Intimate to the Emperor: Parsing Self and Service in the Writings of an Imperial Eunuch

Bonds of intimacy and trust between elite men and eunuch slaves have long been understood as central to the roles taken on by such figures throughout the Islamicate world. Within the Mughal context, Bakhtāwar Khān is unique among known eunuchs in having left behind a significant archive of his own writings, and thus provides a rare opportunity to explore how such bonds might have been represented in a eunuch’s own words. This paper takes his historical writings and letters as a starting point for considering the importance of intimacy, companionship and service to Bakhtāwar Khān’s construction of a refined authorial self. Within these texts, he emerges both as a close associate of the emperor as well as a significant participant and patron in intellectual life of the period, asserting himself as a full member of elite Mughal society.

In the process, the paper will consider how Bakhtāwar Khān’s enslaved, castrated status can be brought into conversation with these sources, to better understand the complex positions occupied by eunuchs in this period. How does the intimate nature of his service as a eunuch, allowing certain forms of proximate access within both the court and inner palace, allow us to read these texts in a manner distinct from other elite writings of the self? How do we find prominent silences and omissions in representations of both his close relationship with the emperor, as well as with respect to other men? In considering these questions, the paper argues both for the usefulness of these works in helping us think through the phenomenon of “elite slavery” in South Asia, even as they also speak to the limits of what can be accessed about eunuch lives in this period.