¹ Sarkar, Jadunath, The History of Bengal: Muslim Period, 1200–1757, Patna, 1973Google Scholar; Raychaudhuri, Tapan, Bengal under Akbar and Jahangir—An Introductory Study in Social History, Delhi, 1969, (1^st publ. 1953)Google Scholar; Chatterjee, Anjali, Bengal in the Reign of Aurangzeb 1658–1707, Calcutta, 1967Google Scholar. K.K. Datta, in his Alivardi and His Times, Calcutta, 1939 and Abdul Karim, in Murshid Quli Khan and His Times, Dacca, 1963 studied the Nizamat phase. The economy of the period was the subject of Chaudhury, Sushil's Trade and Commercial Organization in Bengal, 1650–1720, Calcutta, 1975Google Scholar; idem, From Prosperity to Decline, Eighteenth-Century Bengal, Delhi, 1995; while his Prelude to Empire: Plassey Revolution of 1757, Delhi, 2000, focused on political issues; works of Om Prakash, for instance, centre on the workings of the economy of primarily the seventeenth century and early eighteenth century; idem, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1630–1720, Delhi, 1988. All of them depicted the Bengal economy in the seventeenth century and early eighteenth century as prosperous and expanding, but no detailed analysis of the internal marketing systems was undertaken. The earlier writings of K. K. Datta too provided detailed descriptions of different facets of the economy, K. K. Datta, Economic Condition of the Bengal Subah, rp. Calcutta, 1984.

² K.K. Datta, Alivardi and His Times, pp. 92, 187, etc. Abdul Karim similarly writes about Murshid Quli Khan's ‘pure character’, simplicity of his personal habits. Abdul Karim, Murshid Quli Khan and His Times, p. 238.

³ Sudipta Sen, ‘Conquest of Marketplaces: Exchange, Authority and Conflict in Early Colonial North India’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 1994, p. 21. Also idem, Empire of Free Trade: The East India Company and the Making of the Colonial Market Place, Philadelphia, 1998.

⁴ Chatterjee, Kumkum, Merchants, Politics and Society in Early Modern India, Bihar: 1733–1820, Leiden, 1996Google Scholar. Also idem, ‘Trade and Darbar Politics in the Bengal Subah 1733–1757’, Modern Asian Studies (henceforth MAS), Vol. 26, No. 2, 1992, pp. 233–273.

⁵ Om Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal.

⁶ Sushil Chaudhury, From Prosperity to Decline.

⁷ Dasgupta, Biplab, ‘Palashi: The Inside Story’, in Panikkar, K.N., Byres, Terrence J and Patnaik, Utsa, eds, The Making of History. Essays Presented to Irfan Habib, Delhi, 2001, p. 209Google Scholar.

⁸ Alam, Muzaffar and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, eds, The Mughal State, 1526–1750, Delhi, 1998, IntroductionGoogle Scholar.

⁹ See also Philip B. Calkins, ‘The Formation of a Regionally-Oriented Ruling Group in Bengal, 1700–1740’, The Journal of Asian Studies (henceforth JAS), Vol. XXIX, Vol. 29, No. 4, 1970, pp. 799–806. Later John McLane has developed the theme of the zamindars with a general analysis of the landed proprietors, drawing on Foucault in the first section and concentrating on the description of the Burdwan Raj in the second half of his book, John R. McLane, Land and Local Kingship in Eighteenth-century Bengal, Cambridge, 1993. This is by no means the first full-length monograph on the landed proprietors. Shirin Akhtar's study described the administrative and economic functions that they had, idem, The Role of the Zamindars in Bengal, 1707–1772, Dacca, 1982.

¹⁰ In a different context, Douglass North has noted that political and economic organisations had some features in common. Both systems tried to ‘maximize the wealth of the principals by exploiting the gains from trade as a result of specialization’. Both entail ‘the establishment of a set of constraints on behaviour in the form of rules and regulations; a set of procedures designed to detect deviations from and enforce compliance with the rules and regulations; and the articulation of a set of moral and ethical behavioural norms to reduce enforcement costs’; idem, Structure and Change in Economic History, New York and London, 1981, p. 18.

¹¹ Jones, E.L., The European Miracle: Environments, Economies, and Geopolitics in the History of Europe and Asia, Cambridge, 1981Google Scholar. For a discussion of landed property rights in Bengal based on a similar premise, see Jon E. Wilson, ‘Governing Property, Making Law. Land, Local Society and Colonial Discourse in Agrarian Bengal, c. 1785–1830’, D. Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 2000.

¹² West Bengal State Archives (hereafter WBSA), Board of Trade, Commercial (hereafter BOT-Comm), Vol. 70, 1 Aug. 1788, p. 81.

¹³ H. Beveridge, trans., The Akbar Nama of Abu-l-Fazl, Vol. I, rp. Delhi, 1993, p. 648. Humayun experimented with ‘arrangement of shops and the putting up of a bazar on boats’. In 1532–33, when he travelled on boats from Delhi to Agra with most of his amirs, a bazar of this kind accompanied the entourage down the Yamuna. The emperor also ‘invented’ the movable bridge. Ibid.

¹⁴ Muhammad Baqir Najm-i-Sani, Mau'izah-i-Jahangiri (Advice on the Art of Governance), intro. and trans., Sajida Sultana Alvi, Albany, 1989, Introduction, esp. p. 8.

¹⁵ Ziauddin Barani, Fatawa-i-Jahandari (circa, 1358–9 A.D), trans. text in Mohammad Habib and Afsar Umar Salim Khan, The Political Theory of the Delhi Sultanate, Allahabad, 1965.

¹⁶ See for instance Richards, J. F., Power, Administration and Finance in Mughal India, Aldershot, 1993Google Scholar; Singh, M. P., Town, Market, Mint, and Port in the Mughal Empire, 1556–1707: An Administrative-cum-Economic Study, New Delhi, 1985Google Scholar; Raychaudhuri, Tapan and Habib, Irfan, eds, The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol.1: c. 1200-c. 1750, Cambridge, 1982CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ Dale, Stephen, Indian Merchants and Eurasian Trade, 1600–1750, Cambridge, 1994, pp. 30–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, ‘Of Imarat and Tijarat: Asian Merchants and State Power in the Western Indian Ocean, 1400 to 1750’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 37, No. 4, 1995, pp. 750–780CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Pamuk, Sevket, ‘The Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century’, Itinerario, Vol. 24, Nos. 3–4, 2000, pp. 104–116CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ Muhammad Baqir Najm-i-Sani, Mau'izah-i-Jahangiri, pp. 85–87.

¹⁹ Alam, Muzaffar, The Languages of Political Islam in India. c. 1200–1800, Delhi, 2004Google Scholar. In the didactic literature of the classical courts, cultivators occupy an important position, and the need to protect peasants in order to ensure the welfare of society as a whole is emphasised. The idea of government included the active promotion of the welfare of these sections of society. This ideal, however, is articulated not in terms of egalitarian society but in terms of ethical virtues of charity and empathy towards the poor. Marlow, Louise, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought, Cambridge, 1997, pp. 117–142Google Scholar.

²⁰ Ray, Rajat Kanta, ‘Colonial Penetration and Initial Resistance: The Mughal Ruling Class, the English East India Company and the Struggle for Bengal, 1756–1800’, Indian Historical Review, Vol. XII, Nos. 1–2, 1985, pp. 1–105Google Scholar.

²¹ See Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, trans. Abdus Salam, rp. Delhi, 1975; Khan, Seid Gholam Hossein, Seir Mutaqherin, trans. Mustafa, Haji (Nota Manus), Vols. I, II, Calcutta, 1789Google Scholar; Holwell, J.Z., Interesting Historical Events Relative to the Provinces of Bengal and the Empire of Indostan, Part I, London, 1766Google Scholar.

²² See also J.D. Nichol, ‘The British Expansion in India 1740–1763-A Study of Imperial Expansion into Bengal’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1976.

²³ John R. McLane, Land and Local Kingship, p. 39.

²⁴ Ibid., pp. 52–57.

²⁵ Gangaram, The Maharashtra Purana: An Eighteenth-century Bengali Historical Text, trans. Edward C. Dimock and P.C. Gupta, 2nd ed. Calcutta, 1985.

²⁶ The Bargi incursions left a deep imprint on Bengali society, even finding a mention in a lullaby—‘Chele ghumalo pada juralo bargi elo dese. Bulbulite dhan kheyeche khajna diba kise’ (The children have fallen asleep, the quarters have become quiet, (but) the Bargis have entered into our lands, the bulbuls have eaten up paddy-grains, how to pay the rent). See K.K. Datta, Alivardi and His Times, p. 174 fn.

²⁷ Calkins, ‘The Formation of a Regionally Oriented Ruling Group in Bengal’, pp. 799–806.

²⁸ See for instance Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, various pages.

²⁹ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. I, p. 66. Also see for similar instances in North India, Alam, Muzaffar, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the Punjab, 1707–48, New Delhi, 1986Google Scholar.

³⁰ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, p. 69.

³¹ National Archives of India (hereafter NAI), Home department Public branch (hereafter Home Public), Vol. 1, 9 Jan. 1749, p. 73.

³² Azad-Al-Husaini, , ‘Nau-Bahar-i-Murshid Quli Khani’, in Sarkar, J. N., trans., Bengal Nawabs, Calcutta, 1952, p. 3Google Scholar.

³³ Ibid., p. 3.

³⁴ Bouchon, G. and Thomaz, L.F., eds and trans., Voyage dans les Deltas du Gange et de l'Irraouaddy (Relation Portugaise Anonyme-1521), Paris, 1988, pp. 323, 325Google Scholar. The writer goes on to say that the markets were supplied with plenty of goods, which were very cheap. On the other hand he notes that the ‘host of the people are so poor that they have nothing to eat or wear’. William Bruton describes the broad streets in the towns of Cuttack and ‘Malcandy’. Idem, ‘Newes from the East Indies: or a Voyage to Bengalla. . . . With the State and Magnificence of the Court of Malcandy’, (1638) in A Collection of Voyages and Travels, consisting of Authentic Writers in our own Tongue, Vol. II, London, MDCCXLV, p. 271.

³⁵ Motte, T., ‘A Narrative of a Journey to the Diamond Mines at Sumbhulpoor, in the Province of Orissa’, Asiatic Annual Register, 1799, London, 1801, pp. 53–54Google Scholar. He also built the mosque at Murshidabad in memory of his father-in-law Murshid Quli Khan. Priscilla Wakefield observed that many of these fine buildings were in a state of decay. The magnificent ruins of many of Sultan Shuja's palaces were still extant in the early nineteenth century. Idem, The Traveller in Asia, London, 1817, pp. 14–15. Also see Oriental and India Office Collections, British Library (hereafter OIOC), Prints, Drawings and Photographs, Oriental and India Office Collections (hereafter PDP), P 3104 and P 2966, James Moffat, (1775–1815); ‘Ruins of the Palace of Sultan Shujah at Rajemahal’. Aquatint, drawn and engraved by James Moffat, published Calcutta 1800, British school.

³⁶ Abul Fazl, Ayeen Akbary, trans., F. Gladwin, Vol. 1, p. 231.

³⁷ ‘Waki-at-i-Jahangiri’, in Elliot, H.M. and Dowson, John, ed., The History of India as Told by its Own Historians, Vol. VI, Allahabad, 1964, p. 326Google Scholar. Taylor, James, A Sketch of the Topography and Statistics of Dacca, Calcutta, 1840, pp. 193–194Google Scholar. W.K. Firminger, Fifth Report, Vol. I, pp. 245–266, 270.

³⁸ Sketches of India; or, Observations Descriptive of the Scenery, &c. in Bengal, With notes on the Cape of Good-Hope and St. Helena, London, 1816, p. 193 fn.

³⁹ Pennant, Thomas, The View of Hindoostan, Vol. II, London, 1798, pp. 286–287Google Scholar. Also see OIOC, PDP, WD 3955, William Hodges, Inscribed on original label: ‘View of the Gate of a Caravan Serai at Raje Mahal’. See OIOC, PDP, P 3092, James Moffat (1775–1815); ‘View of the ancient City Gate, Rajemahal’. Aquatint, drawn and engraved by James Moffat, published Calcutta 1806, British school. Shah Shuja was the Subahdar of Bengal between 1639–1659 (with an interruption during 1647–1649).

⁴⁰ See Tilottama Mukherjee, ‘Markets, Transport and the State in the Bengal Economy, c. 1750–1800’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 2004, pp. 146–148.

⁴¹ Ibid., pp. 23–24.

⁴² WBSA, Revenue Dept-Sayer, Original Consultation, 31 Dec. 1790, No. 2. Among the list of owners, Mubarak-ud-Daula, Nawab Begum, ‘Bubboe’ Begum, Mohammad Reza Khan, Raja Rajballabh, Jagath Seth and Kanto Babu are mentioned.

⁴³ Azmu-sh-Shah, or Azim-us-Shah/Shan was the Subahdar of Bengal between 1697–1703.

⁴⁴ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, pp. 246–247. Also pp. 300, 304, for its revival by Mir Habib, and subsequent abolition.

⁴⁵ ‘Extracts from the Consultation held by Mr. Surman and the Council in the Negociation of the Moguls Court’, OIOC, Orme Manuscripts (hereafter Orme Mss.), OV.12, fol. 35.

⁴⁶ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, pp. 31, 232. Further it is noted that Nurullah Khan, faujdar of the chakla of Jessore, Hughli, Burdwan and Midnapur, was ‘very opulent and had commercial business’, and Mir Habib earned his livelihood by retailing the wares of Mughal merchants, etc. See p. 299.

⁴⁷ Thomas Pennant, The View of Hindoostan, Vol. II, p. 293. Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, p. 284.

⁴⁸ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, p. 3.

⁴⁹ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, pp. 280–281. See also M. Alam and S. Subrahmanyam, eds, The Mughal State, Introduction.

⁵⁰ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, p. 30. Later the port declined though due to the increasing oppression of the faujdars.

⁵¹ Ibid., pp. 227, 228 fn.

⁵² Ibid., pp. 304–305.

⁵³ Ibid., p. 289.

⁵⁴ Hamilton, Alexander, A New Account of the East Indies, Vol. II, London, 1930, p. 214Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Bacon, Thomas, First Impressions and Studies of Nature in Hindostan, Vol. 1, London, 1837, p. 179Google Scholar. For similar instances of connection between pilgrimages, ruling authorities and merchants, see Peabody, Norbert, Hindu Kingship and Polity in Precolonial India, Cambridge, 2003, pp. 72–75Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Om Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal; J.H. Little, The House of Jagatseth; Sushil Chaudhury, Trade and Commercial Organization in Bengal; and idem, From Prosperity to Decline.

⁵⁷ Majumdar, N., Justice and Police in Bengal, 1765–1793. A Study of the Nizamat in Decline, Calcutta, 1960, pp. 32–35Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Kumkum Chatterjee, Merchants, Politics and Society, p. 77.

⁵⁹ T. Motte, ‘A Narrative of a Journey to the Diamond Mines at Sumbhulpoor’, p. 52.

⁶⁰ See Tilottama Mukherjee, ‘Markets, Transport and the State in the Bengal Economy’, pp. 23–25.

⁶¹ Ibid, pp. 31, 33–34.

⁶² OIOC, Dacca Factory Records (hereafter DFR), G/15/1, May 1682, p. 46.

⁶³ See Hasan, Farhat, State and Locality in Mughal India. Power Relations in Western India, c. 1572–1730, New Delhi, 2006, pp. 55–56, 61–64Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ Banarasidas, Ardhakathanaka, trans. Mukund Lath, Jaipur, 1981, pp. 18, 22. Also p. 67 for similar instances again in Jaunpur and Benares.

⁶⁵ Ibid., pp. 38, 40.

⁶⁶ Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Witnessing Transition: Views on the End of the Akbari Dispensation’, in Panikkar, Byres and Patnaik, eds, The Making of History, pp. 137–138.

⁶⁷ M. Cornelius Le Bruyn, Travels into Muscovy, Persia, and part of the East Indies (trans. from French), Vol. I, London, MDCCXXXVII, p. 244.

⁶⁸ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, p. 279. Also noted in Abdul Karim, Murshid Quli Khan and His Times, p. 73.

⁶⁹ Said Amir Arjomand observes that medieval ideologues understood the importance of wealth, justice and punishment. They stated, ‘Wealth is the means for conquering the world and justice and punishment are the elixir of wealth. Peace and security of roads and the preservation of the realm depend on punishment. Hence the priority of justice and punishment in the ethic of the kings’, ‘India's Contribution to Persian Political Culture’, Proceedings of Indian History Congress, 61^st session, 2001, pp. 267–275.

⁷⁰ Rouse, C.W. Boughton, Dissertation Concerning the Landed Property of Bengal, London, 1791, p. 202Google Scholar and Long, Rev. J., Selections from Unpublished Records of Government for the years 1748 to 1767 inclusive, 2nd ed.Calcutta, 1973, pp. 236–237Google Scholar. Similar instances can be seen in eighteenth-century Rajasthan as well. See Sahai, Nandita Prasad, Politics of Patronage and Protest. The State, Society, and Artisans in Early Modern Rajasthan, New Delhi, 2006, pp. 70–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷¹ OIOC, Orme Mss. OV.12, ‘Extracts from the Consultation held by Mr. Surman and the Council in the Negociation of the Moguls Court’, fol. 35. In the Northern part of Cuttack there was a custom that when any stranger passed that way, he had to find surety that he would not ‘carry’ any of the inhabitants with him, without the Nawab's permission, and if the stranger could not find such a surety, the Nawab's secretary became ‘bound for paying him ten rupees for the danger he ran’. See Hamilton, A New Account of the East Indies, Vol. II, p. 216.

⁷² Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, pp. 296, 306.

⁷³ Ibid., p. 260.

⁷⁴ NAI, Home Public, Vol. 8, Pt. I, 25 June 1757, p. 195. Also, see Bayly, C. A., Empire and Information — Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India 1780–1870, Cambridge, 1996Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ NAI, Home Public, Vol. 135, 31 Oct. 1794, pp. 4064–4067.

⁷⁶ Proceedings of the Controlling Council of Revenue at Murshidabad (hereafter CCRM), Vol. X, 23 April 1772, p. 230.

⁷⁷ Azad-al-Husaini, ‘Nau-Bahar-i-Murshid Quli Khani’, in J.N. Sarkar, trans., Bengal Nawabs, p. 4. Also Karim Ali, ‘Muzaffar Namah’, ibid., p. 12.

⁷⁸ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. I, p. 244 fn.

⁷⁹ Ibid, Vol. II, p. 113. Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, pp. 246, 251, 255, etc.

⁸⁰ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. I, pp. 279–280.

⁸¹ See for instance Peter Stabel, ‘For Mutual Benefit? Court and City in the Burgundian Low Countries’, http://www.lowcountries.nl/2004--10_stabel.pdf, last accessed 6 May 2005.

⁸² van der Veen, Marijke, ‘When is food a luxury’, World Archaeology, Vol. 34, No. 3, 2003, p. 406CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸³ Berry, Christopher J., The Idea of Luxury. A Conceptual and Historical Investigation, Cambridge, 1994, p. 41CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Appadurai suggests that luxuries could be characterised by a number of features like exclusivity, complexity of acquisition, ‘semiotic virtuosity’, specialised knowledge, interconnection to the consumer's character and body. See Appadurai, Arjun, ed., The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge, 1996, p. 38Google Scholar. Also summarised in Marijke van der Veen, ‘When is food a luxury’, p. 408. Van der Veen notes that goods could be wanted also for their own sake, rather than for any considerations for status.

⁸⁴ Fuller, C. J., ‘Misconceiving the grain heap: a critique of the concept of the Indian jajmani system’, in Parry, Jonathan and Bloch, Maurice, eds, Money and the Morality of Exchange, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 33–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁸⁶ Olden-Jorgensen, S., ‘State Ceremonial, Court Culture and Political Power in Early Modern Denmark, 1536–1746’, Scandinavian Journal of History, Vol. 27, No. 2, 2002, p. 65CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The author states that ceremonies were necessary for survival and peace and regulated relations both internally and with neighbouring kingdoms. A ‘well-ordered ceremonial is . . . central to the early modern state's growing regulation of social and economic affairs’. Ibid., p. 67.

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⁸⁸ Calkins, Philip B., ‘The Role of Murshidabad as a Regional and Subregional Centre in Bengal’, in Park, Richard L., ed., Urban Bengal, East Lansing, 1969, pp. 25–26Google Scholar. John R. McLane, Land and Local Kingship, p. 15.

⁸⁹ Phrase borrowed from Malcolm Vale, The Princely Court, pp. 10–11.

⁹⁰ Barnett, Richard, North India between Empires: Awadh, the Mughals and the British 1720–1801, Berkeley, 1980Google Scholar; Fisher, M., A Clash of Cultures: Awadh, the British and the Mughals, New Delhi, 1987Google Scholar.

⁹¹ G. Bouchon and L.F. Thomaz, eds and trans., Voyage dans les Deltas, pp. 321–323. William Bruton describes the court of ‘Malcandy’ with its palace and assemblies, etc. See idem, ‘Newes from the East Indies: or a Voyage to Bengalla. With the State and Magnificence of the Court of Malcandy’, (1638) in A Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II, pp. 271–276. Medieval Bengali Muslim aristocrats and officers lived with opulence and the houses of Mirzas had audience halls adorned with rich canopies and cushions. Tapan Raychaudhuri, Bengal under Akbar and Jahangir, p. 226.

⁹² Eric Hobsbawn and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge, 1983.

⁹³ See for instance the paintings in Abdul Hamid Lahori's ‘Padshahnama’ in Milo Cleveland Beach, et al, The King of the World: The Padshahnama: An Imperial Mughal Manuscript from the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, London and Washington, D.C., 1997, various plates. Ebba Koch writes that in the Mughal creation of an imperial ideology ‘the ideas and systems they exploited included the Muslim caliphal, Koranic prophetic and mystical Sufi; Achaemenian and Sasanian Persian and Perso-Islamic; Turko-Mongolian; Hindu and Islamic Indian; and Christian-Messianic, as well as recent European concepts of universal monarchy . . . Shah Jahan tried even more consistently than his predecessors to live up to his self-created image, and architecture, art, poetry, historiography and court life during his reign all served to manifest the imperial ideal’. Koch, Ebba, Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology: Collected Essays, New Delhi, 2001, p. 130Google Scholar. Shah Jahan directly oversaw the Mughal atelier. Koch notes that the third dimension reality was flattened and arranged around a central axis that divided the picture into two equal parts. The crowded figures in the royal darbar were arranged in a social hierarchy of relative importance with the leading courtiers closest to the throne. The same hierarchical arrangement was observed in other scenes too. Ibid., pp. 130–162. Harbans Mukhia writes that if ‘court etiquette expressed hierarchy and power, the trajectory of its evolution kept close to the contours of state's power empirically, if not in theory’, idem, The Mughals of India, Indian ed., 2005, pp. 72–111, esp. p. 95. Also see Lal, Ruby, Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World, Cambridge, 2005, pp. 69–99Google Scholar. On other aspects of courtly life in the Mughal period, see Richards, J.F., ‘Norms of Comportment among Imperial Mughal Officers’, in Metcalf, Barbara, ed., Moral Conduct and Authority. The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, Berkeley, 1984, pp. 255–289Google Scholar; O'Hanlon, Rosalind, ‘Manliness and Imperial Service in Mughal North India’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient (henceforth JESHO), Vol. 42, Pt. I, 1999, pp. 47–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the early medieval period, see Daud Ali, Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India, New Delhi, 2006.

⁹⁴ Richards, John F., The Mughal Empire, Cambridge, 1993CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁹⁵ Elias, Norbert, The Court Society, trans., Edmund Jephcott, Oxford, 1983, p. 138Google Scholar. Also, see pp. 78–116.

⁹⁶ S. Olden-Jorgensen, ‘State Ceremonial, Court Culture and Political Power in Early Modern Denmark’, p. 68. Walter Map's observations about Henry I's court appear to bear some similarity to the Mughals. Malcolm Vale, The Princely Court, p. 22.

⁹⁷ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, pp. 290–291.

⁹⁸ See ‘Nawab ‘Alivardi Khan hunting roebuck, c.1750–5’, gouache, Murshidabad style, in Skelton, Robert and Francis, Mark, eds, Arts of Bengal: The Heritage of Bangladesh and Eastern India: [catalogue of] An Exhibition Organized by the Whitechapel Art Gallery in Collaboration with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1979Google Scholar, plate no. 67, p. x.

⁹⁹ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, pp. 118, 156–161.

¹⁰⁰ See for instance Daud Ali, Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India, pp. 103–140.

¹⁰¹ Legoux de Flaix, Essai Historique, Geographique et Politique Sur l'Indoustan, avec le Tableau de son Commerce, ce dernier pris dans une annee moyenne, depuis 1702 jusqu'en 1770, époque de la suppression du privilège de l'ancienne Compagnie des Indes Orientales, Tome I, Paris, 1807, p. 402. He wrote, ‘l'horlogerie n'est pas un article plus riche pour le commerce; il est peu d'Indous à qui on voie une montre, est un moindre nombre encore qui ait des pendules. Les princes mogols en ont toujours, à la vérité, une grande quantité; mais ils les ont reçues en present des chiefs des établissements européens: ils en achètent rarement’ [The clock industry is not a rich article for trade; it is with a few Hindus that one sees a watch, even lesser number still who has ‘pendulums’. The Mughal princes always have a great quantity; but they received them as presents from chiefs of the European establishments: they seldom buy]. See also Abdul Hamid Lahori's ‘Padshahnama’ in Milo Cleveland Beach, et al, The King of the World, Plate No. 19, Subject of illustration: Europeans bring gifts to Shah Jahan (July 1633).

¹⁰² William Bruton, ‘Newes from the East Indies: or a Voyage to Bengalla. With the State and Magnificence of the Court of Malcandy’, (1638) in A Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II, p. 272. See Tilottama Mukherjee, ‘Markets, Transport and the State in the Bengal Economy’, p. 186.

¹⁰³ OIOC, Bengal Misc. Progs., P/154/41, 21 Feb. 1774, p. 125. In ‘Mr Becher's time a lottery was set on foot for various articles of jewel(le)ry in which the Nabob took a number of tickets to distribute amongst his dependants’. Ibid., p. 126.

¹⁰⁴ Note how even at night, the Nazim Alivardi Khan would awake from his slumber and inquire about all who were present. Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, p. 161.

¹⁰⁵ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. I, p. 243 (A coffee-office is mentioned). Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 128, 159. Also, see Robert Skelton and Mark Francis, eds, Arts of Bengal, p. 45. OIOC, PDP, J. 36. 12, Johnson Collection. The catalogue description reads: Sri Raga. A young and gallant prince is enthroned on a terrace beneath a crimson awning, his arms and bow and arrow put aside. Four courtiers stand facing him while others are in attendance behind with ‘morchals’ and refreshments.

¹⁰⁶ See Salzmann, Ariel, ‘The Age of Tulips: Confluence and Conflict in Early Modern Consumer Culture (1550–1730)’, in Quataert, Donald, ed., Consumption Studies and the History of the Ottoman Empire, 1550–1922, New York, 2000, p. 90Google Scholar. Also Muzaffar Alam, ‘Trade, State Policy and Regional Change: Aspects of Mughal–Uzbek Commercial Relations c.1550–1750’, JESHO, Vol. XXXVII, No. 3, 1994, pp. 202–227. Also see Levi, Scott C., ed., India and Central Asia. Commerce and Culture, 1500–1800, New Delhi, 2007Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁷ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, pp. 260, 289–290.

¹⁰⁸ OIOC, Mayor's Court, Statement of the Nizamat, P/154/38, 23 Jan. 1773. The governor of Purnea was no less wealthy but by 1786, the district had declined considerably. See Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, pp. 136–137.

¹⁰⁹ OIOC, Mayor's Court, Statement of the Nizamat, P/154/38, 23 Jan. 1773.

¹¹⁰ The menagerie's sole purpose was spectacle—a place to visit in the course of an idle day or for entertainment. Animals had a symbolic value and might have provided a sense of being in the company of the novel, beautiful and strange—an animal kingdom that had to be controlled quite as rigorously as the region itself. Gifts of animals were not uncommon. The Bengal Sultans, for instance, sent a giraffe to the Chinese Emperor. Sally Church, ‘The giraffe of Bengal: a symbol of Ming foreign relations?’, paper presented in Chinese Studies Seminar, Faculty of Oriental Studies, Cambridge, 7 March 2002. Contemporaries have recorded Alivardi Khan's fondness for exotic animals. The French Council at Chandernagore in 1746 wrote to his counterpart in Surat asking for two Persian cats on the Nazim's request. The English also presented him with an Arab horse and a Persian cat. K.K. Datta, Alivardi and His Times, pp. 138–139.

¹¹¹ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. I, p. 317.

¹¹² See for instance, OIOC, PDP, WD 2094, Robert Smith (1787–1873), ‘Nawab's House at the City of Moorsedavad’, 1814–15, water colour, British school.

¹¹³ See for instance Curley, David, ‘Maharaja Krisnacandra, Hinduism, and Kingship in the Contact Zone of Bengal’, in Barnett, Richard B., ed., Rethinking Early Modern India, Delhi, 2002, p. 108Google Scholar. OIOC, PDP, J.62.1, ‘A river landscape’. The scene appears to have been derived from a picture of European landscape.

¹¹⁴ See for instance OIOC, PDP, Add. Or.2595–2600, 2674–2706.

¹¹⁵ OIOC, PDP, Add. Or.2744–2767, J.35.1-J.35.30, J.36.1-J.36.36 etc.

¹¹⁶ OIOC, Mayor's Court, P/154/41, 14 March 1774, pp. 234–236.

¹¹⁷ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, p. 157.

¹¹⁸ Ibid.

¹¹⁹ Curley, David, ‘“Voluntary” Relationships and Royal Gifts of Pân in Mughal Bengal’, in Gordon, Stewart, ed., Robes of Honour: Khil'at in Pre-colonial and Colonial India, New Delhi, 2003, pp. 50–79Google Scholar.

¹²⁰ Marijke van der Veen, ‘When is food a luxury’, pp. 405–427, esp. p. 411. Camporesi observes that early modern society attached immense symbolic importance to having enough to eat. Piero Camporesi, Bread of Dreams. Food and Fantasy in Early Modern Europe, trans. David Gentilcore, Cambridge, 1989. Being a differentiated and ranked society, however, the Nazims emphasised quality rather than merely quantity of food. Societies with little lifestyle difference emphasise quantity on special occasions. Goody, Jack, Cooking, Cuisine and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology, Cambridge, 1982, p. 78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Marijke van der Veen suggests that quantity symbolises success, while quality stands for distance and cultural power, ‘When is food a luxury’, p. 413.

¹²¹ Daud Ali, Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India, pp. 111–112.

¹²² For a description of Tipu Sultan's court rituals and cuisine diplomacy, see Brittlebank, Kate, Tipu Sultan's Search for Legitimacy, Islam and Kingship in a Hindu Domain, Delhi, 1997Google Scholar.

¹²³ OIOC, Mayor's Court, Statement of the Nizamat, P/154/38, 23 Jan. 1773. The number was reduced from 55 to 40. For similar instances of culinary consumption and diplomacy, see Abu-l-Fazl, The Akbar Nama of Abu'l Fazl, trans., H. Beveridge, Vol. 1, rp. Delhi, 1993, pp. 421–432.

¹²⁴ See Mentges, Gabriele, ‘Fashion, Time and the Consumption of a Renaissance Man in Germany: The Costume Book of Mattäus Schwarz of Augsburg, 1496–1564’, Gender and History, Vol. 14, No. 3, 2002, pp. 382–402CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed. Also Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, p. 161—‘The hall being cleared of men, and made womanish. . .’,‘(the) repast being over, the ladies retired, and the hall being made manish again’.

¹²⁵ Gibbons, Rachel, ‘The Queen as “social mannequin”. Consumerism and Expenditure at the Court of Isabeau of Bavaria, 1393–1422’, Journal of Medieval History, Vol. 26, No. 4, 2000, pp. 371–395CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Daniel Roche observes that ‘for a society where the values of thrift and profit were fundamental, the demonstration of conspicuous consumption was good publicity. The woman was the shop window of the man; in fabricating an exaggeratedly feminine appearance, she proclaimed her second rank in the social and familial order. It was the triumph of an illusion’. Idem., The Culture of Clothing. Dress and Fashion in the Ancien Regime, rp. Cambridge, 1999, p. 61.

¹²⁶ The normal dress at Court, as in most parts of the country, was white, ‘the very climate seeming to invite to that refreshing colour’. Aurangzeb used to remark that, ‘were it made by art, he would reserve it, as a distinction for the Imperial family’. Humayun on the other hand wore clothes of different hues, each corresponding to the colour of the planet of that particular day. Abu-l-Fazl, The Akbar Nama of Abu'l Fazl, Vol. 1, pp. 650–651. For gifts of clothes as markers of honour, etc., see Stewart Gordon, ‘Robes of honour: A “transactional” kingly ceremony’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review (henceforth IESHR), Vol. XXXIII, No. 3, 1996, pp. 225–42. Gavin R.G. Hambly, ‘The Emperor's Clothes: Robing and “Robes of Honour” in Mughal India’, in Stewart Gordon, ed., Robes of Honour, pp. 31–49.

¹²⁷ Pertsch, W., ed. and trans. Kisitisavamsavalicaritam, A Chronicle of the Family of Raja Krishnachandra of Navadvip, Bengal, Berlin, 1852, p. 25Google Scholar. There was certain etiquette as regards attire among courtiers as it appears from the text. ‘It is . . . custom during an audience before a Mohammedan Sultan, or such a person, to put on an embroidered garment covering all the limbs, and another embroidered upper garment reaching from the feet as far as the waist’. Sumptuary prohibitions are noted in ballads. Sen, D.C., ed., compiled and trans., Eastern Bengal Ballads, Calcutta, 1923–1932, Vol. II, Part I, pp. 374–375Google Scholar.

¹²⁸ ‘To set a proper value upon that liberality of the Navvab's it must be remembered that such a dress (given to the actors and actresses who entertained the Nawab Mir Jafar Khan) to wit, a woman's pishvaz, may with its corresponding veil, be dyed in any colour for two shillings, and the colour discharged again for a groat. Nor does the dress itself cost above two or three guineas’. Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, p. 264.

¹²⁹ Gautam Bhadra, ‘Some Socio-Economic Aspects of the Town of Murshidabad (1755–1783)’, M.Phil. dissertation, JNU, 1971/72, cited in David Curley, ‘Rulers and Merchants in Late Eighteenth Century Bengal’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 1980, p. 82.

¹³⁰ OIOC, Orme Mss. OV.12, ‘Extracts from the Consultation held by Mr. Surman and the Council in the Negociation of the Moguls Court’, fol. 45.

¹³¹ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, p. 258; Salim Allah, A Narrative of the Transactions in Bengal, trans., Francis Gladwin cited in John R. McLane, Land and Local Kingship, p. 48 fn. See also Solvyns, B., A Collection of Two Hundred and Fifty Coloured Etchings: Description of the Manners, Customs and Dresses of the Hindoos, Calcutta, 1799Google Scholar, section 6, no. 1 for a depiction of a chowpaleh.

¹³² OIOC, Bengal Law Council, P/166/83, 22 Aug. 1780.

¹³³ OIOC, Bengal Law Council, P/166/82, 13 April 1779, pp. 276–318, 391–397.

¹³⁴ OIOC, Bengal Law Council, P/166/79, 19 June 1778, pp. 371–378. OIOC, Bengal Revenue Consultations (hereafter BRC), P/49/47, 6 Sept. 1774, pp. 2410–2422.

¹³⁵ Veblen, Thorstein, Theory of Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, Fairfield, 1991, pp. 22–34, 68–101Google Scholar.

¹³⁶ Smith, Woodruff D., Consumption and the Making of Respectability, 1600–1800, New York and London, 2002, p. 31Google Scholar.

¹³⁷ See also Mukerji, Chandra, From Graven Images—Patterns of Modern Materialism, New York, 1983, pp. 2–6Google Scholar. The author further argues that cultural analysis of economic behaviour suggests that trade expansion also constituted a revolution in communication (both transport and print culture) along with a commercial revolution in early modern Europe (p. 11).

¹³⁸ A contemporary European observer, however, noted that ‘as luxury is a constant attendant in all courts, so the vices that arise from luxury are enemies to commerce, manufactures, and every species of industry. It should therefore become an invariable maxim in all commercial states, to separate the seats of government from those of trade’. MacIntosh, William, Travels in Europe, Asia and Africa, Vol. II, London, 1782, pp. 179–180Google Scholar.

¹³⁹ See for instance Mason, Roger, The Economics of Conspicuous Consumption. Theory and Thought since 1700, Cheltenham, 1998, p. 5Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁰ Wallace, R.G., Memoirs of India: Comprising A Brief Geographical Account of the East Indies; A Succinct History of Hindostan, from the Most Early Ages, to the End of the Marquis of Hastings Administration in 1823, London, 1824, p. 302Google Scholar.

¹⁴¹ Priscilla Wakefield, The Traveller in Asia, p. 4.

¹⁴² MrsKindersley, , Letters from India, London, 1777, p. 292Google Scholar. Jaffer, Amin, Furniture from British India and Ceylon—A Catalogue of the Collections in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Peabody Essex Museum, London, 2001, p. 32Google Scholar. He notes that junior civilians and soldiers found it hard to make ends meet, which resulted in their living ‘in misery’ or falling into debt to moneylenders. The greatest part being expended on servants, conveyances and consumables. Ibid., pp. 33, 34.

¹⁴³ Also see Natasha Eaton, ‘Imaging Empire. The Trafficking of Art and Aesthetics in British India. c. 1772 to c. 1795’, Vol. 1, Ph.D. thesis, University of Warwick, 2000, ch. 7, pt. 1, esp. pp. 339–344.

¹⁴⁴ See OIOC, PDP, Add.Or.3234, Hyde Collection, watercolour, Murshidabad style. Inscribed on back in pencil: ‘The Agnah Mahal Moorshedd’; in ink ‘Display of Fireworks before the Agnah Mahal at Morshedabad’ (1790–1800). See also OIOC, PDP, Add.Or.1115, Firework-maker (1798–1804). Ghulam Hussain Salim described illuminations with chiraghs, for which as many as one lakh labourers were employed. ‘. . .from the brightness of the illumination, the altars of the mosques and pulpits, with the inscription of the Qoran engraved thereon, could be read from the other side of the river by spectators, to their great amazement . . . . After sunset, as soon as the gun was fired to signal that the illumination should commence, all the chiraghs were simultaneously lit up in one instance, producing an illusion as if a sheet of light had been unrolled, or as if the earth had become a sky studded with stars’. Idem, Riyazu-s-Salatin, p. 280. Nawab Hashmat Jang of Dhaka petitioned the Company in 1781 to reinstate the charges for illuminations, ‘cloths and furniture’ for ‘Delan Hossein’. WBSA, Committee of Revenue, Vol. 7, 21 Sept. 1781, p. 432.

¹⁴⁵ OIOC, PDP, Add.Or.3207, ‘Nabob's Mosque and Choke Moorshedabad’, Hyde collection, watercolour, Murshidabad style.

¹⁴⁶ OIOC, PDP, Add.Or.3236, Hyde Collection, Inscribed on the back in pencil: ‘A Mussulman Marriage Procession’; in ink ‘A Mussulman Marriage Procession in its full Ceremony and Splendour’. For the Mughal period, see Abdul Hamid Lahori's ‘Padshahnama’ in Milo Cleveland Beach, et al, The King of the World, Plate Nos. 23, 24, 27, 28, Subject of illustration—The wedding procession of Prince Dara-Shikoh (12 February 1633).

¹⁴⁷ David Curley, ‘Rulers and Merchants in the late Eighteenth Century Bengal’, esp. Introduction.

¹⁴⁸ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, p. 29.

¹⁴⁹ OIOC, PDP, Add.Or.4395, ‘Water Colour Drawing of an Indian Ceremonial. By a Native Artist’.

¹⁵⁰ Ibid., pp. 279–280. Also Abdul Karim, Murshid Quli Khan and His Times, p. 237.

¹⁵¹ Asher, Catherine B., Architecture of Mughal India, Cambridge, 1995, p. 329Google Scholar.

¹⁵² Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. I, p. 63. Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 69, 128, 130–132. Dan or charity of course had long antecedents in the Indian context with various scriptures, epics, etc., placing great emphasis on this. Karna, perhaps one of the greatest heroes of the Mahabharata, is even given the epithet of Danavir. See for instance Shulman, David, The King and the Clown in South Indian Myth and Poetry, Princeton, 1985, p. 392Google Scholar.

¹⁵³ OIOC, BRC, P/49/44, 1 March 1774, pp. 742–749. The document lists names of poor and religious people in Purnea who received different sums of money per annum in charity totalling Sanout Rs. 22,551.15. The sanads were granted by various Nawabs.

¹⁵⁴ G. Bouchon and L.F. Thomaz, eds and trans., Voyage dans les Deltas, pp. 326–327. Apparently, these kinds of gift giving and elaborate celebration of ‘bursik’ (barshik) ceremonies entailed large expenses and landed proprietors borrowed huge sums of money from merchants. OIOC, BRC, P/49/45, 22 April 1774, pp. 1224–1225. Rao, Velcheru Narayana, Shulman, David, and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, Symbols of Substance: Court and State in Nayaka Period Tamil Nadu, Delhi, 1998, pp. 71–72Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁵ WBSA, Committee of Revenue, Vol. 7, 12 Sept. 1781, pp. 431–432.

¹⁵⁶ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, p. 162.

¹⁵⁷ Haji Mustafa notes in the footnotes to the main text that ‘the Mahometans have such a high opinion of Jesus Christ, whom they believe to have preached nothing else but pure Mussulmanism. . .’. Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, p. 107 fn. Also, see Khalidi, Tarif, ed. and trans., The Muslim Jesus. Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature, Harvard, 2001Google Scholar.

¹⁵⁸ The esteemed physician could ride in his palki anywhere in the palace and was permitted to alight close to the hall of audience. It was an honour none except the Nazim's two sons-in-law and his grandson were allowed. Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, p. 108.

¹⁵⁹ Skelton, Robert, ‘Murshidabad Painting’, Marg, Vol. 10, No. 1, 1956, pp. 10–22Google Scholar.

¹⁶⁰ Beach, Milo Cleveland, Mughal and Rajput Painting, Cambridge, 1992CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶¹ Abdul Karim, Murshid Quli Khan and His Times, p. 250.

¹⁶² Crill, Rosemary, et al. , Arts of India: 1550–1900, London, 1999, p. 178Google Scholar.

¹⁶³ Kumkum Chatterjee, Merchants, Politics and Society, p. 94. She also argues that the Nizamat State supported the merchant magnates but tried to keep in check the growing power of the various Companies in the region.

¹⁶⁴ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, p. 295. Also see NAI, Home Public, Vol. 18B, 15 Nov. 1762, pp. 708–709.

¹⁶⁵ NAI, Bengal Public Consultations (hereafter BPC) (microfilm, henceforth mf), 26 Aug. 1723, p. 256. Also see for other cases, NAI, Dacca Factory Records (hereafter DFR), (mf), 5 June 1737, pp. 57–57 (b), 18 July 1737, p. 61, 10 Aug. 1737, pp. 73–73 (b), etc.

¹⁶⁶ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. I, p. 47. Ghulam Hussain Salim notes similar instances in his Riyazu-s-Salatin, p. 269.

¹⁶⁷ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, p. 47.

¹⁶⁸ Ibid., p. 48.

¹⁶⁹ Ibid., p. 160.

¹⁷⁰ NAI, BPC (mf), 19 Jan. 1722/3, p. 31. NAI, BPC (mf), Sept. 1722, pp. 222, 264, 265. NAI, DFR (mf), Sept. 1739, p. 218. OIOC, Calcutta Factory Records (hereafter CFR), Letter from Patna, 21 Jan.1702/3, p. 35.

¹⁷¹ The tent ‘which if not dispos'd of, one way or other will be spoiled, no Merchant will bye it, And sell in _ _ _(?) will come to such a poor Market, that conserving its loss will appear very inconsiderable. We therefore think this a very proper present for the Nabob. . .’. NAI, BPC (mf), 19 Jan. 1722/3, p. 31.

¹⁷² NAI, BPC (mf), 7 May 1724, p. 109.

¹⁷³ Ibid.

¹⁷⁴ NAI, DFR (mf), 28 Jan. 1736, p. 20. It was reported that the vakil were not so ‘sparing of the Company's money’ as they ought to be or that they have had overcharged many things for ‘in what was usually was given at the end’.

¹⁷⁵ NAI, BPC (mf), 29 June 1724, p. 150.

¹⁷⁶ OIOC, CFR, Letter from Patna, 3 May 1703, pp. 91–93.

¹⁷⁷ NAI, DFR (mf), 7 June 1744, p. 312. Also see 8 April 1737, p. 48; 30 April 1745, p. 367.

¹⁷⁸ J. Long, Selections, p. 133.

¹⁷⁹ NAI, DFR (mf), 19 Feb. 1736, p. 33(b).

¹⁸⁰ OIOC, Home Miscellaneous (hereafter Home Misc.), No. 92, pp. 51–52.

¹⁸¹ Ibid., p. 53. Also, see pp. 55–56.

¹⁸² Diary and Consultation Book, 26 March 1705 in C.R. Wilson, ed., Early Annals of the English in Bengal, Vol. I, rp. New Delhi, 1983, p. 266.

¹⁸³ NAI, DFR (mf), 4 Sept. 1737, p. 79.

¹⁸⁴ Verelst, Harry, A View of the Rise, Progress, and Present State of the English Govt. in Bengal, London, 1772, p. 37Google Scholar.

¹⁸⁵ See for instance Sen, Ranjit, Metamorphosis of the Bengal Polity, Calcutta, 1987Google Scholar. Khan, Abdul Majed, The Transition in Bengal, 1756–1775: A Study of Saiyid Muhammad Reza Khan, Cambridge, 1969CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸⁶ Kumkum Chatterjee, Merchants, Politics and Society. See also Bayly, C. A., Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770–1870, Indian ed., Delhi, 2000 (1^st publ.1983)Google Scholar; Leonard, Karen, ‘The Hyderabad Political System and its Participants’, JAS, Vol. 30, No. 3, 1971, pp. 569–582CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Idem, ‘The “Great Firm” Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 21, No. 2, 1979, pp. 151–167. However, generalisations are not possible given the regional differences as well as the different circumstances that moulded the history of each area.

¹⁸⁷ A number of monographs on the landed proprietors have contributed much to our knowledge about this segment of society. See Shirin Akhtar, The Role of the Zamindars in Bengal, 1707–1772; Ray, Ratnalekha, Change in Bengal Agrarian Society, 1760–1850, Delhi, 1979Google Scholar; John R. McLane, Land and Local Kingship; and Datta, Rajat, Society, Economy and the Market. Commercialization in Rural Bengal, c. 1760–1800, Delhi, 2000Google Scholar.

¹⁸⁸ The zamindars and taluqdars, collected revenues through under farmers or persons entrusted with the collections under them in the large districts, in smaller ones the revenue was collected by the village collector. See OIOC, Bengal Law Council, P/166/83, 7 April 1780.

¹⁸⁹ H.T. Colebrooke, Remarks on the Husbandry and Internal Commerce of Bengal, rp. Calcutta, 1884 (first publ.1795), p. 46. OIOC, European Manuscripts (hereafter Mss. Eur.), B 165 (Clive Papers), fol. 2. The residence of the Raja of Burdwan consisted of a square interspersed with mango topes, gardens, and in the centre ‘a kind of very neat bungaloe’, some walks, and ‘very neat houses’ built ‘after the country fashion’ of brick and chunam, and large tanks.

¹⁹⁰ See Shirin Akhtar, The Role of the Zamindars in Bengal, 1707–1772, various pages.

¹⁹¹ Maharaja Sukhomoy Roy was a director of the Bank of Bengal in 1808. Ray, Rajat Kanta, ed., Entrepreneurship and Industry in India, 1800–1947, Delhi, 1992, p. 23Google Scholar.

¹⁹² OIOC, Revenue Letter from Bengal, L/E/3/16, 12 Feb. 1811, pp. 509–510.

¹⁹³ NAI, Home Public, Vol. 122, 22 March 1793, pp. 366–367.

¹⁹⁴ David Curley, “‘Voluntary” Relationships and Royal Gifts of Pân in Mughal Bengal’, pp. 57–58.

¹⁹⁵ Ray, Rajat Kanta and Ray, Ratnalekha, ‘The Dynamics of Continuity in Rural Bengal Under the British Imperium: A Study of Quasi-stable Equilibrium in Underdeveloped Societies in a Changing World’, IESHR, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1973, p. 111Google Scholar.

¹⁹⁶ K.K. Datta, Alivardi and His Times, pp. 166–169; Also Marshall, P.J., East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century, Oxford, 1976, p. 108Google Scholar.

¹⁹⁷ CCRM, Vol. VI, 18 July 1771, pp. 7–8.

¹⁹⁸ NAI, Home Public, Vol. 20, 17 Jan. 1763, p. 33.

¹⁹⁹ John R. McLane, Land and Local Kingship.

²⁰⁰ Ibid., pp. 69–95.

²⁰¹ See Sinha, N.K., ed., Midnapore Salt Paper: Hijli and Tamluk, 1781–1807, Calcutta, 1954Google Scholar.

²⁰² WBSA, BOT-Comm, Vol. 89, 3 Dec. 1790, p. 372.

²⁰³ WBSA, Board of Revenue-Sayer, Vol. 3, 15 June 1791, p. 484.

²⁰⁴ Ibid.

²⁰⁵ See Michael H. Fisher, A Clash of Cultures, and idem, ‘The Imperial Coronation of 1819. Awadh, the British and the Mughals’, MAS, Vol. 19, No. 2, 1985, pp. 239–277, for discussions about the court culture in Awadh. For Bengal, see John R. McLane, Land and Local Kingship.

²⁰⁶ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, p. 289.

²⁰⁷ See for instance Vaporis, C., Breaking Barriers, Travel and the State in early Modern Japan, Cambridge (Massachusetts), 1994CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁰⁸ Bolts, W., Considerations on India Affairs, London, 1772, p. 156Google Scholar. Also, see John R. McLane, Land and Local Kingship, pp. 48–52.

²⁰⁹ Elias, N., The Civilizing Process, trans., Jephcott, E., London, 2000Google Scholar.

²¹⁰ A number of poets found favour from landed proprietors. Bharatchandra was the court poet of Maharaja Krishna Chandra. Ramprasad also received the latter's patronage. Similarly, Rameswara Bhattacharya received support from Midnapur Raj, and Samkara Chakravarti from the Bishnupur rajas. See Abdul Karim, Murshid Quli Khan and His Times, p. 245.

²¹¹ The Raja of Birbhum, in reply to the charge regarding his extravagant spending on ‘amusements’ during his trial for ‘proligacy’ [profligacy], stated that, ‘the singers and dancers who live near me, having in former times derived great benefit from my family and remembering this, many of them still continue to come to my house, and my expences on this score may annually amount to a thousand rupees, nor have I ever dissipated a lac of rupees as asserted upon them, what has been taken, has been for the discharge of debts to merchants and my own necessary expences. . .’. OIOC, Board's Collection, F/4/19, Revenue Appendix No. 4—Trial of the Raja of Beerbhoom for Proligacy &c. (Nov. 1797).

²¹² David Shulman, The King and the Clown, pp. 184–199.

²¹³ Rajat Datta, Society, Economy and the Market, p. 172.

²¹⁴ OIOC, Mayor's Court-Inventories, 1757–1760, P/154/61, pp. 82–83. Also P/155/4, pp. 1–2, 11–16, 20, 25, 26, 32, 35, 38, 39, 47, 50, 65, 68, 73, 75, 87, 89, 102, 111–112, 120, 122, 124–125, 129, 134. A telescope is also mentioned. See Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, p. 264.

²¹⁵ See for instance Alam, Muzaffar and Alavi, Seema, trans., A European Experience of the Mughal Orient, The I'jaz-i Arsalani (Persian Letters, 1773–1779) of Antoine-Louis Henri Polier, New Delhi, 2001Google Scholar; Dalrymple, William, White Mughals. Love and Betrayal in Eighteenth-Century India, Delhi and London, 2002Google Scholar. Curiosity and even an appreciation certainly informed the Indo-European dialogue at many levels and affected the personal lives of a few. These instances were perhaps not that unusual and sporadic. Amin Jaffer suggests that it made economic sense for Europeans to assimilate Indian manners rather than run a much more expensive household in the European way. Idem, Furniture from British India and Ceylon, p. 39.

²¹⁶ Clunas has noticed similar inclinations towards cramming homes with paintings, sculptures, fine furniture, etc. among upper class in the Ming period. Clunas, Craig, Superfluous Things: Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China, Cambridge, 1991, pp. 54–55Google Scholar.

²¹⁷ See also Tapas Kumar Ray, ‘The Naval Supremacy of the Portuguese in Bengal as Reflected on the Temple Terracotta's of Late Medieval and Early Modern Bengal’, Proceeding of Indian History Congress, 50^th session, 1989–90, pp. 205–206. Besides depicting scenes from Ramayana and Krishna lila, and other deities of the Hindu pantheon, the terracotta plaques also depicted Europeans mostly recognised by their costumes, hats and the weapons they hold.

²¹⁸ Natasha Eaton argues that the artistic schema of professional colonial paintings penetrated to the grass roots through the ‘Company school’, gifting of portraits to nawabs and mercantile society. Idem, ‘Imaging Empire’, pp. 128, 198. The author notes that Indians coloured European prints, and there was a substantial market for imported art, pp. 141–142.

²¹⁹ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. I, p. 396. He noted that the deputy governor fled to Godagary (fearing the Maratha onslaught) with his treasure and furniture. Similarly, Alivardi Khan's effects and furniture were also transferred.

²²⁰ OIOC, PDP, Add.Or.942, f. 6, ‘No. 7. The Gift of E. E. Pote, Esq. Elizath Collins’ also ‘A Hindoo marriage No. 2’, 1795–1800, watercolour, Patna style.

²²¹ Daud Ali and others have argued that the tradition of love literature had become part of the performance of courtly life. Ali, Daud, ‘Anxieties of Attachment: The Dynamics of Courtship in Medieval India’, MAS, Vol. 36, No. 1, 2002, pp. 103–140Google Scholar. Significant advances were made in the development and growth of vernacular literature under the patronage of various landed proprietors, even as Persian dominated as the language of élite intellectual discourse.

²²² Bharatchandra, Vidya Sundara, in Dimock, E.C., trans., The Thief of Love: Bengali Tales from Court and Village, Chicago, 1963Google Scholar. The orgies of Siraj-ud-Daula too were well known. See for instance Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, pp. 121–122.

²²³ K.K. Datta, Alivardi and His Times, p. 210.

²²⁴ D.C. Sen, ed. compiled and trans., Eastern Bengal Ballads, Mymensing, Vols. I–IV.

²²⁵ W. Pertsch, ed. and trans., Kisitisavamsavalicaritam, p. 44.

²²⁶ Ibid.

²²⁷ Rao, Shulman, and Subrahmanyam, Symbols of Substance, pp. 70–72.

²²⁸ OIOC, Mss. Eur. F 95/II, fol. 72(a).

²²⁹ Seid Gholam Hossein Khan, Seir Mutaqherin, Vol. II, p. 239 fn.

²³⁰ Ghulam Hussain Salim, Riyazu-s-Salatin, pp. 21, 23. Grafting of mango and lemon trees was also known. See ibid., pp. 24, 281–282.

²³¹ Compare this with the situation in Europe where Camporesi has argued that many people in early-modern period lived in a state of almost permanent hallucination, drugged by their hunger or by bread mixed with hallucinogenic herbs. Piero Camporesi, Bread of Dreams.

²³² Calkins, ‘The Formation of a Regionally Oriented Ruling Group in Bengal’, pp. 799–806.

²³³ See also Sushil Chaudhury, From Prosperity to Decline, esp. ch. 2.

²³⁴ di Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi, (Il Gattopardo) The Leopard, trans., Colquhoun, A., London, 1996 (Ist publ. 1958), p. 21Google Scholar.

²³⁵ A wide corpus of writings on the world of the Indian Ocean merchants and on the various regional kingdoms has reiterated this aspect. More recently discussed in the JESHO, Special Theme Issue—In Honour of Ashin Das Gupta (1932–1998). Vol. 43, No. 1, 2000.

²³⁶ See Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘The Mughal State — Structure or Process? Reflections on Recent Western Historiography’, IESHR, Vol. 29, No. 3, 1992, pp. 291–321.

²³⁷ Chaudhuri, K.N., Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean, Cambridge, 1985, p. 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³⁸ See Habib and Raychaudhuri, eds, The Cambridge Economic History of India, Vol. 1; Prasannan Parthasarathi, ‘India and British industrialisation, c.1700–1830’, paper presented in the Commonwealth and Overseas History Seminar, Cambridge, 18 May 2000.

²³⁹ Christopher Wickham, ‘Economy and society in early medieval Europe and the Mediterranean: themes and interpretations’, The Trevelyan Lectures, Cambridge, February 2003, esp. ‘Framing the early medieval economy’; ‘Aristocratic wealth in the post-Roman world and its limits’, 25 and 27 February 2003.

²⁴⁰ Sudipta Sen, ‘Conquest of Marketplaces’, p. 89.

²⁴¹ C.A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaar.

²⁴² See Brook, Timothy, The Confusions of Pleasure. Commerce and Culture in Ming China, Berkeley and London, 1998Google Scholar, for similar gentry strategies during the Ming/Qing transition period.