Ordering the World: Narrators, Protagonists, and Audiences in Mughal Autobiographical Accounts

The Mughal Empire (1526-1707) was characterized by the convergence of Persian and Turkic norms of statecraft with existing Indian networks of power, patronage, and cultural production.  The Mughal Empire was also characterized by a number of rich, overlapping tellings of history, of which the first was an autobiography written by Babur, the prince, poet, and military leader who had founded the empire. This paper examines Mughal autobiographical accounts such as the Baburnama and those that followed it, and argues that a historicization of such accounts is needed for an understanding of Mughal conceptions of history and subjectivity. This paper takes subjectivity to mean the internal response of each writer to the physical, social, and cultural space he or she occupied, and the ways in which Mughal household members and scribes negotiated their positions as subjects of the king. Mughal autobiographical accounts show how articulations of the self were fused into imaginings of empire and sovereignty, and how these articulations drew upon traditions of oral storytelling, epic poetry, and historical narrative. This is why an analysis of Mughal autobiographical accounts, written by kings, scribes, and members of the royal household can form the basis for a new framework of inquiry into pre-modern subjectivities in the Islamicate world.