Diplomacy was a principal site of cultural exchange in the early modern
Persianate world. Focusing on the karārnāmā, or agreement, this paper explores
how a repertoire of documentary genres, binding formulae, and graphic
procedures enabled legal, commercial, and diplomatic transactions in eighteenthcentury western India. The exchange ...
Diplomacy was a principal site of cultural exchange in the early modern
Persianate world. Focusing on the karārnāmā, or agreement, this paper explores
how a repertoire of documentary genres, binding formulae, and graphic
procedures enabled legal, commercial, and diplomatic transactions in eighteenthcentury western India. The exchange of written agreements facilitated interstate
relations as well as profit-sharing contractual arrangements between individuals.
Despite their centrality to interactions between European and South Asian
polities, these instruments met with limited success in establishing rights to
property under the legal regime of the East India Company-state and instead
acquired new functions in colonial revenue administration.
