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Culture of Encounters documents the fascinating exchange between the Persian-speaking Islamic elite of the Mughal Empire and traditional Sanskrit scholars, which engendered a dynamic idea of Mughal rule essential to the empire's survival. This history begins with the invitation of Brahman and Jain intellectuals to King Akbar's court in the 1560s, then details the numerous Mughal-backed texts they and their Mughal interlocutors produced under emperors Akbar, Jahangir (1605–1627), and Shah Jahan (1628–1658). Many works, including Sanskrit epics and historical texts, were translated into Persian, elevating the political position of Brahmans and Jains and cultivating a voracious appetite for Indian writings throughout the Mughal world. The first book to read these Sanskrit and Persian works in tandem, Culture of Encounters recasts the Mughal Empire as a polyglot polity that collaborated with its Indian subjects to envision its sovereignty. The work also reframes the development of Brahman and Jain communities under Mughal rule, which coalesced around carefully selected, politically salient memories of imperial interaction. Along with its groundbreaking findings, 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.

The Papers Included In This Book Are An Exhaustive Survey Of The Recent Sanskrit Literature And An Extensive Assessment About Its Relevance To The Contemporary Society. Sanskrit Literature Has Been Made Richer, Both In The Form And Content, By The Authors Of The 20Th Century, Who Are Very Much Open And Alive To The Contemporary Developments And Problems And Who Are Enthusiastic About Introducing Innovative Ideas Into Sanskrit Literature In Order To Enrich It Further. It Was Also Admitted That Still Much Is To Be Done To Widen The Field Of Sanskrit And This Can Be Made Possible By The Participation Of More Number Of Sanskrit Scholars. Havings Its Roots Firmly Struck In The Ground The Eternal And Speaking Tree Of Sanskrit Should Blossom New Flavour And Speaking The Fragrance Of Which Will Be Carried To Every Root And Corner Of The Word.

"The scholarship exhibited here is not only superior; it is in many ways staggering. The author's control of an astonishing range of primary and secondary texts from many languages, eras, and disciplines is awe-inspiring. This is a learned, original, and important work."—Robert Goldman, Sanskrit and India Studies, University of California, Berkeley

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In Hindu Pluralism, Elaine M. Fisher complicates the traditional scholarly narrative of the unification of Hinduism. By calling into question the colonial categories implicit in the term “sectarianism,” Fisher’s work excavates the pluralistic textures of precolonial Hinduism in the centuries prior to British intervention. Drawing on previously unpublished sources in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu, Fisher argues that the performance of plural religious identities in public space in Indian early modernity paved the way for the emergence of a distinctively non-Western form of religious pluralism. This work provides a critical resource for understanding how Hinduism developed in the early modern period, a crucial era that set the tenor for religion's role in public life in India through the present day.

Sanskrit Non-Translatables is a path-breaking and audacious attempt at Sanskritizing the English language and enriching it with powerful Sanskrit words. It continues the original and innovative idea of nontranslatability of Sanskrit, first introduced in the book, Being Different. For English readers, this should be the starting point of the movement to resist the digestion of Sanskrit into English, by introducing loanwords into their English vocabulary without translation. The book presents a thorough mechanism of the process of digestion and examines the loss of adhikara for Sanskrit because of translating its core ideas into English. The movement launched by this book will resist this and stop the programs that seek to turn Sanskrit into a dead language by translating all its treasures to render it redundant. It discusses fifty-four non-translatables across various genres that are being commonly mistranslated. It empowers English speakers with the knowledge and arguments to introduce these Sanskrit words into their daily speech with confidence. Every lover of India’s sanskriti will benefit from the book and become a cultural ambassador propagating it through routine communications.

Bhaktivinode is presented from the perspective of his own times and in his own words. His writings, theology, and religious practices are thoroughly and systematically examined from a nonhagiographic viewpoint and the entire work is carefully annotated. Bhaktivinode's life straddled contemporary British society and ancestral Hindu culture. One was a modern, analytical world which demanded rational thought. The other was a traditional world of Hindu faith and piety, which seemingly allowed little room for critical analysis. Could he play a meaningful role in modern society and at the same time maintain integrity as a Hindu? This book systematically examines his reinterpretation and application of Hinduism in the context of rational thought. In this well-researched, comprehensive, and objective study Dr. Shukavak begins with a discussion of the "crisis of faith" many Hindus experienced during British rule in India. This is followed by a biographic narration of the life of Kedarnath Dutta concentrating primarily on his devotional development and struggle with the problems of tradition and modernity. Shukavak identifies the inner logic of Bhaktivinode's approach as it points backward to Caitanya and the Goswamis and forward to the challenges of rationalism and universalism. Kedarnath Dutta Bhaktivinode (1838-1914) was an English-educated member of the Bengali bhadralok in 19th century British India. He was an associate of such noteworthy men as: Kashiprasad Ghosh, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Keshub Chandra Sen, Michael Madhusudan Datta, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Sisir Kumar Ghosh and the Tagore family. In his late twenties he discovered his "Eastern Savior", Caitanya Mahaprabhu (1486-1533) and became a leader of the Caitanya Vaishnava movement in Bengal. He made a lifelong study of Vaishnava philosophy, theology, and literature; and he wrote or edited almost a hundred books in Bengali, Sanskrit, and English. Bhaktivinode's spiritual insights which divide religion into two constituent parts, the phenomenal and the transcendent allowed him to combine critical rational analysis with the best of Hindu mysticism, Krishna lila. This created a unique synthesis of tradition and modernity. Instead of relinquishing modernity, he utilized it in his writings; instead of rejecting the Hindu tradition in the presence of rational thought, he strengthened it.

There is a new awakening in India that is challenging the ongoing westernization of the discourse about India. The Battle for Sanskrit seeks to alert traditional scholars of Sanskrit and sanskriti - Indian civilization - concerning an important school of thought that has its base in the US and that has started to dominate the discourse on the cultural, social and political aspects of India. This academic field is called Indology or Sanskrit studies. From their analysis of Sanskrit texts, the scholars of this field are intervening in modern Indian society with the explicitly stated purpose of removing 'poisons' allegedly built into these texts. They hold that many Sanskrit texts are socially oppressive and serve as political weapons in the hands of the ruling elite; that the sacred aspects need to be refuted; and that Sanskrit has long been dead. The traditional Indian experts would outright reject or at least question these positions. The start of Rajiv Malhotra's feisty exploration of where the new thrust in Western Indology goes wrong, and his defence of what he considers the traditional, Indian approach, began with a project related to the Sringeri Sharada Peetham in Karnataka, one of the most sacred institutions for Hindus. There was, as he saw it, a serious risk of distortion of the teachings of the peetham, and of sanatana dharma more broadly. Whichever side of the fence one may be on, The Battle for Sanskrit offers a spirited debate marshalling new insights and research. It is a valuable addition to an important subject, and in a larger context, on two ways of looking. Is each view exclusive of the other, or can there be a bridge between them? Readers can judge for themselves.

"Critical articles on Dharmasastra of Manu, Lawgiver"-OCLC

'Unfinished Gestures' presents the social and cultural history of courtesans in South India, focusing on their encounters with colonial modernity in the 19th and early 20th centuries.