On Friday, 23 April 2004 HT City, India’s national newspaper Hindustan Times’ New Delhi supplement had as their lead story ‘Doggy Style: Love Me, Love My Dog’ which detailed the lifestyles of celebrity pets. These privileged poodles have designer wardrobes, Louis Vuitton bags and stress buster massages at $3000.

Luxury, rather than mere comfort, is a widespread aspiration.

Luxury: a condition of abundance or great ease and comfort; sumptuous environment; something adding to pleasure or comfort but not absolutely necessary; an indulgence in something that provides pleasure, satisfaction, or ease.

- Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

In the Hindi language luxury is variously translated as:

Aeyashi: Love of pleasure or luxury, voluptuous, sensual.
Visya-sukh: worldly or sensual enjoyment
Vilasita: Love of Sensual pleasure

In Urdu Luxury is translated as aesh, aesh o ishrat and takalluf (which is also used to describe etiquette and manners).

The true nature of luxury lost in translation. The opulence, grandeur, abundance that is significant of a luxurious lifestyle doesn’t find a direct correlation in Sanskrit or Urdu. The words used have different etymologies leading to a different understanding in the Indian context.

This paper shall explore the concept of luxury in Indian history and whether there is a historical colloquial precedence or was it a foreign introduction in the medieval period. My contention is that the trappings of luxury were introduced by the Mughals in the 14th century. We have prior to them, economic wealth but not the means to revel in it. We in India the concept of sringar from early on but that was more in terms of functional adornment as opposed to hedonistic pleasure. In India we do have the economic variables which correlate to the objects of luxury like beads in Indus Valley civilization but these too were denoted wealth in pure monetary terms. Luxury, it is my contention, is directly related to those objects which heightened senses, which required a shaukiya to see it to its ultimate pinnacle.

With the Mughals we have in India for the first time the pleasure gardens, the ittars, hookas, sorbets, carpets, brocades, gulab jal all of which combined to highlight moments of luxury. The Mughals managed to conquer a large part of idia and also to bring political and therefore economic and social stability to the India subcontinent for a century. This created an atmosphere were, not having to constantly protect the kingdom, there were resources to spare to develop a courtly lifestyle fit for the shahs.

I shall in this paper construct a map of the visual culture tracing the development of luxury and its examples in art, specifically in mughal miniatures. These paintings created ‘…the opulence and physical richesse of court life.’ I will trace this lineage through to the British colonial period prior 1850’s when English officers, seduced by the idea of the orient, adopted colloquial mannerisms.

Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929) in his book ‘The Theory of the Leisure Class’ (1899) coined the term Conspicuous Consumption to identify that ostentatious personal expenditure which satisfies no physical need but rather a psychological need for the esteem of others. It is applied when goods a re purchased not for their practical use but as ‘status symbols’ and to ‘keep up with the Jonses’.

In contemporary India the idea of luxury has enchanted the middle class minds and underlies all their ambitions. As exemplified by the booming mall culture of Gurgaon and Noida (rich suburbs of Delhi) where desires are met, fulfilled and new ones awakened, Veblen’s theory finds precise correlation. Snob value items signal towards a society which is moving from need-based to want-based expenditure. They underscore the social context of consumption: the ways in which their sense of social standing and belonging comes from what they consume.