51茶馆

Abstract: My talk discusses the figure of the ambassador in early modern South Asia through a close reading of the memoirs of Asad Beg Qazw脛芦n脛芦, the Mughal emissary to Bijapur in the early seventeenth century. Composed in Indo-Persian, Qazw脛芦n脛芦’s memoirs stands at the intersectionality of multiple textual genres, thereby defying circumscribed genre limits in the Persian archival register. The text is written as both a w脛聛qi脢禄at (a calendar of incidents) chronicling Qazw脛芦n脛芦’s diplomatic enterprise and a safar-n脛聛ma (Indo-Persian travel accounts) as Qazw脛芦n脛芦 provides vivid descriptions of his travails in transit. Despite its limited circulation, Qazw脛芦n脛芦’s meticulously detailed first-hand account is the closest one comes to observing the envoy’s everyday life while on diplomatic deputation. By examining the challenges Qazw脛芦n脛芦 navigated in the pursuit of his diplomatic mission, I delineate how Qazw脛芦n脛芦’s memoirs offers critical insights into the professional toolkit of the ambassador. I contend that, while Qazw脛芦n脛芦’s narrative strategy is performative in texture, the text also carries a prescriptive undertone and could be read as a manual on diplomatic conduct. By analysing the autobiographical elements in Qazw脛芦n脛芦’s narrative, I will illustrate how the envoy’s temperament, subjectivity, diverse skillsets, and multi-layered identities shaped his perception and execution of the diplomatic assignment. In doing so, I explicate the dynamic relationship between imperial service (khidmat) incumbent upon a courtier and diplomatic service (sif脛聛rat) an emissary was expected to perform. My talk underscores the processual components of diplomatic practice and demonstrates how individual agency informed by “courtliness” is pivotal to reconstructing the ambassador’s versatile profile.

Bio: Shounak Ghosh is a postdoctoral research associate in the History Department at the University of Manchester, working on an ERC- and UKRI-funded project on institutional transformation and early modern global history. His research examines shifting diplomatic practices among courts in Mughal South Asia, Safavid Iran, Uzbek Bukhara, and the Deccan sultanates, that communicated in Persian. Drawing on extensive archival research in Persian manuscript collections — particularly diplomatic letters and emissary reports — he studies how ambassadorial performance, material cultures, and epistolary strategies informed diplomatic negotiations across this transregional geography between the late fifteenth through the mid-seventeenth centuries. Shounak is currently developing his first monograph, "Performing Diplomacy: Ambassadors and the Cultural Grammar of Power in the Persianate World, 1481-1636," based on his doctoral dissertation (Vanderbilt University, 2024). This will be the first book-length study of the ambassador in the Islamic world that will demonstrate how envoys creatively reconfigured the art of letter writing and the aesthetics of diplomatic gifts into a performance of sovereignty in varied courtly spaces. Shounak is simultaneously working on his second book project, titled "Epistolary Correspondence among Persianate Court Societies: Glimpses from Early Modern Deccan," supported by an archival research grant from the British Institute of Persian Studies.