Pub Date : 2019-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02666030.2019.1645981
Meia Walravens
This article investigates the readership of a major primary source for the early modern history of South Asia, the sixteenth-century Arabic work Tuḥfat al-Mujāhidīn fī baʿḍ Akhbār al-Burtughāliyyīn (Gift of the Strugglers for Jihad in some Accounts of the Portuguese) by Zayn al-Dīn al-Maʿbarī. This work has frequently caught the eye of scholars trying to explain political, social and cultural developments in Malabar, not least because of its jihadic content. An understanding of its (intended) readership is therefore crucial for drawing meaningful connections between text and historical developments. On the basis of (the absence of) the dedication in the manuscripts of the work and indications in the text itself about the author’s interest in particular sections of society, this article breaks a lance for an understanding of the text as an address to multiple elite audiences.
本文调查了南亚早期近代史的一个主要主要来源的读者,即16世纪阿拉伯语作品Tuḥfat al-Mujāhidīn f ' ba ' ' Akhbār al-Burtughāliyyīn(葡萄牙人一些叙述中的圣战斗争者的礼物),作者是Zayn al- d n al-Ma - bar ' '。这本书经常引起试图解释马拉巴尔政治、社会和文化发展的学者的注意,尤其是因为它的圣战内容。因此,理解其(预期)读者对于在文本和历史发展之间建立有意义的联系至关重要。基于作品手稿中的奉献和文本本身关于作者对社会特定部分的兴趣的指示,本文打破了将文本理解为对多个精英受众的演讲的长矛。
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Pub Date : 2019-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02666030.2019.1641972
L. Orr
This paper is a preliminary investigation of South Indian temple inscriptions from the perspective of their production and of their physical character – as material objects and as documents produced for particular purposes, making history and having histories of their own. I explore this topic through several case studies of groups of inscriptions engraved on the walls of Hindu temples in Tamilnadu, at different points in medieval history, from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries. I consider the oral, material and performative processes that resulted in the production of inscriptions and investigate their ‘afterlives’. This paper tries to make sense of the mixed functions and statuses of South Indian temple inscriptions – as both objects and texts, as authoritative yet often illegible or ephemeral, as highly local yet engaged with cosmopolitan (royal, professional, legal) and even transcendental realms – to explore the intersection of material culture and religious life.
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Pub Date : 2019-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02666030.2019.1641966
Leah Elizabeth Comeau
This special issue “On and beyond the surface: South Indian temple walls as text, object, and experience“ developed out of a panel that I organized at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in San Antonio, TX, in 2016. Since that meeting, our group of panelists have been in continuous dialogue and are now delighted to present a collection of articles that propose fresh approaches to interpreting signs, murals, and inscriptions that are ubiquitous in South Indian religious spaces. The Hindu temple is a place of religious expression, experience, and exchange. Known as a home or palace for its god, or the god’s body itself, these structures feature accommodations fit for royalty. Grand stone temples built in the medieval period throughout southeast India boast long pillared halls, ornamental sculptures, and imposing gates that mark its entrances. In addition to soaring towers that punctuate its skyline, the South Indian landscape is also famous for being utterly packed with stone inscriptions, over a third of the total number of inscriptions known in India today. These tens of thousands of epigraphic “texts“ planted in the southern landscape have long been a rich field of study for historians of religion, politics, and economics in South Asia. Until the very recent past, inscriptions have been analyzed primarily if not exclusively for the denotative content of their texts as records of the past. In fact, most scholars of these sources encounter them as they are printed and published in the South Indian Inscriptions volumes produced by the Archaeological Survey of India. In this form, the inscriptions appear on a smooth page in blocks of text resembling narrative paragraphs. This type of reproduction erases a multitude of information that this special issue argues is essential to their interpretation. In situ, such texts might wrap around a slim slab of stone at the base of a shrine. They might be installed on a pillar set directly into the ground. In some cases, text is painted and illustrated. When these mostly stone writings are collected and printed on flat paper, unfortunately we scholars of inscriptions thereby inflict significant penalties on ourselves — erasures that are further replicated in these articles as we struggle with communicating the color, texture, and shape of billboards and murals in the virtual or printed form, which admittedly have their own aesthetic qualities. Over time, inscriptions and other temple texts have traveled and transformed in their material characteristics. Scholars who try to work back to the stone, to match printed inscriptions to their sites, are intently aware that over time combinations of renovations, cleanings, environmental forces, and preservation efforts have led to the damage and deterioration of sources. Some inscriptions have been relocated, recopied, buried, interrupted, or sandblasted away. In some cases, stone inscriptions are painted or lacquered over or have recently been hidden by hun
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Pub Date : 2019-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02666030.2019.1641980
A. Seastrand
While generations of scholars have recorded the rock-cut inscriptions found on the walls of southeast Indian temples, not until recently has attention been given to the inclusion of text in murals of the same region and locations. Epigraphists and historians of all stripes have focused mainly on the semantic content of text, largely ignoring the materiality, placement, and legibility of the inscriptions themselves. However, a more recent turn to the study of materiality has refocused attention on these issues. Emerging from an art historical perspective, this essay argues that the study of murals can methodologically enrich a reading of inscriptions, no matter their medium. This essay argues that the images and texts that adorn temple walls, both carved in stone and painted in murals, may be best understood within a larger matrix of aesthetic experience that neither reduces them to their materiality nor removes them from a contextually-specific reading.
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Pub Date : 2019-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02666030.2019.1667641
Archana Venkatesan
In my response to four papers on the south Indian inscriptions, I explore the tension between visibility and legibility, and the ways in which inscriptions and murals construct a devotee’s experience of a sacred site.
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Pub Date : 2019-07-03DOI: 10.1080/02666030.2019.1641968
S. Adluri
One of the important pilgrimage centers (tīrtha) in South India, dedicated to the incarnation (avatāra) of Viṣṇu as Narasiṃha, the man-lion, is located at Ahobila, in the state of Andhra Pradesh. This site was important for the Vijayanagara kings as attested by numerous Telugu inscriptions dated to the 16th century. While their textual content provides valuable information on the social, political and economic cultures of sixteenth century South India, this paper investigates their meaning as visual signs within the contexts that comprise a pilgrimage site rather than as texts read by pilgrims. Additionally, given the paucity of scholarship on Telugu inscriptions, it also contributes to this understudied field.
印度南部一个重要的朝圣中心(turtha),致力于Viṣṇu as Narasiṃha的化身(avatāra),人狮,位于安得拉邦的Ahobila。这个地方对维贾耶那加拉国王很重要,许多泰卢固人的铭文可以追溯到16世纪。虽然它们的文本内容提供了有关16世纪南印度社会、政治和经济文化的宝贵信息,但本文研究了它们作为视觉标志在包括朝圣地点的背景下的意义,而不是作为朝圣者阅读的文本。此外,由于泰卢固语铭文的学术研究不足,这也有助于这一研究不足的领域。
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Pub Date : 2019-03-28DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198081685.001.0001
R. Aquil
Religions in South Asia have tended to be studied in blocks, whether in the various monolithic traditions in which they are now regarded—Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, and Christian—or indeed in temporal blocks—ancient, medieval, and modern. Analysing Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Islamic, and Christian traditions, this volume seeks to look at relationships both within and between religions focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries. The chapters explore not only the diversity and the multiplicity within each block, but also the specific forms of their coexistence with each other, whether in accord or in antagonism. The volume also views the interaction between ‘reformed’ and non-reformed branches within each of these purported monoliths. In going beyond existing debates on religious reform movements, the authors highlight the new forms acquired by religions and the ways in which they relate to each other, society, and politics.
{"title":"Religious Interactions in Modern India","authors":"R. Aquil","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198081685.001.0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198081685.001.0001","url":null,"abstract":"Religions in South Asia have tended to be studied in blocks, whether in the various monolithic traditions in which they are now regarded—Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, and Christian—or indeed in temporal blocks—ancient, medieval, and modern. Analysing Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Sikh, Islamic, and Christian traditions, this volume seeks to look at relationships both within and between religions focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries. The chapters explore not only the diversity and the multiplicity within each block, but also the specific forms of their coexistence with each other, whether in accord or in antagonism. The volume also views the interaction between ‘reformed’ and non-reformed branches within each of these purported monoliths. In going beyond existing debates on religious reform movements, the authors highlight the new forms acquired by religions and the ways in which they relate to each other, society, and politics.","PeriodicalId":52006,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Studies","volume":"16 1","pages":"218 - 220"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2019-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73229646","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-01-02DOI: 10.1080/02666030.2019.1614730
B. o'kane
Although concentrating on Mughal tilework, this paper also discusses its predecessors elsewhere in the Islamic world, particularly in Iran, Central Asia, and Sultanate India. A brief survey of the development of the main techniques, namely monochrome-glazed tiles, sgraffito, tile mosaic, underglaze-painted and cuerda seca, both in Sultanate India and in other parts of the Islamic world, precedes the discussion of Mughal examples in the body of the paper. The paper highlights the initial links with Sultanate tilework, whether underglaze-painted, as in the Punjab, or with tile mosaic, in northern India. The development of Mughal tile mosaic is emphasized, as this was the medium most frequently used for tile decoration. Changes in the colour palette and in the introduction of new patterns are examined, highlighting the extensive use of figural imagery at the Lahore Fort and the simultaneous introduction of naturalistic vegetal panels. The less-frequent Mughal use of underglaze-painted and cuerda seca tiles is also examined. The conclusions summarize the characteristic features of Mughal tilework and suggest areas for future study.
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Pub Date : 2019-01-02DOI: 10.1080/02666030.2019.1605576
J. Wescoat
To resituate early Mughal architecture within a Persianate context, this paper considers the three axes of geography, scale, and meaning. After introducing this conceptual framework, we turn to historian Marshall Hodgson’s essay, ‘In the Center of the Map: Nations See Themselves as the Hub of History’, as a starting point for geographical analysis. We survey historiographic perspectives on Mughal architecture as Indian, Islamic, Timurid, and Persianate. These cultural geographic perspectives involve a broad range of architectural scales from buildings to gardens, cities, regions, and empire. To address questions of meaning, the paper examines Hodgson’s concept of Persianate culture in relation to his ideas about conscience and history in his three-volume work titled The Venture of Islam. Hodgson’s ideas about conscience raise interesting questions about the moral dimension of early Mughal architectural experience. The final section of the paper rereads early Mughal sources leading up to the exile of Humayun in Persia and his return to Delhi. These events begin with Babur’s visit to Herat in 1506 and culminate with the construction of Humayun’s monumental tomb-garden, which can be read as expressions of moral as well as religio-political meaning in a dynasty that came to see itself as a ‘hub of history’.
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Pub Date : 2019-01-02DOI: 10.1080/02666030.2019.1605577
A. Rehman
Ali Mardan Khan, one the most important Persian nobles of Shah Jahan’s reign, was a significant contributor to the field of architecture and landscape design. His life history has been adequately documented, but his contributions in the context of Mughal architecture have not received adequate attention by scholars. His garden in Peshawar was one of Ali Mardan Khan’s most important projects, briefly mentioned by British-era travellers, but lacking an in-depth study. The baradari and the garden were occupied by the Sikhs and the British in the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, respectively, and later by the Pakistan Army; during these periods, alterations were made to the garden and baradari. While not open to the public because the site is still utilized by the Pakistan Army, in 2006, the author was permitted to undertake thorough documentation and archaeological investigations. This paper analyses Ali Mardan Khan’s baradari and places it in the context of Mughal architecture in the light of historical texts and field research carried out by the author.
Ali Mardan Khan是沙贾汗统治时期最重要的波斯贵族之一,对建筑和景观设计领域做出了重大贡献。他的生活史被充分地记录下来,但他在莫卧儿建筑背景下的贡献并没有得到学者们的足够重视。他在白沙瓦的花园是阿里·马尔丹·汗最重要的项目之一,英国时代的旅行者简要地提到过,但缺乏深入的研究。巴拉达里和花园分别在18世纪中期和19世纪中期被锡克教徒和英国人占领,后来被巴基斯坦军队占领;在此期间,花园和巴拉达里进行了改造。虽然由于该遗址仍被巴基斯坦军队使用而未向公众开放,但在2006年,撰文人获准进行彻底的文献记录和考古调查。本文分析了Ali Mardan Khan的baradari,并根据历史文献和作者进行的实地研究,将其置于莫卧儿建筑的背景下。
{"title":"Garden of Nobility: Placing Ali Mardan Khan’s Baradari at Peshawar in the Context of Mughal Architecture","authors":"A. Rehman","doi":"10.1080/02666030.2019.1605577","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2019.1605577","url":null,"abstract":"Ali Mardan Khan, one the most important Persian nobles of Shah Jahan’s reign, was a significant contributor to the field of architecture and landscape design. His life history has been adequately documented, but his contributions in the context of Mughal architecture have not received adequate attention by scholars. His garden in Peshawar was one of Ali Mardan Khan’s most important projects, briefly mentioned by British-era travellers, but lacking an in-depth study. The baradari and the garden were occupied by the Sikhs and the British in the mid-eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, respectively, and later by the Pakistan Army; during these periods, alterations were made to the garden and baradari. While not open to the public because the site is still utilized by the Pakistan Army, in 2006, the author was permitted to undertake thorough documentation and archaeological investigations. This paper analyses Ali Mardan Khan’s baradari and places it in the context of Mughal architecture in the light of historical texts and field research carried out by the author.","PeriodicalId":52006,"journal":{"name":"South Asian Studies","volume":"23 1","pages":"129 - 144"},"PeriodicalIF":2.5,"publicationDate":"2019-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88418113","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}