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The Mughal Self and the Jain Other in Siddhicandra's Bhanucandraganicarita

The Mughal Self and the Jain Other in Siddhicandra's Bhanucandraganicarita Siddhicandra's Bhanucandraganicarita (Biography of Bhanucandra, ca. 1620s) enacts a stunning development in Sanskrit historiography. The text's title bills it as a biography of a Jain mendicant, a standard genre of Jain-authored works. But, in fact, the text treats cross-cultural relations between Jain ascetics and Mughal elites as its main subject. It is arguably the first Sanskrit text to focus specifically and exclusively on Mughal contexts. This literary and historiographical choice is all the more noteworthy because of the text's carefully delineated approach to negotiating between Sanskrit, Jain, and Mughal cultural norms. Throughout the work Siddhicandra depicts the Mughals as steeped in Sanskrit literary culture while showing himself to be fluent in a Persianate cultural zone. In the tradition of Sanskrit writing on Indo-Persian political figures, which was several hundred years old by the early seventeenth century, the Bhanucandraganicarita marks a moment when the Mughals ceased to be other in any identifiable way, except as offering a new cultural context for Jain self-expression. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East Duke University Press

The Mughal Self and the Jain Other in Siddhicandra's Bhanucandraganicarita

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References (38)

Copyright
Copyright © 2022 by Duke University Press
ISSN
1089-201X
eISSN
1548-226X
DOI
10.1215/1089201x-9987801
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Siddhicandra's Bhanucandraganicarita (Biography of Bhanucandra, ca. 1620s) enacts a stunning development in Sanskrit historiography. The text's title bills it as a biography of a Jain mendicant, a standard genre of Jain-authored works. But, in fact, the text treats cross-cultural relations between Jain ascetics and Mughal elites as its main subject. It is arguably the first Sanskrit text to focus specifically and exclusively on Mughal contexts. This literary and historiographical choice is all the more noteworthy because of the text's carefully delineated approach to negotiating between Sanskrit, Jain, and Mughal cultural norms. Throughout the work Siddhicandra depicts the Mughals as steeped in Sanskrit literary culture while showing himself to be fluent in a Persianate cultural zone. In the tradition of Sanskrit writing on Indo-Persian political figures, which was several hundred years old by the early seventeenth century, the Bhanucandraganicarita marks a moment when the Mughals ceased to be other in any identifiable way, except as offering a new cultural context for Jain self-expression.

Journal

Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle EastDuke University Press

Published: Aug 1, 2022

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