When Mice Eat Cats: An Allegory of Empire as Border Art in the Diary of an Eighteenth-Century Mughal Bureaucrat

IF 0.2 0 HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY
Sudev J Sheth, M. Dawood
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Abstract

Abstract:The study of Mughal history has relied extensively on manuscript sources in Persian language, especially court chronicles, travelers' tales, biographical dictionaries, and statistical accounts. Visual evidence, to the limited extent it is identified for study, tends to focus on court paintings, monumental architecture, or exceptional regalia left by royals. This essay breaks new ground by introducing a less elite source with striking visuals that helps to challenge dominant explanations of social change in eighteenth-century India. The source is the Persian diary of a lower-level Mughal bureaucrat named Itimad Ali Khan titled Mirat-ul Ḥaqaiq or Mirror of Events. Produced in the 1720s and acquired by East India Company official James Fraser during his stay in Gujarat, the compendium is now held at the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. We begin by highlighting the cultural environment within which the Mirat-ul Ḥaqaiq was produced, and then present a conjectural interpretation of some stunning and unusual border art set across eight folios of the manuscript. Critical to this effort is an altogether new translation of the 71 lines of poetry that accompany the colorful illustrations. The art sequence tells the tale of a powerful and overconfident Cat King who is unexpectedly defeated by mice underlings. Despite recent scholarship that emphasizes eighteenth-century India as a period of continuity, growth, and economic prosperity, we suggest that for those directly involved in Mughal administration like Itimad Ali Khan, the spirit of the age felt more like one of social decline and political disorder boldly expressed by the topsy-turvy imagery of mice devouring cats.
《当老鼠吃猫:18世纪莫卧儿王朝官员日记中作为边境艺术的帝国寓言》
摘要:对莫卧儿历史的研究广泛依赖于波斯语的手稿来源,特别是宫廷纪事、旅行者故事、传记词典和统计记录。视觉证据,在有限的范围内,它被确定为研究,往往集中在宫廷绘画,纪念性建筑,或特殊的王室成员留下的王权。这篇文章开辟了新的领域,引入了一个不那么精英的来源,具有引人注目的视觉效果,有助于挑战对18世纪印度社会变革的主流解释。来源是一个名叫伊蒂玛德·阿里·汗的下层莫卧儿官僚的波斯语日记,名为Mirat-ul Ḥaqaiq或事件之镜。该纲要制作于18世纪20年代,由东印度公司官员詹姆斯·弗雷泽(James Fraser)在古吉拉特邦逗留期间获得,目前保存在牛津大学的博德利图书馆。我们首先强调Mirat-ul Ḥaqaiq产生的文化环境,然后对手稿中八对开本中一些令人惊叹和不寻常的边界艺术进行推测性的解释。这一努力的关键是对71行诗的全新翻译,并配以彩色插图。艺术序列讲述了一个强大而过于自信的猫王意外地被老鼠下属打败的故事。尽管最近的学术研究强调18世纪的印度是一个持续、增长和经济繁荣的时期,但我们认为,对于那些直接参与莫卧儿王朝管理的人,比如伊蒂玛德·阿里·汗,那个时代的精神更像是一个社会衰退和政治混乱的时代,大胆地用老鼠吞噬猫的颠倒形象来表达。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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CiteScore
0.30
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0.00%
发文量
16
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