Book Review: In Praise of Kings: Rajputs, Sultans and Poets in Fifteenth-century Gujarat by Aparna Kapadia

Abstract

Aparna Kapadia. In Praise of Kings: Rajputs, Sultans and Poets in Fifteenth-century Gujarat . Cambridge, New York, Port Melbourne, New Delhi, and Singapore: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Hardback. 183 + x pages. How does one exactly praise a king? Aparna Kapadia, Assistant Professor of History at Williams College, reminds us in her book that a satisfactory answer to this question requires a critical examination of who composed the praise, and to what end. As Kapadia points out, the Mughal emperors are typically thought to have been the first to integrate Sanskrit, Persian, and Indic vernacular poetic conventions to enhance their prestige among their diverse communities of subjects. However, the wealth of scholarship on Mughal courtly patronage often obscures the fact that these developments had already begun to take place in previous centuries, especially in Gujarati literature composed during what she calls a “century of transitions” between 1398 and 1511 C.E. (3). Her rigorous examination of primary source materials and royal chronicles, together with her astute analyses of Mughal, colonial, and contemporary-era histories of this period, allow for a vivid understanding of a compelling world in which Rajput chieftains and Muzaffarid sultans—an independent dynasty of Gujarati sultans that reigned between the rule of the Delhi sultanate and Mughal empire—vied for power and control in the region. Her study of the fluid religious identities of Hindus, Muslims, and …