By: Dr. Mehreen
European Travelers in the Mughal Empire: Jahangir’s Court through English Eyes Chida-Razvi
Main Subjects are :
1. European travelers Mughal Empire
2. Jahangir’s Court European accounts
3. Mughal Empire through European perspective
4. European views on Mughal Empire
5. European travelers in India during Mughal era
6. Jahangir’s Court historical accounts
7. European perceptions of Mughal Empire
8. Mughal Empire seen by Europeans
I. Introduction: The Arrival of the English in the Mughal
Realm
The Mughal Dynasty of South Asia came into being at a time in which European interest in the region was peaking, with travelers beckoned by the promise of riches through trade, religious fervor or a fascination with the exotic. The reputation in Europe of the Mughal Padshah, or Emperor, as the ‘Great Mogol’ was such that the term became synonymous with wealth and luxury, and the Mughal court became a draw for European diplomats, adventurers, tradesmen and clergymen. The first European power to establish itself as a legitimate entity within the Mughal borders were the Portuguese, but they were soon followed by other European nations intent on sharing in the wealth of Hindustan. It was during the reign of the fourth Mughal Emperor, Jahangir (r.1605-27), that the English began to arrive in greater numbers, continuously pressing for the establishment of an English Factory and trading rights that would put them on par with the Portuguese, or, preferably, in a greater position of trading power and diplomatic influence.
It
was inevitable that these English subjects documented their time and travails
while abroad in South Asia, and that
they would communicate their thoughts, experiences and complaints to family, friends and colleagues in England.
It is intriguing to note the variations in how
these written documents portray the Mughal Empire, the Mughals
themselves, and the Englishmen who wrote
them. Evaluating this information is at times problematic as questions can arise as to the authenticity of
the details and perceptions being relayed in these writings, which subsequently were considered
factual on their arrival in Europe. Were these
contemporary accounts accurate representations of what these travelers
saw around them and experienced, or were
their perceptions colored or altered by personal circumstances, both good and bad? Did this result in skewed
visualizations of what these Englishmen noted in their writings? How did their own living
situation, personal background and material wealth impact their reflections? In this
contribution I would like to instead examine the questions that arise from these readings, and which
form the subject of this paper, by focusing on the writings of prominent English visitors to the
Mughal court during the reign of Jahangir and
evaluating what external factors outside questions of orientalism and
postcolonial theory, may have influenced
their written perceptions. How these same perceptions were then presented as facts in their later writings,
in the form of either letters written to Europe or later in published travelogues, will be examined.
Due to spatial constraints I will be focusing this paper on English views of the Mughal Emperor
and the court.
These questions will be explored here using the writings of prominent Englishman present at the Mughal court during Jahangir’s reign, including: William Hawkins, a representative of the East India Company; William Finch, an Englishman who arrived at Jahangir’s court in Lahore in 1611 seeking to establish trade rights for the English; Sir Thomas Roe, the first official Ambassador to the Mughal Court, arriving in 1615; the eccentric traveler Thomas Coryat, a contemporary of Sir Thomas Roe, who travelled overland from Jerusalem to the Mughal realm; and Edward Terry, Roe’s chaplain. The era of Jahangir will be focused on here as, with few exceptions, it was during the early years of his reign that the agents of the East India Company (EIC) first set foot in Mughal South Asia;1 in addition, it was the period in which there was mass infiltration of Europeans into the Mughal borders. William Finch writes, for example, that when he was taken to Jahangir’s court in Agra in 1610, there were representatives from Portugal, Spain, France and Venice present, as well as other Christians.2 The year Jahangir ascended the throne, 1605, corresponds to just a few years after the establishment of the EIC in 1599, and the granting of its royal charter in December 1600.
II. Changing Perceptions of the Mughal Empire
It
has been noted in the early travel writings of the English in Hindustan that
the writers collectively appeared to go
through three disparate moments of thought.3 They first viewed the region as a land of wealth, plenty and
wonder, but this was soon followed by censure, in which what had initially drawn praise and awe
was subsequently tempered so that the
disparity between what the reality of Mughal Hindustan was and the perceived
reality of the travelers’ views and their became less. Instead
of the region being a land of plenty it became
instead a land of excess, and therefore more negative. 4 This
excess took the various forms of ‘uncontrolled and
uncontrollable passion, diseases, cruelty, and ignorance... The English traveler now located a landscape of disease,
death, and deprivation in the same features once imaged as pleasurable profusion. However,
this does not complete the representation of India. The traveler conflated physical and moral
topographies when he read climatic conditions,
landscape features, town planning, and disease as symptomatic of moral
conditions. Further, he began to
evacuate the landscape of Indian icons by rejecting, altering, or explaining
away their valence and value to the
natives.’5 Edward Terry, for example, writes
of the many wondrous things, people and
animals he encountered on his time in Hindustan, but promptly negated all these things by then commenting
that, it would be wrong to consider the lands of the Mughal empire to be an earthly paradise,
and then goes on to list the various dangerous
wild animals, insects, flies, rats, and natural disasters which befall
the area, including the monsoon.6
After
moving on to this view of excess, the English travel writers then followed it
with the idea that the region and the
Mughal empire were not as significant as the English originally thought because they had become ‘morally
questionable;’ by labeling
it thus, it became easy for the English
to establish reasons for the extreme wealth of the Hindustani princes and Kings, and for the plentiful nature of the
land, which was now due to the exploitation of the working class and everyday man.7 This
last point is exemplified by Hawkins, who claimed that Jahangir’s wealth was derived from the fact
that he came from a line of conquerors, that
he inherited the wealth of the
nobility on their death, and that he received a large percentage of the profits made from the wealth of the
land.8
III. External factors that impacted English Views of Jahangir’s Empire Three reasons can be highlighted as primary factors that drove Europeans into the Mughal realm: trade, diplomacy and evangelism. For the English, it was with the desire to establish trading rights with this new, wealthy entity that had the strongest draw. They were aware of the possibility of riches because the Portuguese had established such trading rights with the Mughal Emperor Akbar (r.1556-1605), Jahangir’s father, and were prospering in the new, Indian-Ocean trading world as a result. The Portuguese had also established themselves as fixtures within the Mughal court, called upon to advise the emperor in his general dealing with Europeans, and as generic representatives of Europe they also acted as translators and interpreters when other Europeans came to the court begging favors of the Great Mughal. Unfortunately for the English, they arrived with little to recommend them to Jahangir and, with Portuguese representatives serving as aides-de-camp to the Emperor, were at a disadvantage as these two European nations had an antagonistic relationship based on mutual military hostility, especially on the open sea. As a result, the English representatives at the Mughal court at this time found themselves in situations where the Portuguese poisoned Jahangir’s mind against them and their desires, and it was only when they were aware of it that the English were able to respond to the charges laid at their door.
This is an important point to note as it raises the issue of languages, which ultimately affected how the English were able to interact at the Mughal court. When unable to speak or understand any of the languages spoken at the court, the English entered into a situation in which they were unable to either comprehend what was being said to them or about them, and had to rely on interpreters to pass on their words and desires to Jahangir or the nobles with whom they had to deal in order to have access to him. This being the case, the English who were unable to speak or understand Persian or Turkish were at the mercy of their interpreters for a factual relay of information in both directions of communication. However, this was not always the situation, for some English at the court were proficient in these languages. For example, William Hawkins spoke Turkish and Thomas Coryat spoke Persian, and both were therefore able to communicate directly with nobles of the court and with Jahangir, and were able to use this ability to their advantage. According to his own account, Hawkins impressed Jahangir with his ability to speak Turkish and was regularly invited into the Emperor’s private quarters to converse with him, a distinction offered to few.9 Hawkins was received by Jahangir as an ambassador from England, as John Mildenhall, the English merchant at Akbar’s court in 1603, had promised that one would arrive, thereby distinguishing the English from the Portuguese, who did not have a permanent, government sanctioned satellite in Hindustan.10 Hawkins was taken to be this individual on his arrival at the court and accepted the charge, even though he did not have the official capacity to do so. Regardless of this, he stayed at the Mughal court for between 1609 and 1611, both to ‘feather my own nest’ and to represent the EIC and the Crown to the best of his abilities.11 During his time there, Jahangir referred to Hawkins as the ‘English Khan’ and gave him a title, rank, gifts, money, and even an Armenian Christian from his harem to be his wife. In accepting the gifts of Jahangir and establishing himself at the court so fully, Hawkins displayed a willingness to meld himself into the prevailing customs and life of the court. In his eyes there was nothing wrong in advancing his own interests while at the same time representing England, but others of his countrymen did not see it this way as to outward appearances Hawkins had become a servant of the Mughal Emperor.
On arrival at one of wealthiest courts in the world, and, moreover, one which was fully aware of its own consequence and had a strong sense of its own importance both in the region and on the wider-world stage, the English were actually unprepared for the sophisticated civilization they encountered at the Mughal court and, therefore, were even more thrown off balance by what they found. In order to get the trading rights they so desperately wanted from an Empire which did not seek or need validation from their King or merchants, it was borne in on the English that they required an official government representative to negotiate with the Mughal court. As seen, members of the EIC would present themselves to the Mughal Emperor in the guise of Ambassador, but without the official endowment. This did not serve their purposes as well as they would have liked, but it did allow for some initial meetings and relationships to evolve, and set the scene for the arrival of the first official English ambassador to the Mughal court, Sir Thomas Roe.
Sir
Thomas Roe was one of those who did not approve of the way that Hawkins and
previous representatives of his
government acted at the court, for he felt that they diminished and demeaned his country in the eyes of the
Mughals.12 Roe then felt he had to contend with a reputation which held the English to be of
little importance for trade and diplomacy. It has been pointed out by Barbour that in his words
and dealings with the emperor Jahangir, John
Mildenhall gave the impression that the English had arrived in Hindustan
merely to exploit avenues of trade, and
that the English were remiss in visiting the court of the Great Mughal because their country was geographically and
diplomatically remote from the region. This is
in stark contrast to the complementary message he thought he was
conveying, which was supposed to be that
even though England was so far away the fame of the Great Mughal had reached it, and that due to the importance of
both the Mughal Emperor and the English
monarch, trade would be desirable to both countries.13
Roe had to battle not only against the established reputation of the English, but while he remained on his dignity, doing nothing which would demean either himself or King James I, he had to contend with the appearance of the eccentric Thomas Coryat at the court of Jahangir. It was a presence Roe would have preferred to do without, and when Coryat performed a Persian speech in front of Jahangir and was rewarded in gold, which he readily accepted, Roe was again in a position where he felt he had to battle for his own, and his country’s, reputation. He found it demeaning and considered his fellow countryman to be on par with court performers; despite his ever-pressing need, Roe himself steadfastly refused monetary recompense from Jahangir.14 For Roe, the impression he gave of himself, and of his King, was a supreme priority, and as this was the case the question of how this was to be portrayed and represented to the local population, Nobles and Emperor became a necessary one. It involved in no way ‘going native,’ as others of his countrymen did, instead he had to continuously project the persona of The Ambassador. This being the case, as has been pointed out by Barbour, Roe thoroughly engaged with politics of display and presentation,15 in that he was a player in a scene and had to keep up the character throughout if it was to be believed. This maintenance of character and the constant need to portray the dignity of King James I is certainly evident in the writings of Roe and colors many of his anecdotes and entries detailing his time at Jahangir’s court. Roe was one of those who did not speak a language that could benefit him in his dealings with the Mughals and the frustrations which arose from this then impacted his writings. He understood at what a disadvantage he stood, but at the same time relished standing apart from those who could speak the language as he considered them to be at times little better than court satellites.
In the writings of European
travelers to the Mughal realm there can be found a strong sense of preconceived notions as to what they
expected to find and witness in Hindustan, another factor which affected English views of the Mughals.
This took several different forms, one
of which was an un-established idea of the East and, correspondingly,
preconceived notions
of
the luxury, excess and debauchery they would encounter there. This then
further contributed by reinforcing the
idea that the English had a superior culture that was civilized, ordered and composed of individuals who
practiced a proper religion. The ‘barbaric’ notions of the Muslims and Hindus were regularly
juxtaposed against the more civilized, true religion of Christianity. In fact, the superiority of
the English was presented in such a way that
activities, habits, laws or traits of Mughal citizens were typically
contrasted with the corresponding
activities or beliefs in England, and were generally found wanting. In
certain cases this was not what
occurred; take, for example, the writings of Edward Terry, who when writing on the religious practices of Muslims,
praises the devotion he witnesses ‘…to the
shame of us Christians.’16
Regarding the preconceived notions
and expectations had of life at the Mughal court, the pre formed idea about
what the Mughal Empire would be like, and the expectation of luxury and excess, these led travelers to believe that
they knew and, more importantly, understood what was happening around them. We see in the writings
of the English at Jahangir’s court is that
there is an expectation of the
exotic and the strange in the Mughal Empire, and so they were
very
willing to believe both the best and worst of what they heard, or expected to
see. For example, grand numbers of women
in the harem were expected, and so it comes as no surprise to hear from Thomas Coryat that ‘The
King keepeth a thousand women for his own
body….’17 The idea that the Great Mughal had
a harem of multiple-hundreds of women, and
that the court was one of lascivious, immoral behavior allowed, for
example, for Roe to give his opinion
that Shah Jahan was in love with his step-mother, Nur Jahan,18 a
patently false statement, as was the
information that Anarkali, a young woman of Akbar’s harem whom he had walled-up alive, Anarkali, was in fact one of Akbar’s wives.19 (Both these
points are discussed further below). The
willingness to believe these types of rumors and slanders, and the ability to then relate them as fact to one’s
audience, confirms that this kind of behavior
was what Europeans expected to
happen.20
Another factor to be taken into consideration when discussing how the English viewed the Mughal court is the social environment in which English travelers found themselves in on arrival in the Mughal Empire, and how this differed from the society and societal norms from which they came. There was an awareness of the fact that in this new social, cultural and diplomatic environment they, the English, were marginal.21 Instead of occupying a central role within the mind of the Mughals, when they arrived asking for trading rights the English were tolerated and occasionally considered useful. They did not have the same importance placed on them as, for example, the Portuguese; the same was therefore true of the British monarch. Roe’s reaction to this stimulus was to attempt to recreate the English impression and break this pattern established by his predecessors, and in doing so show the nobles with whom he had to deal, and Jahangir himself, that the English and their King were to be taken seriously. From Roe’s own writings we know that he insinuated himself into the court ceremonial structure in such a way that he was given prime a position of location, and had a high level of access to the court.22 Roe’s self-importance is contrasted, however, with the fact that Roe is never mentioned by Jahangir himself in his Jahangirnama, the Emperor’s autobiography. The omission of Roe contrasts strongly with the importance he placed on himself within the Mughal court structure and is a truer indicator of how he was viewed while in the Mughal realm. There is certainly a disparity between what Roe perceived and what was the reality of his place within Jahangir’s court scene. The contrast with how Roe and Jahangir viewed the Persian ambassador visualizes this very well. Roe, witnessing the arrival of the Persian Ambassador, Muhammad Riza Beg, thought that he demeaned himself, the status of his office and his Shah by performing the ritual obeisance of bowing and touching the floor before Jahangir. Roe himself refused to do this on his arrival at the Mughal court, and in his own eyes was therefore worthy of his office as well as projecting an increasingly positive notion of the English court and King James I. Roe then made a comparison between the language Jahangir used to describe Shah Abbas and that used for James I, and determined that the Shah was described in less impressive terms, which Roe put down to the behavior of the respective ambassadors.23 This is contrasted with the reality from the Mughal point of view; Jahangir wrote of Muhammad Beg Riza’s visit to his court in his memoirs, and included a copy of the letter he wrote to Shah Abbas within them as well. As noted above, Roe does not feature in the Jahangirnama at all.
Although
the English did not arrive in the Mughal realm as evangelists, they still
drew heavily on their Christianity in
their dealings with the Mughals; religion therefore had an important impact on their perceptions of the
Empire. Certain anecdotes which were recorded
must have been done with the sole intention of increasing the perceived
importance of Christianity in the Mughal
Empire. These anecdotes further gave the impression that while the Mughal Padshahs were very open-minded and tolerant of other religions,
they considered Christianity to be
superlative. In a passage meant to indicate how strongly Akbar felt about Christianity, Coryat wrote that the only
thing Akbar ever denied his mother was her request to have the Bible tied around a donkey’s neck and parade it around the town in
retaliation for the fact that the
Portuguese had done this to a copy of the Qur’an. Coryat reported that Akbar
denied this request by saying ‘...that God would not suffer the sacred Booke
of his Truth to be contemned amongst the
Infidels.’24 This was quite a masterful stroke
of reporting, for in one instance Coryat
not only managed to send the message that Akbar considered the Bible to be as important as the Qur’an, but also that it was the Portuguese,
the enemy of the English, who were the
infidels responsible for such a heinous act.
IV. Perceptions relayed as fact to Europe
Having
discussed some of the reasons for why the English travelers to Jahangir’s
court wrote of it as they did, let us know
examine some instances in which these perceptions resulted in the creation of false rumors which were then
relayed to England as factual information.
At times there appears to have been
a calculated decision to incorporate certain words or to convey certain ideas. For example, in a
letter Roe wrote directly to King James I we see that the letter is laced with language meant to
convey that the Mughal Emperor and Empire were
vastly inferior to that of England and the English Monarch. Roe first
stated that much of the Mughal Empire’s
reputation was due to
fame, and that it did not live up to the reality of it.25 He then
went on to note that while the Mughal Prince (and note the choice of title:
Prince, not King or Emperor) may be the
mightiest in Asia, there is so much wrong with the method of government, there are no laws or policies,
too many religions, poor constructions, and
barbaric customs, the result of which is that Roe cannot wait to leave
the Mughal lands and return to England
and see the face of the King.26
Roe’s lack of awareness
of the makeup of
the court leads him to make some untrue claims
about Jahangir. For examples, he calls Jahangir an atheist, and writes
that he was brought up without any
religion at all. He claims this on the basis that while Jahangir makes the
Muslim profession of faith he also keeps
the holidays and celebrates the holy days of the Hindus.27 While true that Jahangir would have
celebrated these, the reason was not due to a lack of religion on his part but to the fact that his
extended family though marriage was Hindu, and
that this religious group also comprised a large percentage of the court
nobility.
Religion was the impetus for another ‘fact’ of the Mughal court
that arrived in Europe. Hawkins writes that the locals were
concerned that a Christian had become so close to the emperor and so they tried to oust him from
his place in the court.28 The importance the English placed on themselves as being
instigators of Christianity at the Mughal court was, at the time, a direct jab at the Portuguese, who
had been at the Mughal court since the reign of
Akbar. Hawkins and Finch both considered the ‘conversion’ of three of Jahangir’s
nephews to Christianity to be due to the English presence, which
directly implies that it had nothing to
do with the prevalent, more long-standing presence of the Portuguese
fathers at the court. Finch relayed that
Hawkins considered the conversion to be an honor to England because he carried the flag of Saint George before the
children on their way to the church.29 However, from the same passage we are told that the
Christian names given to the children all began
with ‘Don’ (Don Philippo, Don Carlo and Don
Henrico), a Portuguese adjunct to the names,
and that the Jesuit Fathers were to be the ones responsible for daily
teaching the children about how to be
good Christians.30 From these facts it would appear that in truth it
was the Portuguese and the Jesuit
fathers who had much more influence in convincing the emperor to allow his nephews to be converted to
Christianity, rather than the English.
Christian beliefs obviously
influenced the English at the court very strongly, as exemplified again by the following. It was known that
Muslims were traditionally circumcised at birth, and if not, there faith was considered to be
in doubt. Thomas Coryat relayed a rumor that
Jahangir was uncircumcised, and gave this report further distinction by
claiming that the Emperor was the only
Muslim prince rumored to be in such a state.31 What would have
been the reason for relaying such a
rumor? It can be interpreted in the following manner. By remaining uncircumcised, it meant that from
an early age Jahangir was not touted as a devout Muslim, and, therefore, that there was either
more reason to suppose that he may eventually
be open to conversion to Christianity, or that he would be more
sympathetic to the plight of the
European Christians who were now coming to ask for the rights to trade.
Indicative
of the wide breadth of information which was perceived as correct and which
then made its way into the realm of
truth is the reputed way by which Akbar died. Terry relates that when Akbar was put out with one of his
nobles he would give him a poisoned pill by the
method of having another, non-lethal pill which looked the same to take
himself so that the noble would not get
suspicious. However, one day it happened that Akbar took the wrong pill, which killed him within a few days.32
This
propensity to believe in the radical and mystical accounts that were heard or
created must have found a resonance in
the minds of these English travelers as they then repeated the rumors for the benefit of those they wrote
their letters to, or for the readers of their accounts once they were published in England. One of
the more outlandish rumors repeated by Coryat
was that Akbar was versed in the arts of sorcery, proven by the fact
that one day cut off his chief queen’s head and
subsequently reattached it with magic.33
Another
example in which a surmise or rumor becomes fact is in the case of William
Finch writing about how Jahangir came to
the throne. He writes that Prince Salim was in revolt against Akbar, which was true, and that Salim’s
son, Khusrau, had been named by Akbar as his successor.34
This was true up to a point, which is to say that Khusrau was the
preferred choice by Akbar during this
period but was not formally named as the heir. Finch then goes on to write that Akbar died while Salim was
still in revolt against him, and that Salim then took the throne by force from Khusrau.35
This was not the case, as Salim was reconciled with Akbar before Akbar’s death, and named by Akbar
as his heir. It is true that Khusrau then
revolted against Jahangir as he had
expectations of the throne, but there was no case of Jahangir defeating his own son to claim the
throne.
Yet another instance of such rumors
becoming fact has to do with a willingness to believe the more salacious gossip surrounding the court.
Finch writes of the myth of Anarkali, reported
to have been a young
woman in Akbar’s harem who, on exchanging glances with Prince Salim
in front of Akbar, was walled up alive as punishment. Salim was said to have
been so distraught by this that upon
coming to the throne one of his first acts as Jahangir was to order the construction of a grand tomb for her in
Lahore. Finch identifies Anarkali as one of
Akbar’s wives and not as one of the girls from his
harem, and so states that the Prince was
having an interlude with his step-mother!36 Writing a few
years after Finch, Terry gives another
account of Anarkali which could be interpreted as a different story. Terry
still refers to her as one of Akbar’s
wives, but writes that Akbar had threatened to disinherit Salim because he had abused Anarkali.37 This implies
that there was more of an inappropriate
behavior on the part of Salim and not Anarkali, and reiterates the fact
that she was one of Akbar’s wives, not a
member of the harem.
These
types of rumors were also prevalent regarding the harem and the ‘unnatural’ occurrences which could happen there. For example, Coryat
tells that in the annual fair within the
palace grounds in which the ladies of the harem were able to go and make purchases, that anything brought into the
makeshift bazaar of a ‘virill’ shape would be cut and made jagged because the king was jealous that they may
be put to unnatural use.38
Continuing
in this vein we have a rumor reported by Roe that was patently false. He intimates that there was something between
Shah Jahan and his step-mother, Nur Jahan. Just
before Shah Jahan was to leave for his campaign against the Deccan Roe
went to see him about the collection of
a debt and wrote of Shah Jahan that: ‘...I found some inward trouble now and then assayle him, and a kind of
brokenness and distraction in his thoughts,
unprovidedly and amasedly answering sutors, or not hearing. If I can
judge any thing, hee hath left his hart
among his fathers women, with whom he hath liberty of conversation. Normahall in the English coach the day before
visited him and tooke leave. She gave him a
cloake all embrodered with pearle, diamonds, and rubyes; and carried
away, if I err now, his attention to all
other business.’39
The
rumors and reports conveyed to England were not always of such a tone, however.
At times they had a more historical
bent. One rumor claimed by Edward Terry and then later supported by two other European travelers, an
Englishman and a Frenchman, was that
Jahangir decided that he would be buried in Akbar’s tomb in Sikandra when he
himself died;40 this did not happen in the end and a new
tomb was built for him in Shahdara, in
Lahore. Another inaccurate rumor concerning the Sikandra tomb of Akbar
is that Akbar himself began it, again
reported by Terry, but from Jahangir’s own memoirs we are told that he ordered the tomb constructed after he took the
throne.
IV. Conclusion
The
contradiction felt by the English in their dealings with the non-European world
has been aptly summed up by Richmond
Barbour in his discussion on the journal of Anthony Marlow, a member of the East India Company: ‘As he oscillates
between Anglocentrism and admirations of difference, claims of
achievement and confessions of need, Marlowe vividly documents the Jacobean para- dox of expansive
insularity: the mariners repeatedly found
themselves desperate for help from others whom they preferred to think
unfortunate for not being English.’41
While able to touch on only a few reasons for and examples of English perceptions of Jahangir’s court, it is clear that there were many reasons, influences and circumstances that affected how these travel writers chose to describe and convey what they thought of the Mughal court, its nobles and the Emperor himself. England would go on to have a greater impact that the seventeenth-century travelers of the nation would have ever envisioned, but it seems clear that when exploring how the initial reputation of the Mughal Empire was created in England, through the writings of the English in Mughal Hindustan, there were many different factors that came into play.
FOOT NOTS
1. John Mildenhall was the first of the EIC representatives to arrive at the Mughal court, but during the final years of Akbar’s reign. He arrived at Agra in 1603, 2 years before Akbar died in 1605. Mildenhall arrived as a merchant but decided to present himself to Akbar as a spokesman for the English Monarch, Queen Elizabeth I, thus starting the trend of EIC representatives attempting to speak for the Crown without official capacity, with which Sir Thomas Roe then had to contend with as the first true Ambassador of the English Crown to the Mughal Court.
2. William Finch. ‘Observations of William Finch, Merchant, taken out of his large Journall,’ Purchas His Pilgrimes, Samuel Purchas, Vol 4., James MacLehose and Sons, University of Glasgow Press, Glasgow, 1905, p. 38.
3. The points which follow are discussed in Pramod Nayar. ‘Marvelous Excesses: English Travel Writing and India, 1608-1727.’ Journal of British Studies. 44 (2, April 2005):224-230
4. Ibid. pp. 225, 229.
5. Ibid., p. 230.
6. Edward Terry, ‘A Relation of a Voyage to the Easterne India. Observed by Edward Terry, Master of arts and Student of Christ-Church in Oxford.’ Purchas His Pilgrimes, Samuel Purchas, Vol 9., James MacLehose and Sons, University of Glasgow Press, Glasgow, 1905, p. 24.
7. Nayar. ‘Marvelous Excesses: English Travel Writing and India, 1608-1727.’ 230.
8. William Hawkins, ‘Captaine William Hawkins, his Relations of the Occcurents which happened in the time of his residence in india, in the Country of the Great Mogoll, and of his departure from thence; written to the Company’: Purchas His Pilgrimes, Samuel Purchas, Vol 3., James MacLehose and Sons, University of Glasgow Press, Glasgow, 1905, pp. 42-3.
9. Hawkins, ‘Captaine William Hawkins, his Relations of the Occcurents which happened in the time of his residence in india, in the Country of the Great Mogoll,’ 12-13.
10. Ram Chandra Prasad. Early English Travellers in India. Indilogical Publishers, New Delhi, 2nd ed. 1980: 91.
11. Hawkins, ‘Captaine William Hawkins, his Relations of the Occcurents which happened in the time of his residence in india, in the Country of the Great Mogoll,’ 14.
12. ‘At the name of an ambassador they laughd one upon a nother; it beeing become ridiculous, so many having assumed the that title, and not performed the offices;…I mention these only to lett the Company understand how meanly an embassador was esteemed at my landing; how they subjected them selves to all searches and barbarous customes,…if it seeme to any that shall heare of my first carriadge that I was eyther too stiff, to punctuall, too high, or to prodigall, lett them consider I was to repayre a ruynd house and to make streight that which was crooked.’ William Foster (ed.), The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India, 1615-1619, as narrated in his journal and correspondence, revised edition, London, Oxford Univerisyt Press, 1926: 30
13. Richmond Barbour. ‘Power and Distant Display: Early English “Ambassadors” in Moghal India.’ Huntington Library Quarterly, 61 (3/4) 1998: 353.
14. Foster (ed.), The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India, 1615-1619: 83.
15. Barbour. ‘Power and Distant Display: Early English “Ambassadors” in Moghal India.’ 345.
16. Terry, ‘A Relation of a Voyage to the Eaterne India’ p. 38. The English were in fact fascinated with the Mughal world around them, but at times this became a morbid fascination which then served once again to illustrate that the English and Christendom were superior. Take, for example, the continued fascination with the habit of Sati; many travelers witnessed such acts and all lamented that it existed and occurred. However, the fact that everyone did mention or witness the act speaks of the draw it had not only for the English present at the act itself, but also to the readership who would peruse the writings of the travelers in England.
17. Thomas Coryat, ‘A Letter of Mr. Thomas Coryat, which travailed by Land from Jerusalem to the Court of he Great Mogol, written to Mr. L. Whitaker. To which are added pieces of two other, to entertayne you with a little Indian-Odcombian mirth,’: Purchas His Pilgrimes, Samuel Purchas, Vol 4., James MacLehose and Sons, University of Glasgow Press, Glasgow, 1905, p. 475
18. Foster (ed.), The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India, 1615-1619: 289-90.
19. William Finch. ‘Observations of William Finch, Merchant, taken out of his large Journall,’ Purchas His Pilgrimes, Samuel Purchas, Vol 4., James MacLehose and Sons, University of Glasgow Press, Glasgow, 1905, p. 57.
20. It should be sated that for all these points it was not just the English which did this, but many of the other European visitors and travlers to the mughal realm as well.
21. Barbour. ‘Power and Distant Display: Early English “Ambassadors” in Moghal India.’ 344.
22. The ceremonial of the court dictated that when the Emperor was in darbur or holding audience, the nobles of the court were placed around the hall in accordance with their rank, and only the closes advisors and highest ranking nobles were allowed into the rails closest to the Emperor. It was within these rails that Roe was granted the right to stand, in addition to not being required to offer Jahangir the customary greeting when brought into his presences as he found the acts of bowing and touching the floor to be insulting to himself and his King.
23. Foster (ed.), The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India, 1615-1619: 264.
24. Coryat, ‘A Letter of Mr. Thomas Coryat, which travailed by Land from Jerusalem to the Court of he Great Mogol,’: p. 490.
25. Foster (ed.), The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India, 1615-1619: p. 102.
26. Foster (ed.), The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India, 1615-1619. 102. ‘But the government so uncertayne, without written law, without policye, the customs mingled with barbarisme, religions infinite, the buildings of mudd (except the Kings howses and some few others): that even this greatness and wealth that I edmired in England is wher I see yt, almost contemptible, and turns myne eyes with infinite longings to see Your Majesties face and happiness...’
27. Ibid: 276.
28. Hawkins, ‘Captaine William Hawkins, his Relations of the Occcurents which happened in the time of his residence in india, in the Country of the Great Mogoll.’ 17.
29. 29 Finch. ‘Observations of William Finch, Merchant, taken out of his large Journall.’40.
30. Ibid. 41.
31. Coryat, ‘A Letter of Mr. Thomas Coryat, which travailed by Land from Jerusalem to the Court of he Great Mogol.’ 474
32. Terry, ‘A Relation of a Voyage to the Eaterne India.’ 51.
33. Coryat, ‘A Letter of Mr. Thomas Coryat, which travailed by Land from Jerusalem to the Court of he Great Mogol.’ 489.
34. Finch. ‘Observations of William Finch, Merchant, taken out of his large Journall.’50.
35. Ibid.
36. Terry, ‘A Relation of a Voyage to the Eaterne India.’ 57.
37. Ibid. 51.
38. Coryat, ‘A Letter of Mr. Thomas Coryat, which travailed by Land from Jerusalem to the Court of he Great Mogol.’ 491.
39. 39 Foster (ed.), The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to India, 1615-1619: 289-90.
40. Terry, ‘A Relation of a Voyage to the Eaterne India.’ 37.
41. Richmond Barbour. ‘The East India Company Journal of Anthony Marlowe, 1607-1608.’ The Huntington Library Quarterly, 71, 2. 2008: p. 257
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