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"An extraordinary character leaps off the pages of Marco Moneta's book..." MARIKA SARDAR, CURATOR, AGA KHAN MUSEUM, TORONTO "...irresistible..." GIORGIO RIELLO, HISTORIAN "...rich and accessible..." AMIN JAFFER, CURATOR AND AUTHOR The man who witnessed India's history in the making Venetian Nicolò Manucci's story is distinct from those of other European travellers and adventurers who documented their stay in India. The young teenager, who arrived on Indian shores with little education and few connections, lived here till his death at the age of eighty-two. He was witness to some of the most dramatic events in the subcontinent's history. Living by his wits, he started his career as chief artilleryman in Dara Shukoh's fratricidal battle against Aurangzeb for the Mughal throne. Thereafter, Manucci joined Rajput general Jai Singh in his campaign to subdue the Maratha leader Shivaji. However, Manucci had no stomach for a prolonged military career. With a great capacity for learning and immense good fortune, he made his way into the Mughal court, incredibly, as a court physician to Aurangzeb's son Shah Alam. In service of the future Mughal emperor, Manucci was to head back to the Deccan once again to meet the challenge posed by Shivaji's son Sambhaji. Manucci would spend the rest of his life within European settlements in Madras and Pondicherry. And his in-depth knowledge of the Mughal court would prove useful in negotiations between the Europeans and the Mughal authorities. Marco Moneta tells the gripping story of a man who was witness to the intrigues and rivalries in Mughal and European territories, and who not just survived but rose to a position of influence and respect in a hostile and alien world.
A field-changing history explains how the subcontinent lost its political identity as the home of all religions and emerged as India, the land of the Hindus. Did South Asia have a shared regional identity prior to the arrival of Europeans in the late fifteenth century? This is a subject of heated debate in scholarly circles and contemporary political discourse. Manan Ahmed Asif argues that Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Republic of India share a common political ancestry: they are all part of a region whose people understand themselves as Hindustani. Asif describes the idea of Hindustan, as reflected in the work of native historians from roughly 1000 CE to 1900 CE, and how that idea went missing. This makes for a radical interpretation of how India came to its contemporary political identity. Asif argues that a European understanding of India as Hindu has replaced an earlier, native understanding of India as Hindustan, a home for all faiths. Turning to the subcontinent’s medieval past, Asif uncovers a rich network of historians of Hindustan who imagined, studied, and shaped their kings, cities, and societies. Asif closely examines the most complete idea of Hindustan, elaborated by the early seventeenth century Deccan historian Firishta. His monumental work, Tarikh-i Firishta, became a major source for European philosophers and historians, such as Voltaire, Kant, Hegel, and Gibbon during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yet Firishta’s notions of Hindustan were lost and replaced by a different idea of India that we inhabit today. The Loss of Hindustan reveals the intellectual pathways that dispensed with multicultural Hindustan and created a religiously partitioned world of today.
A Well-Known Traveller'S Account Of Mughal India, Manucci The Venetian'S Work, Which Has Been Typically Out Of Print For A Long Time Ever Since Its Appearance In 1907-9, Is Now Offered In Its Full And Unexpurgated Form. It Is A Faithful And Vivid Picture Of Mediaeval India From 1656-1680. Like Tavernier And Brucer, Two Equally Famous Travel¬Lers' Works, Hedges' Diary Of Mughal Provincial Administration, Gemeli Careri'S Visit To Aurangzeb'S Camp In The Deccan In 1695 And Catrou'S Histoire Generate De L'Empire Du Mogol (1715), Founded On The Memoirs Printed In These Pages, This Voluminous Four-Volume Work Is Of Both Subjective And Objective Value Which Can Hardly Be Overestimated.Written In A Charming Style, The Book Is Truly A Magnum Opus Of The Celebrated Author Who Visited India In 1656 And Was Associated With The Mughal Court For Over Half A Century.He Offers Herein, Besides Other Inti¬Mate Details, An Account Of Hindu Reli¬Gion, Manners, Customs, And Description Of Muhammadan Weddings And Funerals.The Book Is A Veritable Mine Of Otherwise Inaccessible Data About A Period Of Indian History Which Everyone Should Know. Comprehensive In Its Groundwork And Masterly And Lucid In Its Details, Manucci'S Book, As Presented In Its English Garb By Irvine, Ranks Among The Most Authoritative Sources At The Disposal Of The Historian Of The Future.A Painstaking Exploration Of Life As Lived In An Important Period Of Mughal History, The Book Is Crowded With Facts Carefully And Ably Translated And Edited With Historical Footnotes Which Help In Understanding Them And Their Relation To The Administrative, Political And Social Condition Of The Time.Few Mss. Were More Worth Translat¬Ing And Few Have Had A Better Translator.
A tall, yellow-haired young European traveller calling himself “Mogor dell’Amore,” the Mughal of Love, arrives at the court of the real Grand Mughal, the Emperor Akbar, with a tale to tell that begins to obsess the whole imperial capital. The stranger claims to be the child of a lost Mughal princess, the youngest sister of Akbar’s grandfather Babar: Qara Köz, ‘Lady Black Eyes’, a great beauty believed to possess powers of enchantment and sorcery, who is taken captive first by an Uzbeg warlord, then by the Shah of Persia, and finally becomes the lover of a certain Argalia, a Florentine soldier of fortune, commander of the armies of the Ottoman Sultan. When Argalia returns home with his Mughal mistress the city is mesmerised by her presence, and much trouble ensues. The Enchantress of Florence is a love story and a mystery – the story of a woman attempting to command her own destiny in a man’s world. It brings together two cities that barely know each other – the hedonistic Mughal capital, in which the brilliant emperor wrestles daily with questions of belief, desire and the treachery of sons, and the equally sensual Florentine world of powerful courtesans, humanist philosophy and inhuman torture, where Argalia’s boyhood friend ‘il Machia’ – Niccolò Machiavelli – is learning, the hard way, about the true brutality of power. These two worlds, so far apart, turn out to be uncannily alike, and the enchantments of women hold sway over them both. But is Mogor’s story true? And if so, then what happened to the lost princess? And if he’s a liar, must he die?
