Polity, society and culture in the age of shift: Indo-Persian sources

Abstract: This paper examines the political, social and cultural transformations of late Mughal India through the lens of Indo-Persian sources. Moving beyond nd th the binary of "decline" versus "cultural efflorescence." It argues that the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are better understood as an age of shift, in which authority moved from the imperial centre to regional it argues that the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are better understood as an age of shift, in which authority, the emergence of commitioned persian writing under the East India Company and the linguistic absorption of European words and idioms into Indo-Persian usage. The paper also considers non-literary and technical Persian sources and the later impact of print and lithography, situating these developments within a broader reassessment of eighteenth-century Indo-Persian historiography.

Keywords: Indo-Persian sources; Late Mughal history; Eighteenth century decline; Persian historiography: Regional courts: Akhbarat: Malfuz literature