During the reign of Emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605), drawing upon already-existing traditions, the Mughal Empire’s administrative system was accorded uniformity and stability through a system of bureaucratic ranking known as the mansab system. According to Akbar’s court chronicler, Abul Fazl, mansabdari as a form of service came into existence because the strength of one man, that is, the Emperor, was ‘scarcely adequate’ for ‘such an arduous undertaking’ of dispersing the clouds of ignorance and infusing new vigour among men (Abul Fazl 1873, 237). Guided by the light of his knowledge, therefore, the Emperor selected some excellent men to help him. These men came to be known as mansabdars. Consequently, when they were enrolled into imperial bureaucracy, they were simultaneously ranked. While the lowest mansab (rank) was 10, the highest was 7000 (Ibid., 341, 527).
At the same time, socially, these mansabdars were strongly wedded to the principle of ‘nobility by birth’. This was to such an extent that in popular understanding, ‘the absence of a noble lineage was considered a disqualification for royal service.’ However, irrespective of their ancestry, all entrants into the royal service ‘had to work their way up from the lower grades, promotion depending mainly on merit’ (Chandra 1972, xxv, xxix). Thus, many of these officials may have been elite by birth, but from the point of view of the institution they were serving—the mansabdari—they often held middling or lower ranks. In other words, nobility by birth was a prerequisite for mansabdari but noble birth did not automatically translate into a high mansab. Such a situation created anxiety in the socio-cultural milieu, which was a by-product of the need to prove an aristocratic identity associated with bloodline among one’s peers. In this context, this article undertakes a case study of the Qayamkhani mansabdars, who belonged to the lowest rungs of the bureaucratic structure.
The Qayamkhanis
The Qayamkhanis were a small community of Hindu converts to Islam from northern Rajasthan (Talbot 2009, 211). While they celebrated their founding ancestor, Karam Chand or Qayam Khan, who had adopted Islam generations earlier, they also represented themselves during the course of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries as local warriors of the Rajput clan: the Chauhans. Their first genealogical history, the Qayamkhan Rasa, was composed in Braj Bhasha (a form of Hindi language spoken mainly in parts of central India; Bhasha itself is a Hindi word for language) between c. 1630 and 1655 at Fatehpur. It was authored by Nayamat Khan, under the pseudonym of Jan Kavi (Talbot 2009, 212).
As far as their status in the Mughal mansabdari is concerned, according to the references in the Qayamkhan Rasa, the Qayamkhanis joined the service of Akbar quite early in his reign. The Mughal sources—specifically the works of Abul Fazl and Nizamuddin Ahmad—do not include any Qayamkhani in their lists of Akbar’s mansabdars of rank 200 and above (Budhwar 1978, 415). Hence, one can safely assume that none of them held a mansab higher than 200 during Akbar’s period. In the period of Jahangir, the highest mansab gained by a Qayamkhani named Alaf Khan was 2000 (Jahangir 1999, 381, 410). Later under Shah Jahan, the ranks of the Qayamkhanis ranged between 1500 and 100 (Budhwar 1978, 417–18). Thus, the Qayamkhanis essentially belonged to the cadre of low-ranking mansabdari.
Taking into consideration the socio-cultural environment in which the Qayamkhanis joined the imperial service, a written record of one’s noble lineage would undoubtedly work to the benefit of this Muslim community of Hindu converts. It would not only prove their eligibility for royal service but also elevate their socio-cultural status despite their low institutional rank. Jan Kavi, living in the Mughal seventeenth century—marked by the evolution of the mansabdari system leading to the formation of a multi-national, multi-racial, and multi-religious bureaucracy—would have been conscious of the same. The process of the formation of a composite mansabdari, which began under Akbar and continued under his successors, seems to have acted as a catalyst for Jan Kavi. It coaxed him to write his community’s genealogical history, the Qayamkhan Rasa, as we shall see, as a partly fictionalized account. In its composition, the author’s primary objective remained the fashioning of a lofty lineage for his community in a retrospective manner.
Community Memory
Among the various ways in which Jan Kavi fabricates the genealogical history or, more appropriately, genealogical memory of the Qayamkhanis is the recreation of an ancestral sequence tracing their origins. What uncovers such fabrication is the fact that many of the author’s ideas seem to be somewhat inspired by the writings of Abul Fazl.
Abul Fazl, as mentioned above, was the official chronicler of Akbar. He was also Akbar’s counsellor on matters such as religion and his ideas on the nature of sovereignty and state policy are well-recognized (Habib 1998, 329). He is known to have created a dynastic ideology, a theory of kingship, which was no less than ‘an edifice aimed at establishing a new legitimacy for Akbar and his successors’ (Richards 1993, 45). Thus, he created an ideological stronghold for the Mughal Empire by spelling out the extraordinariness that justified the Mughal claim to the throne. ‘The illuminationist theme’, to use J.F. Richards’s term, is considered one of the key ingredients of this dynastic ideology, which he puts down in his Akbarnama (Ibid.; Asher 2004, 168–71).
The line of thought which influenced Abul Fazl in creating a concept of ‘a hidden divine radiance’ possessed by every Mughal Emperor as one of the fundamental principles legitimizing Mughal kingship was that of Shihabuddin Suhrawardi Maqtul (Habib 1998, 329). According to the Persian Neoplatonic philosophy finding expression in the teachings of Suhrawardi, all life was ‘given existence by the constant blinding illumination’ from God. Hence, ‘all men possess a divine spark.’ However, it was only the highest of these men who were ‘the true theosophists or masters of the age.’ Among these masters, often men such as Suhrawardi himself or Plato are included. In Abul Fazl’s interpretation, Akbar was one such man, ‘a divinely imbued monarch.’ Moreover, theoretically, God’s illumination reached man through ‘a chain of dazzling angels’ at the head of which was the angel Gabriel who is ‘identified with the true spirit of [Prophet] Muhammad’ (Richards 1993, 46). Thus, in the Islamic tradition, it is believed that angel Gabriel (or Jibril) was the one who made certain revelations to Prophet Muhammad, which then became the beginnings of the Quran.
Abul Fazl plays with this concept of light by associating it with Akbar’s ancestry. Tracing Akbar’s ancestry, beginning with Adam—the ancestor of all men—Abul Fazl pursues the passage of the hidden divine radiance until it reaches and illumines the spirit and intelligence of Akbar. According to Abul Fazl’s interpretation, the divine light passed from Adam to the Biblical prophets to Joseph (Abul Fazl 1907, I:155–68; Richards 1993, 46). Joseph was the father of Turk, the ruler of Turkestan. ‘Turk’s son Mughal Khan was the first of nine generations of Turco-Mongol kings’ and ‘the last ruler in the line was defeated and dispersed by an enemy.’ As the story goes, the defeated ruler and his tribe were forced to retreat to Mughalistan ‘where they remained in obscurity and seclusion for two millennia’ (Abul Fazl 1907, I:168–77; Richards 1993, 46). It was in a mountain valley of Mughalistan that an extraordinary event took place.
Alanquwa was a Mughal queen married to the king of Mughalistan, Zubun Biyan. She was widowed early leading to her becoming the sovereign of her tribe. However, she remained childless as a result of her husband’s premature death. Alanquwa has been presented as ‘the cupola of chastity and veil of purity,’ and so as she, the ‘divinely radiant one’, lay sleeping in her bed one night, the following episode transpired:
[S]uddenly a glorious light cast a ray into the tent and entered the mouth and throat of that fount of spiritual knowledge and glory. The cupola of chastity became pregnant by that light in the same way as did her Majesty (Ḥaṣrat) Miryam (Mary) the daughter of ‘Imran (Amram) (Abul Fazl 1907, I:178–79; Richards 1993, 46).
Being impregnated miraculously by ‘a ray of light’, Alanquwa gave birth to triplets—Buqun Qanqi, Yusuqi Salji, and Buzanjar Qaan. Significantly, their descendants came to be known as ‘Nairun’ or ‘light-produced’. According to Abul Fazl, they were ‘considered to be the noblest class among the Mughals.’ Buzanjar Qaan, the youngest, was the ninth ancestor of Chingiz Khan. From him, the hidden light, passing through Chingiz Khan, ultimately reached Amir Timur, the fourteenth-century conqueror (Abul Fazl 1907, I:183–204; Richards 1993, 47). This is followed by a long narrative of descent through generations reaching Babur, Humayun, and finally, Akbar (Abul Fazl 1907, I:204–667; II:1–15). Thus, Akbar becomes the receiver of the divine light ‘that had passed from generation to generation’ (Richards 1993, 47).
To put matters into perspective, what follows is the analysis of the verses of the Qayamkhan Rasa, which reflect how these ideas were adopted and adapted by Jan Kavi. In verse 9, Jan Kavi says that ‘the creator of the world first created the light of Muhammad and from this light then the genesis of the world took place’ (Jan Kavi 1996, 14). This can be appropriately compared with Suhrawardi’s ideas—that in turn shaped Abul Fazl’s—that life on earth came into existence with the help of illumination from God; a chain of angels headed by Gabriel acted as an intermediary and, through them, God’s light reached men in the form of revelations to Prophet Muhammad. Following this, in verses 12 and 13, Jan Kavi says:
After this in God’s heart, a wish to create humans took birth. Now listen carefully to this story of the first humans who were created. I have found in many books that the first man to take birth was Adam, who was named so because of his creation from the earth (Ibid.).
Clearly, like in Akbar’s case, the ancestry has been traced back to Adam, the believed ancestor of all humans. Following the line of descent, in verse 31, Jan Kavi mentions Nuh, who was the father of three sons. They were named Sanm, Hanm, and Yafiz. In the verses that follow, he considers communities like Ara, Arman, Parsi, Nabi, Jahan, etc., to be the descendants of Sanm, the eldest. Among these descendants, he includes the Pathans, but more significantly the Chauhans, i.e., the Hindu ancestors of the Qayamkhanis. At the same time, Mughals are included in the list of the descendants of the youngest son, Yafiz (Ibid., 17). The idea can very well be considered analogous to the story of the ‘light-produced’ triplets. Worthy of note is that he places his Hindu ancestry higher in the hierarchy by declaring the Chauhans to be the descendants of the eldest son while staying true to the tale of Mughals descending from the youngest.
The similarities connecting Abul Fazl’s account—written with the aim of attaching divinity to Mughal claim to unquestionable authority—and that of Jan Kavi’s—aimed at establishing a noble bloodline for socio-cultural elevation—are perceivable. However, this is not to say that Jan Kavi or the Qayamkhani community were actively involved in reading and interpreting Abul Fazl’s works. It is difficult to support such an argument with concrete evidence. The arguments are, hence, based on the supposition that these ideas must have circulated widely and, by the period of the composition of the Qayamkhan Rasa, these ideas had firmly established themselves inside and outside the Mughal court. Additionally, these must have found a place in the popular imagination. Capturing and making a home in collective public consciousness was, in fact, the very purpose of such a dynastic ideology conferring divine legitimacy on the Mughal rule.
In this way, acculturation to Mughal norms may have taken place among the Qayamkhanis. Thus, we find Mughal ideas of dynastic origins making their way into a regional work such as the Rasa.
Genealogical Identity
Another way through which Jan Kavi attempted to socially ennoble his community was to use their mixed Hindu-Muslim identity to their advantage rather than to their detriment. Having entered the imperial service as followers of the Islamic faith, their genealogical history, the Qayamkhan Rasa as mentioned above, still represented them as local warriors of the Rajput clan of the Chauhans. At many places in the text, Jan Kavi also extols the excellence of the Chauhans among other Rajput dynasties. Thus, by being a community with feet in two worlds, the Qayamkhanis experimented with their identity. The narrative of conversion recorded in the text, that is, the story of their ancestor Karam Chand—whom, in words of Jan Kavi, ‘the creator made a Muslim from a Hindu’—is significant for this argument.
The author places the story in the reign of Sultan Firuz Shah of the Tughlaq dynasty, who ruled the Indian subcontinent from his capital in Delhi from 1351 to 1388. Divinity is an enveloping theme whereby on a hunting expedition (in Hisar, in present-day Haryana), Karam Chand happened to rest in the shade of a tree. At noon when the shadow of all the other trees had disappeared, the tree under which Karam Chand was peacefully sleeping continued to produce a shadow. He was noticed by the Sultan, who was perplexed by the miraculousness as Karam Chand was a Hindu, a Chauhan. In the eyes of the Sultan and his company, the man could have received God’s grace only because he was fated to adopt Islam eventually. He was thus taken to court and trained under the supervision of the Sultan’s General, Sayyid Nasir. When the appropriate time of his conversion came, Karam Chand has been quoted saying, ‘It is my heartiest wish to join the Islamic sect, but I fear that after conversion no one will want to establish relations with my community.’ On this, the Sultan’s General, Sayyid Nasir, through his miraculous powers, predicted that after becoming the ruler of Mandore (in present-day Rajasthan), Rao Rathore would send his daughter as a bride to Karam Chand’s house. Additionally, Bahlol Lodi (r. 1451–89), who, according to the General’s prediction, would rule Delhi one day, would also marry his daughter into Karam Chand’s community. Convinced of the continuation of his community’s association with both the Rajput clan and the Turkish clan through matrimonial alliances, Karam Chand joined the sect by reading the Namaz, getting circumcised, and taking the name Qayam Khan (Jan Kavi 1996, 31–37).
Qayam Khan thenceforth continued to rise in rank and status. As a matter of fact, when Sayyid Nasir—who was initially put in charge of overseeing Qayam Khan’s education in the customs and traditions of the Islamic faith and made the above predictions—fell sick, he is believed to have asked the Sultan to confer his mansab and wealth onto Qayam Khan. He declared that Qayam Khan was no less than a son to him,, worthy of serving the Empire (the Sultanate), and the accomplishments of all his other sons were inferior in comparison to his. According to the text, the Sultan accepted, saying that Qayam Khan was indeed the rightful heir based on his capabilities. Additionally, when the Sultan wished to go on an expedition with the aim of capturing Thatta (in present-day Sindh, Pakistan), Jan Kavi conjures Qayam Khan up as the gracious faujdar (military commander) who was entrusted with the supervision of the capital city of Delhi (Ibid., 31–37).
There is a visible element of the legend in the Rasa. Needless to say, the text reflects more the present circumstances in which the author lived—seventeenth-century Mughal India—than the reality of his past. In the author’s present, matrimonial alliances between the Rajputs and the Mughals were of great political significance. Akbar’s Rajput policy, based on these alliances, and also followed by his successors, helped build a strong Empire by converting the Rajputs into reliable allies. Thus, in a retrospective manner, author Jan Kavi tries to enhance his community’s prestige by declaring that the Qayamkhanis had already well-established matrimonial relations with even the Delhi Sultans who ruled before the Mughals. Sayyid Nasir’s predictions came true when further in the Rasa Shams Khan, a Qayamkhani, agreed to accept Behlol Lodi’s daughter as a bride for his son. He also gave his sister in marriage to the Sultan himself (Ibid., 78).
Here, it is worth noting that in the Mughal period, it is generally believed that ‘the proposal of marriage always came from the Rajput side,’ and the alliances were ‘all along one-way traffic and no Mughal princess is recorded to have been married to a Rajput’ (Nath 2013, 40–42). The author goes a step further and presents the matrimonial alliances with the Delhi Sultans as “two-way traffic” with women from the family of the Sultans marrying into the Qayamkhani community. However, in the absence of any other record from the period of the Delhi Sultanate, it would be incorrect to assume that such marital relations were actually established on the basis of a source that could very well be a poetic legend. One can, however, convincingly argue that the forging of matrimonial alliances for purposes of political gain was in vogue during the lifetime of Jan Kavi and hence finds a place in his work.
At the same time, being a community of intermixed ancestry, the Qayamkhanis simultaneously participated in ‘both the worlds’. Thus, even Sayyid Nasir’s other prediction of continued association with the Rajput clan through more such marriage-based pacts became a reality on the pages of the Rasa. Not only were ties formed with Rao Jodha of the Rathore clan but also with the house of Bikaner (Jan Kavi 1996, 77, 98). It can also be argued that although the Qayamkhanis were ‘Indian Muslims’, as they ‘lived in a primarily non-Muslim rural environment,’ they transgressed or manipulated the boundaries of both their immediate local environment and the broader milieu of the Empire they were serving. In this way, ‘they partook in multiple, overlapping, social and cultural spheres’ (Talbot 2009, 226). An attempt, through fictional history, was made to create a socio-cultural identity that could secure a high place for them not only in their immediate non-Muslim society but also in the Muslim world of composite bureaucracy.
Thus, it seems that the Rasa is written as a back-projection. Belonging to a community of converts, in the anxiety to make a place for his community in the larger world, Jan Kavi must have thought it appropriate to compose such a retrospective apocryphal account: an experiment in community identity through ‘a mishmash of myths, self-adulation, distorted chronology and constructed history’ (Chaudhuri 2008, 63–64).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the above discussion uncovers the two ways in which recreated community memory through the Rasa serves the Qayamkhanis. First, by introducing divinity into the narrative, they were able to base it on the very concept that in many ways ensured the continuation of the Empire they were themselves serving. Second, they attempted to leverage a mixed Hindu–Muslim genealogical identity to safely secure a decent if not high place in the society. How far they were actually successful is a matter of conjecture as they continued to stay on the lowest rungs of the bureaucratic structure. The impulse behind the fabrication of memory and experimentation with identity is, of course, the context: the evolution of mansabdari as not only a political but a social institution. A high descent was always an asset but, particularly in the seventeenth century, genealogy became a critical factor impacting and, in some cases, bolstering the claims of the various branches of Rajput lineages as they joined the Mughal mansabdari (Talbot 2009, 217). The need of the hour was to actively promote one’s noble lineage for employment as well as social status. Thus, Jan Kavi adjusts ‘the representations of the past…to make sense of the present,’ as well as achieve ‘contemporary objectives’ (Talbot 2016, 7). ‘A revised past’, it can be argued, holds in itself ‘the promise of a perfectible present’ (Ibid.), and this seems to be his major incentive.
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Riya Gupta is a doctoral candidate in Medieval and Early Modern History from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. Her research focuses on the socio-cultural life of Mughal bureaucracy, with a particular emphasis on petty officialdom.
Email: writetoriya23@gmail.com
Twitter: @iamriyagupta
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