The Poetics of History in Padmakar’s Himmatbahādurvirudāvalī

Abstract

Allison Busch places Padmakar Bhatt and his Himmatbahādurvirudāvalī in the context of the literary and political imaginary of the eighteenth century. She shows how Padmakar inherits the genre of the virudāvalī (itself a multi-faceted tradition) from Sanskrit, but also a rich lexicon from the vernacular, Arabic, and Persian. The form and language of his work thus reflect the changed political and cultural realities of his time. The seamless movement between modes of versified poetic description in the Himmatbahādurvirudāvalī reflects Padmakar’s simultaneous function as both historian and poet.