The Perception of European Geography in Mughal-Period Persian Texts: A Preliminary Exploration

The knowledge of Mughals on geography is not accorded much importance in modern scholarly work, much less its perception of Europe’s geography because it is deemed outdated when compared with European achievements in geographical discoveries and their consequent mastery over the world. On the one hand, the rise of Europe as the centre of world commerce is attributed to its dominance over the ‘New World’ towards the west, while the oceanic route to Asia eastwards gradually led to a shift in the economic balance between Europe and Asia by the end of the seventeenth century. ¹ All major Islamic empires were now obviously lagging behind Europe, and so appearing as ‘cultural failures’. ² A comparative approach must now involve an enquiry into how far the major Asian states made sense of contemporary geography and conceived their own place in it. The Ottomans certainly entertained extensive territorial ambitions in the sixteenth century ³ and the Mughals too laid claims to ‘world-rule’. ⁴ Works such as Edward Said’s Orientalism have alerted us to the pitfalls of a worldview that treats Europe as the yardstick by which to judge other civilisations. This is reinforced by the categorisation of the eighteenth century in Asia as a dark age by historians. ⁵

Without necessarily denying the significance of the advances in knowledge made in Europe, contemporaneous to Mughal times, it is still important to study how both knowledge and thought moved in the East. It may therefore be argued that ‘alterity’, a recent streak identified in post-colonial historiography, can aid the recognition of ‘difference’ between two or more cultures and their systems of thought, and this might bring some degree of balance to the discourse. ⁶ Our effort here, then, is to see how far the Mughal intellectual world was informed (in the realm of geography) of the West, given their exposure to European sailors, priests and merchants after Vasco da Gama had arrived at Calicut.

Mughal notions of the physical world were naturally initially influenced by the knowledge inherited from the classical Islamic world, which itself drew largely on Greek learning. Greek philosophers found eminent place in the knowledge system of the Mughals alongside the learned men of Islam. ⁷ Ptolemy’s Geographia had been translated into Arabic in the ninth century. Ptolemy had described the topography of Europe, Africa and Asia in greater detail and more extensively than any other before him. ⁸ It was the median text for the Euro-Islamic world until the fifteenth century, when Europe at last rejected Ptolemy’s earth-view once and for all. In Akbar’s reign, Abū’l Faִzl not only mentions Ptolemy (‘Bִatlemas’) but also shows knowledge of Seleucus and Augustus as rulers. ⁹ Al-Khwārizmi (d. 840) wrote on the geography and culture of Africa, South-eastern Asia and Northern Asia, clearly on the Greek model. ¹⁰ Abū Yūsuf Ya‘qūb al Kindī (d. 873–74) used a translation of Ptolemy’s work for his geographical ‘Description of the Inhabited Part of the Earth’ (mentioned by Mas‘ūdī). His pupil, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al ִṬayyib Sarakhsi (d. 899), in his geographical work titled Kitāb al-Masālik wa’l Mamālik (Book of Routes and kingdoms), based himself almost entirely on Greek works on geography. ¹¹ The text Ḥudūd al ‘Ālam [‘Regions of the world’], an anonymous work written in 982 ad, (perhaps in Afghanistan), forms a complete description of the world as known to the Muslims of the tenth century, but following Ptolemaic geographical concepts. ¹² Although the author had read the works of several Arab geographers, the only authorities cited in the book are Greek, namely Aristotle and Ptolemy. ¹³ He gives information about the islands in the Western Ocean (and Canary islands) and on the ‘isles of Britania’ based on Ptolemy’s description, along with some minor additional information. Britania, among a few others, was correctly noticed as an island. ¹⁴ Like all other Arab geographers (and the ancient Greek geographers), he accepts the division of the world into three parts: Asia (Asiayat al-Kubra), Europe (Yurup) and Libya. Asia occupies two-thirds; Europe, one-quarter; and Libya one-twelfth of the inhabited world. ¹⁵ The inhabited world covered one-ninth of the surface in northern quarter, of which the westernmost town was termed Sus-al aqṣā. The remaining parts were uninhabited. The author divides the world into 51 countries (nāhiyāt), of which five were situated south of the equator, forty-five to the north of it and one (Sudan) on the line of the equator. ¹⁶ The belief that the area of Asia was twice as large as the other regions of the world put together is shared by him with other authors as well, such as al-Berūnī.

Ptolemy’s ideas were challenged by Al-Berūnī in the eleventh century. He criticised those who ‘only imitated him’. ¹⁷ He wrote a number of books on geographical and astronomical subjects. These writings included accurate determinations of latitudes and longitudes and geodetic measurements. Through contacts with merchants, Al-Berūnī also collected some information on European countries. Concerning Eastern Europe, he consulted Bulgarian or Khwārizmian merchants. He is the first among Muslim geographers to mention the names of the river Angara and of the population of Baykal region in eastern Siberia, and he also gives an account of the Scandinavian Warangians, Northern Europe and the Ice Sea north-east of Europe. During Akbar’s reign, Al-Berūnī’s works were much read and valued. He does provide useful information on Europe that must have found its way to the Mughal scholars. Irfan Habib does argue that ‘the level of the transmission of classical Greek knowledge in the Indian subcontinent had been in decline ever since Al-Berūnī wrote his Kitāb al-Hind’. ¹⁸ It is, however, quite evident from the Mughal texts, such as the Ā’īn-i-Akbarī, that ancient Greek philosophers’ theories and concepts had by now been firmly incorporated in a significant measure.

The entire inhabited globe was seen as divided into seven climes, or haft-iqlīm, largely based on the Aristotelian–Ptolemaic concepts. An example of this is Haft Iqlīm, a work by Amīn Aḥmad Rāzī, completed in 1593. ¹⁹ Mughal scholars continued to employ this system, with its celestial spheres and epicycles. Each region in it was held to comprise a band limited by particular degrees of latitude. ²⁰ Countries were believed to be located in seven climes (aqālīm), though Abū’l Faִzl does list the latitudes and longitudes of some places in countries outside the seven ‘climes’, including the coast of the Atlantic Ocean (Ūqyānūs), ‘Great Britain’ (Baִrṭānya) and ‘Little Britain’, while in the sixth clime it listed ‘Qastmonia’ (Constantinople) ‘in the neighbourhood of Rūm’ and ‘Amora’ in Spain (‘Andlūs’). ²¹ Clearly, Abū’l Faִִzl was here just copying earlier lists without apparently drawing upon the information that could have been supplied by the Jesuit missionaries who had first appeared at the Mughal court in 1580.

Jahāngīr, displaying his faith in the Graeco-Arab geography, speaks of the seven climes while referring to royal territorial ambitions, or citing the maxim, ‘Even if a king seizes all the seven climes (aqlīm), he would aspire to conquer yet another’. ²² Aurangzeb had a similar perception in mind, when he wrote to Rānā Rāj Singh that ‘regulations of my great ancestors, who are so much esteemed by the worshipful ones, will cast lustre on the four-cornered inhabited world’. ²³

Apart from the received textual knowledge, fragmentary information on contemporary Europe was available to the Mughal elites through the missionaries and travellers as well as the European envoys who visited the Mughal court. The Mughals first came into contact with the Jesuits, who came from Portuguese-held Goa, and Akbar held discussions about Europe with them. The Jesuits, whom Akbar first received at Fatehpur Sikri in 1580, presented to him an atlas, which the archbishop of Goa had sent as a present. They wrote, ‘He was greatly pleased to see them’. ²⁴ Later on, he asked Fr. Monserrate to show him the position of Portugal and of his own empire on ‘an atlas’. ²⁵

Abū’l Faִzl seems to have learnt from the Jesuits of the discovery of the New World, for he tells us:

Today, the truth-inclined wise men regard the southern sphere to be populated just as the northern one. Recently, the Europeans (Farangīān) have seized a very large and well-populated island in the south, which they call the ‘New World’ (‘Ālam-i Nau). Apparently, a damaged vessel had arrived there. A horseman [from the vessel] came into view of the people of that land. Conceiving the man and the horse to be one animal, they became utterly frightened, and so, with little effort, the land was seized [by the Europeans]. ²⁶

There is, undoubtedly, this much truth in the report that there was no horse in the New World, so that no resistance could be offered to Spanish cavalry. But, apart from this reference, the New World was not recognised in the Mughal knowledge system as the ‘fourth’ continent. The textual knowledge westward among Muslim scholars was mainly confined to what was learnt from ancient Greece. ²⁷ They occasionally evinced some interest in West European countries, but their knowledge of these countries remained fragmentary and, at best, insufficient, being exclusively derived from the conversations they had with the Europeans in India. ²⁸ It is, however, noteworthy that in his recorded conversations with Jesuits, Jahāngīr showed interest in Christian beliefs, but almost none in customs of European countries. ²⁹

By the first decade of the seventeenth century, agents (‘factors’) of the trading companies of different European nations, apart from the Portuguese, also started settling in the Mughal Empire. Consequently, Mughal interaction with European merchants expanded and their knowledge about Western European nations should have increased. During Jahāngīr’s reign, Western European monarchs started sending embassies to the Mughal court. By the seventeenth century, the Mughal court should thus have had a fair idea of Europe and Europeans. Jahāngīr held frequent conversations with Thomas Kerridge and William Hawkins about the countries of the west, particularly England. He reportedly, even wished to see Sir Thomas Roe’s country. ³⁰ In 1617, Roe writes, ‘I rode to court to visit the king, who questioned about the booke of maps’. He further writes in respect of Mercator’s great book of Cosmography, that ‘the same month, he (Jahāngīr) sent for the map-booke, and no man could reade nor understand it, therefore, it was returned’. ³¹ Terry, in his account, also reports the same episode. ³²

Atlases, globes and maps of Europe continued to be imported and gifted to the Mughal kings and nobility by Europeans, thereby suggesting their acceptability and popularity. ³³ In fact, globes formed an important item of import to India to meet the growing demand from the Mughal nobility. The English factors sent globes as presents to Mughal Emperors, princes and nobles. ³⁴ And this interest was not confined to receiving globes as gifts only. For example, many European maps and topographical views of the sixteenth century may be seen as the sources for figural elements found in the Khamsa paintings. ³⁵ Raja Jai Singh Sawai (1699–1743) of Jaipur sought maps, globes and books on astronomy from the Jesuits when he built his observatories^{. 36} Tavernier (1640–67), who made a detailed note of education imparted in the centres of higher learning at Benaras, mentions the use of the globe in this seminary. ³⁷ Joseph Schwartzberg, speaking of representation of a geographic globe in the Mughal painting, ‘Jahāngīr embracing Shāh ‘Abbās’, by Abu’l Ḥasan, indeed, notes: ‘There can be no question that the general shapes of the portions of Asia, Africa, and Europe indicated on the globe derive from European maps’. ³⁸

It would also be worthwhile here to discuss the globe’s transformation from a European ‘object’ to a Mughal ‘subject’. In a major way for the Mughals, the globe entailed a visual experience. ³⁹ For them, the globe was deemed as not exclusively ‘European’ as the earth’s spherical shape had since long been accepted in the traditional Graeco-Arab system. ⁴⁰ It also contained an imagery of celestial and terrestrial world. ⁴¹ Consequently, they never quite accepted the globe as only a ‘physical’ depiction of terrestrial boundaries. Rather, it became an important symbol for stressing the king’s imperial suzerainty in Mughal paintings. ⁴² They refashioned it in a manner as to lay claim to a divine mandate for their universal dominion. ⁴³ The marking of territories shown in the globe given to them by Europeans perhaps did not dispel their belief in the divisions of the earth as given in Ptolemy. It is no wonder then that the territories shown in globe in the paintings are not always demarcated. One such painting by Abū’l Ḥasan, in 1615, shows Jahāngīr sitting on a throne with his feet resting on a globe on a golden stand. ⁴⁴ In yet another painting of 1620 by Bichitr, Jahāngīr is shown holding a globe. ⁴⁵ The geographical divisions marked on the globe in all these are rendered unimportant since the globe displays for them a single interconnected space over which the Mughal rulers, from Jahāngīr to Aurangzeb, ⁴⁶ could claim both temporal and spiritual supremacy. ⁴⁷ It was thus also an escape from the territoriality of the globe. Conversely, in instances where maps are delineated, the outlines appear to be fairly accurate. ⁴⁸ But, these remained confined to use for artistic purposes only. As Emily Savage Smith says, ‘terrestrial globes were introduced by Europeans but celestial globes remained important in Mughal court under the influence of Arab and Islamic science’. ⁴⁹

The response, however, was not uniform and there are some stray examples of display of curiosity also. Dānishmand Khān, ⁵⁰ a Mughal bureaucrat under Shāhjahān and Aurangzeb, for example, sought to learn geography, among other things, from Francois Bernier who was in his employment. However, he never apparently showed any interest about the continent Bernier came from. Even a noble of Aurangzeb, Muḥammad Qubād Beg, Dīwān in Deccan, who visited Europe (Firangistān) towards the end of the seventeenth century and spent some time in Europe, mentions nothing about the geography of Europe in his account of his travels there. ⁵¹ In 1715, J. Surman, the English ambassador (on behalf of the United East India Company) to the court of Emperor Farrukh-Siyar, planned to present a ‘map of the world’ to the latter, but nothing is known about his response to it. ⁵²

Let us have a look at the pertinent section of a rather long speech of Aurangzeb in 1661, as reported by Bernier, in which the former rebuked his erstwhile teacher thus:

What did you teach me? You told me that the whole of Franguistan ⁵³ [Europe] was no more than some inconsiderable island, of which the most powerful monarch was formerly the king of Portugal, then the king of Holland and afterwards the king of England. In regard to the other sovereigns of Franguistan, such as the king of France and that of Andalusia, you told me that they resembled our petty Rajas, and the potentates of Hindoustan eclipsed the glory of all other kings; that they alone were Humayons, Ekbars, Jehan-Guyres, or Chah-Jehans; the Happy, the Great, the conquerors of the World, and the kings of the World; and that Persia, Usbec, Kachguer, Tartary, and Catay, (Cathay). Glory be to God! What knowledge of geography and history you displayed! ⁵⁴

Although this much-cited alleged statement of Aurangzeb on the education of Mughal princes quoted by Bernier may lead one to believe that Aurangzeb was serious about the alleged misinformation on the greatness of European nations imparted by his erstwhile teacher, this did not affect the account of information on Europe available to the Mughal court. In 1693, a unique curriculum, the Dars-i-Nִiִzāmī, was framed by Mullā Nִiִzāmu’ddīn Sahalavī, ‘in response to a growing demand for more information on Graeco-Arab rationalism, based on works of Aristotle, Plato, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, Al Berūnī et al’. ⁵⁵ Even though this syllabus laid much emphasis on Greek logic and the use of reason, it did not seek to fill any of the alleged lacunae cited by Bernier in Aurangzeb’s speech. We must also take note of Bernier’s own derision of the limitations in the education of Mughal princes, ⁵⁶ with which Manucci also agrees. ⁵⁷

The alleged speech of Aurangzeb reported by Bernier implies a derision of greatness of Islamic kingdoms and ridicule over Mughals’ depiction of Europe as an ‘inconsiderable island’. ⁵⁸ This notion seems to be a carry-over from a similar opinion by European factors in Jahāngīr’s reign. ⁵⁹ It is possible here that the foreign travellers’ accounts through such assertions created a ‘discursive framework’ that is particularly amenable to a later colonial case. ⁶⁰ Also, their depictions are not ‘simple and transparent acts of translation unconnected to the questions of power. ⁶¹ Eugenia Vanina opines that by the end of sixteenth and beginning of seventeenth century, negative attitudes towards India of European visitors discernibly gained momentum’. ⁶² Nevertheless, the fact remains that no sustained attempts were made in India to incorporate European geographical notions and their new geographical discoveries into the existing framework of knowledge. In the works of Mughal elites also, we find a continuing faith in Graeco-Arab geography, coupled with the lack of any further information about Europe. ṣādiq Isfahānī’s work, Shāhid-i-ṣādiq (1647) was also based upon Ptolemaic geography. ⁶³ Irfan Habib observes that ṣādiq ‘did not give any contemporary information to fill the sheets for Europe; and not a very illuminating passage on Yangī Duniyā (the Young World), found in one of the manuscripts of his work (in Bodlein Library, London), is probably a later interpolation’. ⁶⁴ Indian writers stuck to the idea of three continents till the eighteenth century when more direct contact with Europe and Europeans had been attained and more information should have been consequently acquired on world geography. ⁶⁵

Due to the geographical discoveries in the fifteenth–sixteenth centuries, the Europeans developed an expanding notion of space and could see, at least before the advent colonialism, that Europe was not the centre of the earth. Such an expansive notion of space remained generally absent in Mughal India. For most Mughal scholars and elites, their own Empire was the centre of the cosmos. Such allegorical paintings as of ‘Jahāngīr Prefering Sufi over Kings’ reflect this in a clear and emphatic manner. ⁶⁶ They knew of the existence of the other continents but assigned to their own empire a place of pre-eminence. The other Asian empires—the Safavids, the Uzbeks, the Ottomans—could claim in the eyes of Indian intelligentsia a secondary position, but Europe still remained a vaguely envisioned piece of space, about which detailed or accurate knowledge was simply never sought. ⁶⁷