Dāyasoranāgas of Imperial Mughal PDF
Dāyasoranāgas of Imperial Mughal PDF
Dāyasoranāgas of Imperial Mughal PDF
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Proceedings of the Indian History Congress
In the Middle Age hiring of wet nurses had become so popular norm
for imperial and wealthy family that one who nursed her own child
was worthy of comment. Wet nurses, i.e., anāga or dãya ,5 were used
exclusively in imperial Mughal family. Textual and visual evidences
of Mughal reign seldom portrayed imperial woman fulfilling their
maternal role - albeit - wet nurses with the title "royal nurse" dãya or
anāga are represented prominently in the Mughal sources interacting
with magnificent children. Individual wet nurse sometimes is being
depicted holding and even suckling royal nursling wrapped in swaddling
bands who usually appear as a child but occasionally is shown as a
miniature king. For example, a copy of Rashid al-Din, Jami al-Tawarikh
(compendium of chronicles), illustrated at imperial Mughal studio,
Ill
1 . Alarmed by the widespread use of wet nurses by the rich in classical age, G
Roman philosophers and moralists such as Pliny, Plutarch, Tacitus, and Aulus
(all from second century AD) accused a mother whose child was wet nursed o
idle, selfish and endangering the emotional bond with her child.
See, Valerie Fildes, Wet Nursing : A History from Antiquity to the Present ,
Blackwell, 1988; idem, Breasts , Bottles and Babies. A History of Infant F
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1986; Sara F. Matthews Grieco, "Breast
Wet Nursing and Infant Mortality in Europe (1400-1800)", Historical Perspect
Breastfeeding , Florence: UNICEF International Child Development Center, 19
15-62.
life for sake of baby Akbar" and was for many years cent
All this does not follow that she first did so in the capacit
are also told that Adham Khan was from the differe
Akbarnamah, vol.1, pp. 186-87 (index: VI- VII); vol.11, p.
Khwaja Nizam-ud din Ahmad , trans. B. De, vols. 1 -3, Calc
191 1-39, vol. II, p.l 12. Henry Beveridge, "MāhamAnaga"
Society of Great Britain and Ireland , 1 899, pp. 99-1 01 .
1 1 . The Akbarnama of Abu-l-Fazl , vol. I, p. 134 "Māham
Fazl (p. 384/187) how other nurses of Akbar accuse
incantations" so as to prevent the infant Akbar from accep
own.
29. Research on Mughal dynasty shows that "sexual activity ' of wet nurse before weaning
was considered fatal to the nursling and to be avoided by all means. For e. g., Rashid al-
Din(in Jami al-Tawarikh, ed. B. Karimi, 1-2 vols, Tehran: 1976) recounts that Ghãznã
Khan had wet-nurse, Moghãlchin, wife of noble Isheng (the Khitan), who slept with his
husband, and the young Ghãznà contracted diarrhoea from her milk, thus Moghãlchin
was reprimanded and replaced.
30. The Akbarnama of Abu-l-Fazl,vo'.', p. 1 29.
3 1 . Didji in Turkish means a child's plaything, or handsome. See, The Akbarnama of Abu -
/-Far/, vol.1, p. 130 (n.2).
32. The Akbarnama of Abu-1-Fazl , vol,!, p. 1 30.
33. The Akbarnama of Abu-l-FazL vol.1, p. 1 30.
34. She is incorrectly referred to as the 'vife of Nadim Koka in Akbarnamah (for e,g,
vol. l,p. 130). See, Humayunnama of GulbadanBegam , ed. and trans. A.S. Beveridge,
Delhi: Oriental Books, 1983, p. 122.
35. The Akbarnama of Abu-l-Fazl, vol.1, pp. 1 3 1 (n.4) & 448.
36. Tuzuk-i Jahangiri , pp.32, 75-78 & 85.
37. Munis D. Faruqui, The Princes of the Mughal Empire, 1504-1 7/ 9. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2012,p.73.
38. The precise definition of wet nurse's children remained ambiguous. All close relatives of
the Wet Nurse who were of sufficiently youthful age could have plausibly called kokaltash
(milk brothers and sisters).
39. See, IqtidarAlam Khan, "The Nobil; „ Under Akbar and the Development of His Religious
Policy, 1560-80," in India's Islamic traditions, 711-1750, ed. R. M. Eaton, Delhi : Oxford
University Press, 2003. See also, Afzal Husain, The Nobility Under Akbar and Jahangir ,
Delhi: Manohar, 1999, pp. 45-69.
40. Giladi, Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses.
4 1 . Giladi, Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses. Breast milk in Islamic law acts as an impediment
to marriage, similar to blood. To marry a relative by nursing is prohibited as a foçm of
incest. The Qur ' an , early commentaries, and hadiths conclude that a man is also forbidden
from marrying his milk aunt, milk niece, milk daughters, and milk mother of his wife.
The concept of "sire's milk" ( laban al-fahl) only expand the circle.