5 - Esoteric Skills

Summary

Through an examination of the Nujum al-?Ulum, an encyclopaedia written by the sultan of Bijapur, Ali Adil Shah, which served three important ends, both personal and political, this chapter focuses on esoteric skills like magic, astrology and divination. As an invaluable manual of esoteric practices aimed at transforming the body of the individual and his place in the social world, the encyclopaedia served both the pragmatic ends of worldly success and ethical self-fashioning. Secondly, knowledge about esoteric practices became an arena for a concerted attempt by a powerful clique at the Bijapuri court to find conceptual commensurabilities for divergent cosmologies, in order to unite a society riven by factionalism. Finally, in its engagement with specific vernacular esoteric traditions, rooted in local geography, Adil Shah’s encyclopaedia addressed the broader political scenario of the contemporary Deccan where multiple courts jostled for prestige and power and eagerly tried to recruit each other’s personnel.