Cupolas of Chastity, Pillars of Faith: A History of Mughal Architectural Matronage

This thesis examines the architecture that emerged in subcontinental India from the matronage of Mughal women between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. It argues that the relative scarcity of primary and credible information available regarding Mughal women compared with their male counterparts can be substantially redressed through the analysis of architectural expressions, as women have therein been the agents of their own representation. Beyond revealing the personal and political messaging coded within individual structures matronised, this research also identifies the social networks and institutional frameworks that enabled such construction. It combines these two strands to demonstrate the pivotal role played by women in shaping the Mughal built environment, as well as their enduring and intentional engagement with architectural practice. Methodologically, a corpus of 72 structures identified as products of matronage is organised along three typological chapters – caravanserais, mosques, and tombs – following which the synoptic, quantitative analysis of women’s engagement with each category is juxtaposed with individual, qualitative analysis of select cases deemed either representative or outlier of a type. In the process of architectural analysis, departures from established building traditions are identified as the most likely loci of matrons’ personal interventions, and therefore scrutinised further in the context of historical information available regarding their periods of construction, where such details are available, to better understand women’s motivations, minds, and more broadly, the societies that shaped them. Given the resource-intensive nature of architecture, this thesis is limited in its scope to elite women, particularly the three most architecturally and otherwise influential empresses of the dynasty – Maryam Zamani, Nur Jahan, and Jahan Ara – although the imperial, central, and monumental predilections of their matronage are balanced by the inclusion of some sub-imperial matrons, peripheral sites, and quotidian structures. Ultimately, this thesis contributes to the body of knowledge regarding Mughal architecture not only by reassessing its Eurocentric and androcentric presuppositions, but also by developing it along the dimensions of gender, class, and race.