If you’re interested in Goan history, especially regarding the diplomatic relations between the Estado da Índia and the Mughal dynasty, you will almost certainly have come across the name of Juliana Dias da Costa.
Details about her are shrouded in mystery, with a great deal of fantasy and speculation thrown in. There are so many different versions of her life story. What we do know is that she was highly regarded by both, the Portuguese and the Mughals, even receiving large grants of land from both, sometimes whole villages, in reward for her services.
An article in the Indian Express (26 April 2019), ‘All that remains is a village in Juliana’s name’ refers to a signboard ‘Sarai Julena Gaon’
in Okhla, east Delhi, a vestige of just such a bestowment to her by the Mughals. It interviews Raghuraj Singh Chauhan, former director of the National Museum, and archivist Madhukar Tewari, co-authors of a 2017 book, ‘Juliana Nama’,
that apparently took 30 years to research. I’ve not read it, but judging from the article, it adds even more layers of complexity to this enigmatic woman’s life.
What is certain is that Juliana was of Portuguese descent, and that she died in 1733 or 1734. Chauhan and Tewari state that she “died in Goa in 1734.” Given that Juliana had long been seeking permission from the Mughals to retire to the Santa Monica convent in Goa, but was persuaded to remain in court on account of her usefulness in diplomacy, perhaps she eventually did get her wish and spent her last days there.
But her origins are uncertain. One version holds that her family fled the Dutch conquest of Portuguese Cochim (Kochi) in 1663.
Her parents could also have come to the Mughal court as prisoners after the Mughals sacked the Portuguese settlement of Hugli in 1632
at the behest of Emperor Shah Jahan in response to Portuguese attacks on Mughal ships among other infractions.
Lastly, Juliana could have arrived at the court of Shah Jahan’s son Aurangzeb as the wife of a Portuguese surgeon sent by the Estado da Índia. Other accounts make her the daughter of a doctor. The connection with medicine and healing (some of it attributed to her Christian piety, even to the extent of miraculous cures) is a common thread in many narratives.
She finds a prominent place in the history of the Jesuit order in India, particularly in the writing of Italian Jesuit Ippolito Desideri (d. 1733). In his book ‘The Making of an Enterprise: The Society of Jesus in Portugal, its Empire and beyond 1540-1750’,
Professor Emeritus, Department of History, University of Washington Dauril Alden calls her “the most celebrated patroness of Jesuit missions in India.”
The possibility of bringing the Mughal emperors, and therefore their subjects to Christianity, (perhaps drawing from the example of Roman emperor Constantine in early Christian history) was a lasting Jesuit preoccupation, evident from their own chronicles. So one shouldn’t be too surprised by breathless accounts of the fascination with and in some cases even conversion to Christianity of post-Aurangzeb Mughal emperors, particularly Bahadur Shah I (r. 1707-1712) through the influence of Juliana, or that much is made of the devotion to Saint John the Baptist, to the extent that the emperor’s name was changed to Muhammad Yahya (Yahya the Arabic form of John) with the title of Shaib-i-Yahana). How much of this is embellishment or wishful thinking is debatable. Her riding into battle on an elephant raising the cross on a banner while fighting for her Mughal emperor draws inevitable comparisons with Saint Joan of Arc.
Associate Professor of History at the University of San Francisco Taymiya R. Zaman attempts to sift fact from fantasy surrounding Juliana Dias da Costa, in her paper ‘Visions of Juliana: A Portuguese Woman at the Court of the Mughals’ in Journal of World History, Vol. 23, no.4 (2013, University of Hawaii Press).
It is an elaborate study, in which Zaman makes several insightful observations. For instance, a fair amount of the writing about Juliana comes from Europeans (Gaston Bruit and Jean-Baptiste Gentil) who also claim a link to her through blood or marriage.
Jean-Baptiste Joseph Gentil (1726-1799) shares some similarities with Juliana, in that he too during his stint in India at various times served an European power (in his case the French) and the Mughals. Both were in this respect links between Europe and India. Unlike her, he wrote at length about his experience in ‘Memoires sur L’Indoustan, ou Empire Mogol’. Gentil commissioned Bruit to write Juliana’s 1752 biography in Persian, Ahvāl-i Bibi Juliana (The Circumstances of Lady Juliana), which praises her Christian piety, honesty, incorruptibility and her influence. While Bruit’s familial link to Juliana isn’t clear, Gentil was married to her grandniece Teresa Velho. These relationships would certainly have a bearing on the narrative, placing tales of her power above actual facts of her life.
Zaman argues that Jesuit sources portray Juliana as a proxy for their spiritual mission in India, while Portuguese accounts depict her as a proxy (procurador) for their political aspirations when their own influence was in the decline.
Ismail Gracias’ 1907 book ‘Uma Dona Portuguesa na Corte do Grã Mogol’ (A Portuguese Lady in the Court of the Great Moghul) is extensively quoted by Zaman, who calls it ‘literally a gathering of many fragments from the past.’ One crucial ‘fragment’ (perhaps the only surviving account in her own ‘voice’) is a letter written by Juiana in Persian in 1711 and translated into Portuguese. In which she prays for the glory of the Portuguese king (João V) and acknowledges exchange of gifts between the Estado and the Mughal court.
British writing about her appears later, long after the end of the Mughal Empire in 1857, largely investigating claims of her descendants on her estates, but also acknowledging the legends surrounding her.
Juliana fades into obscurity post-1947 until the 21st century, with an article written by one of her descendants Beverly Hallam in the Journal of British Families in India Society (2007) using the resources of the British Library, and a fictionalized account of her life, ‘Forgotten’ by Bilkees Latif (2010).
Zaman gives us an idea of the enormity of the task of researching Juliana’s life when she points out that extant sources span “six languages, three centuries, several personal and political purposes, and a multitude of genres.” The embellishments, the interweaving of stories of her family’s capture, being taken prisoner, and in some cases shipwreck and piracy, tantalizing links with the French Bourbon dynasty, demonstrate the appeal of Oriental(ist) fables long after the end of the Mughal empire.
An interesting point of irony is made by Jesuit priest Fr. Feliz in 1912: “after 200 years of vigorous and fruitful life”, the Jesuit mission was ended by a Christian king, Joseph I of Portugal (instigated by the Marquis of Pombal) in 1759, not by the Mughals.
Juliana is less extensively written about in Mughal sources, indicating that women like her were “by no means extraordinary in the syncretic landscape of Mughal India”, says Zaman in conclusion.
This chimes with Ira Mukhoty’s fascinating book ‘Daughters of the Sun: Empresses, Queens and Begums of the Mughal Empire’ (2018) which lifts the veil on the lives of the women of the zenana of the Mughals, challenging so many clichéd stereotypes and fleshing out remarkably independent, enterprising courageous personalities.
(An edited version of this article was published on 09 June 2024 in my weekend column ‘On the Upbeat’ in the Panorama section of the Navhind Times Goa India)
Luis Dias 