A Note on the Trade in Eunuchs in Mughal Bengal
Author(s): Gavin Hambly
Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 94, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1974), pp. 125-130
Published by: American Oriental Society
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HAMBLY:
Eunuchs
rme-ba "speck, mole; unsmre-ba "to speak ill of,
revile"9
clean, defiled"
In spite of the vowel discrepancy we are also tempted
to compare the following:
rmo-sngags "wailing, lamen- smre-sngags "wailing, latation"
mentation"
The metathesis (rm- < *mr-, except after s-) suggested now allows us to derive early WT rmang "horse"
from an earlier *mrang which is comparable with such
forms as WB mreng "horse" and may be directly derived
this and its other senses can be found in Thomas (1951)
and (1952).
9 This sense of smre-ba is attested in Sarat Chandra
Das,
A Tibetan-English Dictionary with Sanskrit Synonyms,
Alipore, 1902 (reprint 1960), and in Dge-bshes chos-kyi
grags-pas brtsams-pa' i brda-dag ming-tshig gsal-ba bzhugsso, Peking, 1957, which attributes its entry to Das.
in Mughal
125
Bengal
from Benedict's TB *m-rang. The origin of WT rta
"horse" and its relationship to TB *m-rang remains obscure.
W. SOUTHCOBLIN
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A note on the trade in eunuchs in Mughul Bengal
The history of slavery and slave-trading in the Indian sub-continent has hitherto received scant attention from the historians. It seems probable, however, that at all periods
prior to the 19th century India contained a very substantial population of slaves of one kind
or another, mainly in some form of domestic servitude. The following paper brings together
the fragmentary evidence for one highly specialized form of slave-trading peculiar to Bengal.
Eunuchs were ubiquitous in the polygamous societies of the subcontinent, whether Hindu or
Muslim, but they were always comparatively few in numbers and so the demand remained
constant and the price paid for them consistently high. There must have been some feeling
of dislike for the practice-the Mughul Padshah, Jahangir, is a case in point-but eunuchs
remained a feature of court and harem life as long as there were courts and harems to require their services.
During the 16th and 17th centuries the sibah of Bengal
enjoyed an unenviable reputation as the principal source
of eunuchs for the entire Mughul Empire, a reputation
noted by a number of European writers and fully confirmed by Abu'l Fazl in the A'in-i Akbari.1 The sarkars
of Ghoraghat and Sylhet were especially associated with
this commerce.2 At what period Bengal first acquired
1 Abf'l Fail 'Allami: A'in-i
Akbari, ed. H. Blochmann,
2 vols., Calcutta, 1869-77, vol. I, pp. 389-390. Describing
the harems of Mughul India, Francisco Pelsaert refers to
the eunuchs as being "merely purchased Bengali slaves."
W. H. Moreland and P. Geyl: Jahangir's India. The
Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert, Cambridge, 1925,
p. 47.
2 A'in-i Akbari, vol. I,
p. 390.
this reputation is uncertain,3 but as early as the second
half of the 13th century Marco Polo, although personally
3 It is not suggested that
Bengal was an exclusive source
of Indian eunuchs. Eunuchs could be "manufactured"
anywhere but some degree of surgical skill (implying a
tradition) was necessary if the death-rate was not to
become astronomical. Hence certain regions on the fringes
of the Ddr al-Isldm-Bengal,
Java, Nubia, for examplecame to be associated with the trade. In the case of
Java, Varthema wrote at the beginning of the 16th century:
"... in this island there are a kind of merchants, who
follow no other trade excepting that of purchasing little
children, from whom they cut off in their childhood
everything, and they remain like women. "
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126
Journal
of the American
unacquainted with the region, was well informed regarding
the trade.
"There are many eunuchs," he wrote, "and from this
province all the nobles and gentlemen from the neighIndian
bouring provinces are provided with them ....
merchants come to this province, and buy the eunuchs
I have mentioned, and also many slaves, and then
they.take them to divers other countries to sell thein
again. Eunuchs and slaves are very numerous, because
all who are taken prisoners by those people, are straightway castrated, and then sold."4
Marco Polo's account differs in several respects from
later accounts: he does not specify a traffic in castrated
children, he does not mention the custom of providing
eunuchs in lieu of land revenue payments, and he implies
that the majority of eunuchs were originally prisonersof-war. In other respects, however, the information
which he provides confirms the accounts written two or
three centuries later, e.g., that the trade was firmly
established and widely-known, and that its victims were
not employed exclusively in Bengal or the neighbouring
territories but were also available to meet the demand of
distant markets. Two European accounts of Bengal in
the first half of the 16th century, both dating from the
reign of Sullan 'Ala al-Din I-usain Shah (899-925 A.H./
1494-1519 A.D.), link the trade in eunuchs with Bengal.
Thus Tome Pires wrote of the inhabitants of Bengal in
the Suma Oriental: "They are more in the habit of having
See J. W. Jones: The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema,
London, 1863, p. 258. Similarly, Tome Pires wrote a
decade later, in 1513:
"They have a great many eunuchs in Java. They go
about dressed in women's clothes; they wear their hair
on top of the middle of their heads like a diadem. They
serve as guards for the women, because the Javanese
are very jealous meii, and no one sees their woman,
except among the common people. But every nobleman, knight or rich man is careful that his women shall
be seen by no one, and they are more ready to die
about this than about anything else. The land is so
much accustomed to this that they do not fail in any
point of this custom and they keep it entirely."
See Armando Cortesao: The Suma Oriental of Tome Pires,
2 vols., London, 1944, vol. I, p. 178. It may be noted,
en passant, that it was estimated that during the 19th
century the annual average quota of 3,800 eunuchs to
reach the Middle East from the Sudan involved a mortality rate approaching 35,0001 See P. C. Remondino:
History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the
Present, Philadelphia, 1900, p. 100.
4 L. F. Benedetto: The Travels of Marco Polo, London,
1931, p. 203.
Oriental
Society
94.1 (1974)
eunuchs in Bengal than in any other part of the world.
A great many of them are eunuchs."5 Duarte Barbosa's
account is somewhat more informative:
"The Moorish merchants of this city [Bengala6] ofttimes
travel up country to buy Heathen boys froin their
parents or from other persons who steal them and
castrate them, so that they are left quite flat. Many
die from this; those who live they train well and sell
them. They value them much as guardians of their
women and estates and for other low objects. These
eunuchs they hold in high esteem as men of upright
character, and some of them become their lords' factors,
and some Governours and Captains of the Moorish
Kings, so that they become very rich and have great
estates. "7
The demand for eunuchs in India was undoubtedly
very ancient.8 First and foremost, they were required as
5 Cortesao: op. cit., vol. I, p. 88.
6 Probable Gaur (Lakhnawtl), the capital of the Sultanate. See Armando Cortesao: "The 'City of Bengala'
in early Reports," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
of Bengal, (Letters), vol. XI, 1945, pp. 10-14.
7 M. L. Dames: The Book of Duarte Barbosa, 2 vols.,
London, 1918-1921, vol. II, p. 147. Barbosa's comment
regarding the upward mobility of court eunuchs in Bengal
is confirmed in Castanheda: "Das portas a detro se serue
com capados que por tempo faz grandes senhores & gouvernadores de cidades q na lingoa da terra se cham5o
lascares . . ." See Pedro de Azevedo: Hist6ria do Descobrimento e Conquista da India pelos Portugueses por
Ferndo Lopes de Castanheda, 4 vols., Coimbra, 3rd edn.,
1924-33, vol. II, p. 441. The wealth of the Mughul court
eunuchs was proverbial. In his description of Agra during
the reign of Shah Jahan, Tavernier writes:
"As for the tombs in Agra and its environs, there are
some which are very beautiful, and every eunuch in the
Emperor's harem is ambitious to have as magnificent
a tomb built for himself. When they have amassed
large sums they earnestly desire to go to Mecca, and
take with them rich presents; but the Great Mogul,
who does not wish the money to leave his country,
very seldom grants them permission, and consequently,
not knowing what to do with their wealth, they expend
the greater part of it in these burying-places, and thus
leave some memorial."
See W. Crooke: Travels in India by Jean- Baptiste Tavernier,
2 vols., London, 2nd edn., 1925, vol. I, p. 89.
8 Eunuchs are mentioned, for example, in the Manusamhita, although clearly viewed in a perjorative light.
See G. Buhler: The Laws of Manu, Oxford, 1886, pp. 103,
161 and 372. Characteristically, the Arthashastra views
them from a more practical point of view. See R. P.
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HAMBLY:
Eunuchs
in Mughal
Bengal
127
Although eunuchs had doubtless been a feature of life
in Bengal prior to the Turkish conquests of the close of
the 12th century it is probable that with the coming of
these invaders, and especially after the establishment of
an independent Sultanate by Fakhr al-Din Mubarak Shill
in 739 A.H./1338 A.D., there must have been an increased
demand for eunuchs to manage the extensive harems and
households of the new ruling elite. Eunuchs in Bengal
under the Sultains were of two kinds, native and foreign,
the latter consisting mainly of habshi slaves shipped from
Abyssinia or from the ports of East Africa. The first
ruler of Bengal to employ habshi slaves in extensive numbers was Rukn al-Din Barbak Shah (864-879 A.H./1459Kangle: The Kautilya Arthasdstra, 2 vols., Bombay,
1960-63, vol. II, pp. 57 and 58.
1474 A.D.), who enlisted eight thousand in his service.12
For a detailed account of Indian eunuchs, see N. IM. Under his successors, Shams al-Din Yfisuf Shfh (879Penzer: The Ocean of Story, being C. H. Tawney's Trans- 886 A.H./1474-1481
A.D.), Sikandar Shah II (886 A.H./
lation of Somadeva's Kathd Sarit Sdgara, 10 vols., London,
1481 A.D.), and Jalal al-Din Fath Shah (886-892 A.H./14811924-28, vol. III, pp. 319-329.
1487 A.D.), these ghuldms grew increasingly powerful and
9 As an Englishman of the late 17th century quaintly
when Jalal al-Din Fath Shah attempted to break their
expressed it:
monopoly of power they had him assassinated. The throne
"Neither the Moors nor Gentues of accompt admitt theire
was then seized by a eunuch known as Sultan Shfhzadeh,
Wifes or Concubines to gad abroad, but keep them
who assumed the title of Barbak Shah in 892 A.H./1487
within doors, attended by Eunuchs and younge Girles." A.D. and who was presumably both a tzabshiand a slave.
See R. C. Temple: A Geographical Account of Countries He was overthrown in turn by MailikAndil, a ihabshi slave
round the Bay of Bengal, 1669 to 1679, by Thomas Bowrey, who thereafter assumed the title of Saif al-Din Firfiz Shih
Cambridge, 1905, p. 207. John Fryer, a contemporary,
(892-895 A.H./1487-1489 A.D.). The next ruler, Nasir alshared Bowrey's views:
Din Mahmfid Shfh II (895-896 A.H./1490-91 A.D.), was
"The Moors are by Nature plagued with Jealousy,
a son of Jalal al-Din Fath Shahi but, being a minor, his
cloistring their Wives up, and sequestring them the
brief reign was dominated by two habshi 'mayors of the
sight of any besides the Capon that watches them."
palace,' Habash Khan and Sidi Badr. The latter eventualSee William Crooke: A New Account of East India and ly seized the throne, which he mounted as Shams al-Din
Persia, being nine years' travels, 1672-1681, by John
Muzaffar Shah (896-899 A.H./1491-94 A.D.), only to be
Fryer, 3 vols., London, 1909-1915, vol. I, p. 89. It was overthrown in turn by 'Ala al-Din Husain Shah.13 One
not unusual for 17th century Englishmen to refer to eu- of the most pressing tasks facing the latter on seizing the
nuchs as capons. Regarding the Mughul women, Fryer throne was to rid himself of his slave-praetorians who
felt tempted to assume from "the number of Spies upon were mostly expelled from the Sultan's territories, disthem, of Toothless Old Women, and Beardless Eunuchs,
persing towards Gujarat and the Deccan.14 They did not,
that they are incontinent in their Desires." See ibid., vol.
however, altogether disappear from the scene since Tome
I, p. 328.
10 Another outstanding example of a eunuch successthe article, 'Androgyny,' with an appended readingstory was that of Malik Sarwar, a former slave of Sultin
Firuz Shah Tughluq, who first served as vazir under the
list, in Benjamin Walker: Hindu World. An Encyclotitle of Khwfj a Jahan to both Sultan 'Ala al-Din Sikandar paedic Survey of Hinduism, 2 vols., London, 1968, vol. I,
Shfh Tughluq and Sultan Mahmud Nisir al-Din Shah pp. 43-45; also N. M. Penzer: op. cit., pp. 321-325.
12 W. Haig: The Cambridge History of India, Cambridge,
Tughluq, and thereafter became the founder of the
Sultanate of Jaunpur, with the title of Sultan as-Sharq
1928, vol. III, p. 268. For habshis in general, see J. Burton(796-802 A.H./1394-1399 A.D.). The Mughul dynasty ap- Page: 'Habshi', Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn., London/
Leiden, 1971, vol. III, pp. 14-16.
pears to have employed eunuchs in administrative posts
13 Firishta: Gulshan-i Ibrahimi, tr. John Briggs, 4 vols.,
rather less than other Indo-Muslim dynasties, notwithLondon, 1829, vol. IV, pp. 341-350. In writing this
standing Fryer's gibe that "Eunuchs wedded to their
Master's Concerns, were promoted from the dregs of paper I have not had access to an original text of the
Slavery to Empire .. ." See Crooke: op. cit., vol. II, p. 52. Gulshan-i Ibrdhimi.
11 For the role of castrants in antominian sects, see
14 Firishta: op.cit., vol. IV, p. 350.
guardians of the womenfolk of those affluent enough to
be able to maintain a harem.9 Then again, they were
much sought after as confidential servants, to watch over
their masters' interests. In the case of eunuchs in the
service of a ruling dynasty, these not infrequently rose
to high office and great responsibilities, as in the case
of Malik IKafur, the general of 'Alf al-Din Muhammad
Shah Khalji of Delhi.10 Castrated boys were also in
demand for purposes of sexual perversion and, finally,
castrants played a part in the cult-ritual of certain antominian sects.11
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128
Journal
of the American
Pires found them still very much in evidence in the second
decade of the 16th century. He writes:
"The people who govern the kingdom are Abyssinians.
These are looked upon as knights; they are greatly
esteemed; they wait on the kings in their apartments.
The chief among them are eunuchs and these come to
be kings and great lords in the kingdom. Those who
are not eunuchs are fighting men. After the king it
is to this people that the kingdom is obedient from
fear. "15
Pires states that at least some of the prominent liabshis
in the Sultanate were eunuchs but it is far from clear
whether all or any of the Sultans and Sultan-makers
between 1486 and 1493 were eunuchs, apart from Barbak
Shah who is specifically designated as such.16 Blochmann
regarded such names as Kaffr (camphor),17 Qaranfil
(clove), Firfizeh (turquoise). Alnias (diamond), Y'aqft
carnelian), Habash Khan, Andil and SidI Badr as evidence
that their possessors were eunuchs.18 It is true that eunuchs were frequently given the names of precious stones
and spices but during this period of liabshi domination
such names as Kaffir, Habash Khan, Andil and Sidi Badr
are surely indicative of African origin rather than of
emasculation.19
15 Cortesao: op. cit., vol. I, p. 88.
16 Firishta: op. cit., vol. IV, pp. 340-341.
The word kadfr can mean, in addition to 'camphor,'
'whiteness' and as such was applied derisively to African
slaves. See F. Steingass: A Comprehensive Persian-English
Dictionary, London, 1957, p. 1007. Blochmann, in a different context, assumes a double meaning for Kaffir,
meaning 'camphor,' since camphor was believed to contribute to impotence. See A'in-i Akbari, tr. H. Blochmann, H. S. Jarrett, and J. Sarkar, 3 vols., Calcutta,
1927-49, vol. I, p. 419. This and later references to the
A'in-i Akbari refer to the English translation, as I have
had only partial access to the Persian text.
18 H. Blochmann: 'Contributions to the Geography
and History of Bengal (Muhammedan Period)', Journal
of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, vol. XLII, part 1, 1873,
p. 286. On this analogy, it would seem likely that the
slave-boy, Lulu ('pearl'), purchased by a companion of
Ibn Battuta during his stay in Bengal was also a eunuch.
See M. Husain: The Rezila of Ibn Battuta, Baroda, 1953,
p. 235.
19 For the association of the name Kafiur with African
slaves, see above, footnote no. 17. Habash Khan clearly
implies habshi origin. The term Sidi in India was almost
invariably applied to Africans. See H. Yule and A. C.
Burnell: Hobson-Jobson London, 1903, p. 806. I have been
unable to trace any associations with the name Andil.
17
Oriental
Society
94.1 (1974)
In any case, the habshi eunuchs of Bengal must have
been regarded as distinctly exotic. Most eunuchs would
have been native Bengalis and, as such, were either articles
of commerce in the sense that other Bengali slaves were,
or were used as a form of tribute sent to the Sultan's
court, as happened in Sylhet. When, following the Mughul
conquest of Bengal, the Sultan's court was replaced by
a sibahdari headquarters, such precious commodities
would have been almost all forwarded to wherever the
Imperial Court was in residence.20 The practice of sending
slaves (generally beautiful slave-girls or eunuchs) as tribute to an overlord or as gifts to a neighbouring ruler was,
of course, an ancient one. More specifically, however,
it is possible that the practice of sending eunuchs from
Bengal to the Imperial Court, as described in the A'in-i
Akbari and the Tlzuk-i Jahdngiri, dates back to the reign
of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughluq (752-790 A.H./1351-80 A.D.),
whose policy it was to have slaves sent to Delhi in lieu
of revenue payments.21 At all events, it appears to have
been the usual practice until Jahangir intervened with
orders to discontinue it.
According to Jahangir, several attempts had been made
prior to the 17th century to put a stop to it. If this were
so, it is not unlikely that Akbar was among the rulers
who attempted to stamp it out since Abu'l Fail specifically mentions his master's interest in the welfare of his own
household slaves.22 The fact must be recognized, however,
that Muslim society always maintained an ambivalent
attitude towards the practice of human castration, a practice derived from Sasanid Iran or Byzantium and which,
under the 'Abbasid Caliphs, became endemic among the
Muslim ruling elite. Islamic Law strictly forbade emasculation and its prevention was among the varied duties
attached to the office of muhtasib23 but so great was the
popularity of eunuchs that, notwithstanding the fact that
they were the most expensive category of slaves, the
demand seems to have remained constant. The operation
20 Jahangir: Tuzuk-i Jahdngiri, tr. A. Rogers and H.
Beveridge, 2 vols., 1909-14, vol. I, 150. In writing this
article I have not had access to an original text of the
Tuzuk-i Jahdngiri.
21 Shams al-Din ibn Siraj al-Din 'Afif: Ta'rikh-i Firiz
Shdhi, ed. Maulavi Vilayat Husain, Calcutta, 1891, pp. 268269.
22 A'in-i Akbari, tr. H. Blochmann, vol. I, pp. 263264.
23 R. Levy: The Mia'dlim al-qurba fi ahkamnal-h.isba
of Diyd' al-Din Mluhammad ibn Muhammad al-Qurashi
al Shafi'i, London, 1938, p. 76. For a Muslim apologist's
views on the subject of human castration, see Syed Ameer
Ali: The Spirit of Islam, revised edn., London, 1935,
p. 267.
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HAMBLY: Eunuchs in Mughal Bengal
was generally performed by non-Muslims on the fringes
of the Ddr al-Islam who thereafter sold the boys to Muslim
merchants, as was probably the case in Bengal. Elsewhere,
the victims were generally purchased by Muslim merchants who arranged for the operation to be performed
by specialists from a minority group, e.g., Coptic monks
in Upper Egypt.24
Jahangir seems to have regarded with abhorrence what
was virtually a system of "eunuch tribute" and thus, in
1017 A.H./1608 A.H., he sent orders to the subahdar of Bengal, Islam Khan, to make an end of a practice whereby
the inhabitants of Sylhet castrated children and sent them
to the sibah headquarters in lieu of revenue payments,
a practice which was spreading to other sarkdrs and allegedly becoming very common. Henceforth, the Padshah
commanded, the making of eunuchs should be treated
as a capital offence and Islam Khan was instructed to
assume charge of any castrated children known to be in
private hands.25 Previous rulers had attempted to put
down this practice but where others had failed he, Jahangir, would succeed.
Several passages in the Tuzuk-i Jahangiri refer back
to this decision. In 1019/1610, for example, there is a
record of Afzal Khan, subahddr of Bihar, sending to the
Imperial Court several persons found guilty of castrating
children, and these were sentenced to life-imprisonment.26
In 1022 A.H./1613 A.D. Islam Khan sent to the Court
fifty eunuchs as part of the tribute from Bengal.27 These
were, one would hope, some of the young eunuchs from
private households rounded up at the Padshah's behest
some six years earlier. The same explanation would account for the action of a later sfbahdar, Ibrahim Khan
Fath Jang, who in 1030 A.H./1621 A.D. sent two eunuchs
to the Court, and several more in the following year,
including a hermaphrodite, presumably as a curiosity.28
In any case, irrespective of Jahangir's personal feelings,
there was no falling off in the demand for eunuchs-there
is a case of a prominent nobleman at his and his father's
24 See, e.g., J. L. Burckhardt: Travels in Nubia, London,
1822, pp. 294-296, and Remondino: op. cit., pp. 98-99.
25 Jahangir: op. cit., vol. I, pp. 150-151. Islam Khan
was sibahddr of Bengal, 1017-22 A.H./1608-13 A.D. It is
probable that these orders proved ineffectual, as in the
case of a number of others promulgated at the beginning
of this reign. Presumably Jahangir saw no point in intervening in the case of adult eunuchs.
26 Jahangir: op. cit., vol. I, p. 168. Afzal Khan was
subahdar of Bihar, 1017-21 A.H./1608-12 A.D.
27 Ibid, vol. I, p. 247.
28 Ibid, vol. II, pp. 194-195, and 201. Ibrahim Khan
Fath Jang was sibahdar of Bengal, 1026-32 A.H./161723 A.D.
129
Court who was so taken with them that he maintained
a disorderly establishment of twelve thousand29-and
throughout the 17th century the trade continued unabated. Francois Pyrard, a French traveller who was in
Bengal just prior to the issue of the imperial farman
forbidding the "eunuch tribute" noted the great prevalence of the trade and the way it operated.
"One of the greatest trades in Bengal is in slaves; for
there is a certain land subject to this king [Sylhet?]
where fathers sell their children, and give them to the
king as tribute; so most of the slaves in India are got
from hence. Many of the merchants castrate them,
cutting them when they are young, and not only the
testicles, but also the entire organ.30 I have seen many
of this kind, who appeared to have but a little hole
for the passage of water. This is in order to put them
in charge of the women, and the keys of the house;
they trust them in all things, and never their wives."31
Further information about the trade is, unfortunately,
lacking, apart from a passage in the A'in-i Akbari which
lists three categories of eunuchs from Bengal: sandali,
bddami, and kdafiri. In the case of the first category,
also known as atlasi, the entire genitals were removed;
in the second, part of the penis was left funtioning; in the
third, the testicles were either crushed or cut off.32 No
special significance need be attributed to the use of the
words sandali (sandalwood), badami (almond) and kdfari
(camphor), terms for odours or flavours traditionally used
in the nomenclature of eunuchs. The fact that Kafur,
meaning whiteness, was a nickname given to black slaves,33
and that sandalwood is a light-coloured wood at first suggested to the writer that the use of these terms might be
connected with the colour of a eunuch's skin but, on reflection, this explanation seems unlikely unless, indeed,
there was a relationship between the colour of a slave
(i.e., his land of origin) and the form of emasculation to
which he was subjected.
29 This was Sa'id Khan
Chaghatai, who in the course
of a highly successful career served as subahdar of the
Panjab, Bengal and Bihar. See A'in-i Akbari, tr. H.
Blochmann, vol. I, pp. 351-352, and Jahangir: op. cit.,
vol. I, pp. 12-13.
30 Cf. Remondino:
op. cit., pp. 98-100.
31 A.
Gray and H. L. P. Bell: The Voyage of Francois
Pyrard of Laval to the East Indies, the Maldives, the
Moluccas and Brazil, 2 vols., 1887-90, vol. I, p. 332.
At the close of the 17th century Bengal was still known
for its export of "Slave boys and Girls," and no doubt
the former included some eunuchs. See Temple: op. cit.,
290.
32 Abii'l Fail: op. cit., vol. I, pp. 389-390.
33 See above, footnote no. 17.
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130
Journal
of the American
Oriental
Regarding the general pattern of the trade, it appears
that the merchants were mainly Muslims and that they
purchased the chilrdren either direct from their parents or
from kidnappers who had already castrated them. Where
this was not the case, the merchants must have arranged
for the operation to be undertaken by specialist surgeons,
perhaps Hindus of the baidya caste. Some passages imply
that parents knowingly sold their children to become
eunuchs: the motives here may seem difficult for the
modern mind to fathom but dire poverty, long-established
custom and the need to meet the revenue demands of
the government (the Mughuls, for example, regularly sold
revenue defaulters and their families into slavery34) would
have been among the likely incentives. Moreover, since
eunuchs often acquired great wealth and influence it may
have been reckoned an advantage in a society accustomed
to the idea of human castration to have at least one
member of a poor family in a position to win the ear of
the affluent and the powerful. Such, certainly, is the
implication behind a story told by Manucci, who no doubt
embroidered it in the telling, regarding a certain Mutamid
or I'tibar, a eunuch high in the favour of Aurangzeb
who made him jailer of the deposed Shah Jahan. At the
time when he had become one of the most influential
figures at the Imperial Court his parents travelled from
Bengal to Agra to visit him for the first time since his
departure from the family hearth, and also no doubt
to derive some profit from his exalted position. Far from
being delighted to see them, the eunuch kept them waiting
for several days at the gate of his house and was then only
with difficulty dissuaded from having them flogged.
Finally, he sent them away, cursing them for their greed
which had deprived him of the greatest pleasure a man
34 This
practice is well documented: Bada'uini: Muntakhab al-tawdrikh, ed. Ahmad 'Ali Kabir al-Din Ahmad and
W. Nassau Lees, 3 vols., Calcutta, 1865-69, vol. II, p. 189;
W. H. Moreland and P. Geyl: Jahangir's India. The Remonstrantie of Francisco Pelsaert, Cambridge, 1925, p. 47;
C. E. Luard: Travels of Fray Sebastien Manrique, 16291643, 2 vols., London, 1927, vol. II, p. 272; Francois
Bernier: Travels in the Mogul Empire, A.D. 1656-1668,
tr. A. Constable, London, 1891, p. 205; Niccolao Manucci:
Storia do Mogor, tr. W. Irvine, 4 vol., London, 1907-08,
vol. II, p. 451.
Society
94.1 (1974)
can experience.35 Exaggerated or not, the story casts a
flicker of light upon the unrecorded private world of
these inscrutable figures who were an ever-present element in court politics and the daily life of the ruling elite.
The sources are silent as to the manner in which this
was cerancient, evil commerce died out in Bengal-it
tainly never stamped out-and it seems likely that it
survived on a restricted scale into the 19th century. With
the disintegration of the Mughul Empire came disruption
of long-established patterns of trade but it may be safely
assumed that the demand for eunuchs in nawabi Bengal
and Awadh remained unabated, even if, in the case of
Bengal, the traffic was less conspicuous after the suppression of the Murshidabad darbdr. In the case of Awadh,
however, eunuchs appear frequently in the pages of European travel-writers down to the final extinction of the
Lucknow darbar in 1856.36 It would be comforting,
although perhaps unduly optimistic, to assume that the
Mughul trade in eunuchs finally came to an end with
Wiajid 'Ali Shah's installation in his quarters at Garden
Reach.37
GAVIN HAMBLY
YALE
UNIVERSITY
35 Manucci: op.cit., vol. II, pp. 78-79. His words, according to Manucci, were:
"How have ye the great temerity to come into my presence after you have consumed the price of my body,
and having been the cause, by emasculating me, of
depriving me of the greatest pleasures attainable in
this world? Of what use are riches to me, having
no sons to whom I could leave them? Since you were
so cruel as to sell your own blood, let not my auditors
think it strange if I betray anger against you."
For instances of parents offering their children for voluntary
castration, see Remondino: op.cit., p. 102, referring to
18th century Italy, and Sir George MacMunn: The Underworld of India, London, 1933, p. 200, referring apparently
to India in the early 20th century I
36 e.g., Mrs. Meer Hassan All: Observations on the
Mussulmauns of India, London, 1917, p. 39.
37 For an unsympathetic account of life at Garden
Reach, see the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava: Our
Viceregal Life in India, 2 vols., London, 1890, vol. I,
pp. 282-283.
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