Research Catalog

Title

Querying the medieval : texts and the history of practices in South Asia / Ronald Inden, Jonathan Walters, Daud Ali.

Author

Inden, Ronald B.

Publication

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2000.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Walters, Jonathan S. (Jonathan Stone), 1961-
• Ali, Daud.

Description

235 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

• "This volume, through a close reading of a number of "early medieval" texts, seeks to undermine any easy characterization of medieval South Asia as a dark prelude to an enlightened modernity. It attempts to destabilize these characterizations through a rereading of three important genres of medieval texts crucial to the representation of precolonial India - Puranas, Vamsas, and inscriptional Prasastis."
• "Drawing on thinkers as diverse as V.N. Volosinov, R.G. Collingwood, and E. Laclau, this volume challenges the predominant idea of a text as "monological" both in its "authorist" and "contextualist" versions. The authors instead seek to understand texts as "dialogical" moments in the relations that agents have with themselves and with other agents. From this perspective, each author is able to pry open a particular text and reveal the articulative relation that each has had with the world in which it was situated. The result is a revised look at the relationship between history, national identity, and religion in medieval South Asia."--Jacket.

Subjects

• Student Collection
• Electronic books
• Culturen
• Middeleeuwen
• Civilization
• 15.75 history of Asia
• South Asia > Civilization

Genre/Form

• Electronic books.
• Student Collection.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

1. Introduction: From Philogical to Dialogical Texts / Ronald Inden -- 2. Imperial Puranas: Kashmir as Vaissnava Center of the Words / Ronald Inden -- 3. Buddhist History: The Sri Lankan Pali Vamsas and Their Community / Jonathan S. Walters -- 4. Royal Eulogy as World History: Rethinking Copper-plate Inscriptions in Cola India / Daud Ali.

ISBN

• 0195124308
• 9780195124309

LCCN

99010675

OCLC

• ocm40609339
• 40609339
• SCSB-14423551

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library