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Women, Monastic Commerce, and Coverture in Eastern India circa 1600–1800 CE*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2015

INDRANI CHATTERJEE
INDRANI CHATTERJEE*
Affiliation:
History Department, University of Texas at Austin, United States of America Email: ichatterjee@austin.utexas.edu
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Abstract

This article argues that economic histories of the transition to colonial economics in the eighteenth century have overlooked the infrastructural investments that wives and widows made in networks of monastic commerce. Illustrative examples from late eighteenth-century records suggest that these networks competed with the commercial networks operated by private traders serving the English East India Company at the end of the eighteenth century. The latter prevailed. The results were the establishment of coverture and wardship laws interpellated from British common law courts into Company revenue policies, the demolition of buildings. and the relocation of the markets that were attached to many of the buildings women had sponsored. Together, these historical processes made women's commercial presence invisible to future scholars.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 175 - 216
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

Earlier drafts of this article have been revised with the help of Professors Donald Davis Jr, Alison Frazier, Laurie Green, Paula Greenberg, Sumit Guha, Julie Hardwick, Heather Hindman, Patrick Olivelle, Suman Olivelle, and Mary Rader; members of the Institute of Historical Studies, University of Texas at Austin; and of the Gender and Sexuality Seminar, Department of History, University of Texas at Austin; Samira Sheikh, Tony Stewart, Anand Taneja, and Nancy G. Lin at Vanderbilt University; Lindsey Harlan at Connecticut College; David Curley at Western Washington University; Priti Ramamurthy, Anand Yang, Purnima Dhawan, and Frank Conlon at the University of Washington; Anjali Arondekar at the University of California, Santa Cruz; Ritu Birla, University of Toronto; Sara Butler, Cynthia Neville, Gijs Kruitzer, and Thomas Ertl at the Workshop on Law Addressing Diversity, Vienna, 2014; and the three anonymous referees of this journal. I am alone responsible for the remaining inadequacies.

References

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8 For the varieties of sai’r, see Moosvi, Shireen (1987), The Economy of the Mughal Empire c. 1595: A Statistical Study, Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 127Google Scholar. For a later history of conflict around waqf, see Kozlowski, Gregory C. (1985), Muslim Endowments and Society in British India, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 For the eighteenth-century ruler of Malwa, Ahalyabai Holkar, and her patronage of residential buildings for Brahmans, a temple, and piers (ghats), see Desai, Madhuri (2012), ‘City of Negotiations: Urban Space and Narrative in Banaras’ in Dodson, Michael (ed.) Banaras: Urban History, Architecture, Identity, New Delhi: Routledge India, pp. 17–41Google Scholar. For a nineteenth-century senior queen of the Kathmandu-based Shah dynasty and her posthumous patronage of a Saiva shrine within a Dasanami monastery at Banaras, see Gaenszle, Martin (with Nutandhar Sharma) (2006), ‘Nepali Places: Appropriations of Space in Banaras’ in Gaenszle, M. and Gengnagel, Jorg (eds) Visualising Space in Banaras: Images, Maps and the Practice of Representation, Weisbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, pp. 303–324Google Scholar; for transformations of the Saiva Gosvamis into ‘caste’ groups, see Leonard, Karen P. (2011), ‘Family Firms’, Comparative Studies in Society and History(henceforth CSSH), 53:4, pp. 827–854CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leonard, K. P. (2013), ‘From Goswami Rajas to Goswami Caste in Hyderabad’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, 47:1, pp. 1–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For northern Indian plains, see Pinch, William R. (2006), Warrior Ascetics and Indian Empires, Cambridge: Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar; Pinch, W. R. (2004), ‘Gosain Tawaif: Slaves, Sex and Ascetics in Rasdhan, ca 1800–1857’, Modern Asian Studies(hencesorth MAS), 38:3, pp. 559–597CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Kasturi, Malavika (2009), ‘“Asceticising” Monastic Families’, MAS, 43:5, pp. 1039–1083Google Scholar. For Panjab, see Malhotra, Anshu (2012), ‘Bhakti and the Gendered Self: A Courtesan and a Consort in Mid-Nineteenth Century Panjab’, MAS, 46:6, pp. 1506–1539Google Scholar.

10 For the invisibility of buildings, see William R. Pinch (2012), ‘Hiding in Plain Sight: Gosains in Banaras, 1809’, in Dodson (ed.) Banaras, pp. 77–109.

11 Davis, Donald R. (2010), The Spirit of Hindu Law, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 92 and passimCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Schopen, Gregory (2008), ‘Separate But Equal: Property Rights and the Legal Independence of Buddhist Nuns and Monks in Early North India’, JAOS, 128:4, pp. 625–640Google Scholar. For the purposes of this article, I use ‘monastic’ to include ordained men who lived with the families they had ritually renounced, as well as those who lived singly or without women, following Clarke, Shayne (2014), Family Matters in Indian Buddhist Monasticisms, Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i PressGoogle Scholar.

13 For the latest of such finds, see Ryosuke Furui (2013), ‘Merchant Groups in Early Medieval Bengal: With Special Reference to the Rajbhita Stone Inscription of the Time of Mahipala I, year 33’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (henceforth BSOAS), pp. 1–22; also Birendra N. Prasad (2008), ‘Monarchs, Monasteries and Trade on an “Agrarian Frontier”: Early Medieval Samatata-Harikela, Bangladesh’, South and South-East Asia: Religion and Culture, Journal of South and Southeast Asian Association for the Study of Culture and Religion, pp. 160–177.

14 Hussain, Syed Ejaz (2003), The Bengal Sultanate: Politics, Economy and Coins AD 1205–1576, Delhi: Manohar, pp. 238–239Google Scholar; Hussain, S. E. (2013), ‘Silver Flow and Horse Supply to Sultanate Bengal with Special Reference to Trans-Himalaya Trade (13th to 16th Centuries)’, JESHO, 56:2, pp. 264–308Google Scholar. For the prehistory of such trade, see Chakravarti, Ranabir (1999), ‘Early Medieval Bengal and the Trade in Horses: A Note’, JESHO, 42:2, pp. 194–211Google Scholar. For the presence of other Brahmins in provincial households allied with the Sharqi sultans, see also Jha, Pankaj Kumar (2014), ‘Beyond the Local and the Universal: Exclusionary Strategies of Expansive Literary Cultures in Fifteenth-Century Mithila,’ Indian Economic and Social History Review (henceforth IESHR), 51:1, pp. 1–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 Hall, Kenneth R. (2010), ‘Ports of Trade, Maritime Diasporas and Networks of Trade and Cultural Integration in the Bay of Bengal Region of the Indian Ocean c. 1300–1500’, JESHO, 53, pp. 109–145Google Scholar; also Yang, Bin (2012), ‘Bengal Connections in Yunnan’, China Report, 48, pp. 125–145Google Scholar.

16 For elaboration, see Alam, Muzaffar and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (2011), Writing the Mughal World: Studies on Culture and Politics, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 415–450, 525–567CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an individual study of similar figures, see Kinra, Rajeev (2010), ‘Master and Munshi: A Brahman Secretary's Guide to Mughal Governance’, IESHR, 47:4, pp. 527–561Google Scholar.

17 See the Persian sanad of Madad-i-Ma‘ash aima to Rajindar ‘Bhutt’ and Sham Das ‘Bhutt’ of 1644–1648 CE in English Register of Sanads in the Bazi Zamin Daftar Midnapur for March 1784, West Bengal State Archives, Kolkata (henceforth WBSA), no. 13765, folios 60–61. A sanad is a written order, decree or ordinance issued by an administrator.

18 For Ramanandis, see Pinch, ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’, pp. 81–86; for their rivals, the Gaudiya Vaisnava lineages traced from Rup Gosvami, his nephew Jiv Gosvami, the Kachhvaha clan of eastern Rajasthan, and the Mughals, see Horstmann, Monika (1999), In Favour of Govinddevji: Historical Documents Relating to a Deity of Vrindaban and Eastern Rajasthan, New Delhi: IGNCAGoogle Scholar and Manohar; and for the competition between the two sects, see Tirmizi, S.A.I. (ed.) (1995), Mughal Documents, A.D. 1628–59, New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, Vol. 2, pp. 74–78Google Scholar.

19 For Bengal, see Stewart, Tony K. (1999), ‘Surprising Bedfellows: Vaisnava and Shi‘i Alliance in Kavi Aripha's “Tale of Lalomon”’, International Journal of Hindu Studies, 3:3, p. 265–298CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For combinations of Braj, Urdu, Bengali, and Sanskrit in eighteenth-century narrative poetry, mangalkavya, see Bandyopadhyay, Brajendranath and Das, Sajanikanta (eds) (1943), Bharatchandra Granthabali, Calcutta: Bangiya Sahitya Parisad; also Ramprasad Sen (reprint 1985), Vidyasundar, Calcutta: Basu PrakashaniGoogle Scholar. For other parts of the subcontinent, see Sheikh, Samira and Orsini, Francesca (eds) (2014) After Timur Left: Culture and Circulation in Fifteenth-Century North India, Delhi: Oxford University PressGoogle Scholar; Christopher Minkowski, ‘Learned Brahmans and the Mughal Court Jyotisas’, Stefan Pello, ‘“Drowned in a Sea of Mercy”: The Textual Identification of Hindu Persian Poets from Shi‘i Lucknow in the Tazkira of Bhagwan Das Hindi’, and Francesca Orsini, ‘Inflected Kathas: Sufis and Krishna Bhaktas in Awadh’ in Dalmia, Vasudha and Faruqui, Munis (eds) (2014), Religious Interaction in Mughal India, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 102–158, 195–223CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I am also grateful to Francesca Orsini for sharing her unpublished piece, ‘The Multilingual Local in World Literature’.

20 Najaf Haidar, ‘Customary Law in Mughal India’, Paper presented at the Workshop on Law Addressing Diversity, University of Vienna, 24 May 2014. For the use of locality-level documents by Muslim judges in the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, see Hasan, Farhat (2004), State and Locality in Mughal India: Power Relations in Western India c. 1572–1730, Cambridge: Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar. For identical dual-language documents pertaining to land grants in eastern India for the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see Chatterjee, Indrani (2013) ‘Monastic Governmentality, Colonial Misogyny and Postcolonial Amnesia’, The History of the Present, 3:1, pp. 57–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 See, for instance, Guenther, Alan (2003), ‘Hanafi Fiqh in Mughal India: The Fatawa-i-Alamgiriyya’ in Eaton, Richard M. (ed.) India's Islamic Traditions, 711–1750, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 209–229Google Scholar; also Khalfoui, Mouez (2011), ‘Together But Separate: How Muslim Scholars Conceived of Religious Plurality in South Asia in the Seventeenth Century’, BSOAS, 74:1, pp. 87–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 See Goswamy, B. N. and Malhotra, R. I. (1973), ‘An Early Eighteenth Century Document from Kangra’, JAOS, 93:2, pp. 203–206Google Scholar.

23 Petition of Ramchurn Roy regarding the zamindaris of Tumlook [Tamluk] and Moysadal [Mahisadal], Proceedings of the Revenue Board Consisting of the Whole Council, 6 April 1773, no. 59, WBSA, Kolkata, India.

24 Chatterjee, Nandini (2014), ‘Hindu City and Just Empire: Banaras and Ali Ibrahim Khan's Legal Imagination’, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History(henceforth JCCH), 15:1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; http:muse.jhu.edu, [accessed 13 June 2015]. For a similar presence of gods in the Mughal Maratha courts in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, see O’Hanlon, Rosalind (2014), At the Edges of Empire: Essays in the Social and Intellectual History of India, Ranikhet: Permanent Black, pp. 235–301Google Scholar. For a summary of the state of scholarship on ‘Anglo-Muhammadan law’ in the subcontinent after the 1790s, see Ghose, Rajarshi, ‘Islamic Law and Imperial Space: British India as “Domain of Islam”, c 1803–1890’, JCCH, 15:1; http:muse.jhu.edu, [accessed 13 June 2015]Google Scholar.

25 Chatterjee, Kumkum (2009), ‘Cultural Flows and Cosmopolitanism in Mughal India: The Bishnupur Kingdom’, IESHR, 46:2, pp. 147–182Google Scholar; Chatterjee, K. (2013), ‘Goddess Encounters: Mughals, Monsters and the Goddess in Bengal’, MAS, 47:5, pp. 1435–1487Google Scholar.

26 Maiti, Sukumar (ed.) (2001), Narsimha Basur Dharmamangalkavya, Kolkata: Bijana Pancanana Samgrahasala o Gabeshana Kendra, pp. 41–42, lines 1– 40Google Scholar.

27 McDermott, Rachel Fell (2001), Mother of My Heart, Daughter of My Dreams: Kali and Uma in the Devotional Poetry of Bengal, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 147–154CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Sears, Tamara (2007), ‘Saiva Monastic Complexes in Twelfth-Century Rajasthan: The Pasupatas and Cahamanas at Menal’, South Asian Studies, 23:1, pp. 107–126CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sears, T. (2008), ‘Constructing the Guru: Ritual Authority and Architectural Space in Medieval India’, The Art Bulletin, 90:1, pp. 7–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Sears, T. (2009) ‘Fortified Mathas and Fortress Mosques: The Transformation and Reuse of Hindu Monastic Sites in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries’, Archives of Asian Art, 59, pp. 7–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Compare Inscription 1 (a fifteenth-century dedication of a matha made of blue stones) with Inscriptions 4 (prasadam), 6 (devakulam), 7 (matha-sattamah), 40 (mandira), 41 (matha), and Index V in Appendix. Bhattacharya, A. K. (1982), A Corpus of Dedicatory Inscriptions from Temples of West Bengal (c 1500 AD to 1800 AD), Calcutta: Navana, pp. 49–58, p. 215Google Scholar. All of these have been translated as ‘temple’; the authorities cited for such a translation practice are M. Monier-Williams and H. H. Wilson.

30 See Biswas, Sachindra Sekhar (1992), Bishnupur, New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of IndiaGoogle Scholar.

31 See Wright, Samuel (2014), ‘From Prasasti to Political Culture: The Nadia Raj and Malla Dynasty in Seventeenth-Century Bengal’, Journal of Asian Studies(henceforth JAS), 73:2, pp. 397–418CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Mirza Nathan (1936), Baharistan-i-Ghaybi, translated M. I. Borah, Assam: Government of Assam, Vol. I, p. 138. For reports of cooking in the precincts of the shrine of a temple sponsored by an eighteenth-century zamindar, see Archaeological Survey of India (1929), Annual Report for 1928–29, Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing, p. 39Google Scholar.

33 Journal of a Survey of the Passes and Western Boundary of Bengal taken by Lt. Thomas Carter 1767, OIOC, Mss Eur F 331/36, folio 2.

34 See Photos 897/3 (35), 897/2 (38) by unnamed photographer of 1870s, Nightingale Collection: Album of Miscellaneous Views and Portraits, British Library; Photos 1005/1 (150), 1005/1 (160) for 1903–1904, and Photo 1005/5 (12) for 1920–1921, Collections of the Archaeological Survey of India: Eastern Circle, British Library.

35 Archaeological Survey of India (1935), Annual Report: Eastern Circle for 1930–34, Calcutta: Superintendent of Government Printing, p. 38Google Scholar.

36 Biswas, Bishnupur, p. 28; for detailed description of fortification, double-moat defence systems, water-architecture and arms, see Mallik, Abhayapada (1921), History of Bishnupur Raj: an Ancient Kingdom of West Bengal, Calcutta: The Author, pp. 47, 89–110Google Scholar.

37 This was true of the pioneering work of David J. McCutchion, who described the structure and terracotta designs of the buildings but omitted to decipher the epigraphic evidence of women's patronage of the residential complexes. For this, see his posthumously published Late Medieval Temples of Bengal: Origin and Classification, Calcutta: The Asiatic Society, 1972. However, there are two plates in the book which appear to describe mathas in Barisal, modern Bangladesh: see plates 49 and 50, D/4/c and H/8/b. A later publication provides three more plates of tower-like structures identified as mathas: see Michell, George, Brick Temples of Bengal: From the Archives of David McCutchion, Princeton: Princeton University Press, H/8/aGoogle Scholar; see also Bhowmick, Suhrid Kumar (ed.) (2008), David J. McCutchion: Unpublished Letter and Selected Articles, Kolkata: MonfakiraGoogle Scholar. For a similarly affected discussion of the identical complexes in Bishnupur, see Ghosh, Pika (2007), Temple to Love, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania PressGoogle Scholar; Chatterjee, ‘Cultural Flows’.

38 Cohn, Bernard S. (1964), ‘The Role of the Gosains in the Economy of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Upper India’, IESHR, 1, pp. 175–182Google Scholar; also Mukherjee, Political Culture and Economy, pp. 89–145.

39 Chatterjee, Suranjan (1984), ‘New Reflections on the Sannyasi, Fakir, and Peasant War’, Economic and Political Weekly, 19, PE2–13Google Scholar.

40 van Spengen, Wim (2000), Tibetan Border Worlds: A Geohistorical Analysis of Trade and Traders, London: Kegan Paul International, pp. 57–68Google Scholar.

41 Gutschow, Niels and Basukala, Bijay (2011), Architecture of the Newars: A History of Building Typologies and Details in Nepal, Vol II: Part IV, the Malla Period (1350–1769), Chicago: Serindia Publications, p. 279Google Scholar.

42 See Tucci, Guiseppe (1956), Preliminary Report on Two Scientific Expeditions in Nepal, Rome: I.S.M.E.O.Google Scholar; Tucci, G. (1962), Nepal: The Discovery of the Malla, translated by Lovett Edwards, New York: E. P. Dutton, pp. 58–64Google Scholar.

43 Inscription 12 in Bhattacharya, Corpus, pp. 64–65.

44 This vast terrain included Himalayan locations, as Nepali epigraphic and historic evidence suggests. This evidence is generally ignored by postcolonial Indian historians. For an example, see Saha, Prabhat Kumar (1995), Some Aspects of Malla Rule in Bishnupur (1590–1806 A.D.), Calcutta: Ratnabali PublishersGoogle Scholar.

45 Inscription 23, Bhattacharya, Corpus, p. 78.

46 For female sponsors of temple-construction, beginning with one who was the daughter of a malla and wife in the dominant lineage in Midnapur in the seventeenth century, see Inscription 25, ibid., pp. 80–81. For other women of the malla, see Inscriptions 29 and 35, ibid., pp. 85–87, 91–93. Earlier generations of scholars misattributed their construction to ‘malla kings’.

47 For the patronage by the malla of the valley, see Gutschow, Architecture of the Newars, pp. 401–414. For women's grants of land, the produce of which would maintain caravanserai in Nepal as well as in Bihar, and for construction of caravanserai by female relatives of Giri gosains, see Dangol, B.D. (ed.) (1991), Catalogue of ‘Guthi Papers’ Part I, Kathmandu: Sankata Press, pp. 5, 19, 29, 64 (mother of Udaygiri), 76 (wife of Mahant Visnugiri), and passimGoogle Scholar.

48 Inscription no. 58, Bhattacharya, Corpus, p. 117.

49 For the identity of Govinda, see ibid., p. 7.

50 For 17 complexes sponsored by women in a similar Mughal ‘border’ in Bardhhaman, out of a total of 34 founded by the family appointed by the Mughal emperor, see Chaudhuri, Jogeshwar (1991), Bardhhaman: Itihas O Samskriti, Dvitiya Khanda, Calcutta: Pustak Bipani, pp. 213–214Google Scholar; also Togawa, Masahiko (2006), An Abode of the Goddess: Kingship, Caste and Sacrificial Organisation in a Bengal Village, Delhi: Manohar, p. 194Google Scholar. For other inscriptions of women sponsors of shrine and monastic construction, see Inscriptions no. 91–93, 153–155 (for the elder Vaisnava wife and a junior Saiva wife of a Saiva Brahman zamindar of Nadia in the eighteenth century), 14 (Bhavani's sponsored Saiva temple in Natore, and her daughter's Vaisnava endowment); Appendix I, 200 (for Janaki of Mahishadal estate), and passim, Bhattacharyya, Corpus. For photographic evidence of the Nadia and Rajshahi women's temples misattributed to male builders, see plates in McCutchion, Late Medieval Temples of Bengal.

51 Entry no. 1069 a, Unpublished Bengali Register, Vol. XIX, folios 62–63.

52 Sanad no. 1030 b, Unpublished Bengali Registers Relating to Baze Zamin Daftar, Vol. XIX, folios 38–39.

53 Journal of a March from Ballasore to Soomulpore, OIOC, Mss Eur F 331/34, March 1766, folios 10–11. Epigraphic records from Bardhhaman refer to her as ‘Vrajakishori’, a punning reference to Radha, the iconic wife of a cowherd who adored Krsna in all Vaisnava narratives. For epigraphia, see Bhattacharya, Corpus, pp. 9–11. In 1739, this Vaisnava woman dedicated a temple to an icon of the coupled Radha-Krishna; and in 1754, dedicated another temple to another Vaisnava deity, Ananta-Vasudeva. She died in 1758, for which see the letter of Nuncomar [Nandakumar] to Clive, 19 September 1758, in CC2/3, no. 96, p. 3, Indian Papers of Colonel Clive, British Online Archives, Microform Academic Publishers.

54 For the contribution of such reservoirs to the survival of a fortified settlement such as that of Ghatsila fort in 1767, see Price, James C. (1876), Notes on the History of Midnapur as Contained in Records Extant in the Collector's Office, Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Press, Vol. 1, pp. 48–55Google Scholar.

55 Adjustment of Land Revenue of Burdwan for 1762, no. 691, in Long, James (1869), Selections from Unpublished Records of Government for the years 1748–1767 inclusive, Relating mainly to the Social Condition of Bengal with a Map of Calcutta in 1784, Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government PrintingGoogle Scholar.

56 Henry Verelst to Henry Vansittart, 14 September 1762, OIOC, British Library, London, Mss Eur F 128/59. The negotiations involved permission for Company traders to participate in the ‘inland trade’ from which they were banned under the Mughal farman of 1717. For the involvement of the ‘Raja of Tipra’ as well as that of Manipur, see, in addition to the above letter, the letter of Verlest to Major Carnac dated 19 September 1762 in ibid.

57 Verelst to Vansittart, 14 September 1762, ibid.

58 For a photographic image of the mosque, see Asher, Architecture of Mughal India, p. 331, plate 224. There is no surviving evidence of the shops built at the same time.

59 From Begam, Munni, Calendar of Persian Correspondence (henceforth CPC) (1949), Vol. 9, 1790–91, New Delhi: National Archives of India, no. 320, p. 76Google Scholar.

60 Letter to President, received on 31 August 1773, and read by Council of Revenue on 14 September, Superintendent of Khalsa Records, 17 September 1773, no.2, WBSA.

61 Udovitch, Abraham (1967), ‘Labor Partnerships in Early Islamic Law’, JESHO, 10:1, pp. 64–80Google Scholar; for an eighteenth-century form of such partnerships, see Mukund, Kanaklatha (1999), The Trading World of the Tamil Merchant: Evolution of Merchant Capitalism in the Coromandel, Hyderabad: Orient Longman, pp. 171–172Google Scholar.

62 For a ‘Prawn Chuckerbutty, her Goroo or domestic priest’, see Mr. Francis’ Minute on the Rani of Rajshahi, Board of Revenue, Consultation of 21 October 1777, H/215, folio 70, OIOC, BL, UK. For a reference to ‘Chaun Chuckerbutty’, believed to be resident in the house of the Rani, see Board of Revenue, Consultation of 28 January 1782, no. 10.

63 Extract from the Dacca Proceedings of 28 November 1780, in WBSA, Board of Revenue, Consultation of 3 October 1782, no. 2.

64 From Rajaram Pandit, no. 1341, CPC, Vol. 8, p. 575.

65 Petition of Boodeguir and Dean Guir, n.d, enclosed in Collr of Jahangipore to Council of Revenue, 21 July 1772, Proceedings of 30 July 1773, L.R. 584.

66 J.M. Hatch to Committee of Circuit, 8 January 1773, read in Consultation of 13 January 1773 by Committee of Circuit at Dinajpur, OIOC, BL.

67 Charles Purling to Committee of Circuit, 12 and 17 January 1773, read in Consultation of 21 January 1773 by Committee of Circuit at Dinajpur, OIOC, BL.

68 Collector of Rungpore to Council of Revenue, 23 February 1773 and reply, Proceedings of 23 March 1773, LR no. 199 and LS no. 110, WBSA.

69 Petitions from Radhakanta Chaudhuri, n.d.; from Raji Ali, Chandi, Kissen Deo, Atma Govind, and Haradeo Chaudhuris, n.d., Vakils of Nabi Nawaz Khan, Shah Nawaz Khan, and Khuda Nawaz Khan, Zamindars of Attia Maimansingh, n.d, all in letter of Collector of Dinajpur to Council of Revenue, 30 June 1773, in Proceedings of Council of 20 July 1773, LR no. 564, WBSA.

70 Collector of Lashkarpur at Boalia to Council of Revenue, 9 March 1773, in Progs of 17 March 1773, LR no. 169, WBSA.

71 For correspondence between Company officials and Anandalal in 1761–1764, see CPC (1911) Vol 1, Calcutta: Government Printing, nos. 1402, 2284.

72 For a Bengali sanad executed under the seal of Rani Janaki zamindar of Mahishadal, dated 9 Magh 1176 BS [1769] for a pension of 90 sicca rupees, see the deposition of Nittanund Gossamee in the letter of a Collector of 24 Parganas to Secretary of Board of Revenue, 17 September 1803, WBSA, Board of Revenue Consultations, 20 September 1803, no. 4.

73 Collr. Salt Districts to Board of Revenue, 13 December 1790, Board of Revenue Consultations, 1 February 1791.

74 Darkhast of Raja Brajananda Bahubalindra, n.d., in Collr Midnapur to Board, 29 January 1795, Board of Revenue Proceedings, 1795, no. 41, Enclosure.

75 For the details, see Aitch, K.C. (1945), History and Account of Mahishadal Raj Estate (With foreword by Durga Prasad Garga), Midnapur: The Author, pp. 31–33Google Scholar.

76 Prakash, Om ‘The System of Credit in Mughal India’ and Najaf Haider, ‘The Monetary Basis of Credit and Banking Instruments in the Mughal Empire’, in Bagchi, Amiya Kumar (ed.) (2002), Money and Credit in Indian History From Early Medieval Times, Delhi: Tulika, pp. 40–83Google Scholar.

77 Collr. Lushkerpore to Warren Hastings, n.d, in Consultation of Committee of Whole Council, 24 December 1773, no. 5, WBSA, Kolkata.

78 H. Lodge to Committee of Revenue, 11 December 1782, Committee of Revenue, Consultation of 16 December 1782, no. 5. WBSA, Kolkata.

79 Moreland, W.H. and Geyl, P. (trans) (reprint 1972), Jahangir's India: the Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert, Delhi: Idarah-i-Adabiyat-I, Delli, p. 70Google Scholar.

80 See contracts for salt signed by Rani Janaki and given to the agents of the contractors Anupnarain, Ramtanu Datta, Nabakrishna, Darpanarain, and Dyalchand Roy in Proceedings of the Superintendent of Khalsa, 28 June 1773, WBSA, Kolkata, nos. 3–4. For other zamindari papers bearing the sign of a ‘Rani Janaki Debya’ above that of her legal representative (vakil), a Radhanatha Sen, between 1780 and 1788, see the 72 files of accounts of collections kept in Mahisadal Zamindari Papers Bundle, WBSA, Kolkata.

81 Sen, Empire, pp. 82–83.

82 Petition of Gopaul, Ramjee, Radacaunt, Samchund, Inhabitants of districts of Mysadull [Mahisadal] etc to President and Council of Revenue, in Superintendent of Khalsa Records, Consultation of 24 August 1773, no. 1, WBSA. For a compact history of the estates of Mahishadal and Tamluk written in the eighteenth century, see Minute of the Superintendent of the Khalsa, Consultations of the Whole Council of Revenue, 9 February 1773, no. 46, WBSA.

83 For the totals of salt set aside earlier as donation, see Collr. Hughli to Committee of Revenue, 10 February 1773, Proceedings of 23 March 1773, LR 187, Appendix, folios 1167–1168.

84 For list of markets of 1700–1790 whose earnings were controlled by the two senior women in the Nawab's household at Murshidabad—Munni Begam and Babbu Begam—see Sen, Empire, p. 44, Table 2.

85 See Proceedings on Enquiry into Mahatran Lands Claimed by the Wives and Sister of Late Zamindar, in Collr Burdwan to Board of Revenue, 21 July 1794, in Board of Revenue Proceedings, 29 July 1794, nos. 3–4.

86 See two separate lists of allowances to the family of Muhammad Zaman Khan in letter of Collector Birbhum to Commissioner in Charge, 11 August 1795, and the Secretary of the Board of Revenue to the Commissioner Birbhum, 18 September 1795 in Mitra, Asok (ed.) (1954), West Bengal District Records (New Series): Birbhum: Letters Issued: 1786–1797 and 1855, Calcutta: Government of West Bengal, pp. 61, 111 respectivelyGoogle Scholar.

87 I owe this comparison to Professor Gautam Bhadra, Fellow of the National Library, Kolkata, India.

88 See the complaint by Sham Rai, mother of the deceased zamindar, Tilak Chand of Burdwan, against her junior, a daughter-in-law and mother of young Tej Chand, received 5 June 1771, Home Miscellaneous 203, folio 71, OIOC, British Library, London, UK.

89 Collr. Murshidabad to Board, 12 June 1790, in Consultations of Board of Revenue of 25 August 1790, no.8, with Enclosures. Estates were conceived of as analogous to the rupee, made up of 16 annas. Shares of income from the estate, represented in so many annas, translated into a fairly substantial sum when the estate was profitable: in this instance, the man was entitled to keep three-eighths of it.

90 Tilly, Charles (2005), Trust and Rule, New York: Cambridge University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tilly, Charles (2007), ‘Trust Networks in Transnational Migration’, Sociological Forum, 22:1, pp. 3–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 Statement of Nij Kharach, Enclosure with Petition of Zamindar of Mahisadal, Proceedings of Council of Revenue, 3 August 1773, no. 2.

92 Ibid.

93 Jogeschandra Ray Vidyanidhi, cited in Ratanlal Datta (2012), ‘Saiva-tirtha Barddhaman’, Lokbharati, New Series, Vol. 1, January–March, p. 104. I thank Gautam Bhadra for this reference.

94 See song in Adharchandra Ghatak (1964), Nandigram Itibritta, Kolkata: Medinipur Samskriti Parisad, pp. 16–17. According to the editorial preface, the author was from a very poor cultivator's family in the region; he had been educated by local guru-teachers, and from the age of 15, had himself been a guru and then was drawn into journalism and historiography.

95 See List of ‘Tacoor Shewehs or Religious Charges’, no. 4, ibid. The English eighteenth-century apparently phonetic spelling of this is ‘Tacooryn Bory CretchIsherry’ and the place is spelled ‘Canthonnah near Moorshedabad’. The modern spelling and images of both an older temple and one sponsored by Bhavani are available at https://anilcm.wordpress.com/category/murshidabad, [accessed 1 July 2015].

96 For permission to release an annual sum of Rs 1,844 as the brahmottar (income dedicated to the subsistence of Brahmans) of Ramanujkut, the akhara (monastic lodge) of Srinivasacharaya, see sanad of Mir Jafar Khan ‘in the fifth year of Shah Alam’ [1733 CE] in Collr. Rajshahi to Board of Revenue, 8 July 1794, Progs. 18 July 1794, no. 22.

97 See Natore Progs of 13 June 1794 submitted by Collr. Rajshahi (at Natore) to Board of Revenue, 12 July 1794, Progs. 25 July 1794, no. 18.

98 From Amir Beg Khan to Clive, received 10 October 1758, CC2/3, no. 111, p. 16, Indian Papers of Colonel Clive, op cit.

99 For reports for 1760–63 of Mughal Faujdars of Hughli stopping boats carrying salt to Patna using passports issued by Company servants, but without paying duties, see CPC (1911), Vol. 1, Calcutta: Government Printing, nos. 742, 753, 1547, 1618, 1620, 1646, 1665, 1686, 1689, 1703, 1712.

100 Documents cited in Price, Notes on the History of Midnapore, Vol. 1, pp. 154–157. For record of moneylending to zamindars in Midnapur by Graham, the Collector in 1767, see ibid., p. 168. For record of salt-works owned by Englishmen, including the first Resident of the Company, Johnstone, see ibid., p. 179.

101 Letter from Bengal, 10 November 1773, in H 766, folios 495–500, OIOC, BL, UK.

102 Assistant Collector at Rangpur to Warren Hastings and Council, 21 March 1773; and Council to Collector at Rangpur, in Proceedings of the Revenue Board Consisting of the Whole Council, 6 April 1773, nos 35 and 40.

103 Letter of Chief of Council to Mr. George Hatch, n.d., in Extract Bengal Revenue Consultation, 30 June 1780, in H 207, folios 305–314, OIOC, BL, UK.

104 Hughli Salt Balances, 13 October 1771, in H 766, folios 516–520. For a similar loan taken by the zamindar of Dinajpur, Baidyanath, from a local merchant-moneylender, Mohan Lal Kapoor, in 1767 and the mortgages of revenue-paying villages against the loan, see Committee of Circuit Consultation of 23 September 1771, OIOC, BL, UK.

105 See Letter from Bengal, 25 November 1780, in H 207, folios 345–47, paras 51–53.

106 Answer from Pandits (Banesvar Sharman, Kerparam Sharman, Kistna Keshub Deb Sharman, Sitaram Deb Sharman), Proceedings of the Revenue Board Consisting of the Whole Council, Consultation of 27 April 1773, no. 30, WBSA, Kolkata.

107 Report on Petition of Ishuree Dossee [Isvari Dasi], holder of seven-anna portion of Sarfrazpur, Hughli, Committee of Revenue, Consultation of 8 June 1781, no. 10, WBSA, Kolkata.

108 Petition in Extract Bengal Revenue Consultations, 26 January 1781, ibid., folios 351–352.

109 Letter from P.M. Dacres, Henry Vansittart, and David Killican to the Council of Revenue, 23 June 1781, Consultation of 4 July 1781, Enclosure in no. 1. For particulars regarding the mother of Tej Chand of Burdwan, see Consultations of 18 July 1781, no. 9, WBSA, Kolkata.

110 ‘Zamindari Plan with the Committee's Observation Thereon’, Committee of Revenue Consultation of 6 May 1782, no. 26, ff. 98–106, WBSA, Kolkata.

111 Ibid.

112 David Levine, The Virtual History of Willy Shake-Speare, http://shaxsper.com/, [accessed 17 June 2015].

113 See Pearson, Daphne (2005), Edward de Vere (1550–1604) Crisis and Consequence of Wardship, Aldershot, England, and Burlington, Vermont: AshgateGoogle Scholar.

114 Committee of Revenue Consultations of 3 January 1782, no. 14; 11 January 1782, no. 40; 24 January 1782, nos 7 and 24; 28 January 1782, nos 10 and 14; 4 July 1782, no. 11, WBSA, Kolkata.

115 Governor-General in Council to Board of Revenue, 10 February 1790, Proceedings of the Board of Revenue, 19 April 1790, OIOC, BL; also see Governor-General to Nawab Mubarak-ud-daula, Munni Begam, et al., 26 April 1790, CPC, Vol. 9, no. 295, pp. 70–71.

116 For the clauses of the regulations of 1790 and 1793, see Banerjee, Tarashankar (1972), History of Internal Trade Barriers in British India, Volume 1: Bengal Presidency (1765–1836), Calcutta: Asiatic Society, pp. 18–20Google Scholar.

117 See formal charges and examination of witnesses in Janakiram (brother of Rani of Dinajpur) against the Collector of Dinajpur, Revenue Department, Khalsa Preparer of Reports, Consultation of 20 August 1789, nos 2, 14 A, 15 A and 20, WBSA, Kolkata. I thank Robert Travers for bringing this record to my attention.

118 From Lutf-un-Nisa Begam, CPC, Vol. 9, no. 144, pp. 29–30; for the description of the madrasa and the income from rents of houses and shops attached to it, see W.A. Brooke to Council of Revenue, 9 April 1783, Consultation of 17 April 1783, WBSA.

119 From Lutf-un-Nisa Begam, 22 January 1788, CPC (1953), Vol. 8 (1788–89), Delhi: Government of India Press, no. 108, pp. 46–47.

120 From the Nawab of Dacca, 29 June 1790, CPC, Vol. 9, no. 420, p. 100.

121 The phrase comes from Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2000), ‘Witness to Suffering: Domestic Cruelty and the Birth of the Modern Subject in Bengal’, in Mitchell, Timothy (ed.) (2000), Questions of Modernity, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 49–86Google Scholar.

122 Roy, Tirthankar (2011), ‘Where is Bengal? Situating an Indian Region in the Early Modern World Economy’, Past and Present, 213, pp. 115–146CrossRefGoogle Scholar.