{"title":"Revisiting the Mirzanama: Class Consciousness and the Mughal Middle Classes","authors":"Riya Gupta","doi":"10.1177/09719458221113129","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Drawing on earlier scholarship that argues for the existence of the middle classes in the Mughal Indian society, this article aims to render their sociocultural history more visible through a re-examination of the Mirzanama. The text, often associated with the elite, on the contrary, addresses the middling petty officialdom, advising them on micro-aspects of their sociocultural lives such as the etiquette of dining. Read imaginatively, the advisory reveals class consciousness—in terms of being distinct from both the nobility and the common populace—to be an important factor defining the middle-class way of life. Significantly, a micro-historical reflection, macro-historically helps us challenge the recently created dichotomy, in historical scholarship, between the elite and the non-elite, by reasserting the presence of sufficiently conscious middle strata.","PeriodicalId":42683,"journal":{"name":"MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL","volume":"26 1","pages":"137 - 160"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"MEDIEVAL HISTORY JOURNAL","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09719458221113129","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Drawing on earlier scholarship that argues for the existence of the middle classes in the Mughal Indian society, this article aims to render their sociocultural history more visible through a re-examination of the Mirzanama. The text, often associated with the elite, on the contrary, addresses the middling petty officialdom, advising them on micro-aspects of their sociocultural lives such as the etiquette of dining. Read imaginatively, the advisory reveals class consciousness—in terms of being distinct from both the nobility and the common populace—to be an important factor defining the middle-class way of life. Significantly, a micro-historical reflection, macro-historically helps us challenge the recently created dichotomy, in historical scholarship, between the elite and the non-elite, by reasserting the presence of sufficiently conscious middle strata.
期刊介绍:
The Medieval History Journal is designed as a forum for expressing spatial and temporal flexibility in defining "medieval" and for capturing its expansive thematic domain. A refereed journal, The Medieval History Journal explores problematics relating to all aspects of societies in the medieval universe. Articles which are comparative and interdisciplinary and those with a broad canvas find particular favour with the journal. It seeks to transcend the narrow boundaries of a single discipline and encompasses the related fields of literature, art, archaeology, anthropology, sociology and human geography.