Description
Title: How Gulbadan Remembered: The Book of Humāyūn as an Act of Representation Description: How do memory and history interact in the first female-authored account of life at the Mughal court, the Book of Humāyūn (Humāyūnnāma) by Princess Gulbadan (d.1603), third daughter of Bābur, founder of the Mughal dynasty (1526–1707)? One powerful prelude to an answer to the question concerning memory may be inferred from the only poem cited in this short text: Although the self may be reflected in a mirror the mirror image will not match the self. What a miracle to see oneself reflected through an other; this miracle is given by God. As with the poem, so with the text in which it is embedded. The self (khūd) in the mirror is not the self within, although surface appearances suggest otherwise. Likewise, though the Book of Humāyūn resembles an historical chronicle in structure, it is much more than that. Mughal Library