Anxieties of Attachment: The Dynamics of Courtship in Medieval India
By Daud Ali
Modern Asian Studies, Vol.36:1 (2002)
Introduction: The copious literature on love in early India has most recently been interpreted as a variant of the universal experience of human sexuality. Studies have rooted the uniqueness of Indian ideas either in theological conceptions of the immanent and transcendent, or in the particularity of the parent–child relation in India.1 Whatever the insights of such scholarship, two major problems relevant to this essay are its positioning of a ‘civilizational’ backdrop as its subject of analysis—either ‘India’ or ‘Hinduism’—and, particularly with the former approach, the subsequent application of what has been called the ‘repressive hypothesis’ to the Indian material, which poses the ‘transcendent’ principles of Indian civilization in a restraining role over those deemed lifeaffirming or immanent. This essay will offer an alternative to these interpretations by placing conceptions of romantic love in medieval India within their social and discursive contexts, and connect up the discourses on self-discipline in medieval India with those of love in a more historically specific and illuminating way.
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26 Apr 2010
Tags: India, Social History
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Yemeni ‘Oceanic Policy’ at the end of the 13th century
By Eric Vallett
Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies (2005)
Abstract: This paper is based on a new published collection of archives, Nûr al-ma’ârif fî nuzûm wa-qawânîn wa-a’râf al-Yaman fî al-’ahd al-muzaffarî al-wârif (edited by M. Jâzim, French Centre for Archaeology and Social Sciences in San’â’, 2003) which were registered at the end of the thirteenth century AD. Of particular interest are several lists of shipowners and of Muslim and non-Muslim personalities from the Indian coast, who were given grants by the Rasulid sultanate. They offer a very deep insight into maritime and political ties between Yemen, the Indian Coast, and the Gulf in a key period. Whereas the Rasulid sultanate extended its sovereignty into a large part of South Arabia from Zafâr to Dahlak, the Muslim Turkish power of the Delhi sultanate succeeded in annexing some rich areas of the western Indian coast, particularly Gujarât. At the same time, the Qaysi hegemony was challenged in the Gulf. How does this help us to understand Yemeni “oceanic policy”? This paper tries to answer this question by comparing this new Yemeni archival data with a wider range of contemporary written sources, focusing on the dynamic relationships between trade and power.
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25 Apr 2009
Tags: India, Maritime Studies, Middle East, Politics
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Gupta artistic tradition in the reign of Kumaragupta I Mahendraditya, 414-456 A.D.
By Trudy Jacobsen
Access History, Vol. 2:1 (1999)
Introduction: The freshness and vitality of classical Indian art and architecture are due in no small measure to the reign of the Gupta dynasty (200-600 AD). Under these benevolent kings India’s artists and architects found creative freedom within religious tradition, resulting in some of the most beautiful art that ever testified to the glory of the divine. It is in the reign of Kumāragupta I Mahendrāditya (414-456 AD) that the essence of Gupta art reached its pinnacle. Architectural mores were revised and expanded to create the classic form of Temple 17 and the richly decorated Daśāvatāra temple at Deogaŗh. Sculpture in stone and terracotta media found a new quality of expression, conveying a real sense of introspection and serenity in Buddha figures such as those from Mathurā and Sarnāth, and a sophisticated interpretation of complicated Brahmanical subjects. The architecture, sculpture, coins and pillars of Kumāragupta I’s reign all bear witness to the exceptional standard aspired to and maintained by the creative community under his rule.
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13 Apr 2009
Tags: Architecture, Art History, India
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Prices and Wages in India (1200-1800): Source Material, Historiography and New Directions
By Najaf Haider
Paper given at Towards a Global History of Prices and Wages (2004)
Introduction: Quantitative data on prices, wages and income are extremely limited and fragmentary for the whole of medieval India (1200-1800 AD). It is only from the middle of the nineteenth century (1861 AD) that one begins to get unbroken statistical series on prices and wages. This explains the short treatment the above themes have received in current historiography. However, there is sufficient evidence – some of it fresh – to commence the compilation of a database for prices and wages as well as to comment on their longterm movements.
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12 Jan 2009
Tags: Economics - General, India
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