Jorge Flores’ Mughal Padshah stands as a carefully documented and highly readable narrative. It draws fascinating connections ranging from the history of Jesuit mission to Mughal India to the history of Portuguese tradition of writing and reporting in the early seventeenth century. In the context of an unpublished manuscript, it includes at its core an impressive array of the study of early modern political ethnography. This unpublished manuscript is a Jesuit treatise on the court and household of Mughal emperor Jahangir: Tratado da Corte e Caza de lamguir Pachá Rey dos Mogores (“Treatise of the Court and Household of Jahangir Padshah King of the Mughals”). The Tratado exists today in four known versions in two languages. The Portuguese version is in the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo in Lisbon, a Spanish version in Biblioteca Nacional de Espana in Madrid, and two other abbreviated versions in Portuguese and Spanish both held in the library of the Real Academia de la Historia in Madrid.

Flores divides his book into two parts. Part 1 covers an extensive introduction and sub-divided into two chapters. Part 2 comprises Flores’ English translation of the Portuguese manuscript Tratado along with the original copy, which is at the end of the book. This review carefully examines the Part 1 of his book, which includes the well-researched introduction.

In Chapter 1 of the introduction, Flores explores the “Treads and Knots” of the unpublished manuscript Tratado by outlining and profiling the text. Flores emphasizes that Tratado was likely written by the Jesuits for the Portuguese authorities in Goa between 1610 or early 1611 when the Portuguese envisioned its relationship with the Mughals and desired as much information as possible about the Mughal ruler and his power. The event had considerable impetus because three of Jahangir’s nephew converted to Christianity, which placed the Portuguese-Mughal-Jesuit relationships at an opportune juncture.

The contents of Tratado offered information about the court and state of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, his routine, the choreography of his public life, his wives, the imperial harem, court expenses, treasury, revenues, number of his nobles, and their hierarchy and incomes. It was also an incomplete and inaccurate account of provinces or subas and served as an intelligence report produced at the Mughal court. At this level, Flores argues that Tratado does not read like a missionary report with contents devoted to spiritual matters. On the contrary, he places it close to the tradition of travel narratives of the merchants, travelers and, curious observers, which, concerning its structure and choice of themes was significantly shaped by the East India Company’s discourse on Mughal India (7). But the fact that Tratado pre-dates Sir Thomas Roe’s account on Mughal emperor Jahangir’s court and household (1615-1619), which made a substantial impact on the European perceptions of Mughal India, makes this Portuguese manuscript particularly relevant in serving as a counterpoint to British-Dutch-French accounts that dominated the historiography on Mughal India. On this account, Flores suggests that manuscript materials demonstrate vitality, standing side by side with printed texts and even challenging them at times (27).

While two versions of the treatise ignore the question of authorship, Tratado text suggests that one of Jerónimo Xavier or Manuel Pinheiro is/are its author/s. Both Xavier and Pinheiro played a crucial role as intermediaries between Portuguese and the Mughals in the third Jesuit mission to the imperial court in 1595, which makes them both for strong candidates. Xavier makes a sharp distinction in Flores’ investigation as Flores explores his network with different courtiers and scholars of the Mughal court and above all the with the emperor, which makes him the best observer of the Mughal court. Xavier learned the Persian language in the Mughal court, and this helped him to produce several intellectual texts in collaboration with the scholars of the Mughal court.

Pinheiro, on the contrary, did not engage in the intellectual activity of the imperial court as compared to Xavier’s degree of involvement although he wrote many correspondence reports based on the part of the mission. Xavier was a court missionary and Pinheiro a field missionary, which led Flores to think of the possibility of the Tratado as a “composite” text (25). Flores views it as contributed to by both Xavier and Pinheiro, who collaborated along with other members of the mission such as António Machado, Francesco Corsi, and Giuseppe di Castro.

Regarding the mobility of the manuscript from Goa to Lisbon, no precise degree of predictability is possible as it was caught up with the complexities of its transmission. Flores talks about the importance of keeping multiple manuscripts as a safety precaution against any loss during circulation and copying through several hands. This fact makes Flores question whether Tratado came from the original text in Goa? Or whether the Spanish manuscript was a copied version of Tratado? And whether the two abbreviated manuscripts were the outcomes of the copied version of the Spanish document? (35). This question raises more questions than it answers.

In Chapter 2 of the introduction, “Reading the Treatise”, Flores uses the observation of the Tratado to reflect the details of the text on the political texture of Jahangir’s court, his household and most importantly his financial organizations, which was an important area of interest of the Jesuits report. Some of the contents of Tratado, however, were similar to the writings of Abu’l Fazl like the treasuries, household, emperor, etc. This similarity does not mean that the author copied Abu’l Fazl’s work. Flores convincingly argues that the author was not a mere observer but a political thinker who actively participated in imperial discourse and had access to specific information.

Tratado serves as a window to investigate intricate courtly studies of early modern political ethnography. It also provides insight into the nature of assistance of the Jesuits, whose treatise never found its way to the communication channels of the Society of Jesus since it was not expected from their profession to write about the things of the state for fear of discord unless required, explains Flores (9-10). It also provides insight into the complexities of the circulation of the manuscript, all of which speaks to question about the functions of the literati society in the early seventeenth century. This book is overall a model of erudition. It constitutes an excellent source for scholars and students who are engaged in the study of the Mughal history coupled with the history of the Jesuits. Flores offers an excellent English translation of the unpublished Portuguese manuscript, which will find its way as an essential source to the growing corpus of the recent scholarship on the history of Portuguese Asian empire. It is remarkable to note that Tratado was not just a text bared of religious details, but surprisingly it was free of orientalizing comments on the depravity of Asia, which makes this source unique and rationale to the standard of the seventeenth-century texts.