The Mughal Padshah: A Jesuit Treatise on Emperor Jahangir’s Court and Household

Description

In The Mughal Padshah Jorge Flores offers both a lucid English translation and the Portuguese original of a previously unknown account of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir (r. 1605-1627). Probably penned by the Jesuit priest Jerónimo Xavier in 1610-11, the Treatise of the Court and Household of Jahangir Padshah King of the Mughals reads quite differently than the usual missionary report. Surviving in four different versions, this text reveals intriguing insights on Jahangir and his family, the Mughal court and its political rituals, as well as the imperial elite and its military and economic strength. A comprehensive introduction situates the Treatise in the ‘disputed’ landscape of European accounts on Mughal India, as well as illuminates the actual conditions of production and readership of such a text between South Asia and the Iberian Peninsula. Biographical note Jorge Flores (Ph.D. New University of Lisbon, 2005) is Professor of Early Modern Global History at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). He has published extensively on the social and cultural history of the Portuguese Empire in South Asia, 16th-17th centuries. Readership All interested in the history of the Mughal dynasty, the Portuguese Empire in Asia and Jesuit missionary writing, as well as inter-cultural encounters and entanglements and early modern global history.