Shifting identities, social mobility, and patronage: a brief background

Slaves and women performers in the Mughal court were often given new names by their masters, which effectively erased their past affiliations. Niccolao Manucci produced a remarkable list of names of the superintendents of the dancers and singers in the Mughal court, perhaps one of the first of its kind. He listed 33 women and did not differentiate between female musicians and dancers. Some of the prominent ones were Suñdar Bā’ī (Beauty), Mrig Nain (Gazelle-eyed), Hīra Bā’ī (Diamond), Jāliya Bā’ī (The net), Manasa Bā’ī (Pearl), Nainjot Bā’ī (Light of the eyes), Gul-rū Ba’ī (Rose-visaged), Chañchal Bā’ī (The bold), Gyān Bā’ī (The inventive), Murād Bā’ī (The desired), Kastūrī Bā’ī (Musk-perfumed), and Kesar Bā’ī (Saffron).Footnote ¹⁶ Most of the names mentioned in the list are those of flowers, colours, food items, or what are thought of as conventional feminine traits, thus signalling a rupture from their previous identities and marking their assimilation. Elaborating on these performers, Manucci makes an interesting remark, stating that despite the Hindu-sounding names, these women were ‘Mahomedans’.Footnote ¹⁷

Strategies of acculturation and adaptation, rather than escape or resistance, were thus followed.Footnote ¹⁸ There were multiple hierarchies within the service, depending upon the performer’s art, status, and role(s) in the imperial court and household. Patronage patterns were also a major cause for the creation of asymmetric dependencies within the group. In some cases, patronage by the imperial family, nobility, and other wealthy groups provided them not only material prosperity but improved their social standing as well. Thus, their realities and scope of mobility depended directly upon the kind of interaction they had with the elite.

Women performers in the early modern period performed in various spaces—the imperial court, the harem, private residences of nobles, public squares, and at their own place of residence. Manucci noted that some dancing girls were employed in the caravanserais that were built along major highways and in cities. These roadside inns were open to travellers, scholars, merchants, and pilgrims. On the other hand, skilled performers like the kanchanis were obligated to perform at the court twice a week. They performed in the imperial court and in some selected open places in the city. In Muraqqa’-i Dehli (The album of Delhi, 1741), Dargah Quli Khan describes the Mughal court during the reign of emperor Muhammad Shah ‘Rangeela’ (r. 1719–1748), which patronised many high-ranking courtesans like Nur Bai, Ad Begum, Chamani, Chak Mak Dahni, Kamal Bai, and Panna, who performed in the Red Fort on several occasions. Khan’s description of the arbab-i tarab—the dancers, mimics, musicians, instrumentalists and accompanists—shows that these performances were ‘a popular and pervasive form of entertainment’.Footnote ¹⁹

The Muraqqa’ underscores that performances in Shahjahanabad were ‘a popular and pervasive form of entertainment’.Footnote ²⁰ Along with glamour and intrigue, Khan showcased the withering away of binaries like high/low or elite/popular cultures.Footnote ²¹ The percolation of courtly culture and elevation of popular elements produced a synthesis of new and refined performance traditions. A close reading of the Muraqqa’ shows that while imperial patronage continued to be a big source of legitimacy as well as a sustainer of musical mehfils (social gatherings centered on poetry and performance), it was no longer the sole means through which artists received social or monetary support. Mehfils were organised by nobles, businessmen, or sometimes the artists themselves, who had by now started living independently, away from the imperial court. Sunil Sharma notes that compared to the sixteenth century, in the eighteenth century, non-courtly settings flourished with a much more socially diverse, new audience of townsmen and bourgeois gentlemen in attendance.Footnote ²² This change was accompanied by a change in the social environment and patronage patterns.

From itinerant dancers who provided entertainment to the common man in bazaars and serais to highly accomplished dancers who catered to the aristocracy, the figure of a female public performer therefore appears to have been ambiguous in nature—a woman whose presence was auspicious yet one who was seductive and respectable at the same time. Apart from being property owners and taxpayers, courtesans organised funds, paid people, and also arranged for travel. Typically, the areas where their households were located became a hub of activity. An important means of increasing the strength of their institution was by buying young girls who could be trained and polished by senior courtesans for their affluent audience. In cities like Delhi, Lucknow, and Faizabad, these spaces were located in market areas and business centres of those times, where men spent their days and nights. Their performances, which incorporated diverse local and transregional styles and traditions, created a space for social interaction and cultural exchange that challenged prevalent spatial divisions.Footnote ²³ From performing on celebratory occasions at the imperial court, holding private and semi-private gatherings for patrons at their establishments, to travelling all over the region as part of marriage processions and other celebrations (such as the spring festival in Delhi), women performers continuously negotiated the boundaries between elite and non-elite and fostered new social patterns, habits, and aspirations. As far as power and agency were concerned, courtesans held a position that was simultaneously powerful and marginal. While they socialised with powerful men, it did not always translate into social and cultural capital for them. However, as the documents from eighteenth-century Allahabad show, there were several instances when they utilised their cultural capital to negotiate the sale and purchase of the enslaved, thereby further strengthening their social and economic status.

Courtesans, slavery, and local power relations: the case of suba Allahabad

While Persian court chronicles of the period seem usually inattentive in describing the lives of courtesans in detail, dalliances with them have been recorded by many, since such incidents were seen as ruffling the normative codes of masculinity, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.Footnote ²⁴ One of the ways in which courtesans figure more substantively in official records is through their involvement in the slave trade in subah Allahabad.Footnote ²⁵ The location of Allahabad signals that these courtesans operated their own establishments and networks that were not directly reliant upon the imperial Mughal court at Delhi, or any of its successor courts such as Awadh. By sheer historical chance, a rather exceptional archival corpus of 60 legal documents has survived into the present. Produced between 1720 and 1784, these Persian documents present courtesans as buyers and owners of young girls.Footnote ²⁶ They record the trade of female slaves, concubines, and children who were sold by their masters or parents to courtesans.Footnote ²⁷ Currently housed at the National Archives of India, these documents can be classified into various contracts such as farūkht nāmā/farokht nāmā (sale deed), raẕā-nāmā/rāẕīnāmā (agreement), ladāwā (written receipt attesting the settlement of a fine or debt), bai’ nāmā (bill of sale), mu’āfī nāmā (letter of exemption), dastāvīz (title deed or bond), bakhshīsh nāmā (deed of gift), muchalkā (bond, agreement, recognizance, or engagement), and chiṭṭhā-i bardā-faroshī (receipt of the sale of a slave).Footnote ²⁸

Such distinct categories of legal contracts underscore both the complexity as well as the institutionalised nature of the slave trade in the region. Further, formularies such as Inshā-yi Harkaran (translated as ‘The Forms of Herkern’ in 1781) demonstrate that the legalese surrounding enslavement remained largely unchanged into the eighteenth century.Footnote ²⁹ This continuity points to the persistence of institutionalised slavery as well as the endurance of juridical frameworks and bureaucratic procedures that normalised and sustained the practice over time.

Their importance is manifold: first, they are perhaps one of the few surviving documents of the period that inform us of the nature of enslavement that took place outside the bounds of the imperial palace and seraglio. Second, along with throwing light on the manner of slave acquisition, they help us in understanding the role of a courtesan in both monetary and non-monetary transactions, an aspect that forms the central focus of the present article. Further, the presence of texts like Inshā-yi Harkaran in the seventeenth century would suggest that these eighteenth-century documents are not entirely unique, since slavery was legal (albeit regulated) within normative legal practice during the previous century. However, until a similar trove of sale deeds is unearthed for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this rare collection of documents offers an unparalleled view of courtesans as uniquely agentive individuals involved in the sale and purchase of slaves.

In order to make sense of these contracts, it is necessary to first locate them within the broader political and economic contexts of the time. Constituting a category of forced labour, slavery in early modern South Asia included many subcategories within itself, depending upon the nature of the master, the purpose of slave-owning, and the mode of purchase.Footnote ³⁰ Many enslaved women served as domestic servants (kanīz), gift-slaves, debt-slaves, or marriage-slaves.Footnote ³¹ Scholars who have worked extensively on early modern slavery argue that warfare and impoverishment were the two most common reasons behind the enslavement of men, women, and children.Footnote ³² Across time and space, war captives were usually put under servitude by the victorious faction, be it during the rule of the Delhi sultans, the Rajput kings, the Deccani kingdoms, or the Chola empire.Footnote ³³ Sreenivasan’s research on pre-colonial Rajasthan substantiates that women were more vulnerable to enslavement and endured varying forms of servitude.Footnote ³⁴ Similarly, Shadab Bano’s work, based on the early Sultanate chronicles, shows that dance and music performances were forced upon the captive and enslaved women in order to further humiliate the conquered enemy and increase the victor’s social capital.Footnote ³⁵ This continued in the Mughal period as well, which had ‘anywhere between thirty and four hundred slaves attached to the harems of elite households alone’.Footnote ³⁶ Even though Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) had prohibited imperial soldiers from enslaving women, children, and relatives of the enemy, private transactions of sale and purchase continued in the region. Bano argues that despite the imperial ban on slavery, an ‘attitude of indifference probably crept into state policy’, which changed both the nature as well as the scope of the slave trade in medieval India.Footnote ³⁷

Apart from involuntary enslavement, slavery also took voluntary forms. During famines, open sales at public places were allowed. In the second half of the seventeenth century, we find references of ‘distressed peasants offering either themselves or their children for sale to pay the increased taxes’.Footnote ³⁸ While the Allahabad documents do not state the reason(s) behind the sale, one could speculate that the tumultuous socio-political conditions in eighteenth-century North India might have played a role in it. The political authority of the Mughals outside the imperial capital territory was experiencing a gradual weakening post emperor Aurangzeb’s death (r. 1658–1707). Persian ruler Nadir Shah’s invasion of Shahjahanabad in 1739 and frequent raids by Afghan leader Ahmad Shah Abdali between 1748 and 1761 further exacerbated the conditions in the heartland.Footnote ³⁹ A decade-long civil war (1751–1761) between rival Mughal ministers ‘Imad-ul-Mulk and Safdar Jung, and concurrent attacks by Jats and Marathas, also contributed to the political instability.Footnote ⁴⁰ The province of Allahabad remained a point of struggle for local governors in a period of turmoil, which ended with the Battle of Baksar in 1764. This transition from Mughal to the English East India Company (EIC) rule was accompanied by immense socio-political and cultural transformations. It seems plausible that in this transitional phase, selling off children and their enslavement was a means to deal with repeated incursions and plunder.Footnote ⁴¹

While the above politico-economic factors help us understand the motives behind the practice of enslaving women and children, the concurrent rise of the highly ranked courtesans (tawa’ifs) also needs to be examined in order to study the sale deeds. According to Farhat Hasan, the eighteenth century witnessed ‘a reconfiguration of the Mughal system of power, not its collapse; the state was now shifting towards more locally rooted centres of power and authority’.Footnote ⁴² Furthermore, Urvashi Dalal argues that ‘incipient femininity’ and ‘inversion of masculinity’ were the markers of this period.Footnote ⁴³ Looking at the rise of courtesans like Lal Kunwar, Begum Samru, and Qudsia Begum, Dalal suggests that this period allowed women of popular origins to participate in the spheres of state politics and administration. Foreign travellers like Francois Bernier also mention that attending a dance performance was regarded as an important form of public entertainment, and the eighteenth century saw tremendous patronage and legitimacy bestowed upon tawa’ifs—their households grew more affluent and became an integral part of the cultural as well as economic set-up.Footnote ⁴⁴

The strength of a tawa’if’s household could be increased by buying young girls who were to be trained and polished by senior courtesans for their affluent audience. Enslavement of young girls, therefore, would have been done for a variety of reasons, depending upon the status of their employer. They were employed not only for performing household chores and menial work but also for company, pleasure, sexual access, and reproduction. Reading the sale deeds from Allahabad against this backdrop hence provides some helpful insights into the dimensions of service, servitude, asymmetrical power networks, and mobility.

First of all, the sale deeds employ a variety of terms to refer to the slave children—kanīz, kanīzak, dah, asāmī-kanīzak, ghulām, and chhokrī—roughly translating to servant, slave girl, or domestic maid. In particular, the term dah carries a dual implication—it can be used for both a slave girl as well as a woman fit for concubinage. The slave-buyers, on the other hand, are referred to as bā’i, ţawā’if, and harkanī (or hurkinī), indicating that the buyer belonged to a community of hereditary public performers.Footnote ⁴⁵ These sale deeds confirm that the purchase of young girls by senior courtesans was not an informal or clandestine operation at all. In fact, the social and economic regulation of the act as recorded in the documents carries imprints of local power relations. In this way, these legal documents acted as a site for legitimation of power.Footnote ⁴⁶ Moreover, a formal settlement of claims and resolution of any future dispute(s) was also clearly spelled out.Footnote ⁴⁷ For instance, a chiṭṭhā-i-bardā-faroshī, written in 1740, records:

Similarly, an exemption letter (chiṭṭhā mu’āfi) issued in 1725, states:

It is interesting to note that the kotwāls not only provided legitimacy to these transactions but also exempted tawa’ifs from payment of taxes on some purchases as well.Footnote ⁵⁰ With courtesans acquiring socio-political clout at routine festivities of the elite during the eighteenth century, it would not be entirely inaccurate to attribute these tax exemptions to their growing connections with the elite of the region.Footnote ⁵¹ The above exemption letter mentions that Chanda, the buyer, had been exempted from paying the tax because her mother—courtesan Moti—was in the service of Salim Beg Khan, presumably a man of repute and power. Their proximity to the state’s elite thus meant that some women performers went beyond the arts and into the world of politics, a remarkable feat for a woman at the time. It is also important to note that these were probably the only female slave owners who were not from the royal family. Moreover, it can also be suggested that courtesans could have been intermediaries in the slave trade as well.

A female figure named Mulayam Bai figures multiple times in these sale deeds. A resident of the royal camp, she made multiple purchases of young girls, who were most likely to be employed either in the domestic service or in the tawa’if household. She received various tax exemptions and was also presented with several slave girls as gifts, which indicates that she held a position of considerable social significance. Given the uniqueness of the Allahabad corpus, it is unclear whether similarly powerful courtesans existed prior to the eighteenth century. Certainly, for the eighteenth century, her repeated presence in these sale deeds can be interpreted as an important indicator of the extent of the courtesans’ influence in the region in the eighteenth century.

A thirteen-year-old slave girl or concubine named Raushan Afza was reported to have been given to Mulayam by one Jawahar Darbari as a gift.Footnote ⁵² Similarly, a bakhshīsh nāmā executed by Najabat Ali Rezavi in 1762 establishes that he gifted a kanīzak (slave girl) named Gulbahar to Mulayam free of cost on his accord.Footnote ⁵³ A dastak (writ) issued in favour of rāhdārsFootnote ⁵⁴ and chowkidars (guards) posted at the chowkis from Allahabad to qasbā [a small town] Chail ordered them ‘not to realise any mahsūl [tax] on five chhakṛās [bullock carts] of Mulayam Bai passing through their jurisdiction’.Footnote ⁵⁵ Another document states that a kanīzak was sold for 23 rupees by an elite woman named Sanjida Bano to Mulayam Bai.Footnote ⁵⁶ Apart from Mulayam, the sale deeds show that tawa’ifs like Madan, Jadi, Shobha, Chanda, and Moti were also involved in the sale and purchase of young girls. A sanad (deed), issued under Salim Beg Khan’s name in 1757, confirms that he gifted one chhokri named Durdana to Moti tawa’if free of charge.Footnote ⁵⁷ Similarly, a sale deed from 1724 notes that a five-year-old asāmī-kanīzak was given to Panna hurkini by Salhu Khan for ‘free’.Footnote ⁵⁸

How does one interpret these non-monetary transactions where young girls were gifted to courtesans ‘free’ of charge? According to Marcel Mauss, ‘the gift is a perfect example of a total social phenomenon, as it involves legal, economic, moral, religious, aesthetic, and other dimensions’.Footnote ⁵⁹ Mauss argued that gifts are never truly free, as they entail a reciprocal exchange. Indrani Chatterjee has also called gift-giving an important socio-political transaction in South Asia; ‘gifts’ were often presented in order to extract some concession or favours from the donee.Footnote ⁶⁰ Furthermore, the value of the gift indicated the relative standing of the personages involved.Footnote ⁶¹ Several Persian as well as vernacular sources, particularly Abul Fazl’s Ā’īn-i-Akbarī and Jahangir’s Tuzk-i-Jahāngīrī, confirm that the practice of giving eunuchs and dancing girls as gifts was not uncommon in medieval and early modern India.Footnote ⁶²

According to Sreenivasan, the ‘voluntary transfer of such performers signified a relationship of vassalage to an overlord; in contrast, their forced surrender signified subjugation and the loss of sovereignty’.Footnote ⁶³ Such transactions created a bond between the seller and the buyer; at the same time the slave who was being gifted had no choice in the matter. In her work on the ḵẖẉāja-sarā (eunuch) children, Jessica Hinchy suggests that presenting children as ‘gifts’ by families in exchange for some favours or goodwill could possibly have been a strategy to distance themselves from the ‘shame and dishonour of monetary transactions involved in the enslavement of children’.Footnote ⁶⁴ In this context, it can be argued that the gifting of slave girls indicates that some tawa’ifs had a higher social status than the seller and were in a position to bestow certain favours on the latter if and when needed. As opposed to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when liaisons with low-born female public entertainers outside the performing arena were mostly seen as a transgression of the norms of morality, by the eighteenth century, associating with the highly ranked tawa’ifs came to be considered a marker of prestige and power. Gifts and tax exemptions, therefore, can be seen as indicators of their social status and perhaps a form of social respectability as well. Furthermore, even though some girls were presented to them as ‘free gifts’, the written documentation of it points towards the formalisation of the gift economy.

The girls mentioned in the documents can be categorised into two main groups—free-borns and slaves (who were resold to courtesans). Terms such as kanīz or kanīzak (slave girl or concubine),Footnote ⁶⁵ asāmī (servant), chhokrī (maidservant), and dah (concubine) denote that those who were being sold or gifted to these courtesans had previously been in the service of their sellers. For instance, a document recorded that Khunnu Shaukhzadi sold one of her own house kanīz to Chanda tawa’if for seven rupees.Footnote ⁶⁶ On the other hand, certain deeds refer to them as the seller’s ‘own daughter’ or ‘foster daughter’, indicating that the girl was still a free-born at the time of the transaction. In a rāẕīnāmā, Mahtab, wife of Pechu, sold her ‘foster daughter’ out of free will to Mulayam for the sum of two rupees (see Figure 1).Footnote ⁶⁷

Figure 1.

Rāẕīnāmā for the sale of a ‘foster daughter’. Source: National Archives of India, Acc No. 2382/8.

Figure 1 Long description

The document features handwritten text in a script, arranged in multiple lines. The text appears to be written on aged paper, with visible creases and wear. There are annotations and markings at the top, including 'Acc No. 2382/8'. The script is neatly organized, with some lines indented or aligned differently, suggesting a structured format or list. The paper shows signs of aging, such as discoloration and frayed edges.

Another document, a farokhtnāmā (sale deed) written in 1731, states:

Figure 2.

Sale deed for a seller’s daughter. Source: National Archives of India, Acc No. 2382/9.

Figure 2 Long description

The document contains handwritten text in a flowing script, arranged in multiple lines across the page. The text includes several annotations and appears to be written in a formal style. At the top, there is a reference number 'Acc No. 2382/9'. The script is dense and covers most of the page, with some lines written at an angle. The paper has a textured appearance, suggesting it is aged or historical.

The nature of the relationship shared by the seller and the enslaved girls is full of complexities (as shown in Table 1). There is little evidence to check the veracity of claims that the seller and the girl being sold actually shared a familial relationship. Indrani Chatterjee has argued that slave owners often tried to legitimise slavery by treating it as a kinship institution and disguised it by using kinship terms like ‘son’ and ‘daughter’.Footnote ⁶⁹ Furthermore, as Hinchy’s research has shown, the formation of interpersonal or affective relationships was a key aspect of North Indian enslavement, as it was ‘a significant way in which children lessened the emotional impacts of enslavement, the severing of familial ties and estrangement from their origins’.Footnote ⁷⁰ Hence the relationship between the seller, their ‘daughter’, and the courtesan remains ambiguous in this case.

Table 1.

Nature of the relationship between the seller and the girl being sold

Table 1 Long description

The table records the nature of relationships between sellers and girls being sold from 1720 to 1784, highlighting different types of sale deeds. Most girls were sold as 'Kanīz', indicating servitude, while some were sold as daughters, suggesting familial transactions. Notably, in 1731 and 1765, girls were sold by their own parents, Reshma and Alaul with Bhondan, respectively. The data shows a trend of using various sale deed types, such as 'Dastāwīz', 'Muchalkā', and 'Farokht Nāma', with sellers including individuals like Himmat Khan and Md. Makhhu Khan. The absence of names for some girls suggests incomplete records or anonymity. This table provides insight into historical practices of selling girls, reflecting societal norms and legal frameworks of the time.

Another aspect that demands our attention is the correlation between the age of the girl and the price at which she was sold. The sexual aspect of the slave trade needs to be taken into consideration here. If looked at closely, one finds that girls nearing the age of puberty (i.e. aged 9–11) were sold at a higher price than those who were younger than them. Priced at 1–30 rupees (as evidenced in Table 2), these slave girls were sold to courtesans who would have employed them for different purposes, including, most likely, as courtesan-trainees. While there is no detailed evidence of courtesan households from the eighteenth century, evidence from the nineteenth century and later, especially as first argued by Veena Talwar Oldenburg, reveals that running a tawa’if household involved complex financial arrangements and fiercely competitive displays of wealth.Footnote ⁷¹ Senior courtesans invested their time, labour, skills, and resources to train the young recruits. As they grew up, they would be attached to some rich patron. It should be noted that skilled performers were sought after as they were a status symbol for those who employed them. By recruiting and training near-adolescent girls, the courtesans could reap commercial profits in a shorter amount of time. Compared to the older girls, the younger ones (aged 1–8) would have required more investment in terms of both time as well as money. Read within this social context, the documents show that around 13 girls were sold at five rupees or less, and most of them were aged eight or younger.

Table 2.

Price and age of the girls being sold

Table 2 Long description

The table records the price and age of girls sold between 1720 and 1784, along with the buyers' names. Prices varied from Rs. 1 to Rs. 20, with ages ranging from 4 to 10 years. Jadi purchased girls in 1720, 1740, and 1749, while Mulayam bought one in 1765. Notably, in 1763 and 1784, there were no buyers listed. The data shows a fluctuation in prices over the years, with the lowest price being Rs. 1 for a 4-year-old in 1763 and the highest being Rs. 20 for a 10-year-old in 1740. The absence of buyers in some years suggests possible gaps or changes in the market or record-keeping.

The works of Shireen Moosvi and Shadab Bano show that the sexual aspect of the slave trade had been an important factor in determining the rate of slaves in the preceding centuries as well. For instance, the prices of slaves during the reign of sultan Alauddin Khilji (r. 1296–1316) varied from 5 to 40 coins (in silver tankas). While a maid/slave was priced between 5 and 12 tankas, a female bought for the purpose of concubinage was sold at as high a price as 40 tankas. Similarly, untrained boys were priced at 7–8 tankas and experienced male slaves between 10 and 15, but a ‘handsome boy slave’ could fetch up to 20 or 30 tankas.Footnote ⁷² Apart from the buyer’s occupation, prevailing socio-economic conditions were also a major factor in determining the rate list. Comparing the slave trade in Allahabad to that of Bengal in the early eighteenth century, one finds that the price of domestic slaves where sales were accentuated by poverty and indebtedness had to be lower.Footnote ⁷³ In the famine-stricken region of Bengal, two girls (aged 6 and 11) were sold for only three rupees. On the other hand, girls in Allahabad were sold for as high a price as 30 rupees. Since they were purchased by influential tawa’ifs connected to the ruling power, it is likely that they were to be used for delivering performances for the elite, or for being in their service for other activities. If the patrons were impressed, it would have translated into more business and riches for the courtesan household.

Hence, the reproductive potential, physical attributes, mannerisms, adaptability of girls, as well as socio-economic circumstances of the seller would have played a crucial role in determining the price of the slave girls. Once they were initiated into the courtesan tradition (whether voluntarily or involuntarily), there were possibilities to move up the ladder in due course. The process of enslavement, as Indrani Chatterjee, Richard Eaton, and others have shown, was not static in nature. The asymmetrical relationship(s) between the enslaved and the master, therefore, could change with time.Footnote ⁷⁴ The spatial, social, and occupational mobility, coupled with their skills and the position of their patrons, thus provided many of them with varied degrees of autonomy.

While the Allahabad documents provide details about different buyers, they also reflect a certain sense of subjection and a loss of agency concerning the young girls who were sold. Their gender and class location often informed their marginalised social reality. Sumit Guha argues that ‘slavery’ and ‘freedom’ were no absolutes in early modern India and thus various degrees of dependency can be observed. Moving away from a reductive and strict binary, scholars have suggested that such strong asymmetrical dependencies or variations of servitude need to be understood as a ‘spectrum of statuses’ or ‘intermediate categories’.Footnote ⁷⁵ Enslavement often came with the possibilities of training, education, promotion, and also occasional beatings and resale. Firstly, the status of the buyer and the purpose of purchase shaped the captive girls’ chances for upward social mobility. Cultural practices also provided further mobility to some enterprising female slaves. While elite women often kept talented slave girls for their own ‘prestige, entertainment, companionship, patronage, profit, and power’, a few of them, despite their vulnerabilities, used their ‘wits, charm, talent, and beauty’ to achieve social mobility.Footnote ⁷⁶ Yet many others were not so successful.