Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court

Audrey Truschke

Published by Columbia University Press 2016

Culture of Encounters

Sanskrit at the Mughal Court

Audrey Truschke

In the series South Asia Across the Disciplines

https://doi.org/10.7312/trus17362

Overview
Contents

About this book

Culture of Encounters recasts the Mughal Empire as a polyglot polity that collaborated with its Indian subjects to envision its sovereignty. This study also reframes the development of Brahman and Jain communities under Mughal rule, which coalesced around carefully selected, politically salient memories of imperial interaction. Culture of Encounters certifies the critical role of the sociology of empire in building the Mughal polity, which came to irrevocably shape the literary and ruling cultures of early modern India.

Recasts the Mughal Empire as a polyglot polity that collaborated with its Indian subjects to envision its sovereignty

Author / Editor information

Audrey Truschke is assistant professor of South Asian history at Rutgers University–Newark and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. She writes about cultural and intellectual history, the relationship between empire and literature, and cross-cultural interactions in early modern South Asia.

Reviews

Carl W. Ernst, University of North Carolina:
Cultures of Encounter is a breakthrough in modern scholarship on the history and culture of South Asia. This absorbing account of the interaction of Persian and Sanskrit offers a powerful corrective to conventional one-sided narratives.

Richard M. Eaton, University of Arizona:
A remarkable achievement. Exploiting a substantial archive of Sanskrit materials, Truschke reveals a vibrantly multicultural Mughal court, one more thoroughly Indian than is commonly thought, owing to its close engagement with the land's oldest literary culture.

Francesca Orsini, SOAS, University of London:
In Culture of Encounters, Audrey Truschke makes a compelling argument for the importance of Sanskrit and Sanskrit intellectuals in the Mughal court. Although certain aspects of these 'encounters' have been researched before, Truschke's work is more comprehensive, and her precise textual analyses go further than any others so far. This is an important and impressive work that should change the field of Mughal studies.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface and Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Note on Transliteration and Other Scholarly Conventions Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xv
Introduction: The Mughal Culture of Power Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
[1] Brahman and Jain Sanskrit Intellectuals at The Mughal Court Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
[2] Sanskrit Textual Production for The Mughals Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	64
[3] Many Persian Mahābhāratas For Akbar Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
[4] Abū Al-Faz̤l Redefines Islamicate Knowledge And Akbar's Sovereignty Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	142
[5] Writing About The Mughal World in Sanskrit Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	166
[6] Incorporating Sanskrit Into The Persianate World Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Conclusion: Power, Literature, and Early Modernity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
Appendix 1: Bilingual Example Sentences in Kṛṣṇadāsa’s Pārasīprakāśa (Light on Persian) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
Appendix 2: Four Sanskrit Verses Transliterated in the Razmnāmah (Book of War) Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	253
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	315
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	343

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 384
Illustrations
- Other: 10 b&w illustrations

eBook

Published: March 1, 2016
ISBN: 9780231540971