Abstract
This article investigates the letter-writing manual of the physician Muhammad Yusufi Haravi, composed in the 1530s at the court of the Mughal emperor, Humayun. It argues that by prescribing proper expressions of emotion based on one’s rank, the text reflects a combination of courtly desire and medical expertise which hoped to (but could not) transform the body politic (Mughal elite) into an emotional community. This was because the rapid establishment of Mughal rule in North India quickly scattered elite individuals far from their kinship groups, and the formation of a new social organisation, with the emperor at its apex, was a way to deal with the alienation that resulted from the breakup of kinship bonds.
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