Salt, Robes and Blood: A Historical Code of Honor and Loyalty that Spread from Spain to China

Illustrated lecture by Stewart Gordon, Senior Research Scholar, Center for South Asian Studies, University of Michigan and author of The Marathas (Cambridge University Press, 1993)

 

Chair: Sunil Kumar, Professor, Dept. of History, University of Delhi

 

Everyone across North India, Central India and the Deccan knows the term “Namak Halal”, that is, to act loyally to one’s “salt”. And everyone has seen the presentation of a Kashmiri shawl to an honoured guest. Virtually no one realizes, however, that these two seemingly disparate events are the remnants of a vast system of loyalty and honor that allowed men to move across a huge swath of Asia and find employment as soldiers, clerics, administrators, philosophers, even ambassadors