Book contents
- The Courts of the Deccan Sultanates
- The Courts of the Deccan Sultanates
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- Chronology of the Deccan Sultanate Rulers
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Courtly Society
- Part II Courtly Skills
- Concluding Remarks
- Select Bibliography of Primary Sources
- Index
Part I - Courtly Society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2019
- The Courts of the Deccan Sultanates
- The Courts of the Deccan Sultanates
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Note on Transliteration
- Chronology of the Deccan Sultanate Rulers
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Courtly Society
- Part II Courtly Skills
- Concluding Remarks
- Select Bibliography of Primary Sources
- Index
Summary
Certain key themes, subjects and texts were considered to constitute a crucial educational foundation for an individual aspiring to achieve success in the court societies of the Persian Cosmopolis. This chapter argues that the character of this general education was deliberately ‘cosmopolitan’: based on a widely agreed canon of texts, both literary and scientific, whose importance was recognised across the Persian Cosmopolis. Rather than mere knowledge acquisition, the aim of this education was the formation of a specific type of disposition: a particular orientation towards the court society and towards the self. Underlying the external traits of this courtly disposition was a widely shared medico-philosophical understanding of the connections between mind, body and soul and the way in which the perfection of one, presupposed the engagement of the others. The implication of the body in the acquisition of knowledge and the perfection of the soul provides the rationale for directing attention to bodily practices and the influences of objects on bodies, a theme that recurs throughout this book.
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- The Courts of the Deccan SultanatesLiving Well in the Persian Cosmopolis, pp. 29 - 164Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019