In This Corner of the Entangled Cosmopolises: Political Legitimacies in the Multilingual Society of Sultanate and Early Mughal Kashmir

Abstract

This essay explores the forms of political legitimacy claimed by Muslim sultans and received by their Muslim and non-Muslim subjects in sultanate and early Mughal Kashmir. The establishment of the Shahmirid sultanate in 1339 marked the beginning of a new multilingual situation where Sanskrit and Persian were both used as official languages. In such a situation, presentation of the Shahmirids’ political legitimacy took different forms depending on the language in which it was made. Shahmirid sultans declared their Indic legitimacy in Sanskrit and Islamic legitimacy in Persian. A polyglot chose the Indic legitimacy to praise the contemporary sultan in his Sanskrit writing with full knowledge of the Islamic legitimacy claimed by the same sultan. In such a situation, a ruler’s action that was deeply linked with his claim of legitimacy, e.g., Akbar’s sun-veneration could be interpreted differently by the observers depending on the language used to express their interpretations.