| This thesis explores the nuances of three parallel processes in Mughal literary and religious culture: Persianization, Islamicization and Indicization. I examine the literary responses of Mughal authors---Muh&dotbelow;ammad Jayasdi, Moh&dotbelow;ammad Shakir, `Aqil K&dotbelow;han Razi, Anand Ram Muk&dotbelow;hlis&barbelow;, Burh&dotbelow;anuddin Raz-i Ilahi and Nau`i---to their overwhelmingly Hindi and Hindu cultural environment. By tracing the reformulation of Jayasi's Hindi Padmavat into its macaronic Perso-Hindi retellings I show how Persianized Muslim authors made a Hindi text meaningful within a framework of Persianate literary allusions, as well as Sufi theology.; By so doing I locate the meaning of Padmavat beyond Jayasi's 'original' text, and also beyond the parameters of the language in which it was originally written. This illustrates the intertextual process by which in the course of its literary 'life' a Hindi text became increasingly implicated in both Persian and Islamicate imaginaires. Persianized Hindi texts thereby came to articulate debates internal to the Mughal Muslim community, rather than opening a window onto a Hindu-Muslim dialogue, as has been the conventional understanding. By 'opening up' the Hindi text to its Persian readership I offer a revised view of the Hindi literary tradition as self-contained, or as a property of Hindus alone.; Conversely, I also show how, besides Persianizing Hindi texts, Mughal authors simultaneously drew upon Hindi and its field of literary allusions to enhance the Indic flavor of their retellings, in order to better explore a range of textures---especially 'feminine' emotions and scenarios---not as easily probed in Persian because of its peculiar poetic conventions and grammatical limitations. Thus, the ecology of Hindi in Mughal India did not merely consist of a Persian or S&dotbelow;ufi 'influence', but the very lens through which Mughal readers read and retold a Hindi text consisted of Persianate, Indic and Islamic layers, variously employed by readers for different literary as well as rhetorical effects. In such a cultural environment linguistic and literary choices were not predetermined by religious affiliation alone. |
