Fashion, Politics and Identity in Mughal South Asia – The Public Domain Review

Performances played an enormous role within the court theater. The emphasis on dress, which was an inescapable reality of public life, posed a dilemma for the Mughals, who came into contact with two different sartorial cultures, characterized by what cultural historian Phillip Wagoner calls their “strongly opposed attitudes toward the body.” In the Indian dress system, the body was seen as a defining characteristic of the person, something that reflected ‘the inner states and qualities of the individual’. For example, the classical Sanskrit poet Kālidāsa describes a heroic prince by saying that ‘his intellect corresponded (sadṛśa“His appearance”. Clothing functioned to frame, accentuate and reveal the contours of the body. This is precisely why traditional depictions of Indian kings show the ruler bare-chested or dressed in sheer, fitted clothing that hangs loosely over his shoulders. In stark contrast, the Islamic attitude to clothing viewed the unclothed body as shameful and posited that God provided clothing to cover man’s nakedness – a purpose well fulfilled by the varied robes and tunics that characterized the royal dress code. The taboo against exposing the body was so great that these garments were worn loosely, to avoid revealing the shape of the underlying figure jama allowed the king’s body to be covered, while its translucency revealed his ‘inner state’ – a quality that benefited the Mughal rulers in many ways.