Political notes of <i>nauras</i> : Emergence of an aesthetically embodied kingship practice in Adil Shahi Bijapur

Abstract From late sixteenth century, Bijapur’s sultan, Ibrahim Adil Shah II (r. 1580–1627 ce ), used nauras —a polyvalent term used extensively within the Sanskrit aesthetic realm—on his kingdom’s cultural artefacts as well as political and administrative insignia. An avid music lover, he is renowned for his Dakani work on music titled Kitāb-i Nauras ( circa 1580s). Portrayed by previous scholars as religiously unorthodox, Ibrahim Adil II and nauras are located chiefly within narratives of Bijapur’s political instability and the sultan’s indulgence in leisure over statecraft. Recent scholarship has challenged such notions but no study focuses on the reasons for nauras ’ crossover to the political domain or its appearance on state insignia. This article offers new insights by locating the sultan within a matrix of Indic, Turco-Mongol, and Islamicate sovereignty practices. In doing so, it argues that Ibrahim Adil II strategically employed the corporeal, religious, aesthetic, and polyvalent dimensions of nauras to forge a uniquely personalized embodied cosmic kingship practice to govern a multicultural populace. In particular, this article elucidates that the realms of art, aesthetics, and kingship were not mutually exclusive in the Indic or Islamicate worlds and that nauras was a rational manoeuvre to elevate the ruler above courtly factions and religious differences.