{"title":"Encounters of the Brahmanical Sanskrit Tradition with Persian Scholarship in the Mughal Empire","authors":"Michael Bergunder","doi":"10.30965/23642807-bja10087","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nWithin the scope of global religious history, a Foucauldian genealogical critique makes “history” itself the central focus of inquiry. Genealogy is usually perceived as a methodology for historicizing general concepts within religious studies, which seemingly favours post-nineteenth-century history – something that causes discomfort among pre-colonial researchers. However, this article presents genealogy as a general starting point for any critical historiography across all historical periods, emphasizing its key characteristic as a counter-history originating from the present.\nThrough a case study, it demonstrates this approach’s practicality by offering a fresh perspective on the notion of an unchanging Sanskrit tradition championed by Hindu nationalists. Genealogical analysis exposes how contemporary research unwittingly reinforces this notion, while the article proposes a counter-narrative using sixteenth to eighteenth-century sources, revealing a dynamic interplay between Sanskrit and Persian scholars under Mughal rule in India. This case underscores the efficacy and adaptability of genealogical critique across all historical periods.","PeriodicalId":53191,"journal":{"name":"Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Interdisciplinary Journal for Religion and Transformation in Contemporary Society","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.30965/23642807-bja10087","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Within the scope of global religious history, a Foucauldian genealogical critique makes “history” itself the central focus of inquiry. Genealogy is usually perceived as a methodology for historicizing general concepts within religious studies, which seemingly favours post-nineteenth-century history – something that causes discomfort among pre-colonial researchers. However, this article presents genealogy as a general starting point for any critical historiography across all historical periods, emphasizing its key characteristic as a counter-history originating from the present.
Through a case study, it demonstrates this approach’s practicality by offering a fresh perspective on the notion of an unchanging Sanskrit tradition championed by Hindu nationalists. Genealogical analysis exposes how contemporary research unwittingly reinforces this notion, while the article proposes a counter-narrative using sixteenth to eighteenth-century sources, revealing a dynamic interplay between Sanskrit and Persian scholars under Mughal rule in India. This case underscores the efficacy and adaptability of genealogical critique across all historical periods.