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The remarkable Princess Gulbadan, flower of the Mughal court

Emperor Babur’s beloved daughter – whose name means ‘body like a rose’ – speaks to us across the centuries in a cliffhanging account of royal life in Hindustan

2 March 2024

9:00 AM

2 March 2024

9:00 AM

Vagabond Princess: The Great Adventures of Gulbadan Ruby Lal

Yale, pp.248, 22

In 1587, the Mughal Emperor Akbar, himself illiterate but with grand vision and even greater ambition, commanded his courtier Abu’l-Fazl to write an official history of his reign and dynasty. An order went around Akbar’s court that anyone who was ‘gifted with the talent for writing history’ should put pen to paper and record the events that had shaped their times.

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