Mughal Court Ceremonial: The Durbar, the Jharokha-i-Darshan, and Court Etiquette

The court of the Mughal emperor was ceremonial institutions of the early modern world, and the daily routine of the emperor, the audience protocol, the dress of the nobles, the gift-giving, and the formal language of address constituted a coherent symbolic system that expressed and reinforced the imperial authority. The present page treats the daily routine of the emperor, the jharokha-i-darshan or window of audience, the diwan-i-aam or public audience hall, the diwan-i-khas or private audience hall, the audience protocol, the dress of the court, the gift-giving ceremonies, the formal language, and the relationship with the people. The broader administrative framework is surveyed in the Mughal administration overview, and the political culture of the court is treated in the Mughal court and nobility page, with related material in the festivals and ceremonies section.

The Daily Routine

The Mughal emperor’s day was regulated by a precise schedule, and the principal divisions were the early morning, the morning audience, the midday rest, the afternoon audience, the evening audience, and the night. Akbar, for example, rose before dawn, performed the wuzu or ritual ablution, and prayed in the private chapel. He then received the mir bakhshi and the diwan in a brief pre-dawn audience to review the business of the day. After a light breakfast, the emperor proceeded to the jharokha-i-darshan for the morning appearance, and from there to the diwan-i-aam for the public audience.

The midday was reserved for the diwan-i-khas or private audience, the meeting with the inner council, and the discussion of confidential business. The afternoon was reserved for the shikar or hunt, the ab-i-baz or boat excursion on the river, or the visit to the bagh or garden, and the early evening for the second session of the diwan-i-aam and the diwan-i-khas. The late evening was reserved for the mujlis or intimate gathering, at which the emperor heard music, listened to poetry, conversed with the learned, and dined with the chosen companions. The night was spent in the khwabgah or bedchamber.

The schedule was interrupted by the jumu’a or Friday prayer, which the emperor attended in the jami’ masjid of the capital, by the id or festival prayers, by the urs or commemoration of the saints, by the siyaha or tour of inspection, and by the campaigns of war. The jharokha-i-darshan and the diwan-i-aam were the most regular features, and the emperor’s failure to appear at the jharokha was treated as a sign of illness, mourning, or political crisis.

The Jharokha-i-Darshan

The jharokha-i-darshan, the window of audience, was a distinctive Mughal institution, introduced by Akbar in the 1570s and continued by his successors. The jharokha was a particular window of the palace, opening onto a public space, at which the emperor appeared every morning shortly after sunrise. The emperor was visible to the people gathered in the square below, the people made salam or salutation, and the emperor acknowledged the salutation with a slight bow. The emperor might receive a petition handed up by an attendant, the petition was taken to the diwan’s office for consideration, and the petitioner was given a brief opportunity to present his case in person.

The jharokha-i-darshan was, in the first instance, a device of public politics. The emperor’s visibility was a means of confirming his presence in the capital, his health, and his accessibility. The practice drew on the pre-Islamic Iranian tradition of the royal appearance and on the Islamic tradition of the imam’s visibility, and the Mughal emperors used the jharokha to assert a personal relationship with the people. The practice was, however, also a point of political vulnerability. The jharokha was accessible to a determined assassin, and the emperors were protected by a screen, an escort of ahadis or household cavalry, and the careful selection of the jharokha’s location. The emperor appeared in a particular costume, with a particular turban, a particular sarpech or aigrette, a particular sword, and a particular staff, designed to convey the farr-i-izadi or divine illumination of the emperor, the doctrine treated in the Mughal justice system page.

The Diwan-i-Aam and the Diwan-i-Khas

The diwan-i-aam, the public audience hall, was the principal venue of the emperor’s regular contact with the officials, the nobles, the merchants, and the people. The diwan-i-aam of the Red Fort in Delhi, the Rang Mahal of Lahore, the diwan-i-aam of Agra, and the great audience halls of Fatehpur Sikri and Allahabad were the settings of the daily audience.

The diwan-i-khas, the private audience hall, was a smaller and more intimate space, used for the emperor’s meetings with the inner council, the high nobles, the foreign envoys, the learned men, and the chosen companions. The diwan-i-khas was the venue of confidential business, and the audience in the diwan-i-khas was a mark of particular favour. The most famous diwan-i-khas of the Mughal period was the diwan-i-khas of the Red Fort in Delhi, in which the legendary takht-i-taus or Peacock Throne was installed, and the diwan-i-khas of the Lahore Fort.

The protocol of the diwan-i-aam and the diwan-i-khas was elaborate. The officials approached the throne in a prescribed order, made the kornish or salutation, the taslim or prostration, and the sar-o-kar or greeting of the day, and then took their prescribed places. The order of approach was determined by rank, and the rank was determined by the mansabdari system treated in the mansabdari system page.

The Audience Protocol

The audience protocol, the etiquette of the durbar, was a precise and detailed system that governed every aspect of the interaction between the emperor and the nobles. The most formal salutation was the sijda or prostration, in which the noble prostrated himself before the throne and rose only when the emperor signalled. The sijda was, in theory, a Muslim act of worship, and the use of the sijda before a human sovereign was controversial. Akbar restricted its use to the inner chamber, and the practice of the kornish or standing salutation with one hand on the breast and the other on the forehead became the standard form in the diwan-i-aam. The Hindu nobles, who could not perform the sijda on religious grounds, performed the kornish in the same form, and the protocol thus expressed the imperial theory of equality among the religions at the court.

The mansabdars of the highest ranks were entitled to sit in the emperor’s presence, generally on a gaddi or low cushion, the mansabdars of the middle ranks were required to stand, and the mansabdars of the lowest ranks were required to stand at a distance, in a position prescribed by their rank.

Dress, Gifts, and the Formal Language

The dress of the Mughal court was regulated by elaborate rules. The emperor wore a jama or long coat, a patka or sash, a sarpech or aigrette in the turban, a khanjar or dagger at the waist, a sword at the side, and a chadar or shawl over the shoulders.

The gifts presented to the emperor, the nazr or offering, were a major feature of the court ceremonial. The nobles, the provincial governors, the mansabdars of the higher ranks, the foreign envoys, and the representatives of the religious and commercial communities all presented gifts on important occasions, the nawroz or new year, the id festivals, the emperor’s birthday, the anniversary of the accession, and the muhur or weighing ceremony. The gifts were formally displayed in the diwan-i-aam, the diwan-i-khas, or the naqqar khana or drum house.

The formal language of the court, the vocabulary of address, the formulae of petition, and the rhetoric of the farman were equally elaborate. The emperor was addressed in the third person, and the address used a chain of honorifics. The formal language is treated in connection with the imperial orders page, and the literary and cultural dimensions are treated in the Mughal literature section.

The Relationship with the People

The Mughal court ceremonial was, in theory and to a substantial degree in practice, a system for the relationship between the emperor and the people. The jharokha-i-darshan made the emperor visible to the people, the diwan-i-aam made the emperor accessible to the petitioners, the mazalim or grievance court made the emperor accessible to subjects with complaints, and the elaborate protocol made the imperial authority visible in every detail of the durbar. The ceremonial survived the decline of the effective imperial power in the eighteenth century, and the durbar of the later Mughals in Delhi retained its symbolic power well into the period of British dominance. The wazir’s relationship with the emperor is treated in the Role of the Wazir page.

Sources

• M. Athar Ali, The Apparatus of Empire (1985).
• Abu’l Fazl, Ain-i-Akbari, trans. Blochmann/Jarrett (1873–1927), vol. I, on the darbar.