The Making of Early Kashmir

Landscape and Identity in the Rajatarangini
Erscheinungsjahr 2018
ISBN: 978-0-19-948292-4
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 222 Seiten, Hardback, Format (B × H): 137 mm x 203 mm, Gewicht: 340 g

What is history? How does a land become a homeland? How are cultural identities formed? The Making of Early Kashmir
explores 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.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kaul, Shonaleeka

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Sonstige Religionen Östliche Religionen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Asiatische Geschichte

Über Autor(innen)

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.