Overview

What is history? How does a land become a homeland? How are cultural identities formed? The Making of Early Kashmirexplores these questions in relation to the birth of Kashmir and the discursive and material practices that shaped it up to the 12th century CE.Reinterpreting the first work of Kashmiri history, Kalhana's Rajatarangini, this book argues that the text was history not despite being traditional Sanskrit poetry but because of it. It elaborated a poetics of place, implicating Kashmir's sacred geography, a stringent critique of local politics, and a regional selfhood that transcended the limits of vernacularism.Combined with longue durée testimonies from art, material culture, script, and linguistics, this book jettisons the image of an isolated and insular Kashmir. It proposes a cultural formation that straddled the Western Himalayas and the Indic plains with Kashmir as the pivot. This is the story of the connected histories of the region and the rest of India.

Full Product Details

Author:   Shonaleeka Kaul (Associate Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Associate Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India)
Publisher:   OUP India
Imprint:   OUP India
Dimensions:   Width: 13.60cm , Height: 2.00cm , Length: 20.40cm
Weight:   0.324kg
ISBN:  

9780199482924

ISBN 10:   0199482926
Pages:   222
Publication Date:   24 May 2018
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Preface Note on Edition, Translation, and Diacritics 1. Introduction 2. Poetics and the Past: Questions of History in Kalhana's Rajatarangini The History Hypothesis or The History That Wasn't The Literary Hypothesis Is the Rajatarangini a Kavya? Metapoetry and Epistemic Insight 'The River of Kings' as a Flow of Exemplars Critique of Power---and Time 3. Imagined Landscape: Myth, Memory, and Place-Making Cosmopolitan and Vernacular in Kashmir Layers of Landscape Mapping the Land Nature and Ritual Storytelling and the Moral Agency of Nagas Local Imageries Kingdom of Piety or This Troubled Land 4. (Re)locating Early Kashmir: Geoculture of a Region and Beyond From Unique History to Connected Histories Text Material Culture Script Language Art 5. Conclusion Bibliography Index About the Author

Reviews

...a short but incredibly potent work of scholarship. * Nathan McGovern, International Journal of Hindu Studies *

Author Information

Shonaleeka Kaul is a cultural historian of early South Asia, specializing in working with Sanskrit texts. She is associate professor in the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.

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