Diplomatic Sociability in Persianate Contexts: Conceptualizing Early Modern Courts as Performative Spaces

Abstract

This paper argues that the site for diplomatic interactions between Persianate courtly elite was not restricted to the royal court but extended to any space where the ethos of a court could be approximated. These courtly spaces could include a makeshift pavilion, a mausoleum, a lakeside mansion, or even a shikār-gāh (hunting arena). Through a critical textual analysis of tārīkh (court chronicles), munshaʼāt (diplomatic correspondence), wāqiʻa (memoirs), and ʻarẓ-dāsht (reports), chiefly composed by Mughal envoys and courtiers, I delineate how such spaces were curated using material objects and ephemeral substances that imparted layers of meaning to the site and catered to the agenda of the meeting. The layout of courtly spaces for these interactions was orchestrated through sensorial means to transform and temper the conduct of actors. Occasions such as bazm (banquet), majlis (assembly), and maḥfil (congregation) engendered varied forms of sensory experiences on the participants and informed their performative sociability (ṣuḥbat) during these courtly encounters. Thus, each site had a performative dimension and set of etiquette that was specific to its spatiality and modulated the form of interaction for which they were arranged. My paper extends Flatt’s thesis of Persianate courtliness to liminal, transient spaces that lay beyond the realm of the official court to illustrate the performative texture of diplomatic practices among early modern Persianate court societies.