrast to liberal Europeans like Bernier and Jesuits like de Nobili, who sought to discover more of the complexities of the religion. De Nobili researched Vedantic thought and the Upanishads, in his quest for discovering likenesses between religions. While Terry, Roe, and Fryer, among others, disavowed likenesses, constructing the other in opposition to self, Bernier by and large critiqued superstition as inherent in all religions, be they gentile or Christian. The shift towards ethnography enabled a relatively neutral stance towards alien practices, as we see in Mundy. Ovington’s depiction suggests his acquaintance with the Enlightenment rationality. He was much less concerned with establishing the truth and supremacy of the Christian religion and displayed a readiness to concede the positives of alien customs and religions, as judged by the criterion of rationality, without obstinately clinging to the superiority of self. In this connection, it would be pertinent to refer to Bulman’s observation about Enlightenment awareness of other religions. The acquaintance with

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Figure 3 Outcastes From John Ogilby, Asia

diverse religious practices and growth of interest in ethnography led indirectly to the growth of tolerance with respect to other religions. Bulman suggests that “secularization” during the Enlightenment was not the product of “declining religious commitment” but “the increasing emergence of a state of acute awareness among elites that their own religious commitments (or lack thereof) constituted a choice among many available forms of belief (and unbelief), all of which could be held by sane (if erring and partly unreasonable) people, because they were the products of complex historical forces” (2016, 18). But such enlightened awareness is witnessed in only a few of the European travelogues, while stereotypes of the true religion, Christian self, and the other continued to persist in many narratives.

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Women in India: The “Sati” and the Harem The condition of women and the relationship between men and women formed a popular subject of investigation for travelers. Practices of matrimony, including child marriage, rituals, and widowhood, appear in their accounts. European writings in general depict the plight of the Indian women as miserable. Both among the Muslims and Hindus they are victims, totally devoid of any agency or power to control their condition. The ultimate destiny for many Hindu women who do not die before their husbands is the “sati”—a painful and cruel death by burning at the pyre of their husbands. The Muslim women spend their lives in confinement in the seclusion of the harem, which becomes a secret space for sensuality and wantonness. This chapter looks at some of the portrayals of these two social institutions in India during this period, comparing them and examining the various nuances of the construction of the alien. 1

“Sati”

When seventeenth-century Europeans, among them the eic employees, came to India for trade and other purposes, they were struck by the rite of widowburning, which they might have heard of before but which many of them witnessed for the first time. The travel narratives provide us with a mixture of first-hand and partially fictionalized accounts of the practice, sometimes perpetuating stereotypes related to the custom and occasionally giving us genuine insight into prevalent European as well as Indian social values. This chapter contends that the desire to negativize non-Christian religious practices on the one hand, and, on the other, the simultaneous uneasy recognition of the prevalence of similar patriarchal beliefs, cultural values, and prejudices in the West, produce deeply ambivalent portrayals of the practice of “sati” in some narratives. Moreover, in view of a perceptible shift towards ethnography in the later accounts, one notices a relatively neutral portrayal, an attempt to rationalize from the Western perspective and also, in some accounts, to privilege universal human impulses that supposedly motivated the act. The later seventeenth century also shows attempts at English intervention in the practice, which look forward to the colonial era.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004448261_008

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For a clearer understanding of the way the early modern Europeans viewed the practice, it might be relevant to examine the etymology of the word itself. Sati was the name of Shiva’s consort, who gave up her life on hearing her husband abused by her father, thereby demonstrating her absolute love for her husband. In the Indian languages, the word sati denotes a woman who exemplifies unflinching loyalty and faith to her husband, although in the European usage the substantive was transferred to the “suicidal act, instead of the person” (Yule and Burnell 1994, 878). The emphasis on the act rather than the person in European languages suggests the curiosity and interest aroused by this exotic custom among the Europeans. Even in Indian usage, only a secondary sense of the word connotes the woman who accompanies her husband in death by burning on his pyre, generally designated by the words “anumarana” or “sahagamana” (Hawley 1994, 12). According to John S. Hawley, “In its origin, sati is a Sanskrit feminine participle derived from the verb ‘to be.’ He adds that “Indic speech prefers the phrase ‘being’ ‘or becoming’ sati (sati hona) and finds it awkward to think of ‘performing’ or ‘doing’ sati, but the connection remains close—perhaps even essential.” The climactic moment of her display of virtue and loyalty is when the virtuous woman (or sati) forsakes her life and accompanies her husband in death. Hawley argues that “because this is the moment at which such virtue becomes fully visible, however, there is a sense in which sati as person depends on sati as practice—the actual act of immolation” (1994, 13). In this book, I use the word sati to denote the woman. When I refer to the act, I enclose it in quotation marks. The European reactions to the practice span a gamut, ranging from admiration and awe to pity and scorn for gullibility, and often a mixture of both. During these early years of the encounters between cultures, we find variant portrayals of the sati as a heroic and courageous woman, a deluded, pitiable victim, a possessed witch, and even an avenging murderess that ensures just retribution for her partner in crime. However, despite seeking critical distance from an alien, apparently morally reprehensible cultural practice, the European representations of the ritual indicate the existence of similar patriarchal beliefs, cultural values, and prejudices, which produce deeply ambivalent portrayals of the practice. Among the early travelers, Terry, the chaplain of Roe, describes the practice of “sati” in some detail. In his account, widow-burning appears as an entirely voluntary practice, the wives making the choice deliberately for the sake of honor. He writes that after their husbands’ death, Hindu widows never remarry, but they cut their hair and live an utterly neglected life. And he deduces that self-immolation frees them from such a life of neglect and dishonor and confers

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upon them much honor. Similarly, writing later in the period, Fryer gives us a conventional summary account of the practice, very likely based on hearsay: “in the Husband’s Flames the Wife offers her self a Sacrifice to his Manes, or else she shaves and turns Whore for Livelihood, none of her Friends looking upon her” (1698, 1:33). He takes it for granted that there is no other option available to her, except death or whoredom. But, most accounts relate a life of extreme hardships rather than prostitution. Terry lauds the firm resolution and self-sacrificing ardor of the woman: “when she [the widow] comes to the Pile, which immediately after turns her into ashes: yet she who is once thus resolved, never starts back from hir first firm and setled resolution, but goes on singing to her death,” and again, “though she have no bonds but her own strong affections to tie her unto those flames, yet she never offers to stir out of them” (1655, 323–324). However, while Terry showers praise on her steadfastness and love in confronting courageously a painful death, as a Christian clergyman he must needs pity her ignorance and illusory belief: “But for those poor silly Souls, who sing themselves into the extremity of misery and thus madly go out of the World … through flames that will not last long into everlasting burnings  … led hereunto by their tempter and murderer  … deserve much pity from others, who know not how to pity themselves” (1655, 325–326; emphasis added in “poor silly Souls”). He shows her as foolish and deserving pity, but misled by Satan into wrongdoing. Terry is unable to give his moral sanction to an act of suicide that forms part of the beliefs of a heathen religion, so that the earlier portrayal of a feat of resolution and steadfast faith gets transformed into a devilish deed. Likewise, the resolute and constant woman undergoes a transformation into the “poor silly soul,” and the flames, which she mistakenly believes will carry her to an everlasting life of union with her husband, herald the prospect of “everlasting burnings” in hell. The language of implicit admiration passes almost imperceptibly into the language of pity and condescension. Biblical analogies and patterns recur in Terry’s depiction. He uses the analogy of the biblical “Ammonites,” who sounded drums and tabors while “they made their children passe through the fire to Molech” (1655, 325; italics in the original) to describe the practice of the Hindus in drowning the cries of the burning widow. His rhetoric of pity is also one of Christian piety, which induces him to pity them as “poor wretches” who serve such a “hard Master,” a Satanic god who compels them to be their “own executioners” in the “flower of their youth and strength.” The contrasts between Satan and God recur as the chief motif throughout Terry’s sketch of the “sati,” culminating in his astonishment that the “Devil should have such an abundance of servants in the World,

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and God so few” (1655, 325). The sati who shows exemplary moral courage but unwittingly commits the sin of suicide serves in Terry’s text as an instance of virtue in the state of nature, which does not attain Grace. It is significant that the practice of “sati” had often given rise to similar ambivalent reactions among many writers, including non-Christian ones, who did not denigrate the act as sin. As pointed out by Lata Mani, in nineteenthcentury India, Rammohun Roy, while arguing for the abolition of the practice of “sati,” had manifested a similarly contradictory stance, praising the sati as the exemplar of heroic courage on the one hand, and highlighting her “vulnerability” on the other. Exalting feminine courage and steadfastness he writes: “in a country where the name of death makes the male shudder, that the female from her firmness of mind offers to burn with the corpse of her deceased husband” evokes admiration. However, soon after, he writes: “by considering others equally void of duplicity as themselves … from which they suffer much misery, even so far that some of them are misled to suffer themselves to be burnt to death” (cited in Mani, 1989, 106). Terry’s response to the practice suggests that the sati could serve as an exemplar of wifely devotion and unwavering chastity to European women. Pompa Banerjee points out that, “Widely known texts such as The Book of Common Prayer (1549) reinforced wifely ideals of absolute obedience and surrender that were not unlike the selfless renunciation of the sati” (2003, 114). “A Vertuous Widdow,” which features in Sir Thomas Overbury’s New Characters1 seems akin to this wifely ideal. “A Vertuous Widdow” shows that the widow suffers a neardeath in the death of her husband, because the joys and pleasures of living cease to matter for her: “shee thinks shee hath traveld all the world in one man; the rest of her time therefore shee directs to heaven…. she hath laid his dead body in the worthyest monument that can be: Shee hath buried it in her owne heart. To conclude, shee is a Relique” (1615). A relic suggests the venerable remains of a dead person. Therefore, without relinquishing her life, the virtuous widow becomes the remains of her husband, almost a lifeless object rather than a living human being. The metaphor suggests that she forsakes her interest in life, so closely associated her remaining life is with her dead husband. Her characterization as an object rather than a living human being or else as one whose desires are directed entirely to heaven closely resembles that of the sati who gives up all desire for life and seeks to join her husband in heaven. 1 Sir Thomas Overbury’s New Characters was published anonymously with his poem “A Wife” in 1615. The authorship of the New Characters (commonly known as Overbury’s Characters) is still debatable, though some of them have been attributed to the playwright John Webster.

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That seventeenth-century English texts on wifely virtue make of the widow a “relique” of the dead husband indicates the presence of common ideals in India and Europe with respect to the figures of the wife and widow. Terry’s praise of the constancy and self-sacrificing courage of the sati draw on similar values. As Ania Loomba writes: “even the harshest colonial criticism included a sneaking admiration for the sati as the ideal wife who represented ‘the wholly admirable sentiment and theory, that the union of man and woman is lifelong and the one permanent thing in the world’” (1993, 211). In this connection it would be pertinent to look at Michel de Montaigne’s reference to the custom of “sati” in his essay “On Virtue.” He draws on classical sources like Propertius and Cicero for the description of the practice, but might have borrowed from contemporary sources as well. In the essay, he contrasts sudden inspirational acts of virtue, “miraculous flashes which appear far to exceed our natural powers,” and acts of courage and heroism, which had become a settled habit of thought with the actor. Montaigne writes, “it is hard to believe that we can so steep and dye our soul in such elevated attributes that they become ordinary and natural to her” (2003, 799). Since the sati meditates on burning herself with her dead husband for a long time, it becomes a habitual thought with her (2003, 801). His description shows how on the day of her death, she shows no sadness or reluctance but cheerfully and courageously throws herself into the fire. Montaigne emphasizes the widow’s courage and desire for glory more than her faithfulness, and unlike many travel narrators’, his description touches neither upon her gullibility nor her impiety in going contrary to Christian dictates. Providing tacit endorsement of the diversity of customs in societies and the values they privilege, “On Virtue” suggests that the wife’s constancy, courage, fearlessness, and cheerfulness make the act of “sati” an act of virtue. Unlike others, Montaigne unqualifiedly lauds what is considered an un-Christian act. He particularly underscores that one can train oneself for an act, socially recognized as virtuous, and endure considerable pain for the objective. This attempt to rationalize the act looks forward to the arguments of Bernier and Locke. Although Montaigne’s essay does not represent the commonly held values of Western society, endorsement of “sati” also appears in diverse forms in literature. Seventeenth-century English drama occasionally introduced the practice of “sati” as a paradigm for chastity and wifely devotion. John Dryden’s Aureng-Zebe shows the Muslim Melesinda burning herself to death like the Hindu sati to rejoin Morat, her husband, after life. Dryden’s stance towards her is ambivalent. Melesinda contrasts not only with Nourmahal, as Dryden had explicitly intended, but also with Indamora, the heroine, who possibly

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represents India and is to marry “Aureng-Zebe,” the central character. In his dedication of the play to the earl of Mulgrave, Dryden presents Melesinda as A Woman passionately loving of her Husband, patient of injuries and contempt, and constant in her kindness, to the last: and in that, perhaps, I may have err’d because it is not a Virtue much in use. Those Indian Wives are loving Fools, and may do well to keep themselves in their own Countrey, or, at least, to keep company with the Arria’s and Portia’s of old Rome: some of our Ladies know better things. 1967, 108; emphasis added except in proper names

Although Dryden calls Melesinda a “loving Fool,” and her characterization demonstrates many comical moments, the depreciatory statement veils a positive stance. This is shown in the invocation of the classical examples of feminine courage—Arria and Portia. Melesinda’s last utterance on stage echoes the language of the sati, who promises herself glory in heaven and eternal union with her husband: “For I will die; die is too base a word; / I’ll seek his breast, and kindling by his side, / Adorn’d with flames, I’ll mount a glorious Bride” (Dryden 1967, 185; Act 5, 632–634). The contrast with the supposed wisdom (“some of our ladies know better things” quoted above) of English widows and wives is evidently ironic. That the liberty of English ladies often led them to promiscuity and adultery at the expense of their faithful husbands was a common charge against women in Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. The implicit eulogy of the sati as representing the patriarchal ideal of feminine constancy appears in many English texts. However, representations of Hinduism as false and Satanic and the allusion to the Satanic god compelling the victims to be their “own executioners” (quoted above) in Terry’s narrative gesture towards later portrayals, like that of Bernier, of the women themselves as virtually witches allied to Satan. Writing to Monsieur Chapelain in October 1667 (several years after Terry’s visit) about the customs and superstitions of the “Indous or Gentiles of Hindoustan” (2008a, 300), Bernier seeks to present the resolute, unrelenting widow as one possessed by the devil. In his sketch, she appears to be possessed by an evil force and comes to resemble the witch who was often forcibly burnt in European society. The difference lay in the fact that in this case, it was the witch who chose a voluntary death rather than compelled burning. Both Terry and Bernier and even later travelers state that the Mughal emperors had tried to stop the practice of “sati.” Since Terry was writing about the time of Jahangir and Bernier during Aurangzeb’s reign, it is obvious that the Mughals sought to prevent self-immolation by widows. According to Bernier,

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the Mughals did not prohibit the practice by law because of their policy of granting all sections of the people freedom to observe their religious practices, although they laid down that the burning could take place only with the permission of the governor, who would try to persuade the woman by reason to refrain from the act. However, often the women refused to heed such arguments, and in the kingdoms of the Hindu rajas who owed only a nominal allegiance to the emperor, no Muslim governor was appointed. Despite the Mughal attempt to prevent the practice, therefore, the number of immolations was very high. Bernier relates an eye-witness’s account of a few instances of the custom of “sati,” including one in which he directly intervened and succeeded in preventing. On the death of one of Bernier’s acquaintances, a clerk in the employ of Danishmand Khan, the widow decided to burn herself. Being requested by her relations and his employer, Bernier went to dissuade her. However, he made very little headway by his exhortations until he threatened her with the prospect of the death of her children by starvation. His description of her appearance and actions evoke associations of the witch. At first sight, Bernier likens the ceremony to the witches’ “sabbat”: Je vis en entrant un sabbat de sept ou huit vieilles horribles à voir, avec quatre ou cinq vieux infatués et écervelés de brahmanes qui criaient tous par reprises et enbattant des mains à l’entour du mort, et la femme tout échevelée, le visage pâle, les yeux secs étincelants, qui était assise et qui criait en battant aussi des mains en cadence comme les autres aux pieds de son mari. 2008b, 308

Acoording to Larousse’s Dictionary, “sabbat” signifies “Assemblée nocturne de sorciers et de sorcières qui, suivant une superstition populaire, se tenait le samedi à minuit sous la présidence de Satan.” Bernier likens the scene to a midnight assembly of evil spirits under the supervision of Satan, which was “horrible” to see. The English version of Archibald Constable translates “un sabbat” as “a regular witches’ Sabat” (2008a, 307). The seven or eight old women, whom he has already associated with the devil, along with four or five distracted and disorderly (my translation; “excited, wild,” in Constable’s translation, 307) old men, surrounding the dead body, “gave by turns a horrid yell, and beat their hands with violence” (2008a, 307). The description of the widow enhances the sense of unnaturalness in the scene—her disheveled hair, pale face, dry and shining eyes, and the action of beating her hands and crying like the rest. Constable’s translation reveals her

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unnatural state of excitement, which poses a contrast with the expected picture of calm grief at the death of a loved one, “her eyes were tearless and sparkling with animation,” while she participated in the “horrible concert” (Bernier 2008a, 308; emphasis added) with gusto. Bernier’s depiction of the scene highlights the devilish nature of the activities. His allusion to the “sabbat” of sorceresses reminds us of the practice of witch-hunting in sixteenth-and seventeenth-century Europe. The word witch had the associated connotations of evil spirit or “demon,” a female spirit “having dealings with Satan” (oed). Bernier’s emphasis on the horror, “horribles à voir” and his reference to the widow’s possession by a diabolic spirit would recall associations of the popular view of witches. Bernier at first seeks to dissuade the widow by saying that Danishmand Khan has offered to extend a pension to her sons and assures her that she would not incur any infamy should she refrain from burning herself. However, when the widow refuses to listen to Bernier’s plea and offers to kill herself by dashing her head against the wall, he considers her as possessed: “Quelle diabolique fureur te possède” (2008b, 308). Significantly, as soon as he threatens the woman that if she continued to act unnaturally, he would forthwith return and ask Danishmand Khan to annul the pensions so that her children would die of starvation, and exhorts her to burn them along with her after cutting their throats “égorge-les et les brûle avec toi” (2008b, 308), she appears to come out of the spell and her head drops onto her knees. The old women and the Brahmans who had persuaded her to commit suicide also slink out, as if they realize that their charm no longer has any power. The description is reminiscent of an act of exorcism, thereby linking the ritual all the more convincingly to witchcraft. The words and images suggest that Bernier associates the practice of widowburning with the devil and sees the old women and the Brahmans as accomplices of the devil. It was common to associate witchcraft with devilry, and other religions, including Judaism, sometimes, were frequent targets. Alison Rowlands writes: “From the late fifteenth century and increasingly from about 1560, however, elites who had come to believe that witchcraft was the renunciation of Christianity in favour of an alliance with the Devil gave peasants the opportunity of ridding their communities of witches through legal channels” (2004, 42). Reginald Scot shows how easily and unreasonably women could be condemned as witches: “If any man, woman, o: child do saie, that such a one is a witch; it is a most vehement suspicion (saith Bodin) and sufficient to bring hir to the racke: though all other cases it be direalie against lawe” (1584, 26). Scot elaborates the enormity of superstition that was associated with such

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understanding of witchcraft: “In presumptions and suspicions against a witch, the common brute o: voice of the people cannot erre … the behauiour, looks, becks, and countenance of a woman, are sufficient signes, whereby to presume she is a witch: for alwais they looke downe to the ground, and dare not looke a man full in the face” (1584, 26). Bernier’s portrayal demonstrates that any behavior that appeared to him as unnatural in European culture, in this case, the determination to die with her dead husband, could easily be construed as witch-like or devilish, just as those who encouraged and abetted such activity could only be witches. Banerjee contends that Europeans were obsessed with sorcery and demonology, as being pervasive in India. Therefore, “references to witches and devils embedded within European discourse of widowburning anxiously summoned the buried analogy between the two kinds of burnings” (2003, 61). As an eye-witness to another episode, Bernier insinuates that the widow’s composure, her determination, and courage are signs of her possession by the devil. He refers to the presence of his compatriot Monsieur Chardin and several Dutch and English as witnesses to this act and despairs of representing it properly to his immediate intended audience, Monsieur Chapelain, and possibly, a later collective readership the strange behavior of the middle-aged woman who burned herself: cette intrépidité bestiale et gaieté féroce qui se remarquait sur son visage, avec quelle fermeté elle marchait, se laissait laver, parlait à l’un, parlait à l’autre, avec quelle assurance et insensibilité elle nous regarda, considéra sa petite cabane … entra dedans cette cabane … prit un flambeau à la main, et mit le feu elle-même par dedans. 2008b, 312

That the terms of description are incompatible, even oxymoronic at times (e.g., “intrépidité bestiale,” “gaieté féroce,” “assurance et insensibilité”), demonstrates the contradictions latent in his thinking, His inability to place what he found difficult to comprehend within his preconceived notions of what may be construed as courage leads him to degrade the woman to the status of an animal. Her look of confidence can only be construed as “insensibility,” her intrepidity in the face of imminent death as “bestial.” Her courage in fearlessly confronting her death cannot be identified as courage but only indicates her inability to comprehend the implications of her action. In his attempt to reconcile the contradictory epithets, Constable modifies the phrasing and translates “assurance et insensibilité” as “the look of confidence, or rather of insensibility” (emphasis added), modifying the oxymoronic

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juxtaposition and combination of the two words into a replacement of the first by the second. The sati’s reactions appear as ignoble and “brutish” to Bernier (2008a, 312) because the scene lies beyond his expectations. The widow defies Bernier’s conception of modesty in women. He does not seek to represent the scene factually, as he sees it, but to construct it relating the appropriate reactions for a European and aims to evoke similar reactions in his readers. The difference with Montaigne is especially revealing, for Bernier’s construction suggests a reluctance to concede courage and virtue in women belonging to a non-Christian and alien culture. This results in the attempt to demonize the other or to render her sub-human. However, Bernier’s simultaneous attempt to rationalize the custom, showing how a woman is persuaded to believe that burning oneself on the dead husband’s pyre constitutes an act of honor, demonstrates the contradiction in his thinking. Only shortly before the last incident described, he describes the strange custom: Mais j’ai bien reconnu depuis que ce n’était qu’un effet de l’opinion, de la prévention et de la coutume; et que les mères infatuées de jeunesse de cette superstition comme d’une chose très vertueuse, très louable et inévitable à une femme d’honneur, en infatuaient de même l’esprit de leurs filles, dès leur tendre jeunesse, quoiqu’au fond ce n’ait jamais été qu’un artifice des hommes pour s’assujettir davantage leurs femmes, pour les obliger à prendre des soins particuliers de leur santé et pour empêcher qu’elles ne les empoisonnassent. 2008b, 311

Bernier thereby shows how custom and accepted views of people condition the minds of women. The Hindu mothers who inculcate in their young daughters that it behooves every woman of honor to perform this rite on the death of her husband perpetuate the tradition. Bernier also correctly comprehends and condemns the role of the patriarchal system which enables men to take advantage of the custom to keep “wives in subjection,” secure “their attention in time of sickness” (“oblige them to take particular care of their [i.e., their husbands’] health”; my translation) and deter them “from administering poison to their husbands” (2008a, 310–311). Bernier’s argument clearly accords with Locke’s view of the power of custom in human society and looks forward to rationality and Enlightenment ideas: “and custom, a greater power than nature, seldom failing to make them worship for divine what she hath inured them to bow their minds and

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submit their understandings to” (Locke 1924, 35). However, that Bernier’s earlier and later portrayals of the sati as an evil, “brutish” figure, siding with Satanic forces, are implicitly contradicted by such statements underscores the ambivalence with which the Europeans invested the cultural practice. I shall have occasion to return to the condition of “deterrence” from poisoning as suggested here. Bernier’s compatriot, the jeweler Tavernier, recounts a few occurrences of “sati” that point to the direction of witchcraft and black magic more than any other narrative. In chapter x, he relates “remarkable histories of several women” who had performed rite of “sati.” However, by his narration, it seems he meant strange or horrific rather than “remarkable” in a positive sense. In the first incident, at the defeat and death of the Raja of Vellore in a battle with the king of Bijapore, eleven women in the former’s household wished to burn themselves with his dead body. When the general of the Bijapore army failed to dissuade them, he ordered them to be locked up to prevent this act of mass suicide. The man who was instructed to enforce the order was warned by the women that such imprisonment would not serve their purpose for he would see their dead bodies in three hours. But, he did not believe them. However, at the end of three hours, the employee who was in charge found eleven dead bodies on the ground, “without any apparent indications that they [the women] had hastened their deaths, either by steel, rope, or poison, nor could anyone see how they had been able to make away with themselves. On this occasion it was assuredly the case that the evil spirit had played his game” (1995, 2: 170; emphasis added). The story, presumably gathered from hearsay, suggests Tavernier’s readiness to believe that idolatrous religions were associated with witchcraft and devilry. Unlike Bernier, Tavernier does not seek to rationalize or understand the reason for such practices. In the last anecdote of Tavernier, the element of the horrific, which verges on the mysterious, again enters the narrative. He relates that he had witnessed the episode while with the Dutch governor in the town of Patna. A young and beautiful woman of about twenty-two went to the governor and boldly demanded permission to burn with the body of her deceased husband, and, at the governor’s attempts at dissuasion, challenged him by saying that she could show him that she did not fear the fire. Although the governor was about to dismiss her angrily, at the request of some young nobles who were present, he agreed to test her by having a lighted torch brought in front of her. The woman directly ran to the torch “held her hand firmly in the flame without the least grimace, and pushed in her arm up to the elbow, till it was immediately scorched; this caused horror to all who witnessed the deed, and the governor

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commanded the woman to be removed from his presence” (Tavernier 1995, 2:172; emphasis added). Although the French traveler does not explicitly mention the devil here, his narrative of superhuman and incredible endurance tacitly suggests the role of black magic and evil spirits. Tavernier’s account of the horror and mystery attendant on such incidents, despite the mention of plausible ethnographic details associated with the custom, implicitly align the rite of “sati” with witchcraft and the devil. In contrast with Tavernier or even Bernier, the Italian traveler Pietro della Valle finds no devilish practice associated with the custom. Significantly, his experience of close intercourse with a sati is an unusual instance. He admires the constancy and courage of the sati: “A Custom, indeed, cruel and barbarous, but with all, of great generosity and virtue in such Women, and therefore worthy of no small praise” (1665, 132). In his Travels, della Valle initially describes the custom of “sati” as he had heard of it: “I have heard say, (for I have not seen any Women burnt alive).” He relates that the custom was not practiced only by Indian women, but even Europeans: “according to what Strabo writes from the Relation of Onesicritus; but also the chaste Wives of the Thracians, as appears by Julius Solinus” (della Valle 1665, 44), thereby pointing to a relatively widespread usage. Della Valle states that the practice is voluntary, as few widows actually do it, but “she who doth it, acquires in the Nation a glorious name of Honour and Holiness.” Initially, he attributes the practice to people of noble birth: “’Tis most usual among great persons, who prize Reputation at a higher rate then others do” (1665, 44). Later, however, della Valle comes into contact with a widow in Ikkeri, called Giaccamà, who had resolved to burn herself, although her husband was a drummer and she did not belong to a high caste. He first sees her riding a horse, holding “a Looking-glasse in one hand, and a Lemon in the other,” singing in a mournful voice, bidding, as the Italian traveler was informed, “a kind of Farewell to the World and to her self.” Her sad song and “calm and constant Countenance, without tears” showed more grief for the death of her husband than her own impending death (see della Valle 1665, 132). Afterwards, when he went to meet her and tried to dissuade her from this act of suicide by reminding her of her young son and daughter, she answered him that she would leave them in the good care of her uncle and the two other wives of her husband who had refused to die. She was committing this sacrifice voluntarily and rejoiced at the prospect of uniting herself with her husband in the next world. Both she and her relations “glory’d” in this “magnanimous

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action,” which was considered to be of “great honor” “amongst them” (della Valle 1665, 136). As she had desired him to carry her “Fame” to his “own Country” della Valle composed a poem as a memorial to her: “My Muse could not forbear from chanting her in a Sonnet, which I made upon her death, and reserve among my Poetical Papers” (1665, 137). Significantly, if we compare the interventions of Bernier and della Valle, since both aimed at discouraging the sati from the act of self-immolation, the difference in the two reactions becomes clear. While Bernier likens the obstinate widow to a witch for her persistence and the rituals she was performing, della Valle admires Giaccamà’s constancy, admits that she was uniformly civil and argued against him rationally, and finds nothing wrong in her or her friends’ joy at the prospect of “sati.” Both travelers appeal to the widow’s maternal instincts, but while Bernier succeeds by threatening to starve her children in the event of her non-compliance and calls her an “unnatural mother” (2008a, 308), della Valle accepts Giaccamà’s claim that she was not leaving her children to penury and destitution, but to the care of her uncle and their two stepmothers. In contrast with the previous accounts related here, Mundy’s account, which however, was written earlier (Mundy’s travels in India took place during 1628–1634, and his description refers to a case of “Sati” at Surat in 1630), shows an ethnographer’s fairly neutral representation of the self-immolation he had witnessed. The neutrality of his stance and his language suggests his curiosity about the diversity of customs he witnesses as an onlooker, looking forward to a trend we see during the Enlightenment. He too points out that the Mughal emperor (at that time Shah Jahan) had prohibited the burning, and the widow could get special permission from the governor through “much importunitie” (1914, 35). Mundy’s report of laying the dead man near the river with “his feete and part of his body in the Water,” “the washinge Ceremonies” performed by his wife and other women who “stood upp to the middle” in the river, and the making of the funeral fire (1914, 35) shows the process of ethnographic recording and is free from emotional markers. For instance, we read of the details of the material used for the fire and the shape and design of the place of burning: “there was readye made the pile or place for the funerall fire, layeinge a good quantitie of wood on the floore round about, which were stakes driven in, on which are put a great quantitie of a small kind of drye Thornes and other Combustable stuffe, fashioned like a little lowe house with a doore of the same to it” (1914, 35). His deduction about Hindu rituals is also mater-of-fact: “they attribute much holynesse to great Rivers (especiallie to Ganges), and much of

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their religion consists in Washinges” (1914, 35). The statement is grounded on what he had witnessed about the rituals associated with the river and water and partly on prior knowledge like the reference to the Ganges. Mundy specifies details of the series of actions that strike him in the spirit of an ethnographer, like the way the woman lighted the fire and how it was kindled, and the noise that was made by the “Spectators.” He also relates how the woman sat with “life in her, holding upp both her Armes, which might bee occasioned through the scorchinge and shrinckinge of the Sinnewes, for shee held her handes under his head untill the fire was kindled” (1914, 36; see Figure 4) even after the sides and the upper portion of the low hut-like place where she was sitting had burned down. However, there is a slight contradiction here, for the sketch he has drawn shows the woman as holding one arm up, while the other hand is placed beneath her husband’s head. More importantly, the importance of the raised arm of a sati suggests that probably Mundy’s memory had belied him here. Most pictures of the sati show her uplifted hands. Catherine Weinberger-Thomas states: “The traveler who passes through the sites of Jodhpur, Bikaner, or Jaisalmer cannot help but notice on these fortified archways row upon row of little hands pointing upward as a sign of their ‘determination.’” She further informs the reader: “the hand, and most especially the finger, that extremity of what is already a liminal region of the body, had ‘powers’ attributed to them—on the fringes of Hindu orthodoxy, but nonetheless in intimate accordance with it—which nineteenth-century ethnographers and folklorists brought to light” (1999, 52–57). It is important to stress, however, that Mundy details the spectacle with the keen interest of a careful ethnographer who was seeking to provide a rational explanation for what he witnessed, despite some lacunae in his information. Lacking knowledge of specificities, for instance, he merely notes the importance of water in Hindu rituals. But, his narrative, based on empirical observation, provides material for natural history and cultural history of the time. Significantly, Mundy neither condemns nor glorifies the practice of “sati” in his depiction of the behavior of the woman. His account does not seek to associate her with witchcraft or show any horror at what was taking place before his eyes. As a distant observer, he does not intervene or attempt to rescue her nor does he demonstrate any pity or contempt for the woman. I refer to Rubiés’ comment on Duarte Barbosa’s description of the Nayar women to show how ethnographic descriptions produce the effect of neutrality: “a social system which breaks almost every important European convention about family life is not portrayed as ‘savage’ and ‘bestial’, nor monstrous, nor legendary, nor utopian, but simply as empirical, traditional and civil. What Barbosa has portrayed is not an image of ‘otherness,’ but rather a complex set of social rules which happen to be different” (2000, 219). Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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A case of Sati at Surat in 1630 From Peter Mundy, The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia 1608–1667

As I have stated in chapter 1, Mundy’s background was very different from those of Terry, Bernier, Fryer, or Ovington. His experience of travel even from a very young age, his curiosity regarding alien customs, and his habit of taking notes might have motivated his desire to write about the things he had observed in order for them to be published at a later stage. In his objective, Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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ethnographic account, one may discern evidence of the trend of a scientific method of knowledge production, anticipating the Enlightenment. During the latter half of the seventeenth century, we find this trend of ethnographic recording and classification even in other European travelogues. As we have seen, Tavernier’s account of the “sati” includes “remarkable” and horrific occurrences, but he also shows something of an ethnographer’s curiosity in classifying and describing a number of variant practices followed in different parts of India, averring that he had “seen women burnt in three different ways, according to the custom of different countries” (1995, 2:165). In Gujarat, the woman is made to sit in a “half-reclining position” in a hut, which is built of “reeds and all kinds of faggots” and is situated on the “margin of a river or tank.” “She rests her back against a post, to which she is tied by her waist by one of the Brahmans, for fear lest she should escape on feeling the flame” (1995, 2: 165). While Tavernier emphasizes the use of force to ensure the death of the woman, Mundy shows the burning that takes place in Surat (Gujarat) as entirely voluntary, although there are similarities in the two descriptions—the hut (or the “lowe house” in Mundy, 35) in which the sati is placed, her seated position, and the closeness of the site to water. While Mundy shows the sati lighting the fire herself by a torch, Tavernier relates that she “calls out to the priests to apply the fire.” Tavernier also emphasizes the gain of the Brahmans, who “take whatever is found in the way of melted gold, silver, tin, or copper, derived from the bracelets, earrings, and rings which the woman had on; this belongs to them by right, as I have said” (1995, 2:165–166). Tavernier suggests the indispensability of the Ganges (River Ganga) in connection with the rituals practiced in Bengal, where the body must be washed in the water of the holy river and the sati must also bathe in it before the sacrifice. “I have seen them come to the Ganges more than twenty days’ journey, the bodies being by that time altogether putrid, and emitting an unbearable odour” (1995, 2: 166).He says that he was in those parts at the time when a woman who walked beside a carriage, carrying the body of her dead husband, all the way from the north close to the kingdom of Bhutan arrived at the banks of the Ganges, where she burnt herself with the dead body “with a determination which surprised those who saw it” (1995, 2: 166). Tavernier describes the funeral pile of wood and reeds as shaped like a bed, on which the widow positions herself, “half-lying, half-seated.” Unlike in Gujarat however, the sati “comes dancing to the funeral pile” in Bengal, “preceded by drums, flutes, and haut-boys.” Moreover, according to Tavernier, she takes commissions from friends and relatives to carry items like letters, flowers, and “pieces of silver or copper” to their dead relatives (1995, 2: 166), before

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summoning the priests to set fire to the pile. Also, Tavernier notes a pertinent material detail, specific to Bengal, that due to the dearth of wood in the region, the half-burnt bodies are thrown into the Ganges, where they are consumed by crocodiles. Tavernier finds a third and even a fourth variant of the practice in South India on the Coromandel Coast. The sati and her dead husband are burnt in a large hole, nine or ten feet deep, which is nearly or at least partially filled with wood and “drugs to make it burn quickly” (1995, 2:168). The dead body is placed on the side of the hole. Here, too, the widow comes dancing and goes around the hole three times, and takes leave of her relations and friends. Then the dead body and the living woman are thrown or pushed into the hole by the Brahmans, where both are consumed by the fire. In other places along the Coromandel, the widow is buried alive along with her dead husband in the hole, which is filled up with sand by the Brahmans (see 1995, 2:168). In almost all the cases, Tavernier emphasizes the ignoble and cruel role of the Brahmans, who are shown to be responsible for this murder in order to further their own gain. Tavernier’s account resembles Mundy’s in recording ethnographic details and classification and differentiation of practices according to geographical locations. Although he claims to have “seen” (see above) some of these burnings, it is difficult to say how much of it is based on empirical observation and how much on hearsay. The authenticity of his narratives cannot be verified. Although he says that he was “there at the time” the widow who came from the north burnt herself (see above), he does not say that he witnessed the burning himself. Since Tavernier intended publication, his need for informing his readers about diverse social customs in India would have been sufficient inducement for the collection of data in various ways. His tone, however, is far from neutral and detached, like Mundy’s. Unlike Mundy’s and like Tavernier’s, Ovington’s account of the practice of “sati,” written towards the end of the century in 1690, is based on the information he had received from others. He does not describe the ritual as being witnessed personally by him, although his description of the natural world and sketches indicate empirical observation. Being a Christian and especially a clergyman like Terry, Ovington had to brand the practice of self-immolation as ‘impious,’ but he refers to such suicides generally as a past custom. Both Terry and Ovington said that such absolute love as displayed by the wife who accompanied her husband in death was laudable. But, while Terry affirms religious mandate as the sole cause of this practice, Ovington searches for other causes to explain the custom. His description of the “sati” was very likely a combination of various theories he partly invented and partly derived

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from informants or stories he had heard. He links the cultural practices of early marriage and self-immolation of the widow, attributing the courage and absolute love of the sati to the mutual conjugal love that was nurtured and cultivated by long union: And some of the Gentile Sects, before they feel any great Warmth of this amorous Passion, are by their Parents join’d together in their very Infancy, at three or four Years of Age. From which time they endeavour mutually to kindle this tender Passion, till the growing Years blow it up into a lively Flame…. they endeavour to stamp their Affections upon their Infant Souls, which like melted Wax are pliant and easie to receive the Impression…. And thus being happily prepossessed by a mutual good liking, even as it were from the Womb, as if they had been born Lovers, they are taken off from all Objects, and freed from the Disappointments of fickle Mistresses, and from being wearied with Whining addresses to coy Damsels. Which, besides others, may be some Reason why the Indian Wives committed themselves with so much chearfulness into the Funeral Flames with their Dead Husbands; because their Sympathetick Minds, linked together from their Infancy, were then fed with such early Tastes of Love, as became the Seminary of those strong and forcible Inclinations in their riper Years, and made the Pains of Death become preferable to a Life abandon’d the Society of those they so entirely lov’d. 1690, 322–323; emphasis added except in “Indian”

The image of the “Souls” as “melting wax” on which impressions are stamped recalls the “tabula rasa” image of Locke. Earlier, we have noticed Ovington’s acceptance of the diversity of customs, which rules out the superiority of any one custom and shows his closeness to Locke’s thought. However, by “souls” he is probably referring to “the seat of the emotions, feelings, or sentiments” (oed) rather than the thinking mind. Ovington’s reason for the practice of “sati” is evidently speculative, as he candidly owns by saying that it “may be some Reason.” But his explanation of the growth of love and desire for companionship in young couples implies his belief in the presence of selfless and benevolent human impulses. By putting the emphasis on mutual love rather than a desire for joys in heaven or honor (as we see in della Valle, for instance) as a motivation for the practice of “sati,” Ovington privileges human relations and emotions. He also shifts the focus away from the corrupt priests or the relations who seek to gain by the widow’s

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death and thereby removes the charge of the false religion against heathens.2 This suggests his tolerant attitude to difference and willingness to accept a diversity of customs instead of merely searching for self-interest and villainy and stigmatizing culprits, associated with a practice. Ovington’s portrayal also suggests a belief in the innate goodness of people belonging to a different society. The attraction for a particular person derives from the impression received from the outside world, but the nature and capacity for affection is innate. Belief in the innate goodness of human beings comes close to the views of the third earl of Shaftesbury. According to Shaftesbury, “in the passions and affections of particular creatures, there is a constant relation to the interest of a species or common nature. This has been demonstrated in the case of natural affection, parental kindness, zeal for posterity, concern for the propagation and nurture of the young, love of fellowship and company, compassion, mutual succor and the rest of this kind” (1999, 192). I argue that the self-sacrificial love, as envisaged by the conjugal couples in Ovington’s relation, owes to Shaftesbury’s account of altruistic emotions present in human beings. Ovington combines a Lockean acceptance of diversity with Shaftesbury’s notion of goodness in human beings. However, Ovington’s narrative evinces contradictory stances from time to time. Conflicting explanations of the custom of “sati” demonstrate his ambivalent position about the practice. At times, relying on stories circulating among Europeans, he ascribes the origin of the practice to the treachery of the woman: “And this Heathenish Custom was introduc’d, because of the libidinous disposition of the Women, who thro’ their inordinate Lust would often poison their present Husbands, to make way for a new Lover” (1690, 343). Here he makes the custom “heathenish” and shows women as being lascivious and possessing murderous desires. Similarly, he also subscribes to stereotypes. His argument that child marriages preclude the youth’s reliance on the favors of “fickle mistresses” or do away with inane Western courtship rituals, like “Whining addresses to coy Damsels” (see above), also suggests his belief in cultural stereotypes regarding women in general. Ovington’s narrative, therefore, reveals a tendency to incorporate and reconcile different versions of practices that he hears of while it demonstrates his acceptance of the presence of diversity in alien societies. It impresses the reader with the simultaneous existence of tolerance, compromise, and contradiction. 2 However, echoing the common allegation, he also says later that the priests benefited by the widow’s death because only they had the right to retrieve the gold and silver jewels from the ashes of the sati, and her ornaments became their property (Ovington 1690, 344).

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Similarly, many European explanations of the origin of “sati” refer to the narrative of women poisoning their husbands. The belief that the practice originated as a preventive method for deterring women who would otherwise have poisoned their husbands derives from classical sources like Strabo (xv 30).3 In the late sixteenth century, Linschoten expounds: The [first] cause [and occasion] why the women are burnt with their husbandes, was (as the Indians themselves do say), that in time past, the women (as they are very leacherous and inconstant both by nature, and complexion) did poyson many of their husbands, when they thought good (as they are likewise very expert therein:) thereby to have the better means to fulfill their lusts. Which the King perceiving, and that thereby his principal Lords, Captains, and Souldiers, which uphelde his estate and kingdome, were so consumed and brought unto their endes, by the wicked practises of women, sought as much as hee might to hinder the same: and thereupon he made a law, and ordayned, that when the dead bodies of men were buried, they shold also burne their wives with them, thereby to put them in feare, and so make them abstaine from poysoning of their husbands. 1988, 1: 250–251

According to Linschoten, at first only the wives of noblemen, soldiers, and Brahmans were subject to such a law, but later, “it became a custome among them, and so continueth” (1988, 1:251). Although the charge of women poisoning their husbands was intended to target only Indian women, the misogyny of the parenthetical words “as they are very leacherous and inconstant both by nature, and complexion” suggests its universal application. However, European narratives repeat ad nauseam that poisoning of husbands by deceitful women led to the custom of “sati.” In this connection, it would be relevant to refer to a story, circulating among Europeans in the seventeenth century, about a particular woman’s revenge against her lover, who refused to elope with her after she had killed her husband to live with him. It might have formed what Greenblatt termed the “mimetic capital” (1991, 6), as we see from the references to it by Bernier and 3 The editor of Linschoten A.C. Burnell annotates “This [i.e., the poisoning story] seems due to Starabo (xv, 30).” See Linschoten 1988, 250–251, footnote 1. Pietro della Valle had also mentioned Strabo (see above). Similarly, Diodorus Siculus stated that the custom of “sati” had its origin in a law designed to prevent women from poisoning their husbands. See Diodorus of Cicily in Twelve Vollumes, trans. Russel M. Geer (Cambridge, MA, 1963–1971), xix.2.33.1–34.6. (9:319–323) (cited in Carey 2014, 72).

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Mundy. The lover in Bernier’s narrative is a Muslim tailor and a player of the tambourine. After his refusal to run away with her, the widow takes care not to show her anger. But when she is going round the funeral pyre of her husband and engaged in the customary gesture of leave-taking, she goes up to her lover who was called to play on the tambourine on the occasion as if she intended to take “a last and tender adieu … seized him with a firm grasp by the collar … and precipitated herself headlong, with the object of her resentment, into the midst of the raging fire” (2008a, 311–312). Bernier’s story provides a just retribution for the false lover; but however comical the revenge story might have seemed to the Europeans, its attempt to provide a stereotypical picture of a false woman capable of poisoning her husband is reminiscent of stories of such poisoning and murder in European history and literature. We have Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, where Clytemnestra treacherously murders her husband and triumphs in her relationship with her paramour Aegisthus. The Roman emperor Claudius was allegedly poisoned by his wife Agrippina. In Elizabethan literature, we have interesting examples of an anonymous play, A Warning for Fair Women, and Hamlet’s devised playlet of The Murder of Gonzago, which was based on the murder of the duke of Urbino. These plays show wives or their lovers poisoning the husbands. The reason ascribed by Europeans to the origin of the custom of the immolation of widows suggests patriarchy’s fear of excessive and uncontrolled female sexuality and its consequences. While maintaining their distance from a “heathenish,” barbarous, and cruel custom, the civilized Christian’s commentary in these cases suggests his participation in the discourse of misogyny and tacit vindication of the practice he ostensibly decries. Unlike these accounts of “sati,” however, there were others, especially in the latter part of the seventeenth century (e.g., Bowrey’s), which seemed to look forward to the colonial picture of the Englishman as a savior of Indian women. Although European intervention occurs in some narratives, for instance della Valle’s attempts at dissuading Giaccommà, we do not find many English travelogues narrating this. In Bowrey, therefore, we have a novel element—the Englishman ceasing to be an observer and directly intervening to interrupt the customary ritual. He refers to a case he had witnessed in Carrera while on his way from Fort St. George to Masulipatam. The Europeans seemed to consider the practice of “sati” as an exhibition, peculiar to India. On hearing that a “handsome younge Widdow” would be burned with her dead husband, Bowrey “Stayed out of Curiosities Sake to See the truth of Such an action that I had often heard of” (1905, 37). He seems here to be motivated by the desire to verify the truth of reports, seeking to make it more credible for his readers. He presents a detailed

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picture of the location of the event (“About half a mile from the towne, on a greene plaine, was a great fire prepared”) and presents it to his audience as unfolding before their eyes. “About the third houre in the afternoone, I saw a multitude of men, women, and Children comeinge out of the towne. I went to them on horseback, thereby to get the better Spectacle of this barbarous action.” Later, he rode close up to the fire, where he “cold discerne the body of a man on a light fire, neare to which lay much combustible matter piled round” (1905, 37). His account suggests a slowly unfolding vision—a progression from a distant view to a close-up, enabling recognition of objects. He also presents the event as a slowly unfolding narrative, albeit one related by the privileged viewer, Bowrey himself. The narrative upgrades the persona from the status of a curious onlooker to a participant who, intruding on the scene, tries to dissuade the “Seemingly Extraordinary chearefull” young woman who was being induced to sacrifice her life (emphasis added). The recorded details of her appearance, action, and gesture—pretended cheerfulness, smile, and her false claim to the happiness she did not feel—suggest a façade, a fictive show. She prevents an outburst of anger from the priests, who had overheard Bowrey trying to dissuade her, and “Seemed to be angry,” by declaring that it “was the happiest houre that Ever She Saw” (Bowrey 1905, 37). By emphasizing her exaggerated behavior, and her strangeness (through words like “Seemingly,” “Extraordinary,” “great desperateness,” “Strange nimblenesse”), Bowrey indicates the fakeness of the show. After saluting the priests and all her friends, she “Sprange into the fire” “with Strange nimblenesse.” His account of the final gesture of the woman “lookeinge Earnestly” at him and extending a gift of flowers from her “beautifully adorned” (1905, 38) hair to the European who had tried to save her hints at gratitude and a romantic adulation. The reports of such gestures appear to recur in the later European narratives. Later in his work, Bowrey refers to the rescue of a young sati that was accomplished by resourceful and prompt English sailors, “without any resistance of the parties concerned, Onely did very much Stomach them, that had not beene Soe Served before, and cold find noe remedie for it.” The European action of saving the sati was therefore a surprise sprung on her murderers, who had never been deprived of their victim in the like manner before. Again, he resorts to personal knowledge, saying that he had “knowne” the rescued sati—“a younge, fresh complexioned Girle not exceedinge tenne years of age,” who, later repenting of her act in concurring with such evil heathenish counsels, converted to Christianity and lived with the English in their factory at Masulipatam (1905, 40).

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A Sati in the flaming pyre From John Ogilby, Asia

Unlike in the previous narratives, the European trader is not merely a dispassionate observer in the scene depicted by Bowrey, but an active participant, even a potential, gallant savior. The difference with Bernier is that the latter’s attempts at dissuading the widow were not by his own initiative, but at the behest of his Muslim employer and the woman’s relations. As related by Alexander Hamilton, Job Charnock, the EIC’s agent in Bengal, had rescued from certain death a Hindu widow from her husband’s pyre and “lovingly” lived with her for “many Years” and had children by her (1995, 8–9). Such romantic, knight-errantly gestures look forward to the later representations of the Hindu widow as silently crying out to the British government for succor during the colonial period. The responsibility of “saving brown women” from “brown men” lay, of course, with the “white men,” who were, by definition, humane (Spivak 1988, 92). Curiously, this claim to the display of humanity was lacking in the practices of heretic-burning and witch-burning, widespread in seventeenth-century Europe. Although the similarities between witch-burning and widow-burning

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“Sati” in British India From James Peggs, India’s Cries to British Humanity (1832)

are easily discernible, the parallels appear to have escaped the European observers of “sati” completely. That the Europeans were oblivious of the connection between the two practices or demonstrated an unwillingness to link them appeared to Banerjee as an instance of “failed repression” (2003, 69). She points out that “if the travelers perceived European witchburning as a just penalty delivered by a Christian society to punish the enemies of God, it would be in their interest not to recognize the kinship between the burning witch in Europe and the burning widow in India” (2003, 71). One may find an analogy with Greenblatt’s narrative, referred to in chapter 2. He demonstrates that the systematic attempt by the Spanish conquistador and historian Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who worked under Cortès, was to deny the similarities which existed between the Spanish and the Aztec in the sixteenth century. In a similar way, the European travelers to India elided likenesses between widow-burning and witch-burning and heretic-burning in their narrations. If there was an uncomfortable feeling of guilt in recognizing one’s own complicity in the burning of innocent women, it was best to displace it onto an alien religion. By distancing themselves from the evil practice of burning women willfully, the narrators show themselves as humane and morally righteous, while portraying the Indian priests as avaricious, dishonest, cunning, and ruthless.

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Hinduism (which has such ministers), appears, by inference, as an inferior and totally flawed religion as compared to Christianity. Refusal to acknowledge any similarity helped create opposed spaces for Christianity and alien and false religions. Writing in British India in the early twentieth century, Edward Thompson praises the government for abolishing the abominable practice of “sati.” However, he also draws attention to the uneasy kinship between the forcible burning of heretics and witches in the West and the practice of widow-burning among the Hindus: It may seem unjust and illogical that the Moguls, who freely impaled and flayed alive, or nationals of Europe, whose countries had such ferocious penal codes and had known, scarcely a century before suttee began to shock the English conscience, orgies of witch-burning and religious persecution, should have felt as they did about suttee. But the difference seemed to them this—the victims of their cruelties were tortured by a law which considered them offenders, whereas the victims of suttee were punished for no offence but the physical weakness which had placed them at man’s mercy. The rite seemed to prove a depravity and arrogance such as no other human offence had brought to light. 1928, 132

However, many of the Indians who participated in widow-burning in the seventeenth century did so under the conviction that the sati ascended to heaven, where she enjoyed eternal bliss with her husband. The Europeans failed to recognize that the irrationality and superstition that led them to believe that they were burning witches operated in a different way in this case, but it was evidently the motivating factor in both cases. As we have seen, the reactions to “sati” present a variegated picture. Many of the travel narrators, conscious of their Christian identity, felt the need to exoticize an alien, non-Christian, and what they designated as a barbaric custom, and sought to establish distinct cultural spaces, while eliding similarities. Towards the end of the century, this trend leads to the self-fashioning of the English traveler as a savior figure. However, with the approach of the Enlightenment, we find accounts of “sati” resembling ethnographic reports with rational explanations of its origin and prevalence (for instance, in Mundy and Bernier). Other writers like Ovington, while searching for a rational cause, seek to root the practice in the innate, universal impulses of benevolence and love. But the contradictions in the responses, often displayed by the same

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narrator, evince the deep ambivalence with which the Europeans invested the rite. 2

The Harem

In contrast to the public death of the Hindu widow, the activities of the Muslim woman in life remained hidden from the public eye. In European travel narratives, it is the secret space of the harem or seraglio which became a focal point of interest. Since widow-burning took place in public view, it was open to the traveler’s observation and comment; the harem, by contrast, belonged to the realm of the invisible and imaginary, a space characterized by hearsay and rumor. The harem or seraglio is a space belonging to and dominated by women. Roe reports that after watching his elephants and other wild animals fighting at noon, the king “retiers to sleepe among his woemen” in the afternoon. This is a space where no man is allowed save eunuchs. His women “watch within, and guard him with manly weapons. They doe justice on upon another for offences.” (1926, 85). There is a hint of emasculation implicit in the description of the king being guarded by women with “manly weapons,” a suggestion of an inversion of nature. The suggestion of emasculation and effeminacy is carried further by the reference to the dwellers in the house being only eunuchs. Roe’s letter written in October 1616 to Prince Charles carries the same suggestion of lack of civil intercourse: “For noe man enters his house but eunucks; his weomen are never seene” (Roe 1926, 270). The harem has provoked the curiosity of foreigners and given rise to strange, often unfounded inferences about Muslim men and women. Fryer, for instance, deduces from the practice of women’s confinement that men of Islamic faith were jealous by nature, as compared with the Hindus: “The Moors are by Nature plagued with Jealousy, cloistring their Wives up, and sequestring them the sight of any besides the Tapon that watches them. When they go abroad, they are carried in close Palenkeens  … the meanest of them not permitting their Women to stir out uncovered; of whom they are allowed as many as they can keep” “The Gentues observe not that strictness, both Sexes enjoying the open Air” (see 1698, 1: 31). The ignorant exaggerations that Fryer indulges in are evident from his statement that at seven years, the Muslim girl-child is separated from her brother and father, and the son is taken away from his mother and “not a Father, though Fourscore and ten, suffered the Interview of his Daughter” (1698, 1: 31). This is clearly contradicted by the close relationship between father and daughter we know of in the Mughal royal family, for instance between Shah Jahan and

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Jahanara (eldest daughter of Shah Jahan), known as Begum Sahiba, or between brother and sister, as in the case of Asaf Khan and Empress Nur Jahan and especially between Jahanara and Dara Shikoh (eldest son of Shah Jahan, intended for the throne). Moreover in Fryer’s perception, the entire Islamic male population acquires the racial characteristic of jealousy, as seen in “The Moors are by Nature plagued with Jealousy” (as above, emphasis added in “Nature”). This savors of ignorance and a racist bias. The harem has always intrigued the European imagination. The harem generally features as a place where the Mughal kings indulged in promiscuous sexual pleasures, luxury, and wanton merriment. As the women’s abode, the harem was contrasted with the battlefield, the site of action and heroism, just as it was contrasted with the court, the place for public action, day-to-day administration of justice, law, and diplomatic and business dealings. From the beginning, therefore, the seraglio or harem was invested with the feminine, effeminacy, lasciviousness, and immorality. It was a place hidden from public view. Mundy writes of Shah Jahan’s palace: “The Mohol [mahal, palace] joynes to one side of the Amcasse, to which hee goes and comes from his said state. It is the place where his weomen are kept, and where noe man enters but himselfe, haveinge Euenuches to looke to them. Heere hee spends most of his tyme eateinge, drinckeing, sleepinge, etts”4 (1914, 201). The forbidden ground aroused the curiosity of Europeans about the inmates. Roe in his Embassy gives us a skewed glimpse of the wives of Jahangir at the palace window at Ajmere. Jahangir was present at the “jarruca window” while Roe was standing on a scaffold under him. While gifts were being given and received, Roe caught a glimpse, as he assumes with no further explanations being given, of “two principall wifes” of Jahangir “in a wyndow.” Their “curiositye made them breake litle holes in a grate of reede that hung before yt to gaze on mee” (1926, 282–283). In like curiosity, it appears, Roe views the forbidden figures, parts of the body that he was able to piece together: “I saw first their fingers, and after laying their faces close nowe one eye, now a nother; sometyme I could discerne the full proportion” (1926, 283). Roe’s gaze is that of a voyeur who stealthily viewed his objects from below, giving no hint that he was observing his viewers: “They were indifferently white, black hayre smoothed up; but if I had had no other light, ther diamonds and pearles had sufficed to show them.” Here Roe trivializes their grandeur, which attends their wealth. When the ambassador looks up, they move away, but their laughter and merriment show that they find Roe 4 Richard C. Temple annotates that Mundy is referring to Akbar’s palace in this description. “The alterations and additions made by Shah Jahan were scarcely begun in 1632” (201, n 1).

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as queer a sight as he does them: “they retyred, and were so merry that I supposed they laughd at mee” (1926, 283). Roe’s dispassionate stance (“indifferent white” complexion, “black hayre”) does not betray the sense of mystery that surrounded the space of the harem in the Islamic state. But the incident shows that the residents of the harem who were not visible to the outside world were objects of curiosity and wonder to many European travelers. Invested as it was with secrecy, the harem was associated with various kinds of sexual immorality. Mundy accuses Shah Jahan of having an incestuous relationship with his eldest daughter, Jahanara. That Jahanara was her father’s favorite and was very privileged during the time he was emperor was well known. But the charge of incest was certainly disputed. According to Mundy, “Chiminy Beagum [he uses this name for Jahanara], a verie beautifull Creature by report, with whome (it was openly bruited and talked of in Agra) hee committed incest, being verie familiar with him many tymes in boyes apparrell, in great favour and as great meanes allowed her” (1914, 203). But he states clearly that his report rested entirely on popular gossip and rumor. Significantly, due to the mystery and secrecy surrounding it, the harem had occupied a prominent space in the London theater that centered on the Orient. For instance, the Turkish harem featured in Philip Massinger’s The Renegado (1625). The play presents Donusa, the Amurath’s niece, in the midst of her splendor, in perfumed rooms and luxurious baths, which provokes wonder and desire in her Italian lover, Vitelli. The harem was the target of moral satire for not only did the Muslim male feature as promiscuous and lecherous, wallowing in sensual pleasures, but the women, whom society forced into confinement, also appeared as wanton temptresses. The Jesuit priest, Francisco, in Massinger’s play, warns his disciple, Vitelli: these Turkish dames— Like English mastiffs that increase their fierceness By being chained up—from the restraint of freedom, If lust once fire their blood from a fair object, Will run a course the fiends themselves would shake at To enjoy their wanton ends. 2010, 109–110; 1.3.9–14

If the Hindu widow was a deluded victim of Satanic priests, the Muslim women featured as lustful and wanton seductresses, who found loopholes in the system of confinement to indulge their sensuality. The character of the “Turkish dames” that Francisco sketches in the above lines reappears from time to time

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in the stories that were circulated about the Mughal royal women, especially Shah Jahan’s two daughters, in many of the travel narratives. Despite the harem being a forbidden space for the male sex, there were various channels through which men were smuggled into the harem without discovery. Manucci refers to one such channel, that of the eunuchs, who “are useful for the introduction secretly of men into the harem, and through them a husband’s favour may be obtained. For the houses of the great are ordinarily under the directions of these persons” (2010, 2: 74). And this accounts for the liberal gifts of the princesses to these eunuchs. Since it was impossible to acquire facts or verify their authenticity, the Europeans had to depend on hearsay or sources associated with the seraglio. For instance, Bernier resorts to the “vieille métisse de Portugais” (2008b, 144) to acquire supposedly authentic and juicy bits of gossip for curious outsiders. He relates a story about the secret liaison of Jahanara Begum, also called Begum-Saheb, the eldest daughter of Shah Jahan. Begum-Saheb, “although confined in a Seraglio,” “received the visits of a young man of no very exalted rank, but of an agreeable person” (2008a, 12). The French traveler narrates how the young gallant, who visited her quarters in secret, was burnt to death in a cauldron where he hid himself, when Emperor Shah Jahan came to see his daughter very unexpectedly at an unusual hour. He had been informed of her amour by others in the harem who were envious of Begum-Saheb’s privileges. After talking about various things, Shah Jahan “finished the conversation by observing that the state of her skin indicated a neglect of her customary ablutions, and that it was proper she should bathe. He then commanded the Eunuchs to light a fire under the cauldron.” Bernier writes that he did not leave the room until the eunuchs assured him that the “wretched victim” had breathed his last (2008a, 12–13). It is difficult to judge of the authenticity of these narratives. Although Bernier wrote “what I am writing is matter of history, and my object is to present a faithful account of the manners of this people” (2008a, 12), it is evident that he picked up his stories from bazaar gossip or such dubious sources as the “old woman, a half-caste Portuguese, who ha[d] been many years a slave in the seraglio,” and was authorized to go “in and out at pleasure” (2008a, 132). Bernier assumes that it was natural for women to have sexual desires and the forced confinement of women indicates how their desires run contrary to the strictness of the arbitrary custom. These stories have their element of comedy along with pathos, and the comedy targets women’s inordinate sexual desire, which was acceptable neither in the Oriental society nor in the European. It was evidently a shared joke.

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Bernier’s account of the sexual escapades of Roshanara-Begum, the younger daughter of Shah Jahan, the spy and favorite of Aurangzeb, was also gathered, as he says, from the mouth of the same old Portuguese woman mentioned above. According to her, Roshanara Begum had hidden a young man in her living quarters for several days and afterwards entrusted him to female attendants, who, however, failed to conduct him outside safely. He was discovered wandering in the garden of the seraglio and brought before Aurangzeb. Having failed to extract any confession of his visit to the seraglio, the emperor ordered that, as he had scaled the wall for his entry, so he might go down the same way. However, Bernier suspects that the eunuchs threw him down from the top of the wall. Another youth who was also under suspicion of having been summoned by the princess was interrogated and allowed to get out through the gate, as he had come in. If one goes by such reports, unlike his father, Aurangzeb refrained from inflicting severe punishment on the lovers of his sister. It would appear that Aurangzeb was much less whimsical and tyrannical in his attitude towards young men who were themselves guiltless and were evidently utilized by the princesses to obtain their satisfaction. He probably also had a less exaggerated and more sensible view of the honor of the royal household. However, angry at the lapses of the eunuchs who were responsible for the security of the palace, the emperor, as Bernier says, “determined” “to inflict a severe and exemplary punishment upon the eunuchs; because it was essential, not only to the honour of his house, but even to his personal safety, that the entrance into the seraglio should be vigilantly guarded” (2008a, 133). We do not hear more of the punishment, nor as to what authority Bernier had to relate what Aurangzeb had “determined.” Significantly, these circulating anecdotes about the liaisons of the women in the royal seraglio suggest the outsiders’ curiosity about the life in the harem and sexual activities of women in such confinement. The stories are written in a comic vein, making use of irony, innuendos, and understatement to hint at the resourcefulness and cunning as well as the insatiable sexual ardor and prowess of women of rank (e.g., “Rauchenara-Begum, after having for several days enjoyed the company of one of these young men, whom she kept hidden” Bernier 2008a, 132). The tales narrating how the men who prostituted themselves to the sexual pleasures of the women of royalty were outwitted and came to grief included pathos and evoked some sympathy for the victims, although the pathetic is mixed with the comic. The depiction of the “terrified youth” (Bernier 2008a, 132), deserted by the female attendants, wandering round and trying to find his way out of the garden, would evoke laughter among the European readers.

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But, as already stated, many of these circulating stories have no supporting evidence to confirm their authenticity. For instance, Bernier’s story about Jahanara’s relationship with Shah Jahan has been disputed by Manucci. Like Bernier, Manucci ascribes her eagerness, “love and diligence” to serve her father to acquire permission to marry. But Manucci refutes Bernier’s story of the incest unequivocally: “It was from this cause that the common people hinted that she had intercourse with her father, and this has given occasion to Monsieur Bernier to write many things about this princess, founded entirely on the talk of low people.” Manucci argues: “I leave the reader to judge if a father, who loved so much this princess, would do such an infamous act to his daughter at such a great court, where there were so many ambassadors” (Manucci 2010, 1: 208–209). Unlike Bernier, who had an old Portuguese slave as his source, Manucci claims that he was on close and intimate terms with “the principal ladies and eunuchs in her [Jahanara’s] service,” having cured people in her seraglio. Jahanara herself had in gratitude sent him gifts of wine. Moreover, he was “admitted on familiar terms” to her house as he was “in the confidence of” the attendants mentioned above (2010, 1:211). However, Manucci too ascribes motivations to Jahanara which could scarcely be verified. He repeats the story of Jahanara’s lover burnt in the stove. He also charges Jahanara with obtaining sexual gratification through various subterfuges. For instance, we read of “a vigorous youth of goodly presence, the son of the chief dancer in her employ,” “her mistress of music.” He arrived in the harem “when he was quite small, and he sang with such charm before the princess that she gave him the epithet of ‘Born in the House.’” Manucci adds: “Under cover of this title these princesses and many great ladies gratify their desires,” elaborating that in this particular case Jahanara showered benefits on him. Later, he was named “Dulera,” or “‘Always a Bridegroom,’—and he received rank like any other commander, with a number of cavalry and infantry and gorgeous standards” (2020, 1:210). Manucci relates these unusual favors implying that he was one of her secret lovers. However, due to Manucci’s sympathy for Dara and Jahanara, he has a relatively favorable view of Jahanara. His version especially highlights the sexuality and discomfiture of Roshanara Begum. Without possessing any mitigating positive qualities like her sister, she emerges as the predator, and the thwarting of her sexual appetite becomes the subject of comedy. Unlike Shah Jahan, who gave liberty to Jahanara, Aurangzeb prevents Roshanara Begum from moving out of the fortress, which, Manucci hints, would have given her sexual freedom. When Roshanara Begum petitioned Aurangzeb for permission to live in the prior palace of Jahanara, he denied

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her permission tactfully by saying that “my love to you will not allow me to live deprived of your society; and it being the custom for the king’s daughters not to live outside their father’s palace, my daughters resent being deprived of you. Thus it is fitting, for many reasons, that you live with them and train them in the habits of royal princesses” (2010, 2: 30–31). In this way, Aurangzeb regulates and controls his sister’s sexual ventures. And his deterrence reminds us of the deterrence of poisoning, supposedly achieved by the practice of “sati.” In a sense, the salacious circulating stories about the harem have their counterpart in the misogynistic stories of wives poisoning their husbands in Hindu society. Mughal princesses were denied the privilege of marrying because of the prospect that the bridegrooms, on acquiring the elevated status as husbands of the princesses and attendant power, would pose a threat to the throne. Bernier reports that Princess Jahanara had been promised by her brother Dara that on his accession to the throne, she would be permitted to marry, an unusual prospect for a woman of royal blood, which motivated her to support Dara’s cause. Although this assumption was very likely unfounded, as it reduced her closeness to and love for her brother (both had similar views about various things) entirely to self-interest, it is very likely that Dara’s liberal ideas would have made him entertain the prospect of marriage for his favorite sister. Bernier relates a story of how an ambitious young Persian nobleman of charming presence and of various accomplishments, called “Nazerkan,” whom the Princess had chosen as her steward, was disposed of by Shah Jahan. When a high-ranking Mughal, Sháista Khán, proposed his name as a suitable bridegroom, Shah Jahan offered the Persian, as a mark of special favor, poisoned betel leaf “in the presence of the whole court,” which no one could refuse, according to Mughal rules of etiquette. The unsuspecting young man took it and died before he reached his home. But, alternative versions of the incident were also available. For instance, Manucci contests the killing and has details other than Bernier’s.5 The Italian 5 Manucci has another version which names “Shaistah Khan” as the person who advised Shah Jahan not to make such a marriage because, as the princess’s husband, Najabat Khan, the third son of the ruler of Badakshan, “would necessarily have to be placed in the same rank as any other prince” (2010, 1: 210). Shaistah Khan convinced the emperor not to take this extreme step because such marriages would pose a threat to the stability of the empire, as Shah Jahan would have to declare war against the kingdom at some point in time. It was Dara, in Manucci’s version, who had proposed the marriage, and Najabat Khan was the chief general at court. Although the marriage did not take place, there is no mention in Manucci that Shah Jahan killed the nobleman (see Manucci 2010, 1: 209–210). As Irvine’s annotation clarifies, he led a campaign against Garhwal (see 2010, 1: 210 N).

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traveler claims that Shah Jahan would have been happy to arrange a marriage for her on account of his great affection for Jahanara. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that the princesses were not married, and this was presumably because of the power and rank that would have to be bestowed on husbands. A desire to marry suggests women’s natural desire for fulfillment, while the murders would have been motivated by the political necessity of reducing possible claimants to the throne and the patriarchal desire to control women’s sexual urge. Significantly, all the European stories of the harem in circulation pertain to sexuality—whether incestuous or excessive, and therefore impermissible and illicit, sexual desires of women. This suggests the limited nature of the male travelers’ perspective. There is no reference to companionship or sisterly love between women, although we get an indirect glimpse of the maternal love of Jahanara when we see her protecting and nurturing her niece, the daughter of Dara, when the latter was sent to her (Bernier 2008a, 103). Similarly, European narratives say little about Jahanara’s devotion and loyalty as a daughter. She was a beloved daughter, and as a father Shah Jahan during his reign had showered many favors on her, like bestowing on her an annual income of three million rupees as well as the revenue of the port of Surat for her expenses on betel. Despite the allegations against Jahanara of interested service to her father in order to gain permission for marriage, history tells us that she alone rendered devoted service to him in his old age. She remained unmarried and, unlike her sister, did not make any efforts to ingratiate herself into Aurangzeb’s favor at least until her father’s death. Moreover, there is no mention in the travelogues of the harem as the site for women’s education and cultivation. Many women of the royal family were well educated in languages and contributed to art and music. The curriculum for the education of the ladies of the harem comprised “Persian, Arabic, Theology, History etc.,” and a qualified teacher, titled “Atun Mama,” or “Lady teacher,” was employed for teaching them (Iftikhar 2010, 324). Nur Jahan, Jahanara, and Gulbadan Begum were known to have their own libraries. It is known that Jahanara was an accomplished poet. Many of the ladies patronized education and built madrasas (schools); Jahanara built a madrasa attached to the Jamia Masjid, Agra (cited in Iftikhar 2010, 324). But the European accounts omit any detailed references to the literary or artistic pursuits of the young royal ladies or of their concern for the spread of education among the people. The ladies of the harem were also interested in architecture and designed and patronized the buildings of mosques, tombs, serais, and gardens. For instance,

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a building which may be said to mark the transition between the red sandstone cum marble constructions of Akbar and Jahangir, and the pure marble creations of Shah Jahan, is that gem of a tomb, that of I’timadu’d-Daulah at Agra which may be said to be a forerunner of the Taj in certain respects, built by It’imadu’d-Daulah’s daughter, the empress Nur Jahan, in 1627–28 ad. Iftikhar 2010, 332

But we do not hear of her artistic qualities and patronage of architecture in Roe’s account or those of others. Moreover, Nur Jahan probably painted herself and patronized painting as an art, popularizing women’s motifs and images, “whether of urban matrons, Roman goddesses, or feasting courtesans” (see Iftikhar 2010, 325–326). Bernier mentions the caravanserai built by Jahanara, which allowed visitors rest, convenience, and security, but the descriptions of such activities are limited, and the picture of the harem that emerges in the travelogues associates it chiefly with confinement and sexuality. The harem was also a space for political machinations, for women like Nur Jahan and Jahanara herself, far from being powerless, participated in political activities and influenced important decisions. In Roe’s account, we have seen how Nur Jahan along with her brother Asaf Khan intervened in political affairs and influenced Jahangir. However, his account is so completely negative and biased that one scarcely has any sense of her political acumen. Roshanara Begum sent important information to Aurangzeb and belonged to his faction. Jahanara herself was close to Dara and advised her father about political decisions. Later, although she was reconciled with Aurangzeb, she sometimes argued against his actions, for instance, his act of reimposing the jizya tax on non-Muslims in 1679, which she rightly contended would alienate Hindus (Abraham 2004, 401–402). It shows her tolerant leanings. The view of the harem as a site solely associated with sexuality and intemperate desire suggests the limiting nature of the European perception. In the European accounts, the harem emerges as a confined space which restricts while at the same time it provokes the sexual desires of women, a secret space which produces the very gratification that is forbidden. The Europeans’ interest in narrating the circulating stories, whose authenticity they could not vouch for although they sought to emphasize their credibility, suggests a voyeur’s craving for violating the privacy of a space, inaccessible to them, and negativizing it. Ali Behdad writes about the European, especially French, concept of the harem:

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For central to the production of an exotic vision of the Orient were the images of the harem, the inaccessible space of alterity onto which fantasies of power and eroticism were projected. In the seventeenth-century travelogue, a discussion of oriental sexuality and the portrayal of the harem was a topos obligé, as the traveller felt culturally and financially compelled to penetrate the secret realm of the seraglio and explore the topic of oriental sexuality for his French audience. 2012, 48

Behdad’s postcolonial argument locates colonial desire in the depiction of the harem: “The seventeenth-century traveller’s erotic vision of the harem is symbolic of France’s colonialist desire, a desire that would be realized more effectively in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries” (2012, 48). The word seraglio historically referred to the Turkish sultan’s court and the government offices. In Western conception, the Oriental space of politics and administration and the women’s space of eroticism and confinement were often confused and equated. “The seraglio, like the Orient itself, was a constructed phantasm that owed much of its existence to the French hegemonic impulse. Not only did images of the harem contribute to the cultural construction of the Orient as exotic, but they also provided a space of fantasy for the French colonization of Asia and Africa” (Behdad 2012, 48–49). Although in the seventeenth century it would not have been feasible for the English or other European travelers like Bernier and Manucci to envisage Mughal India as a colony, the desire to exoticize the harem as a space for alterity remained. The harem was a reminder of the effeminacy of the political heads of the Oriental world, as Roe had suggested in his description of Jahangir’s harem, where eunuchs and women kept order. The emperor’s residence in the harem suggested his closeness to the feminine and distance from the masculine world of politics and power, which also implicitly signified the Western world. The seraglio, therefore, enabled the construction of the masculine, powerful, and active Occident as opposed to the effeminate, sensual, and lustful Orient. The Oriental harem also figured as a visible proof of male Western liberality and East’s misogyny. Unlike Muslim women, they wished to show, European women lived free, enjoyed company and conversation, and yet remained free from the taint of immorality. However, the versatile interests, accomplishments, and achievements of the Muslim ladies in the harem belie the construction of them as mere sexual objects or predators, and ironically such deliberate omissions in their portrayal of the harem demonstrate the Westerner’s misogyny.

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Significantly, again, the circulating stories about Jahanara’s and Roshanara’s indulgence of sexual desire remind us of Jacobean and Restoration plays which abound in plots of cuckolding and adultery and jokes targeting unfaithful women and foolish husbands.6 The feminine ideal of constancy and chastity preached in sermons and incorporated in moral instructions was effectively breached in these plays. Dryden’s jibe at English women who “know better” in Aureng-Zebe (see above) was a shared joke. If women’s freedom was not restricted in England, they had the greater scope for enjoyment. While seeking to create a space for alterity, therefore, the travel writers unwittingly point to a kinship between European and Asian women with respect to sexuality. By displacing women’s inordinate sexual desire onto the harem, European travel writers attempted to show Muslim women as possessed of an insatiable sexual urge, which breached all prohibitions, and thereby distance the European women from the charge of excessive sexuality. But, ironically, they succeeded also in betraying an affinity between the two. Both the “sati” and the harem evoked European curiosity and wonder during the early modern period. They were spaces where fantasy and fact merged with each other to produce the European construction of the other. And yet, as this chapter shows, while European representations of both practices seek, by and large, to present alterity, they unconsciously betray a sense of the concealed similarity associated with them. However, empirical observation and a neutrality of stance in the depiction of the “sati,” arising from Enlightenment rationality, leads, as we have seen, to the acceptance of variety in some instances, which is missing in the representation of the harem because it was a forbidden space for Europeans. Part of this chapter is based on a revised version of my book chapter, titled “Encountering the ‘Sati’: Early Modern English Travel Narratives and the Politics of Exoticization,” published in Cultural Histories of India: Subaltern Spaces, Peripheral Genres, and Alternate Historiography, edited by Rita Banerjee (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2020), 35–51. 6 For instance, Thomas Middleton’s A Trick to Catch the Old One, A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, A Mad World, My Masters, Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair, William Wycherley’s The Country Wife, and George Ethererge’s The Man of Mode and others.

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European Historiography and Mughal Reign Most European travelers from time to time had sought to narrate and comment on the political history of the Mughals. The seventeenth century spanned the reigns of Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb. This chapter examines the constructions of aspects of Mughal history during Jahangir’s and Shah Jahan’s reigns in the narratives and compares them, focusing on battles of succession over the years. Additionally, it looks briefly at English wars in India. In order to understand how the Europeans viewed the politics of Mughal reign, we need first to look at the changing conception of Western historiography during this period. The early modern period was a time when the process of writing history as well as what people understood by history was undergoing a change. Peter Burke’s account, which refers mostly to Italian historians, shows that history was moving towards pragmatism and objectivity and separating itself from the humanist tradition of rhetoric, which produced invented histories. “‘Fortune’, that favourite medieval and Renaissance concept, becomes less and less anthropomorphised, less and less the goddess one must grasp by the forelock, and more of a name for the impersonal forces in history,” “which are susceptible of analysis and calculation all the same” (Burke 1969, 77). According to Burke, “the new awareness of evidence is one of the greatest intellectual achievements of Renaissance Europe” (1969, 76). Citing several historians, Burke demonstrates the growing emphasis on facts in history-writing. Johann Sleidan (1506–1556), “who wrote Commentaries on the reign of Charles v,” aimed to be as objective as possible, stating facts “nakedly, simply, and in good faith, just as everything actually happened”1 (emphasis added). To state facts “nakedly” and “simply” would contradict the avowed objective of rhetoric, which was persuasion. During the Renaissance, rhetoric and poetry, which involved invention, were gradually being separated from history. However, it would be wrong to expect any clear separation at this point. As D.R. Woolf points out, certain kinds of plays, poems, and journalistic narratives were all popularly considered history (1990, 16). 1 See Burke 1969, 124. Burke cites other examples as well. Polybius “made fun of historians who invented speeches, calling them tragedians rather than historians.” Similarly, Paolo Sarpi professes to present a completely “true and sincere narration,” suspending his “judgment” (1969, 126; emphasis added).

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There were at least three views of history and historiography prevalent in Renaissance thought.2 That the pattern of events in history showed the inscrutable design of God was a belief the Renaissance historians inherited from the medievalists, and a providential view of history continued to dominate the historical scenario, although it was contradicted by two other trends in thinking, the humanist and the antiquarian. The humanists sought lessons of morality in history, although, in the course of time, Italian writers like Niccolo Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini chose to impart political lessons through historical narratives. However, as Woolf points out, “this was … the exchange of one didactic mode for the interpretation of the past for another” (1990, 11). Both modes required designing the narrative in particular ways and could interfere with the presentation of facts. Subjective attempts to shape historical narratives were bound to interfere with the objectivity of historical presentation. Ronald Knowles, in his introduction to his edition of Henry VI (2), suggests that “Renaissance historiography largely secularized history by limiting the focus to secondary causes; that is causation was seen in human terms” (2000, 76). On the other hand, the antiquarians, who belonged to the third category and studied documents and historical artifacts in order to investigate the characters of society and people of the past, tended to emphasize facts. Contrary to the providentialists and humanists (although with the latter they shared painstaking research of antiquity), their study was synchronic rather than diachronic. But, as objective researchers, they often had to concede that the unreliability of data and paucity of facts hampered their recovery of the past. For most Renaissance historians, it was difficult to privilege one kind of historiography over another, and despite the progress towards pragmatism and secularism, providentialism was not completely discounted. 1

Roe and Jahangir’s Reign

As ambassador to Jahangir’s court, Roe had the opportunity to witness political intrigues and factions, which he thought was suitable historical material for readers at home. The narrative was an historical one, as he refers to the “history of this countrye,” because of the “variety of subject” would be “not unwoorthy committing to writing” (1926, 245). But he makes it clear that he measures the worth of the story by its potential for sustaining the attention of the readers by 2 See Ivo Kamps, Historiography and Ideology in Stuart Drama (1996, 28). He discusses these three modes of historiography in his chapter “Renaissance Historiography.” Woolf also differentiates these three categories.

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provoking curiosity, producing suspense, and designing a neat plot. He could furnish his audience, as he says, with “rare and cunning passadges of state, subtile evasions, policyes, answers, and adages” as “for one age would not bee easely equald” (1926, 245). History, in Roe’s view, therefore needs must be a wellconstructed narrative with suspenseful episodes, capable of attracting readers’ attention and verging on romance or fiction rather than a bare presentation of facts. So Roe’s conception of history digresses from Sleidan’s definition of history, as a bare relation of facts “as they actually happened” (quoted above). However, Roe also hesitates to present his “history” before his audience on account of the triviality of the subject. Maintaining that the story of court intrigues in India would be reading worthwhile for its novelty and diversity, he yet thinks that the distant lands to which they belonged and the notoriety for the barbarity of the people would prevent Indian history from being worthy of reading by the cultured and sophisticated European audience (see 1926, 245). When he wrote his letters to an immediate royal, ecclesiastical, and influential audience the apologetic stance as well as belittlement of his subject matter was necessary. But Roe also had in mind a larger readership, as we have discussed. Since the boundary between history and travelogues was thin and could often be crossed with impunity, it would not have been at all untoward for Roe to write a travelogue, which avid readers would take for a “region or nation’s history” (Mitchell 2000, 33–34). He was introducing India, an alien land, to the English or European audience. Although Roe did not publish his manuscript, the Embassy bears marks of his desire to present a readable and curiosityprovoking narrative of Mughal factions, royal romances, quarrels, treachery, and warfare, which he considered as history. Significantly, although Roe professes an impartial stance and states that his objective was relating historical facts, it is very likely that he might have fictionalized the picture of Indian politics that he witnessed. For instance, his dislike of Prince Khurram might have lent weight and color to his eulogy of Prince Khusrau: “Sultan Cursoronne, the eldest brother, is both extreamly beloved and honored of all men, almost adored, and very justly, for his most noble parts” (1926, 244). On Asaf Khan’s receiving Prince Khusrau’s charge, Roe reports extensive disturbance in the state: The common people all murmer; they say the King hath not delivered his sonnes but his owne life into the hands of an ambitious prince and a treacherous faction: that Corsoronne cannot perish without scandal to the father or revenge from him: therefore hee must goe first, and after him his sonne; and so thorough their bloods this youth must mount the

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royall seate…. The whole court is in a whisper; the nobility sadd; the multitude, like it selfe, full of tumor and noyce, without head or foote; only it rages, but bends it selfe upon noe direct end. 1926, 256–257

Since Asaf Khan was the father of Mumtaz Mahal, the principal wife of Prince Khurram, he wanted the prince to be on the throne, and to that end, was very likely to have conspired for Prince Khusrau’s death. Therefore, Roe’s depiction of the grievances of the people is very probable. However, Roe’s language suggests that his image of the common people was derived from literary works, especially Elizabethan drama. His tone resembles that of a narrator of literary works. Moreover, it is difficult to comment on the authenticity of the facts presented by Roe regarding Khusrau’s amiability, honesty, and goodness, and his favorable reception by the common people and the extent of their involvement in the royal family’s intrigues. His representations of Khusrau and Khurram appear to be fictionalized to an extent, possibly because he had several quarrels with Prince Khurram about presents and the latter’s favorites demanded bribes, as we have seen in chapter 2. There were other reasons for Roe’s sympathetic portrayal of the elder son of Jahangir. Shah Jahan’s enmity toward his elder brother, who had later died in prison, was well known. Khusrau was widely believed to have been poisoned by his half-brother Khurram, and his plight generally evoked sympathy. Moreover, according to the British law of primogeniture, Khusrau should legitimately have ascended the throne as the eldest son, and Roe deplored the absence of this law in India. And he was also believed to have been chosen as the successor to the throne in place of his father by his grandfather, Emperor Akbar, although his rebellion against his father was ruthlessly suppressed. However, Roe’s narrative simultaneously sought to present Jahangir as good and just, though weak by nature, and he could not present the son as betrayed by his father. Khusrau appears in Roe’s narrative as a noble prince, more sinned against than sinning, an honest man, rewarding merit, subject to the treachery of Asaf Khan and Khurram. He is presented as a loving and loyal husband who summarily rejects the evil queen Nur Mahal’s overtures of marrying him to her daughter and gaining power, and suffers for his loyalty to his wife. He was also a friend to Christians, as it appears from a meeting that Roe claims to have had with Khusrau. Roe writes: “if Sultan Corsoronne prevayle in his right, this kingdome wilbe a sanctuary for Christians, whome he loves and honors, favouring learning, valour, the discipline of warr, and abhorring all covetousnes

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and discerning the basse customes of taking used by his ancesters and the nobilitye.” (1926, 247). The phrase “prevayle in his right” demonstrates that Roe is considering the law of primogeniture. Roe designed the plot of his historical narrative from what he witnessed at court and scraps of knowledge of the royal family and the court intrigues which he gleaned from rumors, hearsay, and stories of the court. His representation of the various court factions in Agra bears some resemblance to the presence of factions at the English court. The portrait of Jahangir that emerges in Roe’s narrative is that of a weak, besotted monarch, good-natured and just but unable to control the evil practices of the wily Khurram and the seductive queen Nur Mahal because of his infatuation for her. However, in his caution to the Company, Roe qualifies his earlier praise of Khusrau: “The issue is very dangerous; principally for us, for among them it matters not who wynns. Though one have right and much more honor, yet hee is still a Moore” (1926, 257; emphasis added), and by implication cannot be depended upon, indicating the writer’s religious bias against the Oriental other. He later quotes Tacitus: “Rebus secundis eatiam egregios duces insolescere,” translated as, “In the day of success even great leaders grow insolent.” (Cited in Roe 1926, 257 and n3, 257). It would mean that Prince Khusrau was liable to change on coming to power, and his ascent to the throne would not necessarily ensure security for the Europeans. Although the last prediction applies to people of all nations, it emphasizes the uncertainty of the Indian political scene, which contrasts with the stability of the English political domain. Therefore, Roe warns of the insecurity of the Company in the event of dynastic wars. From what we have seen, Roe’s semi-fictionalized account of the politics of Jahangir’s reign shows less an inclination to adhere impartially to facts than a tendency to color events according to his own prejudices and beliefs. Moreover, Roe’s stance of belittling Indian history as befitting barbarians reflects the Western view of the gradations of different societies determined by their varying levels of civility. This theory of human civilization reaches its culmination during the Enlightenment, but even during the early modern period there was a tendency to differentiate between barbarous societies and civilized ones. It is significant that Roe refers to Jahangir deriving his ancestry from Timur Lang in his Embassy. His reference to Christopher Marlowe’s dramatization of Timur Lang in his play Tamburlaine (see chapter 2) reminds us of the invasion of several countries in Asia by Timur. The latter overran a long stretch of Asia with his victorious force. And Babur, his descendent, invaded India and conquered it. However, the superior military tactics of the Mughals simultaneously remind us of their nomadic existence, which denoted an inferior civilization during the Renaissance.

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Again, Roe’s account of the ruins of the conquered Chitor (see chapter 2) in his letter to Lord Carew suggests the desire for plunder and destruction among the Mughals that the Enlightenment historians noticed among the Scythians and Germanic tribes. The Mughal aversion to and destruction of ancient nonMughal art and architecture reflect, as Roe interprets it, the barbarian penchant for destroying works of art and beauty. It indicates that Roe views Mughal society as inferior in status in comparison with more civilized Western societies. 2

Succession War during Shah Jahan’s Reign

Roe’s account gave us glimpses into the political history of Jahangir’s reign during the early decades of the seventeenth century. I move on to later representations, discussing especially the War of Succession between Shah Jahan’s sons, focusing especially on the various versions of the decisive battle at Samugarh where Prince Dara lost to Aurangzeb and Murad Bakhsh. This battle formed a very important part of the War of Succession among the sons of Shah Jahan, Dara Shikoh, Shah Shuja, Aurangzeb, and Murad Baksh. I seek to compare the way the Europeans design their narratives, examining how the travelogues’ representations of political history reflect contemporary European historiographical trends, and assess the authenticity of the narratives as far as possible. I also examine how the narratives are differentiated from Mughal historiography and look at the way personal loyalties shape the portrayal of events in the various versions. At this point I shall summarize briefly the events of this war, which happened during Shah Jahan’s reign. After the emperor fell seriously ill and retired to Agra, a rumor spread that he was dead, since he had not been visible for a long time. The three younger sons rose up in revolt and marched towards Delhi, while Aurangzeb and Murad Bakhsh combined forces against Dara and agreed formally to divide the kingdom between themselves. While Shuja lost a battle against the imperial army, led by Dara’s son, Aurangzeb’s and Murad’s forces, after an initial win on the way, finally encountered the army led by Dara at Samugarh and won a decisive victory. The victorious army of the two brothers went to Agra and forced Shah Jahan to surrender the fort. Dara had to flee, and although he managed to collect armies and strengthen forts at some points, and fought and lost another battle in Rajputana, he was betrayed to Aurangzeb and assassinated. Similarly, Murad Bakhsh was imprisoned and later sentenced to death by Aurangzeb. The latter pursued Shah Shuja in Bengal, but while he sought refuge at Arakan, Shuja was very likely killed, and his family

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imprisoned and put to death by the king of Arakan. Aurangzeb became the emperor, keeping Shah Jahan imprisoned until his death. The momentous battle at Samugarh was the first and most important step to Aurangzeb’s success and effectually sealed Dara’s fate. The representations of Bernier, Tavernier, Manucci, and Ogilby (who was an Englishman) show some similarities and much difference, serving as examples of historiography and constructions of Oriental, as opposed to European, wars. French Representations of the War of Succession: Bernier and Tavernier Bernier’s Travels in the Mogul Empire consists of The History of the Late Rebellion in the States of the Great Mogul and letters written to Monsieur Colbert and others where he describes the places and customs of India. He dedicates the History to the French monarch, which relates the War of Succession and its consequences. Bernier writes very much in Roe’s vein when he belittles his narrative as one “capable of affording some hours of amusement to a King, who might wish to find occasional relaxation from weighty affairs of State” (2008a, xlv). The travel writer says that he bases his knowledge about the court and the royalty, the occasions that led to the war, and what happened during the time on his personal acquaintance with the Mughal court: “During a period of eight years I was closely attached to the court.” Because he had been reduced to want and poverty as a result of the expenses he had incurred during the journey from “Sourate” (Surat) to Agra and Delhi and his misadventures with robbers, he had to seek employment from Aurangzeb as a physician and “accept a salary from the Great Mogol.” And later, “by chance” he also got a job with “Danechmend-Kan” (Danishmand Khan), “formerly Bakchis, or Grand Master of the Horse, and one of the most powerful and distinguished Omrahs, or Lords of the Court” (Bernier 2008a, 4). His need to prove his knowledge of facts suggests the importance of authenticity of evidence in contemporary European historiography. In this connection, it would be important to mention that Bernier’s description of his “Agah,” as he calls Danishmand Khan, suggests his admiration and respect for his employer as well as his intimate connection with him. He says that his employer was “the most learned man of Asia” (2008a, 4). He had frequent discussions with Danishmand Khan about religion, astronomy, politics and other matters. Khan took a great deal of interest in the contemporary scientific speculations in Europe, the theories of Pierre Gassendi and others of which Bernier was well aware. But these intimate discussions, some of which 2.1

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would very likely be related to Mughal politics, indicate that the travel writer’s account of the princes and of Shah-Jahan’s inclinations and actions was, to a large extent, determined by what he had heard from the Omrah. Significantly, Bernier emphasizes that he does not narrate events in general as an omniscient writer, but records what has actually transpired so that the readers may know them from his account of the Civil War that happened in the Mughal kingdom: “Je tâcherai de les faire connaître par les actions et par les événements” (2008b, 40). As a traveler-historian, he sought to establish his objectivity through the authenticity of facts. However, it would be difficult to say how subjective impressions could have been ruled out, as he evidently collected a substantial part of his material from others. Before relating the events of the war, Bernier acquaints his readers with the characteristics of the Mughal princes to show the role they could be expected to play in the situation and to partially explain why things turned out as they did. His approach appears to be based partly on what he had heard about them and partly on what he saw of the royal court. He represents Dara as arrogant, opinionated, and irascible: “he entertained too exalted an opinion of himself; believed he could accomplish everything by the powers of his own mind, and imagined that there existed no man from whose counsel he could derive benefit” (2008a, 6). Thus Dara, in Bernier’s view, prevented his well-wishers from making important disclosures, which would have benefited him, by his arrogance and disdain. The Frenchman’s preliminary sketch prepares us for the many mistakes that Dara made in the course of the war and its aftermath, which led to his ruin. For instance, Bernier’s narrative shows Dara as impervious to his friends’ advice that he should not have taken the field against Aurangzeb and Murad Bakhsh in haste or at least should have waited for his son “Soliman Chekouh” (Sulaiman Shikoh) to join him: “Dara’s friends exhausted every argument to dissuade him, at least, from acting with precipitancy, and to induce him to delay the battle until the arrival of Soliman Chekouh, who was hastening to his assistance” (2008a, 44).3 Contemporary historians, however, claim the contrary, thus contradicting Bernier’s version of this mistake of Dara’s. Dara’s great fault, according to Bernier, was that he refused to listen to the sage advice of Shah Jahan, who even offered to appear at the head of the army, which would have deterred his brothers or defeated their ploy because the old emperor was still very popular among the noble men and even the 3 On the contrary, however, according to Jadunath Sarkar, on reaching Dholpur, Dara’s “aim was to retard Aurangzib’s advance without precipitating a battle and thus gain time for Sulaiman Shukoh’s army to join him” (2009, 53).

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common soldiers. According to this reasoning, Dara lost the battle and the throne because of his haste in precipitating the battle. However, this was mere speculation as to what the outcome would have been had things turned out differently. It is difficult, for instance, to gauge the popularity of the old king and to what extent soldiers would have obeyed him. It was also clearly an illusion of the old king who thought his sons would go back if he confronted them and showed them he was alive. Aurangzeb, as we know, went to the extent of cutting his father’s water supply at Agra Fort to make him surrender the Fort (Sarkar 2009, 58–59). Current historical knowledge has established that Dara did not commit some of these errors of judgment that had been attributed to him and that listening to Shah Jahan in some cases would have been futile. Perhaps, not heeding his advice was a better option. Bernier’s analysis of the causes of Dara’s defeat was, therefore, incorrect in some respects, but he maintains consistency in his narrative which shows that errors of judgment, often arising from not listening to sound advice, led the way to the prince’s defeat. It needs to be noted that Bernier does concede that Dara did not completely lack good parts; the prince displayed ready wit in conversation, politeness, courtesy, and liberalness. But while his willingness to accept religions other than Islam showed his tolerance and made him akin to Akbar and Jahangir, it alienated him from conservative Muslims, many of whom probably supported Aurangzeb for this reason. Bernier shows Dara’s acquaintance with and interest in Hinduism as well as Christianity. Despite “publicly” adhering to Islam, the faith that he was “born” in, “Dara was in private a Gentile with Gentiles, and a Christian with Christians (italics in the original).”4 This suggests that Dara was an opportunist and did not adhere to any religion honestly. Despite his tolerance for religions of other denominations, however, Dara did not abjure Islam. Nor was he dishonest in his professions. He was liberal in his views. He “bestowed large pensions” on some “Pendets [Pundits], or Gentile Doctors” 4 But, as Sarkar says, Dara was not an apostate. He adhered to the Islamic faith, not for any reasons of advantage. “He had compiled a biography of Muslim saints” and was a disciple of the Muslim saint Mian Mir. But, like his great-grandfather Akbar, he practiced toleration and was interested in the doctrines of many religions. “He had studied the Talmud and the New Testament, the writings of the Muslim Sufis, and the Hindu Vedanta.” He sought to find a common meeting point for Hinduism and Islam on the basis of the “universal truths which form the common basis of all true religions” (see Sarkar 2009, 37). One of the pundits patronized by Dara was later in the employ of Danishmand Khan. Kavindra Srasvati, as he was called, was well acquainted with an important “new reason” philosopher in Varanasi (Ganeri 2011, 14). Dara’s deep interest in these Hindu philosophical doctrines clearly proves that he did not feign an interest in Christianity and Hinduism for acquiring allies. And Bernier was evidently aware of Dara’s religious leanings and projects.

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(Bernier 2008a, 6), who were part of his circle. Dara had been deeply interested in a mystic doctrine in the Upanishads, which says: God, or that supreme being … has not only produced life from his own substance, but also generally everything material or corporeal in the universe…. The Creation then, say these visionary doctors, is nothing more than an extraction or extension of the individual substance of God  … and, in like manner, destruction is merely the recalling of that divine substance and filaments into Himself. Bernier 2008a, 347

Bernier disagreed with this philosophical doctrine, also found in Plato and Aristotle and among the Sufis, because Gassendi had refuted it. However, he stated that the Hindus had “instilled it into the minds of Dara and Sultan Sujah” (2008a, 345). This only proved Dara’s genuine and extensive interests in philosophy and religion, not opportunism. Along with Manucci, Bernier also states Dara’s close contact with Reverend Father Buzée, a Jesuit.5 Bernier relates the diverse viewpoints of people. The views ranged from the opinion that the prince was “destitute of all religion” and his interest in diverse religions was “for the sake of amusement only” to the explanation that his tolerance was part of a political strategy. Some believed that on the one hand, the eldest prince wished to “ingratiate himself with the Christians who were pretty numerous in his corps of artillery” and, on the other, that he sought to secure the support of the “Rajas, or Gentile Princes tributary to the empire,” so that if the occasion arose he might be able to acquire their support (Bernier 2008a, 7). Bernier’s assessment tallies with the latter group, as his subsequent comment shows: “Dara’s false pretences to this or that mode of worship, did not, however, promote the success of his plans … the reason assigned by Aureng-Zebe for causing him to be beheaded was, that he had turned Kafer, that is to say an infidel, without religion, an idolater” (2008a, 7; italics in the original). It is a measure of Bernier’s bias against Dara, which led him to criticize the prince for “false pretences,” since he was aware of Dara’s genuine interest in and toleration of all religions, especially Hinduism, and his adherence to the Sufi doctrine. 5 According to François Catrou’s History of the Mogul Dynasty in India, (1715), which was largely based on Manucci, “The Jesuits, especially, were in the highest consideration with him [Dara]. These were the Fathers … and Henry Busée, a Fleming. This last had much influence over the mind of the prince, and had his counsels been followed, it is probable that Christianity would have mounted the throne with Dara” (see Bernier 2008a, 6–7N1).

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According to Bernier, Dara had gained ill repute as he was much influenced by the heretical doctrines of the Sufi and had written treatises on the subjects. He had also consorted with Hindus (Brahmans and Gosains). Therefore, he had incurred the displeasure of the Omrahs. Significantly, Khafi Khan, the official Mughal historian, writes that at the end, Dara was judged by legal opinion, which condemned him because he was an apostate and vilified Islam: “At the end of Zí-l hijja, 1069 (Sept. 1659), the order was given for Dárá Shukoh to be put to death under a legal opinion of the lawyers, because he had apostatized from the law, had vilified religion, and had allied himself with heresy and infidelity” (Khan 1877, 246). However, it is well known that it was Aurangzeb who took the decision on the counsel of his ministers like Shaista Khan, Muhammad Amin Khan, Bahadur Khan, and his sister, Roshanara Begum, all of whom (with the sole exception of Danishmand Khan, who pleaded for the prince’s life) demanded that Dara should die “for the good of Church and State” (Sarkar 2009, 66). “The pliant theologians in the Emperor’s pay” ratified the decision on the ground that Dara had “deviated from Islam” (see Sarkar 2009, 66–67). Khafi Khan’s attempt to establish the legality of Dara’s assassination by citing condemnation by law involved some deviation from facts. Since Dara was killed on the night of 30 August 1659 after the citizens had rioted against Malik Jiwan, this shows that Khafi Khan’s date of September was incorrect too. However, Bernier is right insofar that Dara’s liberalism did not stand him in good stead because it provided Aurangzeb with the pretext he needed to justify his contest with his elder brother for succession, his ill treatment of the prince after capture, and his assassination. Dara’s unorthodox sentiments would have alienated him from the Omrahs, who often surreptitiously worked for Aurangzeb. Besides, Aurangzeb “claimed the throne as the champion of pure Islam against the heretical principles and practices of Dara Shukoh” (Sarkar 2009, 85). Bernier’s sketch of Aurangzeb is closer to the assessment of recent times. Although he lacked what Bernier calls “cette galanterie d’esprit,” of Dara, “il paraissait plus sérieux et plus mélancolique, mais au reste il était beaucoup plus judicieux” (2008b, 48). Aurangzeb was more judicious than Dara and chose his confidants well, was “reserved, subtle,” and always pretended that a fakir’s life of renunciation would have suited him far better (2008a, 10). By his behavior, Bernier declares that the third son managed to earn the goodwill of Shah Jahan, who, despite his great affection for Dara, esteemed Aurangzeb and believed him very capable of ruling the kingdom: “bien qu’il eût beaucoup d’affection pour Dara, ne pouvait néanmoins s’empêcher de témoigner qu’il estimait Aurangzeb et qu’il le croyait capable de régner” (2008b, 49). It would

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be important to note that Constable’s translation omits the mention of Shah Jahan’s affection for Dara and almost conveys the impression that the emperor loved his third son better. But Bernier does not reveal what led to this surmise on his part. It is likely that Bernier’s appraisals of Dara and Aurangzeb were, to some extent, based on Danishmand Khan’s report of them and probably what he himself deduced from Aurangzeb’s reign about his capacity as a ruler later. As a nobleman in his employ, Bernier’s patron was likely to have a good opinion of Aurangzeb’s judgment and astuteness, despite his moral defects. Besides, he would know how other noblemen thought of Dara’s liberal views and attitude towards Islam. However, that Shah Jahan had intended his eldest son for the throne was evident from the fact that during his illness, he “made his last will” before his trusted officers of the state, appointed Dara as the sovereign, and ordered them to obey him. Nevertheless, Dara’s respect for his father is seen in the fact that he did not “assume the crown” in haste, but nursed his father carefully (see Sarkar 2009, 38). According to Bernier, it was Aurangzeb’s power of dissimulation that led many (especially his younger brother Murad Bakhsh) to believe that he had no interest in the kingdom, but wanted to lead a life of devotion to God. It would stand to Dara’s credit that he alone saw through the façade of the “Nemazi” or “that Bigot” (2008a, 10). Not only had Murad Bakhsh been deceived by Aurangzeb, Shah Jahan himself might have been deluded about the ruthlessness and cunning of his third son. Bernier also relates that on many occasions, Shah Jahan had secretly instructed the army generals not to pursue the battle against his sons, Shah Shuja, Aurangzeb, and Murad Bakhsh, very vigorously and to restrain the soldiers (Bernier 2008a, 34–38). This has been accepted by recent historians. Shah Jahan’s fondness for his sons led him to do so, but he must have regretted it, given the way things fell out after Aurangzeb’s victory. Nothing would have deterred Aurangzeb from killing the others or imprisoning the old emperor in order to ensure his undisputed succession to the throne. However, by arranging his narrative as he did, Bernier demonstrates consistency in the pattern of events. In Bernier’s narration therefore, all four sons are shown as possessing failings which would disqualify them for kingship. Murad Bakhsh, for instance, despite great courage and valor, was preoccupied only with drinking, hunting, and fighting. Despite Aurangzeb’s perspicacity, sound judgment, and proficiency in the art of ruling, his moral unscrupulousness made him unsuitable for the role of a king. However, his long reign and the fact that he did not

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receive the just retribution due to the wicked and the immoral undermine the conventional providential framework of history. Significantly, Bernier does not seek to demonstrate the hand of Providence in the sketch of events he draws. He calls his history rather “a Tragedy which I have just seen acted in one of the largest Theatres in the World” (2008a, xlv) in his address to the king. In focusing on material causes for the succession of events, Bernier moves away from orthodox historiography and establishes his credentials as a pragmatic and objective historian. It is difficult to gauge to what extent Bernier’s description of the actual battles is authentic, given that he was unlikely to have been present in person in the field in most cases. But his estimation of the situation is drawn from reliable sources and appears to be pragmatic. He acknowledges that that he was not “present at this first encounter,” which was between Qasim Khan and Jaswant Singh on one side and Aurangzeb on the other. But he declares that his assessment that Aurangzeb could easily have been overcome in the river bank if his opponents had given battle when his soldiers were much fatigued and before his whole army had come up was valid because “such was the opinion entertained by every spectator, especially by the French officers in Aureng-Zebe’s artillery” (Bernier 2008a, 38). Bernier is right in his appraisal of the situation. Since his loyalties lay with Aurangzeb, Qasim Khan did precious little. And Jaswant Singh was partially hampered by Shah Jahan’s advice (Bernier mentions this) that he should avoid a serious battle and just send back his opponents by resisting them. Jaswant Singh also made some strategic errors. Again, it is not explicitly stated also as to whether Bernier was present at the Battle of Samugarh, where Dara engaged with the combined army of Aurangzeb and Murad Bakhsh. Appearing as an impartial observer, Bernier commends both Dara’s and Aurangzeb’s valor and courage at facing the onslaught of cannons and marching forward defiantly or standing their ground steadfastly. At one point, although Aurangzeb’s artillery wreaked havoc among his soldiers, Dara advanced, unmoved, towards Aurangzeb with intrepidity. According to the Frenchman, “during the whole of this tremendous conflict, Dara afforded undeniable proofs of invincible courage, raising the voice of encouragement and command, and performing such feats of valour that he succeeded at length in overthrowing the enemy’s cavalry, and compelling it to fly” (2008a, 50). Similarly, Bernier also praises Aurangzeb when he relates how the latter withstood Dara’s soldiers and the prince’s advance towards him with only a small band of his bodyguards: “Here I cannot avoid commending his [Aurangzeb’s] bravery and resolution” Despite Dara’s unimpeded advance towards his small band of 500 or 1000 men, Aurangzeb stood his ground, calling on his officers

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to show courage, invoking the name of God (2008a, 50). However, victory and defeat in the Battle of Samugarh were not determined by valor but sound strategies. Dara’s defeat at Samugarh, as Bernier, Manucci, and other European writers saw it, was due to his thoughtless act of dismounting from his elephant at a crucial juncture, which led to the disorder and flight of his own soldiers. His gullibility in believing Khalilullah Khan’s treacherous lie about the battle already won and imprudently listening to the latter’s advice about changing to a horse led to his ruin. Unable to see their prince on the elephant, and believing a rumor that he was dead, the soldiers panicked: every man thought only of his own safety, and how to escape from the resentment of Aureng-Zebe. In a few minutes the army seemed disbanded, and (strange and sudden reverse!) the conqueror became the vanquished. Aureng-Zebe remained during a quarter of an hour steadily on his elephant, and was rewarded with the crown of Hindoustan: Dara left his own elephant a few minutes too soon, and was hurled from the pinnacle of glory, to be numbered among the most miserable of Princes:—so short-sighted is man, and so mighty are the consequences which sometimes flow from the most trivial incident. BERNIER 2008a, 54

Bernier’s conclusion suggests that momentous historical events result from trivial causes and victory turns to defeat because of a slight miscalculation or imprudence. Although the slightness of the error seems to point to the role of Fortune, Bernier’s version of Dara’s defeat shows it as resulting from a series of human errors and wrong decisions. The descent from the elephant, from this perspective, was the culminating wrong move, but like many other preceding errors of the prince, he shows that it was caused by Dara’s gullibility in trusting the treacherous. Significantly, although Constable’s translation omits the mention of Fortune at this crucial point, the 1676 translation attributes the defeat of Dara to the triumph of Fortune: “Thus Fortune taketh pleasure, to make the gain or loss of a Battel, and the decision of a great Empire, depend upon a nothing” (Bernier 1676, 87; emphasis added). The French version is very similar to the 1676 translation: “la fortune ainsi ayant pris plaisir de faire dépendre le gain ou la perte d’une battaile et la décision d’un grand empire d’une chose de néant” (2008b, 86). Whether the European versions of what took place were correct or not, what matters is the shape the authors sought to give to their narratives. Dara’s

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misfortune evokes pity, and the language of narration also contributes to this sense: “Dara, pour en être descendu un moment trop tôt, se voie comme précipité du haut en bas du trône et le plus malheureux prince du monde” (2008b, 86). This wrong step would justify the appellation of “Tragedy” that Bernier applied to the history in his dedication to the king. It is significant, however, that whatever assessment Bernier chooses to make of this incident, on the whole, his History suggests that Dara’s many misjudgments caused his losses (even though his fate may evoke sympathy), while Aurangzeb’s wily machinations as well as his shrewd appraisal of how people were likely to behave in given situations led to his victories. This is not to say that Bernier does not consider the latter’s moral failings. But his narration of history, as I have noted, does not seek to enforce a moral lesson. By and large, the succession of events follows the logic of material cause and effect, although he introduces the role of Fortune at the finale. On the contrary, Tavernier shows the pattern of retributive justice in the design of events. He suggests that Shah Jahan brought on himself divine punishment by depriving the son of his elder brother Khusrau, rightful heir to the throne. To prevent the uprising of any faction belonging to Prince Bulaki (son of Khusrau), he “murdered all those who showed affection for his nephew.” Tavernier contends that although during his reign, Shah Jahan had maintained justice and demonstrated mildness, “the early years of his reign were marked by cruelties which have much tarnished his memory” (1995, 1:272). He shows how Providence ensured retribution during Shah Jahan’s lifetime: The end of his reign was in like manner unhappy, and as he had unjustly stolen the Empire from the legitimate heir to whom it belonged, so he was, during his lifetime, deprived of it by his own son Aurangzeb, who kept him a prisoner in the fortress of Agra. 1995, 1: 272

Tavernier adopts a providential framework for his narrative of the history of Shah Jahan’s fall and misery, showing the War of Succession and its outcome as a retribution for Shah Jahan. He shows Dara as a tragic victim of misfortune and treachery, without giving many details of the battle at Samugarh, emphasizing chiefly the bad counsels of Dara’s officers and their betrayal of Dara. He narrates the flight of Dara, the disastrous battles he fought later, and the series of treacheries the prince was subjected to, culminating in his imprisonment by the Pathan Malik Jiwan whose life he had saved. However, Tavernier gives a partially wrong account of Dara’s death.

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2.2 Comparing Manucci and Bernier Unlike Bernier, Manucci emphasizes his own presence in the battle of Samugarh, as an artilleryman. The details he gives of date and place (for instance, “we issued from the city of Agrah on the 14th of May in one thousand six hundred and fifty-six” 2010, 1: 254),6 despite some inaccuracies, which might be due to errors in recording, establish his presence in the battlefield. Such details make us expect him to be closely acquainted with the progress of the battle, although he too ascribes Dara’s defeat largely to the treachery of noblemen and to Fortune. Manucci’s major difference with Bernier lies in the portrayal of Dara. Bernier presents the prince as irascible and presumptuous and not willing to listen to sound advice, even that of the king, his father, to the point of virtually imprisoning Shah Jahan in the castle when news about the rebellions of his other sons came in and divesting his father of power. That this is incorrect has been proved by the fact that Dara did not seize the throne even though his father had appointed him as the sovereign authority during his illness. Manucci, on the other hand, depicts Dara as “quite submissive” and asserts that the eldest prince did “nothing without communicating it to his father.” As proof of this, he refers to the release of Shaista Khan and Muhammad Amin Khan. Dara had wanted them to be decapitated, but he released them on the orders of Shah Jahan. “If Dara had, as others write, taken possession of his father and of his authority, he would have exercised this absolute power to order their heads to be cut off, as justice required” (2010, 253). A much more positive picture of Dara emerges from Manucci’s writings. He refers to other people’s testimony to demonstrate Dara’s vulnerability due to his good nature. For instance, he reports the answer of Father Bazeo to his question as to whether Dara would win the war and become the emperor (when they were on their way to face Aurangzeb’s and Murad’s army), since the prince had such a large army and great treasure in command. The Father feared that “Dara would never become emperor” because “the people of Hindustan were very malicious, that such a race required to be ruled by a more malignant king, and not by a good-natured man like Dara” (2010, 254–255). This view of Dara’s good nature helps him to make a stronger case for the eldest prince as being the victim of treachery due to his good faith in others. Besides, the series of treacheries that Dara was subjected to legitimizes the narrative

6 There are inaccuracies in Manucci’s information, despite his attempt to create credibility by giving dates. William Irvine’s annotation gives the date of the battle as 8 June 1658 and not 1656, based on the evidence of Alamgirnamah (2010, 1: 262). Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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of a treacherous country which betrays and does away with its good kings and lets the corrupt and treacherous ascend the throne. Manucci also accounts for the charge of the lack of popularity of Dara that Bernier talks about, for instance, by partially shifting the blame onto Shah Jahan. Since the latter was lascivious and “meddled” with the wives of noblemen, they aimed to take revenge and hand him over to Aurangzeb as a prisoner. Dara’s minor fault was his inability to “conciliate” these noblemen and “win them over to be his friends” (Manucci 2010, 255). This contrasts with Bernier’s representation of Dara as an ill-tempered man who treated the noblemen in a high-handed, arrogant, and insolent manner and alienated them. The differences in treatment may be due to the fact that Manucci was a trusted artilleryman in Dara’s army, had received employment from Dara personally when he first visited the country, and liked and respected the prince, while Bernier served Danishmand Khan, who belonged to the inner circle of Aurangzeb’s officers. Manucci especially shows Dara as the victim of treachery. Raja Champat had promised Dara that he would not allow Aurangzeb to pass through his territory and cross the river by an unknown ford. But, won over by Aurangzeb’s astute diplomacy, “valuable presents,” and “liberal offers,” he assisted the latter in crossing the river, which proved a setback for Dara.7 In his anger at this manifestation of treachery, Dara would have gone in pursuit of Champat, but he desisted due to the good advice of General Ibrahim Khan (Manucci 2010, 258–259). If he had followed the latter’s advice further and attacked Aurangzeb’s fatigued army with a part of his own (about 12,000 cavalry), he might have gained a great advantage over his brother, who had not been able to bring his entire army up the river. According to Manucci, Khalilullah Khan played the traitor here and persuaded Dara against this sage advice by saying that it would result in his loss of credit. And by sending these cavalrymen, Dara might weaken his army, and the now-certain victory might elude him. This again proved a disadvantage because Aurangzeb’s whole army came up during the night. It has been clearly established that Khalilullah was bribed and was acting in Aurangzeb’s interest in the war, but as to whether he had advised Dara to do so or Dara acted himself is open to question. 7 Alamgirnamah however contradicts this, claiming that local zamindars informed Aurangzeb of a “fordable” and unguarded place, forty miles distant, which his army reached in one day. But Bhim Sen writes in his Nuskha-i-dilkusha that when Aurangzeb reached Chambal and found the ferry well-guarded, he received valuable information about a fordable, unguarded place called Gorakhtah, “which could be reached in one day,” from Champat Bundelah, who had no gainful occupation but engaged in robbery. The latter was produced before Aurangzeb by Subhkaran Singh Bundelah, Rajah of Datiya. See Manucci n 143, 1: 258. Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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Manucci’s narrative reveals more treacheries. As a matter of fact, Dara took a similar decision with disastrous consequences on the eve of the battle. He had camped in Samugarh to face Aurangzeb’s army, whereas Aurangzeb’s army came up on 28 May 1658, wearied with the long march in the heat. Dara, however, did not give battle to Aurangzeb, though he could easily have overpowered the tired army of Aurangzeb in the evening (see Sarkar 2009, 53). According to Manucci, the treacherous noblemen of Dara held him back for a few days (and not just one day, as Sarkar writes), on the grounds that the day was not auspicious, until Aurangzeb was refreshed and ready to give battle. Again, Dara followed Khalilullah Khan’s advice as opposed to Rustam Khan’s in going forward and attacking the army of Aurangzeb, thus exposing himself and his army to the enemy’s artillery. Manucci’s account repeatedly shows Dara listening to the advice of Khalilullah Khan, unable to gauge his real intentions. There are certain variations between Bernier’s account and Manucci’s regarding what happened during the battle and before that, although both relate the treachery of the associates of Dara. Notably, Bernier seems to stress Dara’s misjudgment more than Manucci. This is not to say that Manucci fails to note Dara’s failure as a strategist. Manucci also ascribes the failure of Dara at Samugarh partially to Dara’s inexperience. One important reason was the motley and inexperienced character of his army: “The greater number of the soldiers that Dara had newly enlisted were not very warlike; they were butchers, barbers, black-smiths, carpenters, tailors, and such-like” (2010, 1: 255). So, the lack of properly trained soldiers in Dara’s service was an obvious material reason for his defeat. However, unlike Bernier, who maintains a considerable critical distance from Dara, Manucci writes in a more sympathetic vein, conveying a sense of personal involvement: The presumption that I discovered in Dara afflicted me, seeing him give credit to the words of traitors. But I consoled myself a good deal, being so young, with the hope of getting some experience of war. On the whole I did not feel satisfied, finding that Dara was not making the exertions required for the good ordering of such a huge army. He had not sufficient experience in matters of war, having been brought up among the dancing women and buffoons of his father, and gave undue credit to the words of the traitors. 2010, 1: 261

Here he tacitly concedes that apart from the weak point of his gullibility, Dara also fell short of his brother Aurabgzeb in military training (although he intends

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no comparison here). But history tells us that Aurangzeb was a seasoned general and had fought battles in Balkh, Qandahar, Bijapore, and Golkondah, and won many by dint of his strategy, determination, persistence, and courage. Again, Manucci, Bernier, and many others criticized Dara for his order to “keep up a continuous artillery fire” on the day of the battle. Manucci wonders at the order because Auragzeb’s army was at a distance and the artillery fire did no damage to the enemy. “I was much amazed at their making us work thus for nothing. During the time that we were making this deafening din with our guns, the enemy saluted us with nothing but a few bombs with tails, after the style of rockets” (2010, 1: 264). Aurangzeb, by contrast, did not waste his shots until Dara’s marching army came close, when suddenly “the enemy discharged his cannon, musketry, and swivel pieces, which struck” and “frightened” Dara’s soldiers and scattered them (Manucci 2010, 1: 265–266). This clearly shows Aurangzeb as a better strategist than his elder brother. However, Manucci portrays Dara’s bravery in the battle with zest and emphasizes a great deal the role of fate in his defeat. With great courage, Dara advanced forward with such vigor and spirit, despite the volleys from the cannons, and broke through Aurangzeb’s ranks. Rustam Khan and Chhatar Sal Rae also joined the prince, gathering soldiers around them afresh, despite the loss of their men. “Then with such vigour, courage, wrath, and violence did he [Dara] attack his opponents that he broke through the guns and penetrated to their camp, putting to the rout camels, infantry, and everything that was to be found in that direction.” According to the Italian, Dara displayed “the greatest composure” (Manucci 2010, 1: 266) in the middle of imminent danger. However, at this point, Manucci shows how fortune played a role despite Dara’s valor. In the European’s assessment (and this is seconded by many, including later historians), Dara would have won the day had he continued to march forward with the same energy and captured Aurangzeb. However, he had halted briefly, probably due to fatigue and “the difficulties of the ground,” and heard the news of the death of the two generals, Chhatar Sal Rae and Rustam Khan. This is when “Aurangzeb’s lucky star worked in his favour” (Manucci 2010, 1: 267). Dara turned away to reinforce their troops who were still fighting, leaderless and in a disorderly state, and did the job effectively by trouncing the company of soldiers of Najabat Khan and Sultan Muhammad. Manucci also mentions that if that “coward traitor Khalilullah Khan had made the slightest effort in support of his Prince” (1: 267), the day would have been Dara’s. In Manucci’s account, the battle of Samugarh was determined by some miscalculations but primarily chance, treachery, and partially Providence, despite the exemplary valor and unfailing spirit of the unfortunate prince who was defeated. He moralizes that “it seems as if God meant to punish the sins and

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lasciviousness of Shahjahan and the overweening pride of Hindustan” (2010, 1: 268; emphasis added). Again, chance played a role, as Dara had to turn away to help the troops of the brave Rajput Ram Singh Rathore, who was killed in an encounter with Murad Bakhsh but whose soldiers continued to fight valiantly to avenge their prince. According to Manucci, Dara hastened to succor the Rajputs with the intent of defeating and killing Murad Bakhsh. “He felt certain that if this brother were put to death, he could easily gain his purpose. But his evil fate would not concede to him the effecting of this” (2010, 1: 268; emphasis added). In Manucci’s version, it was at this point that the traitor, Khalilullah Khan, asked him to dismount from his elephant and ride a horse so that they could go together to seize Aurangzeb. Although the inactivity of Khalilullah Khan up to that point would have spoken volumes for his treachery, Dara thoughtlessly let himself be persuaded by the wily traitor and dismounted. In Bernier’s version, Khalilullah Khan persuaded Dara to dismount so as not to expose himself to more risk, the day being theirs. However, both Europeans see the dismounting of Dara due to Khalilullah’s treachery as the turning point of the battle for, missing the sight of Dara, the soldiers thought that their general was dead and the battle lost. Manucci writes: “I myself was in astonishment and in great dismay, not knowing what to imagine, finding all in confusion and Dara no longer visible on his elephant” (2010, 1: 269). Both Bernier’s and Manucci’s representations of this turning point of the battle were different from that of the official Mughal historian Khafi Khan. Khafi Khan emphasizes Dara’s fear and bad generalship and also clearly hints at divine retribution. He says, on learning of the deaths of many of his brave followers, Dara “was much affected. He became distracted and irresolute, and knew not what to do. Just at this time a rocket struck the howda of his elephant. This alarmed and discouraged him so much that he dismounted in haste from his elephant, without even waiting to put on his slippers” and got up on a horse. (Khan 1877, 223) The leaderless soldiers panicked and “began to think of flight,” and just at this time a cannon ball hit the right hand of the attendant who was “girding him [Dara] with a quiver” and cut it off, while the man “fell dead.” The sight of this, which was construed as a sign of divine displeasure against Dara, “struck terror into the hearts” of the soldiers, who dispersed and fled. “Dárá, beholding the dispersion of his followers, and the repulse of his army, prizing life more than the hope of a crown, turned away and fled” (Khan 1877, 224). The representation of divine anger against Dara clearly shows the strong bias of the orthodox Muslim historian against Dara and an effort to shape the narrative as providentially ordained history.

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However, twentieth-century historians like Jadunath Sarkar have found little truth in European versions, which he claimed to be based on “bazar gossip,” as well as that of orthodox Muslim historians like Khafi Khan. Sarkar contends: Dara dismounted from his elephant at a time of extreme danger, when he had lost all hope of victory, is asserted by A.N. (104), Aquil (48), Masum (63b) and Kambu (15a). These contemporary and first-rate authorities refute the bazaar gossip reproduced by Manucci and Bernier that Dara changed his elephant for a horse at the treacherous advice of Khalilullah Khan at a time when he had almost completely defeated Aurangzib, and that this act on the part of Dara turned his assured victory into a rout. 2009, 56n 1

That Manucci fought as an artilleryman in the battle is generally not doubted. But his explanation for Dara’s act of dismounting from the elephant might well have been derived from dubious secondhand sources. Both Bernier and Manucci try to highlight the differences between battles fought in Europe and those fought in Asia. Asian armies completely lack discipline, take to flight, and fall into disarray very easily without displaying the prowess and stamina necessary in battles. Manucci clarifies this to the reader at the outset of the battle: “Be it known to the reader that these two armies [of Dara and Aurangzeb] were not ordered in the disposition obtaining in Europe.” He thought that the battle order drawn out by Dara was picturesque: “All this array made a lovely sight, both by the beauty of the arms and by the number of standards and pennons of so many colours” (2010, 1: 264). The troops were also accompanied by drums and music. But there is a tacit suggestion of ineffectuality in the description of color and sound. After Dara alights from the elephant, Manucci describes the scene of utmost disorder and confusion thus: “meanwhile the whole army was fleeing to the rear, like dark clouds blown by a high wind, seeking safety for their lives in the belief that Aurangzeb, although still at a good distance, was already upon us” (2010, 1:269; emphasis added). Similarly, Bernier described the general rout of Dara’s army by comparing the armies of Hindustan to those of Europe: These immense armies frequently perform great feats; but when thrown into confusion it is impossible to restore them to discipline. They resemble an impetuous river which has burst its banks; and whose waters, unrestrained in their course, disperse over the surrounding country, while no means can be devised to arrest them in their career of desolation. I could never see these soldiers, destitute of order, and marching

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with the irregularity of a herd of animals, without reflecting upon the ease with which five-and-twenty thousand of our veterans from the army in Flanders, commanded by Prince Condé or Marshal Turenne, would overcome these armies, however numerous. 2008a, 55

The use of the imagery of nature in both Manucci’s and Bernier’s descriptions suggests the force of vast armies without the guiding spirit of human intelligence. Both Europeans tacitly imply that Indian armies lack discipline, order, and battle skills, thus emphasizing herd instincts without discretion. In their narration of the Battle of Samugarh and Dara’s defeat, travel writers like Bernier and Manucci show Dara’s strategic errors, the treachery of his officers, and the role of chance in the way the events fell out as reasons for Dara’s defeat. Tavernier and Manucci also seek to show a retributive pattern, tracing the cause of divine retribution to Shah Jahan’s reign and his wrong doings, which afflicted his son. Manucci indicates that it is Hindustan’s destiny. As he illustrates by Father Bazeo’s prediction, Hindustan would need to be ruled by an evil man, and not a “good-natured” man like Dara, because the people were “very malicious” (cited above). If we look at the European versions of the Mughal War of Succession, we notice changes in the trends of historiography. During the Renaissance and early Enlightenment, the religious outlook towards life was gradually losing its importance. Just as rationality was being emphasized in religion, history was being seen in terms of cause and effect rather than providential design. While the providential pattern of history was not abandoned, material causes of events rose to importance in the historian’s analysis of the outcomes of actions. We have seen how Bernier’s account of the Battle of Samugarh highlights the strategic errors of decision on Dara’s part and his gullibility in listening to wrong counsel and the rejection of sound advice. By contrast, he shows the perspicacity and diplomacy of Aurangzeb. Even more than Manucci, he emphasizes the lack of discipline and the inefficiency of the army, which aided the rout of Dara’s forces. Although he is often incorrect as to facts, Bernier’s narration demonstrates a historical pattern of cause and effect. While Manucci’s narrative also demonstrates Dara’s gullibility, his inability to discipline and regulate his army, and his lack of experience in war which led to mistakes, it also stresses the pattern of destiny in shaping events. The signs of a providential design are much more visible in his narration. While

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Tavernier sees providential retribution as manifestly important in the War of Succession and its outcome, Manucci seeks to reconcile providence and fortune with material causes. Significantly, both Manucci and Bernier see Dara as a tragic character. In Bernier’s eyes, the history of the Rebellion in India was a “Tragedy,” as he writes in the Dedication, and he certainly sees the eldest prince as an important actor in the tragedy, showing the way his career progresses after the Battle of Samugarh and how it ends for Dara and his family. Since the term “tragedy” with reference to the history would encompass the entire scenario, his depiction of the fates of Shah Shuja and Murad Bakhsh appears tragic also. However, Dara’s fate still remained the focus. However, instead of reading the events as being entirely the outcome of the evil machinations of the villainous Aurangzeb, Bernier also sees the War of Succession as a tragic necessity in India, where succession laws were not fixed and transitions from one monarch to another involve battles: In our quarter of the globe, the succession to the crown is settled in favour of the eldest by wise and fixed laws; but in Hindoustan the right of governing is usually disputed by all the sons of the deceased monarch, each of whom is reduced to the cruel alternative of sacrificing his brothers, that he himself may reign, or of suffering his own life to be forfeited for the security and stability of the dominion of another. 2008a, 199

In Bernier’s view, therefore, the war was at least partially a tragedy of circumstances, thus showing how customs and social conditions affect and shape human lives. This moves us towards the Enlightenment view of history. By contrast, the tragedy of Dara dominated Manucci’s version. He sympathized with Dara and his tragic plight. In his depiction, Dara emerges as the best among all the players and rightly deserving of the throne as the eldest son and the chosen successor of Shah Jahan. Good and just by nature, more sinned against than sinning, he was the victim of the evil manipulations of treacherous subjects and the malice of the race. He was not destined to success and suffered for the sins of his father. 2.3 John Ogilby’s Version of the Fratricidal War Most of the English travelogues do not give a detailed history of the War of Succession, touching on a few aspects briefly. But, Ogilby, a chorographer,

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wrote a narrative that was largely compiled from previous travel narratives, preeminently that of Bernier. His royalist affiliation was well known. He had literary and dramatic credentials as well, which would be worth remembering when we consider his narrative. Rewarded by Charles ii after his restoration for Ogilby’s royalist alignment, the latter had gone back to Ireland as the Master of the Revels in 1661 and built a theater at Smock Alley, with the aid of James Butler, first duke of Ormond. He had produced several volumes on England, Asia, and Africa. The Mughal War of Succession was a part of Ogilby’s large volume, titled Asia, dedicated to Charles ii. The volume discussed the geography, customs, religion, politics, and commerce of countries like Persia and India. I will try to show here the closeness of Ogilby’s version of the war to that of Bernier. His large borrowings indicate that Bernier’s version was almost universally accepted by English writers on this subject at the time. Ogilby’s Atlas (as he calls it) was published in 1673, only about two years after Bernier’s Travels. Ogilby showed his interest as an ethnographer by writing about the customs, religion, and history of the people in a relatively neutral and balanced tone as compared with Roe or Fryer. His narrative of the Mughal War of Succession is conversational and anecdotal in form. Ogilby’s objective was to produce a narrative of intrigues and action to entertain his English readers, perhaps also educate and instruct them about exotic lands and the practices of the people as an ethnographer. It suggests less the desire for accuracy and the labors of the antiquarian than it does the aspiration of the literary narrator. The cosmographer designs the narrative in a form so as to show the wavering of Fortune, leading to the crowning of Aurangzeb at the cost of the other brothers. His royalist affiliation during the Civil War in England makes it natural for him to adopt this stance, showing Fortune’s role in the tragic fall of kings and princes. Ogilby is sympathetic towards Dara, and his narrative shapes the succession war as a tragedy, especially for the eldest prince and partially for the other two unfortunate brothers, Shah Shuja and Murad Bakhsh. He represents the war as a tragedy designed by fortune, often showing the wrong decisions of Dara at crucial junctures as instances of his misjudgment due to his candor and lack of suspicion. His account shows Dara as a good-natured man, loving and obedient to his father. Ogilby also refers to him repeatedly as the prospective heir to the throne: “but he [Shah Jahan] always kept Darasja by him, as being Heir apparent to the Crown, and his Successor” (1673, 172). Again, “Darasja, being the eldest, and Heir to the Crown, dwelt not from the Court, which was the Design of Schach Jehan” (Ogilby 1673, 173). Like Roe, Ogilby appears to have the law of primogeniture in mind.

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Ogilby’s narration of the important Battle of Samugarh owes to Bernier. The closeness of his language to Bernier’s summation can be seen from the following passage: whilst Oranchzef by sitting but a quarter of an hour longer on his Elephant, had the Crown of Hindostan on his Head, and Darasja, for coming down but little more than a minute too soon, saw himself precipitated from the Throne, and become the most unfortunate Prince in the World. Thus Fortune seem’d to recreate her self, to make the gain or loss of a Battel, and the obtaining of a great Empire to depend as it were on a meer Nothing. 1673, 181

Ogilby reiterates Bernier’s attribution of the shape of events to fortune, but his language considerably enhances the effect by making Fortune a key player in the scene, which deprives people of agency. Following the French narrator, Ogilby shows Dara’s defeat as due to treachery and misfortune despite his courage and war-like spirit. Similarly, he also attributes the defeat partly to Dara’s bad generalship—his refusal to wait for his son Sulaiman Shukoh despite advice, his misjudgment in not completely destroying the wing that was being manned by Aurangzeb, and his gullibility in believing Khalilullah Khan. However, he calls him a “good Prince,” “free from base dissimulation” (1673, 181). The defeats in the other battles also show a combination of these causes. But Ogilby’s language shows fate as the most important factor in the way the events are designed. For instance, at the time Dara sought refuge with Malik Jiwan, a Pathan whom he had saved from death but who betrayed him to Aurangzeb nonetheless, Ogilby suggests that the prince was counseled against it. “But Darasja being carry’d headlong by the violence of his unhappy Destiny” (1673, 190; emphasis added) rejected counsels. Earlier, at another critical juncture in the narrative, Ogilby writes: “he [Dara] was still too unfortunate to achieve anything for his own advantage” (1673, 189). At the battle of Samugarh, repeated references to Fortune occur: “his bad fortune kept him from it” (1673, 181), at the time he was going to attack Murad. Although Ogilby is often not correct in his details, his account emphasizes more than Bernier’s narrative the role of fortune. Ultimately, he evokes pity for Dara by showing him as the victim of a series of treacherous actions. Everybody contributed to his adverse fate—the Rajput princes and Mughal kings and governors alike—but it was destiny that overwhelmed him. The providentialism in Ogilby’s narrative suggests retribution on Shah Jahan because he had usurped the throne by having Khusrau, the eldest son of Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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Jahangir, murdered, and also by causing the death of the former’s son, Prince Dewar.8 After the latter had been crowned briefly by Asaf Khan on the death of Jahangir, as a ploy, Khusrau’s son was dethroned and possibly assassinated, just as Prince Shariyar and a few other royal aspirants or possible aspirants were put out of the way. This might also suggest an implicit parallel with Bolingbroke’s unlawful usurpation of the throne and secret assassination of King Richard ii, which brought the curse on the House of Lancaster. The retributive design has been applied by some European narrators like Tavernier and Manucci, as we have seen. Although as a royalist Ogilby was less interested in demeaning royalty anywhere, he does suggest that Indian monarchs lack credibility and eligibility. However, by building his narrative around a series of treacherous incidents, he implicitly testifies to the “inveterate malice” of Indians of which Roe had accused the nation several decades back. By repeatedly referring to the “barbarity,” treachery, and corruption of the people, Ogiby continues Roe’s story and also unwittingly reveals tacitly his alliance with Sir John Temple in the latter’s portrayal of The Irish Rebellion. The ingratitude, barbarity, and moral perversity for which both Temple and Ogilby condemn the Irish and the Indians point to a clear ethnocentric bias. It might be that the lack of true religion, in Ogilby’s understanding, led to such perversity in alien races. Religion was considered as part of the concept of race at the time, as we have seen. Therefore, while Temple demonstrated a clear partisan bias and Ogilby’s was a persona of a detached observer, they showed similarities in their conceptions of the Irish and the Indians. Significantly, Roe had predicted in his journal entry of 10 October 1616: “yow may beware scattering your goods in divers parts and engaging your stock and servants farr into the countrye; for the tyme will come when all in these kingdoms wilbe in combustion, and a few yeares warr will not decide the inveterate malice layd up on all parts against a day of vengeance” (1926, 246–247; emphasis added). It was a warning to the Company not to spread their trade connections far in a country which did not allow peaceful trade and engaged in barbarous fratricidal wars. Roe was referring to the time of Jahangir, but the story retains the same pattern of events, whether the battle is fought between Prince Khurram and Prince Dewar or between the four sons of Shah Jahan. The European representations of the War of Succession (1658–1660) illustrate, whether explicitly or tacitly, the binaries between the West and the East. 8 However, there is a controversy about Prince Dewar’s death. It had been reported by some European visitors, including Tavernier, that Prince Dewar or Bulaki (as he had been called) fled to Persia and took refuge there. Tavernier claims to have met him there.

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The lack of proper inheritance laws which would ensure easy transference of power, ill-planned battles, disorderly armies, and treachery and disloyalty characterize the Indian scene, where the death or illness of a monarch inevitably led to a war to settle succession. On the other hand, a peaceful and just transference of power takes place in Western countries, where wars are conducted by well-organized armies, led by experienced, able, and loyal generals. Unlike the others, Bernier shows that existing social conditions determine actions, instead of ascribing the entire blame to individuals. The binaries extend to race in Manucci and Ogilby, who suggest that the series of treacheries practiced on Dara exemplify the ingratitude, corruption, and malice of the Indian race. Father Bazeo’s words that Manucci quotes and Roe’s “inveterate malice” manifest the same tale of a corrupt race. The congenitally corrupt Indians that European historiography discovers in the wars of succession clearly imply racism. Also, the Indian armies, which formed a scattered motley crowd, were reminiscent of the barbarian hordes which invaded parts of Europe in the fifth or sixth century. Significantly, Manucci, in describing the courage and aggression of Ram Singh Rathore and the Rajputs attacking Murad Bakhsh, uses the analogy of “ravening dogs,” which suggested animal vigor rather than skilled warfare. “Raging at this resistance, and finding it impossible to slay him, Ram Singh, Rathor, and some of his Rajputs dismounted, and, like ravening dogs, leapt on the elephant, hoping to sever the girths by sword-cuts and lancethrusts, and thus bring Murad Bakhsh to the ground” (2010, 1: 268). Even the Indian display of valor evokes associations of barbarity to the Westerner. This will be discussed in more detail in the following chapter. 3

English Valor and Indian Barbarity

In battles with the Indians, the English generally suggest European superiority. In Fryer’s account of the repulse of Shivaji’s raid of Surat by President Oxendine and Gerald Aungier, we have seen how he glorified the eic servants while demeaning native cowardice (see chapter 3 above). However, Fryer seeks to exalt English victories in conflicts with rival European powers as well. As a Protestant, he refers facetiously to the papal grant of the “East to the Portugal, and the West–Indies to the Spaniard” as a “Fairy Gift” which had occasioned many a skirmish between the Portuguese, the Spanish, and the English. The English ships “encountring their Carracks seldom used to part without the loss of one or both” (1698, 2: 88). The English often engaged in piracy, looting Spanish and Portuguese ships, and this only

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went to show their prowess. In anecdotal fashion, he glorifies a reputed English victory over the Portuguese thus: Nay, the long-liv’d People yet at Swalley, remember a notable Skirmish betwixt the English and Portugals there, wherein they were neatly intrapp’d; an Ambuscado of ours falling upon them behind in such sort, that they were compelled between them and the Ships in the Road, to resign most of their Lives; and gave by their Fall a memorable Name to a Point they yet call Bloody Point, for this very reason. Fryer 1698, 2: 88

Fryer’s historical account shows a clear intent to laud English victories over European and Indian powers alike, to exalt English prowess and design a success narrative, which suggests the invincibility of his nation. But, in the case of conflicts with the Indians, he is clearly motivated by a desire to demonstrate the inferiority of the “barbarians” in battle skills. Although later, in the early eighteenth century, Hamilton narrates the defeat of John Child in Bombay’s siege by Aurangzeb’s general, his portrayal shows chiefly the foolhardiness, arrogance, and cowardice of Child’s army. While he shows Siddi’s strategic skills and intelligence in the siege, the emphasis is on the stupidity of John Child which precipitated the war (see chapter 3 above). At each point, the unpreparedness of the English is derided, and the blame laid squarely on Child. Siddi’s landing could have been prevented had it not been for the fact that the small ships of the English were not in their place, which “had they been placed in proper Places, that might certainly have hindred his Landing, and forced him Home again” (1995, 1:218). Whether or not these boats could have driven Siddi away is doubtful. But English prowess is never really called into question. Similarly, when Siddi reached Mazgaon and the small force in the English fort fled, they left their arms and money behind as a “Present to Sedee Yacoup.” As to why “that Treasure, and those Arms and Ammunition were deposited in Mazagun, few could account for, and the Reasons why they were left to the Enemy were as wonderful.” According to Hamilton, it was probably due to the English officers, who were “Fishing in troubled Waters” (1995, 1:219), and surprisingly, the one responsible was not even called to account. On the whole, the long siege showed that the English had stamina and endurance, and the ignominious surrender of the English was entirely due to the rashness and foolishness of General Child. Very little in the account of the war by Hamilton shows the courage and prowess of the Indians. In this connection, it would be relevant to mention that Ovington was perhaps the sole traveler who did not invest Indians with inferiority or inherent

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immorality. Nor does he belittle the importance of Asia in comparison to Europe, but he ascribes superiority to it. He respects the history of Asia: “Asia we know was the first stage of Mortals, which both for Riches and Extent, is the most considerable part of our Tripartite Continent, and enjoys a temperature of Air, by its convenient position, equally superiour to both” (1990, 165). Ovington attributes to Asia the credit of first producing laws, both civil and sacred, of being the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity and all learning: “And indeed all Humane Arts and Sciences, as well as Architecture had their Rise, and were first taught here, which gives it a just cause, of Challenging a precedence to all other parts of the World” (1990, 166). Instead of ascribing barbarity to Asia, like others, Ovington justly credits the continent with being the birthplace of ancient civilizations. Similarly, while the conqueror Tamerlane had been mocked at by Roe as the ancestor of Prince Khurram and incurred infamy for his cruelty and barbarity in many English works, Ovington’s text praises the hero for his valor and conquests. Timur or Tamerlane is credited with great exploits surpassing those of many ancient heroes: “the glory of his Conquests has certainly far out-done the noblest Exploits of any of the Roman Caesars, and the Fortune of his Arms has gone beyond the Successes of Alexander the Great” (1990, 168). Going back in history, Ovington offers a different perspective on Asia and the Mughals, and credits Oriental warfare with superiority over European warfare. On the whole, European political historiography over the years has moved towards factual representations, as Bernier’s and Manucci’s accounts of the War of Succession show, although gaps in information are silently elided. It is also evident that they gathered information to a certain extent from rumor and hearsay, but they do not generally acknowledge that, claiming first-hand acquaintance or a reliable source. Despite showing the role of chance in victory and defeat, the narratives also try to emphasize natural causes and errors of judgment. Although rational and enlightened thinkers like Bernier emphasize the role of material and rational causes in the outcome of wars, others, like Tavernier, Ogilby, and Manucci, also foreground the providential design in the pattern of events, thus showing the coexistence of dual trends in historiography. Moreover, the depiction of Western disciplined and civilized armies against Oriental undisciplined and barbarous mobs recalls the stereotypical binaries. Frequent instances of betrayal, which lead to defeats, suggest perfidy as being endemic to the Indian race, a blemish from which Europeans are blissfully free. European historiography engages in the construction of the self in opposition to the alien in the narration of events. Similarly, in the English representations of the battles between the English and the Indians, English prowess and courage always surpass Indian

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capabilities. If there are failures, it is individual failure and error of judgment on the part of a few errant English. National valor and prestige direct English or European representations. But, significantly, the ignominious defeat of the English at the hands of Siddi belies the story of indomitable English valor. The obeisance that Roe so denigrated as demeaning and unacceptable to Englishmen, his compatriots were forced to perform after their defeat in order to survive and to continue the trade with India, the country which Roe had once regarded as unworthy of being a civilized trading partner.

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Conclusion: Constructing Selves and Others The preceding chapters have discussed early modern European perspectives of the Mughal court, trade, society, religions, and politics of India. Looking back at these chapters, here I seek to show how the European, especially English constructions of the self and the alien, emerge from the travel narratives. In this connection, I consider the issue of toleration with respect to difference that was extended by individual narrators towards others and also examine the concept of barbarity, as applied to the Orientals by the Occident. Seventeenth-century Western representations of India often show an attempt to negativize India by placing her in opposition to Europe. This is a major trend, although not the only one. During the period of the early Enlightenment, rational understanding of the diversity of social and religious doctrines and practices and growth of ethnography led also to tolerant views of the other. We have seen how while the splendor of the Mughal court astonished the visitors, they deployed critical reduction to modify their admiration, for instance, claiming lack of artistic merit in the spectacular show. A related charge was dearth of art and mere imitative capacity: “Civill arts are borrowed from us,” although Roe conceded “some are genuine, wherein they excell” (1926, 271; emphasis added). In investing Mughal emperors with undisguised tyranny and sensuality, and the kingdom with lawlessness and corruption, Roe fails to see the similarities between the Eastern and the Western courts and the similar prerogatives of royalty. Moreover, limited knowledge generated a fallacious construction of India, leading him to claim lack of laws and private property in the land. The picture that emerges from Roe’s binaries is that of a tyrannical, arbitrary, lawless, effeminate Oriental monarch, and disorderly, unruly, slavish, exploited, and uncultivated subjects. The binaries remind us of Said’s concept during the colonial period of the Western self as “rational, peaceful, liberal, logical, capable of holding real values, without natural suspicion” and the Arab-Orientals who are “none of these things” (Said 2001, 49). Roe’s construction of the Mughal court and the monarch points to a lower stage of civilization or barbarity. Simultaneously, it shows a refusal to acknowledge the presence of the self in the other. However, not all depictions follow the same pattern. During Aurangzeb’s reign, defending Indian cities against the charge that they are “inferior in beauty to those of the Western world,” a liberal thinker like Bernier declared

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that “Dehli may also possess beauties adapted to a warm climate” in a letter to a like-minded friend La Mothe Le Vayer (2008a, 240; see chapter 2 above for a more detailed discussion of this point), although his letter to a high official is written in a similar vein to Roe’s letters. Construction of the self and the alien, therefore, do not demonstrate one uniform trend. Even as a desired land of trade, India was initially conceived of in opposition to Europe as the East which made Europe “bleed” (see chapter 3, Roe, above) by wresting its bullion and providing luxury goods for European consumption, which produced licentiousness and wantonness. Yet, due to the high demand for English goods in Europe, eic trade thrived. As Roe envisages, India was the land of corruption, where genuine mutual trade gave place to compelled gift-giving and bribery. Yet, in characterizing India as a corrupt land for mutual trade, Roe is completely oblivious to the very similar process of acquiring contracts in his own country, where gifts and commissions were given to facilitators, many of them noblemen. Moreover, acts of institutionalized piracy and plunder committed by the English belied the English charge of corruption in India. Therefore, the English construction of the other denies the similarity that exists in self. Since trade and commerce indicated the highest stage in the stadial1 theory of civilization, Roe’s strictures against India would imply that India was not ready yet for peaceable trade and commerce, and lower in the hierarchy of civilized states. But contrary to Roe’s characterization, not only was India a land of developed and skilled crafts which produced commercial goods in abundance, internal and international trade had always thrived in India and continued to prosper during the seventeenth century. Again, we have seen in chapter 5 how the Europeans constituted Indian religions as fake, superstitious, devilish, and thereby as the other of Christianity. As avid Protestants who believed that there was only one true religion, Christianity, the English travelers especially tended to view other religions as fake imitations of Christianity, as in the case of Islam, or as idolatry and devil worship, as in the case of the religion of the gentiles. Roe even tries to associate Islam with idolatry by suggesting that worship of royalty becomes synonymous with the worship of the Prophet Muhammad. He denigrates toleration by accusing successive emperors like Akbar and Jahangir of atheism because 1 The stadial theory of civilization describes four stages of civilization in ascending order. The first stage of hunters is followed by the pastoral stage of the shepherd and grazing sheep. The third stage involves cultivation of land, and the final stage shows the flourishing of commerce and trade. The two higher stages show the control of nature by human beings. See Wolloch 2011, for instance, 37 n 98, 38 n 100, 60–62.

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of their toleration of all religions. Although monotheistic, Islam, thereby gets distinguished from Christianity, the true religion, which instructs the worship of a single true God. However, not only was Islam monotheistic and entailed the worship of one God, not the prophet, but also Hinduism, as was discovered by many later, had a monotheistic core, which enabled the worship of a formless single God. By deliberately evading acknowledgment of this monotheism and emphasizing the worship of idols in the form of animals, and, as they thought, of devils, based to an extent on stereotypes acquired from prior literature, rituals of penance before God, and supposed prostitution of women by priests, Fitch, Herbert, Fryer, Terry, the Dutch Linschoten, and the French Protestant traveler Tavernier, for instance, constructed Hinduism in opposition to Christianity. Hindus, in the Calvinist Terry’s view, were scarcely able to attain the true faith and were doomed to remain unsalvaged forever in the state of nature, and not acquire Grace, despite their possession of some naturally good qualities. Again, the denigration of the alien by this construction dismissed the acknowledgment of certain similarities. Idol worship and animal worship also associated gentile religions with irrationality and superstition. “The Enlightenment repudiation of superstition may be seen as elevating a modern rational scientific spirit over ‘premodern’ belief systems,” but the liberal thinkers of the Enlightenment sought to promote a “spirit of religious tolerance,” which would accommodate “alternative systems of belief” (Festa and Carey 2009, 21). But, in their mistaken zeal for the one true religion, Protestants were not only guilty of intolerance themselves, but they considered the principle of toleration, as displayed by Mughals and some Hindu philosophers, as atheism, although a rational religion would preclude such fanaticism. Even Bernier, who was a liberal thinker, influenced by Enlightenment, says that he failed to convince Hindus that the Christian God was the only true God (see chapter 5 above). Both Hindus who thought there were many ways of reaching God and the Mughal emperors who allowed worship of various religions in their domains attained a secular status that many Europeans lacked at the time. Since intolerance was an asset, Christians upheld intolerant selves as opposed to tolerant others. The Protestant lack of toleration belies the spirit of reason in the Enlightenment. By contrast with many Protestants, Catholic Orientalists like de Nobili who researched Hinduism and studied and showed respect for the Vedantic doctrine, acknowledging similarities between Christianity and Hinduism, evinced more tolerance than the European travel writers mentioned above. Significantly, the latter’s confident observations were mostly based on the most superficial study and a reliance on stereotypes.

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Again, the constructions of both Hindu and Muslim women by Europeans in chapter 6 evince similar tendencies of characterization of the alien. The invariably reductive constructions focused on the Hindu women as sati, while the Muslim woman was inevitably associated with the harem. Lynn Festa and Carey argue that European encounters with diverse people and culture generated two opposing tendencies: “The encounter with new populations radically altered concepts of human nature, both fostering exclusions grounded on the taxonomic projects of ethnography and natural history and generating more elastic and plural ideas of humanity” (Festa and Carey 2009, 20). It is important to realize that these twin contradictory tendencies were present in the Enlightenment. Assuredly, the studies were Eurocentric, but acknowledgment and acceptance of diversity of behavior and culture promoted tolerance in many instances. The ethnographic description in the later travel narratives, precluding value judgment, shows a similar tendency. Mundy’s narrative, written around the 1630s, demonstrates interest in the custom of “sati” for its own sake and records details without condemnation or criticism. By contrast, the dominant reactions to “sati” in the travelogues demonstrate a tendency to exclude. While being horrified by widow-burning in India, the Europeans scarcely remembered that similar values of wifely constancy towards one’s dead husband prevailed in Europe. In the European rejection and critique of “sati” and a simultaneous elision of references to similar customs like witch-burning and heretic burning, we notice a desire to distance themselves from the guilt and shame, associated with the latter customs, which may best be projected onto the other: The Other  … helps both the individual and a culture to establish and maintain identity by serving as a screen onto which the self projects its unfulfilled longings, its repressed desires and its darker sides which it wishes and sees itself constrained to exorcise. Pfister 1996, 4–5; cited in Korte 2000, 20–21; emphasis added

Again, by displacing women’s inordinate sexual desire, which Europeans feared, onto Muslim women, the travelogues were able to construct the harem as a site of alterity, which at once restricted women’s sexuality and enabled its indulgence by the breach of prohibitions. The harem intrigued the Westerner because, as Manfred Pfister says, “One feels drawn towards and into it and at the same time shies away from it; it is alluring and repellent at the same time” (Pfister, cited in Korte 2000, 21). The circulating stories of concealed lovers

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and predatory women point at just such hidden indulgence. So, by focusing on sexuality and limiting the depiction of all other activities in the seraglio, the Westerner circulated a false construction of the licentiousness of Oriental women and of the harem as the site of secret sexual indulgence. The harem, in the European view, highlights a contrast between the conditions of the Oriental and the European women. While the latter entertained visitors and were able to converse with men at ease, the Muslim women lacked freedom. The European construction of the harem aided the European male, in turn, to flaunt his patriarchal liberality. Yet, the fear of cuckoldry present in English literature betrays a sense of male insecurity. The harem enabled the construction of the Muslim male as the misogynistic other on the one hand, and the Muslim woman as wanton and licentious on the other. Therefore, representations of the self and the other in these narratives concur with Korte’s formulation: “the foreignness of a travelled country is always the result of an act of construction on the part of the perceiver, who defines the country’s otherness against his or her own sense of identity, his or her own familiar contexts.” She also suggests that the relation between the concepts of the self and the other are complex and ambivalent for “all concepts of the ‘other’ are projections of the ‘self’ and thus essentially slippery, relational and relative” (2000, 20). Similarly, European historiography presents India and Europe in oppositional terms, as we see in chapter 7. European representations of Indian political history show bloody and treacherous transitions, disordered armies regulated by inexperienced leaders, pusillanimity and cowardice of generals and soldiers, occasionally valor combined with barbarity, and treachery as endemic to the race. In all these respects, Europe figures as the ideal. Pragmatic assessments of wars of succession showcase mistakes leading to defeat, while providential historiographical patterns highlight good princes falling a prey to treachery, and retributive justice encompassing generations. In the wars between the Indians and the English, the valor and tenacity of the latter are highlighted, despite the cowardice and stupidity of some members. However, enlightened and liberal thinkers like Bernier show some differences in their analyses. Since many of the narratives represent Indians as barbarous or condemn the entire race of any failing or iniquity, it would be pertinent to discuss the issues of barbarity and racism here. Similarly, we notice that charges of parochialism and lack of knowledge of the world are leveled against Mughal emperors, while the English are presented as cosmopolites and knowledgeable. These issues merit a separate discussion, which appears in the ensuing section of this chapter.

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Barbarity, Racism, and Alienness

In the travel narratives’ construction of the Oriental during the early modern period, several strands of thought amalgamate. The term “barbarian” is of especial relevance in this connection. Barbarity and civility as opposed polarities acquired a marked significance in Renaissance Europe and in the eighteenth century. The travelogues often characterize the Indians as barbarous. According to W.R. Jones, “the Greeks were the inventors of the word ‘barbarian’, which first appeared as an onomatopoeic tag with distinctly negative, if not pejorative connotations, and which was bequeathed to all subsequent European literatures.” Greek authors often applied the label “barbarian’ to nonGreek people (“principally Asian”), who “differed from the Greeks in their lack of appreciation for the polis, the Greek language, and the literary and artistic ideals of the city-state” (2000, 23–24). From its origin, therefore, the word “barbarian” appears to have had a strong ethno-centric bias. During the medieval period and even earlier, religion became an important criterion for categorization as barbarous. “By the end of the seventh and the beginning of the eighth centuries the identification of the barbarian with the pagan was general throughout Europe, and this usage was continued into the later Middle Ages even after alternatives had been suggested.” “In many early medieval sources barbarus is opposed to Christianus, and the religious character of their struggle is emphasized” (Jones 2000, 33). However, as Jones points out, the significance of the word “barbarous” expanded. The notion of “furor barbaricus” in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries included the qualities of “ferocity, belligerency, and cruelty” (Jones 2000, 36). But races like the Anglo-Saxons did not remain barbarians always and acquired the characteristics of civility under the influence of Christianity. “To the English historian [William of Malmesbury in the twelfth century], Christianity was a civilizing force capable of achieving the moral as well as the spiritual conversion of its adherents” (Jones 2000, 37). Significantly, during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, in the travel writings of Italians like Niccolo de’Conti and Ludovico de Varthema, engagement in civic activities and sometimes religion figured as the criteria for civility. While de’Conti found Indian Christians as civilized, Varthema argued that even Hindus in India were virtuous and good people, and their holy men were comparable to the Christians prelates in piety (Figueira 2004, 81-82). Using the criteria of membership in the “polis” and the “ecclesia” to demarcate civilization, Varthema shows that the Indians were clearly civilized because they lived in walled cities and engaged in agriculture, trade, and banking. Similarly, de’ Conti avers that Indian Christians lead “exemplary lives, are of sober demeanor,

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and excel in humanity and refinement. They are our equals in lifestyle and civilization.” (Figueira 2004, 81, 78). Significantly, Varthema distinguishes between the upper castes and the untouchables among the Hindus, clearly demarcating the outcastes as a lower order of being, “simply degenerate, both morally and physically” (Figueira 2004, 82). Caste and race become synonymous in such discussions. Although Varthema does distinguish between Muslims and Hindus in this respect, his criteria of occupation and habitation apply to Muslims as well as to Hindus. The Enlightenment thinkers in the eighteenth century placed a much higher value on the civilization of the Roman Empire than on that of medieval Europe. The different polarities of barbarity and civility were determined by the stadial difference between nomadic and sedentary existence. In 1747, Thomas Carte describes how all the Scythian and German nations united to “attack those countries, where they expected to find the greatest, and the easiest booty. Different as they were in point of origin, they had all the same restless, turbulent, roving disposition; the same passion for plunder and rapine; the same fury for wasting, burning, and destroying everything that was useful, beautiful, splendid, and magnificent in a country.” (i: 161-2). The barbarous people were more skilled in the tactics of warfare than their more civilized counterparts, who led a relatively sedentary existence, dependent on agriculture and cultivation of land. Their major interest was in loot and destruction of art and the accomplishments of civil society. The same historical pattern is replicated in several places. The ancient Britons who had reached a degree of prosperity under the Romans were plundered by the Picts and Scots from time to time (Wolloch 2011, 163–164). Timur Lang and his nomadic adventurers had invaded India and plundered the people. But, subsequently, his descendants, the Mughal kings, established themselves on the throne of India, governed a large empire, facilitated trade, and administered justice. However, to many European travel writers, like Roe, Fryer, Herbert, Linschoten, and Tavernier, during the early modern period, the Mughals featured as barbarians. Although the stadial theory of civilization came into currency chiefly during the eighteenth century, the notion of different stages in the evolution of human civilization was accepted earlier. Even as non-Christians and outside the civilizing pale of Christianity, the people could be called barbarians, as we have seen, during the Middle Ages. As far as degrees of civility, which would include humanity, were concerned, the Mughals were viewed as barbarous by the travel writers. The Mughals enjoyed gory fights of elephants, sometimes even ordered human beings to fight with wild animals, witnessed the torture of prisoners, and meted out

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cruel punishments to criminals (e.g., “some tymes he [Jahangir] sees the execution done by his eliphants, with too much delight in blood,” Roe 1926, 104). According to Roe and some others, the empire did not have fixed laws, so the nation did not reach the point of good governance which would enable its claim to the status of civilized nations. Free and peaceful trade could scarcely be carried out in India, as Roe had unjustifiably charged. Roe also denied knowledge of skilled crafts to Indians: “Here are almost no civill arts, but such as straggling Christans have lately taught” (1926, 116). Warfare was conducted in a primitive fashion with the ferocity and belligerence befitting barbarians. As I have discussed in chapter 2, Roe found it unacceptable that the monarch should wander about the country at certain times of the year in order to quell rebellious tributaries. The monarch’s wandering status suggested to him the nomadic stage. When he called the Indians slaves, he critiqued their want of freedom-loving spirits and their pusillanimity, which, he claimed, was inherent in their character. It would be useful to think of Roe’s construction of identity also in the context of the geohumoral theories that were current in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During the Renaissance, people believed that the climate and the environment determined a person’s disposition, just as they held that humoral theories provided the foundational knowledge for making ethnological distinctions. While in the seventeenth century, the English sought to portray themselves as possessing all the requisite qualities of an ideal and balanced temperament, they were encumbered by the classical legacy of geohumoral theories to contend with. “As a Mediterranean-centered discourse, the primary goal of classical climate theory was to establish Greece and Italy as the only locales where a balance of mental and physical strengths was an achievable goal.” Aristotle’s Politics characterizes the north Europeans living in a cold climate as wanting in “intelligence and skill,” even though they might possess active spirits, and the Asians as lacking in vigor and spirit, although they had invention and intelligence (see Floyd-Wilson 2003, 30). The English sought to forget the negativization of the Northerner in this discourse, while retaining that of the Asian. In Roe’s characterization of the pusillanimous Asian, we might detect traces of such construction. Writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Roe likens the respective military acumen of the Asians and English and Portuguese thus: “that it is growne into a proverb (one Portugall to three Moores, one Englishman to three Portugalls)” (1926, 272; italics in the original). In his desire to demonstrate the pervasiveness of slavery in the kingdom, Roe implicates the king in the system: “for, as all his subjects are slaves, so is he in a kynd of reciprocall bondage, for he is tyed to observe these howres and customes so precisely that,

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if hee were unseene one day and noe sufficient reason rendred, the people would mutinie” (1926, 86). In his letter to Prince Charles on 30 October 1616, Roe writes: “his nobilitye are like counters, placed high and low at his pleasure: his servants base and barbarous” (1926, 270). The prejudices of Roe and Terry linger in the latter half of the century and manifest themselves, perhaps more strongly, in Fryer or even Tavernier. A clear racist bias is discernible in the writings of travelers like Fryer, who generalize on the practices of the Indian people with an intent to show their cowardice or jealousy or revengefulness as a race: They [the Hindus, or as he calls them Gentues] are all of them of Disposition timerous, so that Twenty four English-Men armed kept the Bank Solls against them on a late Demur; and thereupon at the coming in of our Ships they were all packing up to be gone, notwithstanding 200000 Souls receive here their daily Sustenance: And as Tyrannous when they get the uppermost. 1698, 1: 31; emphasis added

Fryer refers to an instance when the native population took revenge on an Englishman who had offended them because he “too incautiously had to deal with some of their Women.” Concealing by understatement and evasion the nature of the offence, he seeks to belittle the crime but emphasizes the revenge. The Hindus had brought a royal prohibition against the English factors, who were sheltering the offender, so that the latter were not supplied with wood and water, until the natives “intrapped” the wrong-doer “by deluding Speeches into their merciless Power,” and “cut him in pieces before the Factory Gate” (1698, 1: 31–32). They fled when the English attacked them with firearms. And this was, Fryer argues, ample proof of their cowardice. Similarly, historical writers like Bernier and Manucci often attribute a pusillanimous herd mentality to Indian soldiers and generals, as we have seen. The streaks of racist bias that we see in these writings are in consonance with the European efforts to recast classical geohumoral theories to answer the imperatives of racial categorization during the seventeenth century. As Mary Floyd-Wilson says, “a reformulated geohumoral discourse catches up to the racializing impulses of early modern European writings and allows for the now familiar correlation between heated climates and heated passions that obscures the older theories.” But according to Floyd-Wilson, in the seventeenth century theorists sought to reconcile older theories with the new needs of “European constructions of ethnicity and sexuality” (2003, 46). Giovanni Botero writes in Relations of the Most Famous Kingdomes and Common-wealths (1630) that it is

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“the very incompatibility of innate coldness and sensuality that attests to the prodigious nature of the southerners’ sexual passions.” Apparently, according to this logic, those whose bodies are cold would “delight in wantonnesse, to raise their appetites” (cited in Floyd-Wilson 2003, 47). The application of the theory to Mughal sexuality proved especially pertinent. Whether hot weather inflamed sexuality or lack of internal heat, despite the hot climate, generated excessive sexuality, the prodigious number of concubines of Asian kings testified to their lust and wantonness. Paradoxically, however, Roe shows that such inordinate sexuality makes Jahangir unmanly and effete. Jahangir’s effeminacy in having his women keep order and defend him while he relaxes and sleeps in the harem suggests how an excessive desire for sexual pleasure deprives the emperor of manhood. Roe satirizes Jahangir’s servility towards his favorite queen, Nur Jahan: “The rest of his motion is inward amoung woemen, of which sort, though hee keepe a thowsand, yet one governs him, and wynds him up at her pleasure” (1926, 270; emphasis added). Although a mighty emperor, he is known to have knelt to his queen for permission to see his son Parvez. Sensuality and effeminacy in Indian emperors evoke reminiscences of masculine vigor in the English. 1.1 Parochial versus Cosmopolites Finally, in Roe’s account, the Oriental monarch is distinguished from the European gentleman on account of his lack of geographical knowledge of the world and provincialism, while the Westerner is suave and cosmopolitan. Once, having nothing to present the king while he was riding by Roe’s house, the ambassador ventures to give Jahangir his personal copy of Gerard Mercator’s last edition of the maps of the world. The king accepted it very courteously but later returned it, saying that he had shown it to his “mulaies, and no man could reade nor understand it” (1926, 380–382). Terry, however, reports differently about the same incident. On being presented with Mercator, Jahangir demanded that his territories be shown him and enquired about the surrounding areas of Persia and Tartaria. On “causing the book to be turn’d all over, and finding no more to fall to his share but what he first saw, and he calling himself the Conqueror of the World,” the emperor, according to Terry, was “troubled.” But he politely returned the book to the ambassador because “neither himself nor any of his people did understand the language in which that book was written” (1926, 383 n2). Roe and Terry represent the Great Mogol as being averse to knowledge of the world due to his persistence in the delusion of his possession of a vast territory of central importance in the world. Roe suggests that the Indians were parochial and provincial, lacking European cosmopolitanism. Roe’s interest in Mercator’s atlas and the Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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cartographic awareness generated by mercantile enterprises explain Roe’s and Terry’s complacency in their geographical knowledge of the world and consciousness of the distinctive European identity. However, Roe’s and Terry’s versions of Jahangir’s lack of interest in maps is not tenable. As Ebba Koch has shown, the Mughals were aware of European cartography. As early as 3 March 1580, the Jesuit mission had presented Akbar with Abraham Ortelius’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (see Koch 2012, 561). Like many European rulers, as we shall see, Jahangir sought to manipulate European cartographical resources to his own advantage by showing himself and India in a commanding position on the globe. In a painting by Abul-Hasan, Jahangir stands on top of an altered globe that locates India at the center, borne by a cosmic bull, which features in Islamic cosmology. Most parts of Asia, “spreading from India into Iran and China,” are pictorially represented as a space where predatory animals like lions are juxtaposed peaceably with their prey, goats and sheep, symbolizing “Great Mughal’s justice and ideal kingship.” Necessary corrections to the existing European maps showed more authentic representations of Indian rivers and other locations. The terrestrial globe, a European device, had been Indianized. As Koch suggests, “This triple manipulation puts the globe entirely into Mughal service and literally under the feet of Jahangir” (see Koch 2012, 556). From the sixteenth century onwards, European monarchs vied with each other to show their ascendancy in the world through symbolic devices like maps, globes, and portraits. “In 1515 a medal was struck for Francis I with two globes, one terrestrial and the other celestial.” There were the Ditchley portrait of Elizabeth i, standing “on the upper part of a globe,” painted by Marc Gheeraerts the Younger around 1592, and the portrait of Louis xiv holding a globe, designed and engraved by P. Simon in 1687 (see Koch 2012, 566–567). Jahangir’s portrait shows that he was not only familiar with European maps and atlases but was also aware of the ways his European counterparts used them to symbolically demonstrate their power in the world. He Indianized the European globe and used it to show his ascendancy not only in Asia but in the world itself. Far from being a provincial monarch with limited geographical knowledge, Jahangir showed his knowledge of the practices of other monarchs in different parts of the globe and that he was perfectly capable of competing with them in symbolic representations of global possessions by the portraits he commissioned. As the above episode of Mercator’s Atlas indicates, the English viewed themselves as cosmopolites in comparison to the Indians. It is true that a cosmopolitan outlook was being promoted at the time by international trade and knowledge of the world that discoveries and maps along with trade and travel produced among the Europeans, including the English people. According to Rita Banerjee - 978-90-04-44826-1

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Valerie Traub, “Mapmindedness in this period included not only knowledge of the boundaries of one’s nation and town, but what it meant to live in an increasingly expanding world.”2 The surge in international trade and European mercantile ventures led to the growth of cosmopolitanism and awareness of alien lands and people. Alison Games argues that English cosmopolitanism during the time “encompassed a range of behaviors across a wide spectrum,” which included, among others, an interest in countries beyond England, a certain detachment from “national affiliation,” an ability to distance oneself from and critique national customs and prejudices, and an ability to adapt to new circumstances. (2008, 9–10). According to Jean E. Howard, despite the presence of “a xenophobic impulse,” one perceived in the capital city of London “a competing cosmopolitanism more tolerant of difference and more inclined to look beyond the boundaries of the nation-state with something other than contempt or fear” (Howard 2007, 9). Nevertheless, in many of these travel writings, one scarcely detects the cosmopolitan inclination to adapt to Indian customs and view them with less than distrust or to develop a detachment towards English mores. Roe is known to have always dressed as an Englishman even in the severe heat of India and had an English cook prepare his food for him. To repeat a common point of postcolonial criticism, the binaries used to characterize Indians in travel literature in opposition to the English or Europeans are negative traits, like sensuality, pusillanimity, treachery, and slavishness. They are often viewed as racial characteristics, sometimes reinforced by climatic theories. Moreover, the Enlightenment emphasis on the hierarchy or stages of civilizations characterized the East as an inferior civilization, one which belonged to the stage of barbarity in comparison to the fully civilized West. Such characterization invariably involved a denial of the presence of the trait in self and was induced by a move to exclude, although often leading to contradictions. However, as I have said, this was only one of the trends of the construction of the self and the other. With its emphasis on rationality, the Enlightenment evidently raised the awareness of the Europeans towards the necessity of 2 I quote from Valerie Traub’s paper “‘With in all the worlde is contained’: Shakespeare and Global Cartography,” contributed to the seminar “Multitudinous Seas: Ocean in the Age of Shakespeare,” held at the World Shakespeare Congress, Prague, Czech Republic, July 2011. See also Bernhard Klein: Cartography with “its apparent lucidity and far-reaching sight, its unrivalled capacity—as enthusiasts like Thomas Blundeville were quick to note—to make us see” raised people’s awareness of distant lands and their populace (Klein 2001, 17).

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cultivating a rational self and the imperative of distancing self from the irrational other. But an understanding of the diversity of customs in the world by Locke and others led to the recognition that rational customs may vary from country to country and clearly demonstrated the absence of innate ideas and presence of universal truths. It bred tolerance of diversity and the recognition of common elements in the Orient as well as the Occident. Bernier’s travelogue acknowledges the presence of irrational values and customs (e.g., with respect to the eclipse) both in the West and the East or admits the excellence of architecture in Delhi as well as in Paris or London. The neutral travelerethnographer like Mundy manifested a willingness to accept the divergent social customs and practices over the world and an inclination to abstain from condemnation and value judgment. Such tendencies point to specific trends in Enlightenment thought and the emergence of the curious, rational, and cultivated traveler, relatively less impeded by religious prejudices and dogma. However, the narrative persona, as we have seen in many cases, often demonstrates signs of ambivalence, thus pointing to complexities. Although Ovington was a Protestant pastor, his readiness to accept the superiority of non-Christian rational practices like cremation rather than burial, or the humane care for animals displayed by Hindus and Jains, or the probability that mutual love might have motivated the practice of “sati” suggests relativity of values and an impartial desire to judge non-Western practices by the criterion of rationality. Not only is Ovington willing to credit Asia with ancient civilization and learning, but he goes to the extent of ascribing barbarity to the West, as seen from an Oriental perspective. Significantly, like Bernier, Ovington also speaks in a different voice at times. If Bernier’s voice was largely determined by the constraints of his audience, this would not be true of Ovington. The contradictions and complexity of the travel narratives suggest that widely held stereotypes continued to contest the ground with new insights. While Enlightenment, on the one hand, generated an awareness of divergence in customs and religions, on the other, it gave rise to a natural religion, free from doctrinal complications, which propagated belief “in an eternal intellectual being, the duty which we owe to him, manifested to us by our reason, without revelation or positive law” (cited above). Catholics like de Nobili perceived the essential similarities underlying the monotheistic doctrine of the Brahmanical Hinduism and Christianity, while Protestants like Roe, Terry, or Fryer rejected Islam and the religion of the gentiles outright and construed them as others. In the early eighteenth century, Bernard and Picart speculated on the possibility of a common, universal religion which had degenerated into

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multiple forms in the present, thus refraining from attributing superiority to any one religion above the others. Such speculations highlighted commonness rather than contraries in human society. Therefore, the seventeenth-century European traveler’s constructions of the Indian presented a variegated picture. The superstition that the zealous Protestant discovered in other religions, the atheist, the “libertine,” or the tolerant Christian found pervasive in both self and other. Moreover, the inconsistencies that the reader detects in the traveling persona on occasions destabilize the relation between the self and the other from time to time.

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Index—India in Early Modern English Travel Writings Achinstein, Sharon 118–120 Agamemnon 193 Ain-i-Akbari see Allami, Abul-Fazl Akbar, Jalaluddin Muhammad 51, 76, 81, 135–137, 206, 212, 217, 240, 249 abolition of jizya tax 137 Din-i-Ilahi (Religion of God) 136 freedom from prejudice 136 tolerance 136–137 Tawhid-i-Ilahi 136 Akbarnama see Allami Alamgirnamah 225 Alexandrowicz, C.H. 56 Alienness 244–248 Allami, Abul-Fazl 57, 58, 61, 136–137 Ain-i-Akbari 57–58, 136–137 Akbarnama 57 animal worship 161, 147, 149, 241 Anjum, Faraz 157 Anthropophagi 14, 44 Aristotle 109, 218, 246 Politics 246 Areopagitica. See Milton, John Arthasastra. See Kautilya As You Like It. See Shakespeare atheism 109, 113, 135, 137–138, 165, 240–241 Aurangzeb, Muhiuddin Muhammad 37, 40, 42–43, 46, 62, 77–78, 90, 101, 103, 107, 178, 202–206, 209, 214–217, 219–221, 223–233, 236, 239 Bernier’s appraisal 219–221 Manucci’s portrayal 203–204, 227 War of Succession 214–215, 219–223, 230–233 Aureng-Zebe. See Dryden, John Bacon, Francis 19, 111, 113 Instauratio Magna 19 Badaon, Abdul Qadir 136 Bakhsh, Murad 214, 216, 220–221, 228, 231–232, 235 Banerjee, Pompa 176, 181, 196

barbarity 12, 78–80, 235–237, 239, 243, 244–248, 251 and Mughal court 78–80 and Indian treachery 234 English valor and Indian barbarity 235–237 and race 243–248 Barbosa, Duarte 186 Battle of Samugarh 214–215, 221–223, 230–231, 233 Khan, Khalilullah Treachery 222, 225–229, 233 See also War of Succession Beasley, Faith E. 40–43 Behdad, Ali 17–18, 206–207 French Orientalism 17 Bel-shazzar 77 Bernard Jean-Frédéric and Bernard Picart and universal monotheistic religion  131–132, 165–166, 251 Bernier, François 1, 21–23, 33, 37, 40–46, 49, 62–64, 72–75, 80, 116, 162–166, 168, 171, 177–185, 187, 192–193, 195, 197, 201–207, 215–251 as a liberal thinker 22, 41–42, 239, 241, 243 accommodating his diverse audience 40–43, 49, 63–64, 73–75, 162, 164, 178, 181, 215, 251 Chapelain, Monsieur 40–41, 162, 164, 178, 181 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste 40–41, 63, 215 Le Vayer, la Mothe 40–42, 64, 73–75, 164, 240 appraisal of Aurangzeb 219 –221 comparison of historiography with Manucci 224–231 closeness to Danishmand Khan 165, 215–216, 220 monotheistic Hinduism 162, 165–166, 171 portrayal of Prince Dara 216–219, 220–223, 226–227

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Index—India in Early Modern English Travel Writings portrayal of “sati” see “sati” representation of Indian architecture, buildings, and cities 42–43, 64, 251 Travels in the Mogul Empire AD 1656–1668, see Bernier above War of Succession 216, 221–223, 226–231, 237 Bertucci, Paola 14 Bhedatikkaram 159 Bible The Holy 4–5, 7, 117, 123, 133, 135, 140, 149, 156 [The] Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for the cause of Conscience. See Williams, Roger Blount, Charles 124–126 [The] Book of Common Prayer 176 Borm, Jan 1–2 Boulaye, La 42, 43 Bourdieu, Pierre 64 Bowcher, George 102 Bowrey, Thomas 16, 25, 48, 84, 166, 193–195 A Dictionary of English and Malayo 48 discussion of sati see “sati” A Geographical Account … Bay of Bengal 1669 to 1679 48, 84, 193–195 Boyle, Robert 19, 109–114, 145 empiricism 109–113 The Origin of Forms and Qualities 109–110 Braccioloni, Poggio 13 Brenner, Robert 104–105 Brown, Stuart 109, 123–124, 129 Bulman, William J. 109, 171–172 Calvinist triumphalism 120 Calvin, John 142 Cambridge Platonists 113, 124–125 and Deism 124–125 Clarke, Samuel 113 Cudworth, Ralph 113 More, Henry 113 Herbert, Lord Cherbury 124 Campbell Mary 4–5, 10–11 Natural History 10 The Marvels of the East 152, see Wonders of the East cannibalism 14, 44, 115 Canterbury, Archbishop of 29, 55, 60, 137–138, 160, 246

267

Carey, Daniel 18–19, 24, 115–116, 118, 128, 241–242 Carlin, Norah 123 Carpini, John de Plano 6 Carte, Thomas 245 caste 166–172. See also ethnography; pollution Catholics 119–120, 122–123, 251 Chapman, George 69 Charles I 27–29, 32, 41, 66, 72, 104–105, 121–122, 134, 137, 198, 247 Eikon Basilikae 121 Threnodia Carolina 32 Charnock, Job 100, 195 Child, John 101–103, 236 see also EIC Child, Josiah 100–101, 103, 105–106 see also EIC Chiminy Beagum. See Jahanara China Illustrata. See Kircher, Athanasius Civil War in England 32, 60, 216, 232 Cohn, Bernard S. 54, 68–69 Colonization, EIC trade, and use of force 96–103 [The] Common-wealth of England. See Smith, Thomas [The] Conquest of New Spain. See Díaz, Bernal Conti, Niccolo 13, 244 Coromandel Coast 32, 96, 158, 189 corpuscular theory 109 Coryat, Thomas 1, 21, 31, 76–78, 135–137, 139–140 weighing ceremony of the Emperor 76–77 and Islam 135–137, 139–140 Cotton, Sir Dodmore 32 Courteen, Sir William 104 Créquinière, La 131 see also Bernard and Picart Crooke, William 38n1, 40n11, 46, 155 “Danechmend-Kan”. See Khan, Danishmand Dara Shikoh 46, 47, 199, 203–206, 214–233, 235 interest in philosophy and religion, doctrine of the Upanishads 217–218 liberalism and lack of orthodoxy 217–220 belief in Sufism 219

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268

Index—India in Early Modern English Travel Writings

Dara Shikoh (cont.) close contact with Reverend Father Buzée 218 War of Succession (especially Battle of Samugarh) Bernier and Manucci 216, 221–223, 225–228 Deism 1, 108, 123–124, 125–130, 137, 165 Della Valle, Pietro 46, 47, 184–185, 193 description of sati see “sati” interest in Oriental languages 46 pilgrimage to the Holy Land 46 De Rerum Natura 164 Descartes, René 111, 113 “Dewetaes” 159 Díaz, Bernal 66–67, 196 The Conquest of New Spain 66 Din-i-Ilahi (Religion of God). See Akbar [A] Discription of the Persian Monarchy Now beinge: the Orientall Indyes, see Herbert, Thomas [A] Display of Two Forraigne Sects in the East Indies. see Henry Lord divine right of kingship, theory of (divinity of kingship) 57, 135 see also King James Diwan-i-am 51, 67 Diwan-i-khas 50, 51, 86 Dryden, John 177–178, 208 Aureng-Zebe 177–178, 208 East India Company Company vs. Thomas Sandys (1682) 105 European rivalry and 94–96 export of coin or silver for EIC trade 82 defense of policy in treatises A Discovrse of Trade from England vnto the East Indies (Thomas Mun) 83 England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade (Thomas Mun) 83 The East-India Trade A Most Profitable Trade to the Kingdom (Robert Ferguson) 83–85 Godolphin’s Award 106 interloping 103–107 and Josiah Child 105–106 monopoly 95, 103–107 “Phyrwana” (parwana–grant of permission) 90

profitability of Indian trade 81–86 privateering and piracy 104 Nathaniel and Robert Rich 104 private trade 106–107 seige of Bombay by Siddi and outcome 101–103, 236, 238 defense of war, Josiah Child 103 and John Child 101–103 Eastward Ho. See Jonson, Ben Eikon Basilikae. See Charles I Eikonoclastes. See Milton, John Elizabeth, Queen 103, 135 charter to EIC 103 Ellora temples 43 Embassy. See Roe, Thomas empiricism 109–114 England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade, see Mun, Thomas and East India Company Enlightenment 1, 3, 17–18, 21–22, 108–132, 162, 166, 171–172, 182, 185, 188, 197, 208, 213–214, 230–231, 239, 241–242, 245, 250–251 and civilization and barbarity 80, 213–214, 245–246 and changing historiography 230–231 and empiricism and scientific enquiry 109–114 and growth of rationality in religion 116–118 and toleration, rationality, and natural religion 118–120, 123–133 Locke and awareness of divergence in customs and religions 114–116 Ovington, relativity of values, and recognition of positives in other cultures 168–170 Essay Concerning Human Understanding, see Locke, John ethnography 37, 166–172, see also caste; pollution ethnology 17, 22, 37 Every Man Out of His Humour., see Jonson, Ben Ezour-Vedam 165n15 The Faerie Queene. See Spenser, Edmund Festa, Lynn 241–242 firman 30, 55, 82, 86–87, 92, 94, 96, 101–103

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Index—India in Early Modern English Travel Writings Fitch, Ralph 25, 26, 81, 146–147, 241 Floyd-Wilson, Mary 246–248 Fort St George 48, 96, 193 Fradkin, Jeremy 122–123 Fryer, John 1, 15, 19, 25, 35, 37–40, 47–48, 92, 97, 100, 106–107, 145, 150–151, 154–157, 160, 166–169, 171, 175, 187, 198–199, 232, 235–236, 241, 245, 247, 251 A New Account of East India and Persia, see Fryer above concept of travel writing 38–40 cow-worship in gentile religion 167 idolatry, lingam-worship, devil worship 150–151 Lingayats in Karnataka 151, 156 religious ceremonies and procession at Gokurn 154–156 repulse of Shivaji’s raid by EIC 235 “furor barbaricus” 244 Games, Alison 250 Gassendi, Pierre 41, 115, 163, 215, 218. See also Bernier Gentile religion and monotheism 157–166 Gentiles 131–132, 133n1, 142, 144, 147, 157–158, 163, 178, 217, 240, 251. See also Terry [A] Geographical Account … Bay of Bengal 1669 to 1679. See Bowrey, Thomas Giaccamà 184–185, 193. See also della Valle, Pietro Gillies, John 11–12 Globe theater 69 Goa, Archbishop of 26 Gokarna 154n, 156 Greenblatt, Stephen 66, 67, 70, 192, 196 Grue, Thomas Le 158 Guicciardini, Francesco 210 Gunn, Steven 58n, 134–135 Habib, Irfan 61–62, 91 Hadfield, Andrew 120 Hakluyt, Richard 6n, 16, 24–26, 44 Principall Navigations 16, 25 Halalchors See Ogilby, John and Ovington, John Halley, Edmund 111

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Hamilton, Alexander 16, 101–103, 195, 236 representation of John Child and the EIC war against Aurangzeb 101–103, 236 Hanafi 56 harem 173, 198–208 and male chauvinism 198–199 erotic space, provoking male European curiosity 198–202, 206–208 narratives of sexual indulgence and liaison 200–205 site for education and accomplishments 205–206 see also Nur Mahal, Jahanara, and Roshanara Harris, Jonathan G. 22, 70 Hatfield, Gary 112 Hawkins, William 25, 50–53, 60–61, 64, 67, 78–79, 166 Jahangir’s court and 50–53 Hawley, John S. 174 Herbert, Thomas 15, 31–33, 38, 131, 147–150, 157, 166, 241, 245 Baniya gods, religion, and beliefs 147– 150 class and political ideology 32 objectives of travel narratives 33–35 racism in the association of blackness and animal worship (devil worship) 149 [A] Relation of some Years Travaile see Herbert, Thomas above Herbert, William 32 heretic-burning 121, 195–196 Hinduism 27, 133–134, 136–137, 145, 149, 151, 157–158, 160, 163–165, 178, 197, 217–218, 241 caste and pollution 166–171 ceremonies and rituals 154–157 gods and goddesses, idolatry and devil worship 145–154 four castes 160–161 monotheistic Hinduism 131–132, 157–166 rebirth, transmigration of souls, Pythagorean 150, 161–162, 167–168 historiography 80, 114, 126, 166, 209–211, 215, 221, 230, 235, 237, 243 European historiography and Mughal India

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historiography (cont.) growing emphasis on facts as a trend 209–210 Roe’s history of Jahangir’s reign 210–214 Mughal War of Succession see Bernier, Manucci, Tavernier, and Ogilby Hobbes, Thomas 111, 113, 125–126 Howard, Jean E. 250 Hrabanus Maurus 152 Hume, David 112 Hutton, Sarah 124–125 idolatry 132–135, 143, 146, 152–154, 157–158, 163, 165, 240 incest 115, 200, 203, 205 Instauratio Magna. See Bacon, Francis [The] Irish Rebellion. See Temple, Sir John Islam 20, 27, 126–127, 131, 133–142, 145, 164, 217, 219–220, 240–241, 251 abjuration of idolatry 133 Islamic God, attributes of 126 Islamic Law 56 Israel, Jonathan 119, 131 [The] Itinerary of Ludovico di Varthema of Bologna from 1502 to 1508 13 Jacobean court 55, 60, 66–67, 70 Jacob, James R. 124–126 “jagat” 89 Jahanara 199–201, 203–206, 208 close to Dara 206 devotion and loyalty as a daughter 205 indulgence of sexual desire, see harem charges of incestuous relationship with Shah Jahan 200 Jahangir, Nuruddin Muhammad 20, 21, 30, 33, 50–55, 60, 64, 67–71, 73, 76–80, 82, 87, 104, 135, 137–138, 140, 178, 199, 206–207, 209–210, 212–214, 217, 234, 240, 246, 248–249 and Roe’s construction of his court by 53–72 and festivities and show of riches 72–73 cosmopolitanism and manipulation of the globe 249

his religion. See Roe his secular policy 137 history of his reign in the representation of Roe 210–214 taste for blood, nomadic wanderings, and barbarity 78–80 weighing ceremony and European representations 76–77 Jainism 133, 136–137 James, King 20, 29, 41, 57–58, 65, 69–70, 79–80, 82, 98 Jesuits 27, 130, 138–139, 144, 157, 159–160, 165, 171 “accommodation” theory 130–131 Jews 66, 106, 119, 122, 127, 130 Jiwan, Pathan Malik 219, 223 jizya tax (pilgrimage tax) 137, 206. See also Akbar Jones, W.R. 244 Jonson, Ben 29, 69, 71 Eastward Ho 69 Every Man Out of His Humour 71 Judaism 127, 131, 159, 180, 237 Kautilya 56 Arthasastra 56 Khan, Abdullah 89, 90 Khan, Asaf 71, 86–87, 94–95, 199, 206, 211–212, 234 Khan, Danishmand/Mullah Shafii 56, 63, 163, 165, 179–180, 215, 219–220, 225 Khan, Khafi 219, 228–229 Khan, Khalilullah 222, 225–229, 233 Khan, Mukarrab 52n Khan, Qasim 221 Khan, Rustam 226–227 Khán, Sháista 90, 100, 204, 219 Khan, Siddi Yakub his siege 101–102, 236, 238 Hamilton’s presentation of the battle 236 Khurram, Prince 33, 68, 71, 95, 211–212, 234, 237. See also Shah Jahan Khusrau 51, 211–213, 223, 233 Kircher, Athanasius 158, 163 China Illustrata 158 Koch, Ebba 249 Korte, Barbara 2, 4, 8, 242–243

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Index—India in Early Modern English Travel Writings Le Vayer, M. de La Mothe see Bernier La Porte Ouverte. See Rogerius, Abraham Levant Company 25 Leviathan. See Hobbes, Thomas Linschoten, Jan Huyghen Van 26, 146, 192 Diabolorum 146 monstrous deity 146 “sati” 192 Locke, John 109, 113–116, 118–119, 125, 127, 168, 177, 183, 190, 251 and diversity of customs 114–116 and rationality in religion 117–120 and toleration 119, 120 empiricism 114 Essay Concerning Human Understanding 114–116, 118 the practice of “sati” and the law of self-preservation 115–116 pronouncements against religious enthusiasm 156 Loomba, Ania 149, 177 Lord, Henry 131, 150, 160, 163 Bania religion, creation narrative, castes, 160–162 A Display of Two Forraigne Sects in the East Indies 160–162 Louis XIV 40, 43, 249 Machiavelli, Niccolo 210 Mahal, Mumtaz 71n, 212 Maliki 56 Mandeville, John 6–9, 11, 149n and Marco Polo 8–9 as pilgrim 7–8 Pollard A.W. 6 The Travels see above Mani, Lata 176 mansabdari system. See Roe, Thomas Mansell, Sir Robert 88 Manucci, Niccolao 1, 21, 46–47, 201, 203–207, 215, 222, 224–231, 234, 235, 237, 247 description of the harem 201, 203–204 portrayal of Dara 218, 224–231 portrayal of Jahanara 201, 203, 204–205 War of Succession (especially Battle of Samugarh) 224–231

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Marlowe, Christopher 213 Massinger, Philip 141, 200 The Renegado 141, 200 materialism 113 Mauss, Marcel 64 Metamorphoses 154 metaphor of the theater. See Mughal court metempsychosis, theory of 168. See also transmigration of souls Milkiyat 62 Milton, John 120–122, 153–154 and eastern gods 153–154 and Ireland 121–122 and toleration 120–122 Areopagitica 120–121 Eikonoclastes 121–122 Observations upon the Articles of Peace 121–122 Of True Religion, Heresie, Schism, Toleration 120 Paradise Lost 153–154, 161 Mitchell, Colin P. 20, 30, 58n, 59, 211 Mitter, Partha 151–153 monarchy 31, 53, 55, 57–59, 67, 134 monotheistic Hinduism see Hinduism Montaigne, Michel de 15, 42, 177, 182 Monter, William 120–121 More, Henry 113 Divine Dialogues 113 Mosaic law 125 Mughal court 31, 50–72 absence of laws and absolutism in Roe’s construction 55–60 and barbarity 78–80 corruption in Roe’s perception 64–67 hierarchical arrangement of standing 51–52, 67–68 festivities, splendor, and riches  73–75 image of the theater 67–72 ownership and private property  60–64 weighing ceremonies of Mughal emperors 76–78 See also Roe, Thomas Mullah Shafii. See Khan, Danishmand Mun, Thomas 83 see East India Company

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Mundy, Peter 1, 16–17, 19–20, 22, 24–25, 35–37, 48, 89, 145, 166–167, 171, 185–189, 193, 197, 199–200, 242, 251 class, employment, and interests 35–37 description of caste practices and ethnography 166–167 EIC trade and transportation of goods 89–90 “sati” and ethnographic reporting and comparison with Tavernier 185–189 The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia 1608–1667 see Mundy above [The] Murder of Gonzago 193 Murphy, Andrew R. 118 Navya Nyāya 163 natural philosophy 18, 19, 108–114 Nayar, Pramod K. 22, 54, 65, 73 [A] New Account of East India and Persia. See Fryer, John New Characters. See Overbury, Sir Thomas Newton, Isaac 109–114 empiricism 110–112 natural causes of natural phenomena 110–112 mathematical principles and application 110–111 popularizing discoveries 111 Principia 110–112 Nobili, Roberto de 131, 159–160, 165, 171, 241, 251 and Jesuit accommodation theory  130–131, 160 discussions of monotheism in Advaita Advaita Dipika, Vivaranopanyasa, Tattvavivekam 159–160 Vedantic school and doctrine  159–160, 171 Nur Jahan (Nur Mahal) 71, 79, 199, 205–206, 212–213, 248

Mughal War of Succession 231–234 anecdotal, entertaining style of literary narrator 232 borrowings from Bernier, especially emphasis on role of Fortune 232–233 providentialism targeting Shah Jahan’s treachery towards Prince Khusrau and consequent retribution 233–234 royalist affiliation and association with Ireland 170–171, 232 oikumene 11 oriental despots 55–57, 59–60, 63, 80 Orientalism. See Said, Edward The Origin of Forms and Qualities. See Boyle, Robert Orlando Furioso 141 Ortelius, Abraham 249 Theatrum Orbis Terrarum 249 Osteen, Mark 64 Othello, see Shakespeare Overbury, Sir Thomas 176 New Characters 176 Ovington, John 1, 18–19, 22, 25, 47–48, 78, 80, 97–98, 106, 131, 145, 166, 168–171, 187, 189–191, 197, 236–237, 251 contradictory voices 191 custom and its power of determining cultural practices 168–170 Enlightenment rationality and similarities with Locke and Bernier 168–169, 190 Halalchors 170 praise of Asia’s superior heritage and the valor of Timur Lang 237 “sati” 189–191 similarity with Shaftesbury 191, 197 tolerance for alien customs 168–170, 191 unhealthy tropical climate in the colony of Bombay 97–98 Oxendine, George 100, 235

Observations upon the Articles of Peace. See Milton, John Odoric of Pordenone 6 Odyssey 2–3 Of True Religion, Heresie, Schism, Toleration. See Milton, John Ogilby, John 21, 170, 172, 231–235 Halalchors 170–171

Paradise Lost. See Milton, John Peck, Linda Levy 65–66, 88 Pembroke, Earl of 32, 34 Penn, William 118 peregrinatio tradition 28 Petigree, Andrew 120 Petit, John. See East India Company Pfister, Manfred 242

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Index—India in Early Modern English Travel Writings “Phyrwana,” see East India Company pilgrimage, see travel narrative pollution 166–172 Hindu belief in 167 See also caste; ethnography Polo, Marco 8–9 Careful, detailed description of places and cultural practices 8–9 differences with pilgrim-travelers 8–9 Porter, Roy 108n1, 109 Prideaux, Humphry 129–130, 140n, 141 critique of Deism 129 sketch of Muhammad in opposition to Stubbe’s portrayal 129–130 [The] True Nature of Imposture Fully Display’d in the Life of Mahomet 129–130 Principall Navigations. See Hakluyt, Richard Principia. See Newton, Isaac Pritchard, R. E. 35–36 Prophet Muhammad 127, 129, 139–141, 240 and Mahometan religion in in Coryat’s view 139–140 in popular Jacobean drama 141 in Prideaux’s view 129–130 in Roe’ view 134 in Stubbe’s version 127 in Terry’s view 140–141 See also Islam Protestantism 21, 120–121, 123, 127–128, 131–132, 135, 151, 154 Protestant chaplains 27 Protestant colonization 121–123 Purchas, Samuel 25, 27, 29, 31 Purchas His Pilgrimes 27, 29, 31 Quakers 119 Quran 56, 129–130, 133, 135, 140–141 Rae, Chhatar Sal 227. See also War of Succession Raiswell, Richard 28, 142–144 Rathore, Ram Singh 228, 235 Raushanara Begum. See Roshanara Begum Reformation 1, 118, 120. [A] Relation of some Yeares Travaile. See Herbert, Thomas religious enthusiasm 127, 155–156

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renaissance 3, 12, 14, 36, 65, 69, 125, 209–210, 213, 230, 244, 246 The Renegado. See Massinger, Philip republicanism 1, 109 Rich, Robert. See East India Company Roe, Thomas birth, family and education 1, 1n, 20, 29 dual audience 29, 30–31, 53 his disavowal of likenesses 54, 58, 66–67, 88, 171, 239, 240 his representation of the political history of Jahangir’s reign 210–214 middle ground between royalists and parliamentarians 59–60 Mughal court and absolutism see Mughal court image of the theater see Mughal court portrayal of Prince Khurram 33, 68, 71, 95, 211–213 portrayal of Prince Khusrau 211–213 portrayal of the of the celebration of Parsee ‘Narose’ 72–73 representation of corruption in India see Mughal court representation of private property in India see Mughal court representation of the weighing ceremony of Jahangir see Mughal court view of EIC trade and advices 82, 85–88, 92, 94–96, 98–99 view of Jahangir’s religious beliefs and policy 134–135, 137–138 view of Jahangir’s harem 199–200 The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India 1615–19 see Roe above Roger, Abraham Roger / Rogerius, Abraham 131, 158–160, 163 La Porte Ouverte 160, 163 Rogers, G.A.J. 109–110 Roshanara Begum 74, 75, 202–204, 206, 208, 219 indulgence of sexual desire 202–204 colorful procession through the streets 74–75 expediting Dara’s death 219 Roth, Father Heinrich 158, 163 Royal Society 19, 37, 109–111, 145 empiricism 109–111, 114 Roy, Rammohun 165n16, 176

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Rubiés, Joan-Pau 3–6, 9–10, 12–13, 15, 18, 22, 26, 32–33, 36–37, 132, 157–158, 163, 165–166, 186 Rubruquies, William de 6 “sabbat” 179–180 Said, Edward 53, 239 Orientalism 53 Sapra, Rahul 30n Sarkar, Jadunath 216n, 217, 219–220, 226, 229 “sati” 115n, 173–198, 201, 203, 205, 207–208, 242 Bernier’s account 179–183, 185, 192–193 Bowrey’s representation and British intervention 193–195 della Valle’s representation 184–185, 193 etymology of the word 174 in British India 197 Mundy’s account see Mundy Ovington’s representation see Ovington representing the patriarchal ideal of feminine 176–178 Tavernier’s account see Tavernier Terry’s sketch see Terry widow-burning 21, 174, 195–198, 242 witch-burning 180–181, 195–197, 242 Sauer, Elizabeth 118–119 Scot, Reginald 180, 245 self-immolation. See “sati” self-preservation, law of. See Locke, John seraglio see harem Shaftesbury 127–128, 191. See also deism Shah Jahan 21, 33, 37, 40, 47, 68, 89–90, 185, 198–206, 209, 212, 214–217, 219–221, 223–225, 230, 232–234 and Jahanara. See Jahanara See also Roe’s portrayal of Khurram in Roe Shah Shuja 90, 214, 220, 231–232 Shakespeare 14, 69, 250n As You Like It 69 Othello 14 Sharia law 55 shî’î theory of divine designation 58n Shirley, Sir Robert 32 Singh, Jaswant 40, 221 Singh, Jyotsna G. 22, 54

Six Voyages. See Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste Smerwick massacre 121 Smith, Thomas 55 The Common-wealth of England 55 Smythe, Sir Thomas 104 Speed, John 69, 171 The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine 69, 171 Spenser, Edmund 37, 122 The Faerie Queene 37, 143 A View of the Present State of Ireland  122 stadial theory of civilization 240n, 245 Stern, Philip J. 100–101, 102n, 103, 105–106 Stevens, Paul 121 Strachan, Michael 1n, 29, 53n, 59 Stubbe, Henry 125–127, 129 An Account of the Rise and Progress of Mahometanism 125 Subrahmanyam, Sanjay 23, 56, 131n, 132 Europe’s India 23, 131n, 132 Tattvavivekam. See Nobili, Roberto de Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste 1, 43, 45–46, 73, 107, 183–184, 188–189, 215, 223, 230, 231, 234, 237, 241, 245, 247 dedication to the monarch and art of eulogy 45 family background 45–46 publication and popularity of the book 46 representation of the War of Succession 223 “sati” 183–184, 188–189 Six Voyages see Tavernier above Tawhid-i-Ilahi 136. See Akbar; Din-i-ilahi Teltscher, Kate 22, 53–54, 68, 70 Temple, Sir John 121, 234 The Irish Rebellion 121, 234 Terry, Edward 1, 18, 23, 27–29, 35, 38–39, 47–48, 53, 76–77, 88–89, 131, 133–135, 137–145, 155, 157, 160, 166, 171, 174–176, 178, 187, 189, 241, 248–249, 251 as a clergyman 1, 27–29 honesty and virtues of common Indians 88–89, 142 objectives of travel writing 28–29, 39, 131

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Index—India in Early Modern English Travel Writings on gentile religion and grace (Calvinism) 142–145 on Islam 139–141 on “sati” 174–176, 178, 189 publication, revision, readership of work 27–28, A Voyage to East India, see Terry above Thévenot, Jean de 15, 21, 43–45, 47, 78 a man of independent means, interest in travel 43, 44 conveys sense of a fraternity of travelers 45 description of the architecture of the Ellora 43–44 Merdi-Coura, Anthropophagi 44 partial reliance on information from secondary sources and inaccuracies 44 weighing ceremony of the Emperor 77–78 Threnodia Carolina. See Charles I Tindal, Matthew 124 Tinguely, Frédéric 13, 164 Toland, John 117–118, 120, 124 toleration 56, 116–123, 130–132, 241 and Akbar, see Akbar and Enligtenment, see Enlightenment and Milton, see Milton radical thought, and freedom of thought and speech 118–119 See also natural religion; rise of deism transmigration of souls, Pythagorean doctrine of 150, 156 Traub, Valerie 250 travel writing and curiosity 5–6, 13–14, 18, 30, 46, 133, 145, 174, 185, 187–188, 199 ethnography 6, 15–17, 19, 20, 26, 33, 37, 44, 109, 145, 166, 171–173 evolution of the genre 3–19 and pilgrimage 3–6, 8, 10–11, 13–14, 46, 47, 127, 137 and wonder 3, 10, 12–14, 54, 74, 200, 208

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Trevor, Sir John 88 [The] True Nature of Imposture Fully Display’d in the Life of Mahomet. See Prideaux, Humphry universal religion See Jean Frédéric Bernard Upanishads, mystic doctrine in the 218 Urbain, Jean-Didier 2 Vane, Henry 121 Varthema, Ludovico de 13, 171, 244–245 Vedantic Hinduism 159 [A] View of the Present State of Ireland. See Spenser, Edmund Vivaranopanyasa 159, see also de Nobili Vivekananda, Swami 165n16 [A] Voyage to East India, see Terry, Edward A Warning for Fair Women 193 War of Succession 21, 46, 214–215, 223, 231–232, 237 See also Bernier, Manucci, Tavernier Weinberger-Thomas, Catherine 186 widow-burning, see “sati” Williams, Roger 118, 121, 123 The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution, for the cause of Conscience 123 Williams, Wes 13 Williamson, James 16 witch-burning, see “sati” Wittkower, Rudolph 152–153 Wolfe, Charles T. 113 Wolloch, Nathaniel 114, 166, 240n, 245 Wonders of the East 10, 14, 152 Woolf, D.R. 209–210 Xavier, Angela B. 130, 131 zamindari system 61–62 Zoroastrianism 136 “Zulpheckcarcon” (Zulfikar Khan) 65, 87 Zupanov, Ines G. 17, 130, 131

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