'Unhitching the Oxcart of Delhi': a Mughal-Period Hindi account of Political Insurgency

摘要

This article is part of a larger effort to broaden the source-base for understanding Mughal-period India by engaging with the Hindi literary archive. I analyze the vignettes of Aurangzeb and other Mughal figures that are available in Lai Kavi's Chatraprakas (Light of Chatrasal, c. 1710), a Brajbhasha (classical Hindi) historical poem commissioned by the Bundela ruler Chatrasal (1649-1731). Written shortly after Aurangzeb's death, the Chatraprakas is in part a retrospective on Aurangzeb's reign. It is also a valuable source of regional history that gives voice to how the Mughal Empire was perceived from a local court that went in and out of political favour. In places, Lal Kavi engages in trenchant political critique, expressing the court's strong disillusionment with the Mughal mansabdari system as well as more local grievances. While by no means the dominant tone of the work, there are occasional hints of the court's outrage at Mughal offenses against what Lai Kavi explicitly terms "Hindu dhartna. " Parsing the Chatraprakas as both poetry and history, I probe the text's complex perspectives on Mughal rule.