TEACHING PLAN for Academic Year (2019-2020)

BA History (H)

PAPER: History of India VIII 1600-1750

SEMESTER: IV

SESSION: 2019-2020

TEACHER NAME: DR. JASPAL SINGH

SYLLABUS

I. Sources (03 Weeks)

[a] Persian histories, memoirs: Jahangirnama; Maasir-i Alamgiri

[b] Travelogues: Bernier, Manucci

[c] Vernacular literary cultures: Mangalkavya and Rekhta

II. Political alliances and state formation ( 4 Weeks)

[a] Mughal Conquest and limits of expansion: Deccan

[b] Issues in the wars of succession

[c] Rajput political culture and state formation: Eastern Rajasthan

[d] Marathas: Shivaji and expansion under the Peshwas

III. Religion, society and the state (3 Weeks)

[a] Religious and intellectual ferment: Sikh, Vallabhi and Dara Shukoh

[b] Reassessing Aurangzeb: Jaziya, temple grant, music and relations with the Sikh

Gurus
IV. Political culture (2 Weeks)

[a] Mughal courtly culture: Umara; Haram; Mirzanama

[b] Shahjahanabad

[c] Mughal painting: allegory and symbolism under Jahangir and Shah Jahan

[d] Rajput paintings

V. Society and economy (2 Weeks)

[a] Understanding agrarian environment: forest, tribes, migrant communities

[b] Indian Oceanic trade; European commercial enterprise – Kerala, Coromandel coast; western

India

[c] Crafts and technologies

VI. Interpreting the 18th Century (2 Weeks)

ESSENTIAL READINGS

• Alam, M. and S. Subrahmanyam,eds. The Mughal State 1526-1750. New Delhi: Oxford

University Press, 1998.

• Alavi, S. ed. The Eighteenth Century in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press,

2002.

• Ali, Athar. The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb. New edition, New Delhi: Oxford

University Press 1997.

• Asher, C. Architecture of Mughal India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

• Beach, M.C. Mughal and Rajput Paintings. The New Cambridge History of India

Vol.1.3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

• Bhargava, M., ed.The Decline of the Mughal Empire. New Delhi: Oxford University

Press 2014.
• Blake, S. Shahjahanabad: The Sovereign City in Mughal India 1639-1739. New Delhi:

Cambridge University Press, 1993.

• Brown, K. B. “Did Aurangzeb Ban Music? Questions for the Historiography of his

Reign.” Modern Asian Studies, 41/1 (2007): 77-120.

• Chandra, S. Mughal Religious Policies, the Rajputs and the Deccan. New Delhi: Vikas

Publishing House, 1993.

• Chatterjee, K. “The Persianization of Itihasa.” Journal of Asian Studies, 67, 2 (May

2008): 513-543.

• Dalmia, V. and M.D. Faruqui, eds.Religious Interactions in Mughal India. New Delhi:

Oxford University Press, 2014.

• Gordon, S. The Marathas, 1600-1818. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.

• Habib, I. The Agrarian System of Mughal India 1556-1707. Revised edition, New Delhi:

Oxford University Press, 1999.

• Koch, E., Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology. New Delhi:Oxford University Press 2002.

• Lal, R. Domesticity and Power in the Early Mughal World. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2005.

• Lefevre, C. “Recovering a Missing Voice from Mughal India: The Imperial Discourse of

Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) in his Memoirs.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of

the Orient, 50, 4 (2007).

• O’Hanlon, R. “Manliness and Imperial Service in Mughal North India.”Journal of the

Economic and social History of the Orient, 42, 1 (1999).

• Pollock, Sheldon, ed.Literary Cultures in History, Reconstructions from South

Asia.Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

• Richards, J.F. The Mughal Empire: The New Cambridge History of India, Vol. I. 5.

Reprint, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007.

• ---------------.“Norms of Comportment among Mughal Imperial Officers.” Moral Conduct

and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam edited by Barbara D. Metcalf.

Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.43

• Sarkar, J. A History of the Emperor Aurangzib (r. 1658-1707A.D.). Translated edn.of

Saqi Mustaid Khan’s Ma’asir-i Alamgiri. Calcutta: Royal Society of Bengal: 1947. See

“Translator’s Preface”.

• Tambiah, S.J. “What did Bernier actually say? Profiling the Mughal empire.” In History

of India 1600-1800: Selected Essays, edited byNirmal Kumar.Delhi: India Press, 2014.

• �त्रपा, रामप्रस. मग़ल साम ु ्राज्य का उत्थान और. इलाहबाद: सट्रल बु क ड, 1989.

SUGGESTED READINGS

• Alam, M. “Sikh Uprisings under Banda Bahadur, 1708-1715.” Studies in History, XLI/2,

(1979).

• Aquil R. and P. Chatterjee eds., History in the Vernacular. New Delhi: Permanent Black,

2008.

• Bhargava, M., ed.,Exploring Medieval India, Vols. I and II. New Delhi: Orient

Blackswan, 2010.

• Francois Bernier,Travels in the Mogul Empire, A.D. 1656-1668, translated, on the basis

of Irving Brock’s version of and annotated by Archibald Constable; second edition

revised by Vincent A. Smith, Delhi: Low Price Publication, 2008.

and Culture, Vol. III. Sterling Publishers.

• Dasgupta, U. ed., The World of the Indian Ocean Merchant: Collected Essays of Ashin

Das Gupta. New Delhi: Oxford University Press 2011.

• Sahai, N.P. Politics of Patronage and Protest: The State, Society and Artisans in Early

Modern Rajasthan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

• Thackston, W.M., trans. & ed. The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of

India. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. (Read translator’s Preface and

Muhammad Hadi’s Preface.

CLASSES: 128 Classes

Due Coronavirus pandemic took classes online from 23 March 2020 onwards.

ASSESSMENT

Internal Assessment: 25 Marks

Students will be regularly assessed for their grasp on debates and discussions covered in class. \

Two written submissions and at least one presentation will be used for final grading of the

students.

Students will be assessed on their ability to engage with a sizeable corpus of readings assigned to

the theme for written submissions,

i.e. being able to explain important historical trends and tracing historiography reflected in the

assigned readings.