Temporality, narration and the problem of history: A view from Western India c. 1100–1400

Abstract

The articles in this issue contribute to a paradigm shift in our approaches to historical discourse in precolonial South Asia. Rather than posing again the well-worn question of whether the Rājataraṅgiṇī should be considered a properly ‘historical’ text or a work of poetry, they focus on the complex and often hybrid sytlistic, thematic and aesthetic ‘lineages’ of the text, to understand how Kalhaṇa was able to articulate a unique vision of the past—and one that created the space for further iterations in later times. This final article seeks to at least partly test the value of such an approach through a similar examination of largely contemporaneous materials from Western India. Long noted for its peculiar combination of tantalising historical detail with magical elements and chronological anachronisms, the prabandha literature of Gujarat has recently been interpreted as an expression of a ‘Jain’ approach to kingship, morality and biography. Without denying this obvious connection, this article approaches the prabandhas by contexualising them against the wider background of temporalities and narrational styles in Sanskrit literature. It argues that the peculiar conventions of prabandha literature in Western India may best be explained through the interaction of distinctive narrative traditions and temporal orientations in Sanskrit writing that may have broad parallels in Kashmir’s literary history.