A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos,
University of California Press’s new open access publishing
program for monographs. Visit
www.luminosoa.org to learn more.
Writing Self, Writing Empire examines the life, career, and
writings of the Mughal state secretary, or munshi, Chandar Bhan
“Brahman” (d. c.1670), one of the great Indo-Persian
poets and prose stylists of early modern South Asia. Chandar
Bhan’s life spanned the reigns of four different emperors,
Akbar (1556-1605), Jahangir (1605-1627), Shah Jahan (1628-1658),
and Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir (1658-1707), the last of the
“Great Mughals” whose courts dominated the culture and
politics of the subcontinent at the height of the empire’s
power, territorial reach, and global influence.
As a high-caste Hindu who worked for a series of Muslim monarchs
and other officials, forming powerful friendships along the way,
Chandar Bhan’s experience bears vivid testimony to the
pluralistic atmosphere of the Mughal court, particularly during the
reign of Shah Jahan, the celebrated builder of the Taj Mahal.
But his widely circulated and emulated works also touch on a range
of topics central to our understanding of the court’s
literary, mystical, administrative, and ethical cultures, while his
letters and autobiographical writings provide tantalizing examples
of early modern Indo-Persian modes of self-fashioning.
Chandar Bhan’s oeuvre is a valuable window onto a crucial,
though surprisingly neglected, period of Mughal cultural and
political history.