Mughal Objects, Temporal Order and Material Practices of Household in Early Modern India (16th-18th century)

Abstract

The paper foregrounds early modern household in India as a socio-economic unit where space-time relationship was constantly being configured through object-consumption and material practices. Particularly focusing on the Mughal empire (16^th-18^th century), it firstly explores the temporality of production of select objects such as perfumes, illuminants, domestic utensils and furniture deemed necessary and valuable in an elite household. Time and spatial setting of consumption of these objects would also inform the study in delineating the everyday pattern of the household. In charting the temporal rhythm of the household, it further focuses on patterns of material displacement, gifting, inheritance and mobile networks of exchanges through which itinerant objects moved from one household to another. Change in ownership and altered sites of consumption impacted the temporal lives of the household objects bringing into fold new socio-economic relations and cultural encounters in the domestic spheres. Recurring episodes of spatio-temporal alterations complimented by overseas and inland circulation of household objects through interconnected trails of trade and European Companies’ auctions constantly recalibrated the temporal order of the early modern household.  Studying Mughal household manual and East India Company paper, finally, focuses on this temporal flux of household through altering object-praxis and material displacements in the early modern period.