EVENTS AND NEWS
15 November 2016 - Conference
Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3
Mughals as seen by Kashmiri Pandits in the Sixteenth Century - Satoshi Ogura
“From Brutal Invaders to Brave Warriors: Mughals as seen by Kashmiri Pandits in the Sixteenth Century”
Satoshi Ogura (University of Kyoto - University of Halle)
In addition to Persian sources, utilizing Sanskrit and vernacular language sources has become common in the historical studies of the Mughal Empire (1526-1858); these sources not only contribute to making clear the composite culture of the Empire but also offer outside viewpoints that are never seen in the Persian sources composed at the Mughal court. However, in comparison with the period after the third emperor Akbar, such studies focusing on the Empire’s early phase have been less accumulated because of the fewness of sources. As Simon Digby has pointed out, few contemporary sources were composed from an outside viewpoint of the Mughal Empire from the end of the Lodi sultanate to the 1590s (Digby 2001, 243). Relevant exceptions are Sanskrit chronicles from Kashmir, the Rājataraṅgiṇī of Śuka and its appendices composed in the sixteenth century. They principally narrate historical events in Kashmir from the 1510s to 1589, but they also fragmentarily refer to the events of the Empire. In addition to this, Kashmir kept independent until its annexation to the Empire in 1586. Thus, the Rājataraṅgiṇīs are valuable as contemporary and outside sources of the early Mughal period. Interestingly, Śuka and the following composers applied a Sanskrit word ‘Muggula,’ which seems to be a corruption of ‘Mughal,’to rulers and soldiers of the Moghūlistān Khanate and the Mughal Empire; the nuance of the word ‘Muggula’ had gradually changed with the passage of time from Bābur’s foundation to Akbar’s obtaining imperial hegemony in Northern India. In this paper therefore, I investigates the usage of the word ‘Muggula’ in the Rājataraṅgiṇī of Śuka and its appendices.
Location and info
Lieu : Université Sorbonne nouvelle - Paris 3, centre Censier, 13 rue de Santeuil, salle 432 (4e étage), 75005, Paris.
Contact : Fabrizio Speziale, fabrizio.speziale@univ-paris3.fr.