Historians of Islamic occult science and post-Mongol Persianate kingship in the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal Empires have in recent years made clear just how central this body of knowledge was to the exercise of imperial power. Alongside, scholarship on tantra has pointed to its diffuse persistence in the early modern period. But what dynamics beyond courts and elite initiates did these investments in occult science and tantra unleash? Through a focus on the seventeenth-century Mughal court and the Rajput polity of Marwar in the eighteenth century, this article weaves together the history of animals with that of harmful magic by non-courtly actors. It demonstrates the blended histories of tantra, Islamicate occult sciences, and folk magic to argue that attributions of liminality encoded people, animals, and things with occult potential. For some, like the owl, this liminality could invite violence and death and for others, like expert male practitioners, it could generate authority. By the eighteenth century, the deployment of practical magic towards harmful or disruptive ends was a political tool wielded not only by kings and elite adepts for state or lineage formation but also by non-courtly subjects and “low”-caste specialists in local social life. States and sovereigns responded to the popular use of harmful magic harshly, aiming to cut off non-courtly access to this resource. If the early modern age was one of new ideologies of universal empire, the deployment of occult power outside the court was inconsistent with the ambitions of the kings of this time.

近年来，研究伊斯兰神秘科学和后蒙古波斯王权的奥斯曼帝国、萨法维帝国和莫卧儿帝国的历史学家已经清楚地表明，这一知识体系对于帝国权力的行使有多么重要。此外，关于密宗的学术研究也指出了它在现代早期的广泛存在。但是，这些对神秘科学和密宗的投资，除了法庭和精英入会者之外，还释放出了哪些动力呢？本文重点关注 17 世纪的莫卧儿宫廷和 18 世纪马尔瓦尔的拉杰普特政体，将动物的历史与非宫廷行为者的有害魔法的历史编织在一起。它展示了密宗、伊斯兰神秘科学和民间魔法的混合历史，认为阈限的属性编码了具有神秘潜力的人、动物和事物。对于一些人来说，比如猫头鹰，这种限制可能会招致暴力和死亡，而对于另一些人来说，比如专家男性从业者来说，它可能会产生权威。到了十八世纪，为了有害或破坏性的目的而使用实用魔法已成为一种政治工具，不仅被国王和精英阶层用来形成国家或世系，而且也被非宫廷臣民和当地社会生活中的“低”种姓专家所使用。 。各国和主权国家对有害魔法的普遍使用做出了严厉的回应，旨在切断非法庭对这一资源的访问。如果说近代早期是宇宙帝国的新意识形态之一，那么在宫廷之外部署神秘力量则与当时国王的野心不符。