The making of early Kashmir : landscape and identity in the Rajatarangini /

The making of early Kashmir : landscape and identity in the Rajatarangini /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Kaul, Shonaleeka, author.
Edition:	First edition.
Imprint:	New Delhi, India : Oxford University Press, 2018.
Description:	xvii, 189 pages, 12 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color), maps ; 21 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Kalhaṇa, -- active 12th century. -- Rājataraṅgiṇī. Rājataraṅginī (Kalhaṇa) Landscapes in literature. Group identity in literature. Literature and history. Literature and history. Group identity in literature. Landscapes in literature. Jammu and Kashmir (India) -- History. India -- Jammu and Kashmir. History.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/13317556

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780199482924 0199482926 9780199093304 019909330X
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 166-181) and index. Also available in electronic format.
Summary:	"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 duree 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."--Page 4 of cover

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?
Metapoetiy 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