This book is centred on the legend of Padmini, the medieval Rajput queen widely believed to have been pursued by Alauddin Khalji, Sultan of Delhi. Sreenivasan investigates the many narratives that exist about this heroic queen’s legend in India, ranging from Sufi mystical romances in the sixteenth century to nationalist histories in the late nineteenth century.
The Book explores the manner in which early modern regional elites, caste groups, and mystical and monastic communities shaped their distinctive versions of past times through the repeated refashioning of this legend. It then traces the appropriations of these narrations by colonial administrators and nationalist intellectuals for varying political ends.
In the process, the author successfully shows us not only how particular narratives about virtuous women changed and circulated across the communities of South Asia, but also the social and history that occurred simultaneously.
This book will interest historians of memory, gender, community, culture, and history-writing in early modern and modern South Asia. In illustrating how significant legends about the past emerged out of particular pre-colonial repositories of ‘tradition’, the book also contributes to current debates on the nature of colonial transitions and the nature of pre-colonial historical consciousness.
Ramya Sreenivasan received her early training in the study of literature, and obtained her Ph.D. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She is Assistant Professor of History at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York.
Back of the Book
Meera KosambiCROSSING THRESHOLDS Feminist Essays in Social History
Rajeswari Sunder RajanTHE SCANDAL OF THE STATE Women, Law, and Citizenship in Postcolonial India
Nivedita MenonRECOVERING SUBVERSION Feminist Politics Beyond the Law
Charu GuptaSEXUALITY, OBSCENITY, COMMUNITY Women, Muslims, and the Hindu Public in Colonial India
Tanika SarkarHINDU WIFE, HINDU NATION Community, religion, and Cultural Nationalism
Ratna KapurEROTIC JUSTICE Law and the New Politics of Postcolonialism
Jorg FischIMMOLATING WOMEN A Global History of Widom-burning from Ancient Time to the Present
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