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Krishna's Neglected Responsibilities: Religious devotion and social critique in eighteenth-century North India*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 July 2015

RICHARD DAVID WILLIAMS
RICHARD DAVID WILLIAMS*
Affiliation:
King's College London, United Kingdom Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article examines the literary strategies employed by a devotional poet who wrote about recent events in the eighteenth century, in order to shed light on contemporary notions of social responsibility. Taking the poetic treatment of Ahmad Shah Abdali's invasion of North India and the sacking of Vrindavan in 1757 as its primary focus, the article will discuss how political and theological understandings of lordship converged at a popular level, such that a deity could be called to account as a neglectful landlord as well as venerated in a bhakti context. It examines the redaction of tropes inherited from both vaisnava literature and late Mughal ethical thought, and considers the parallels between the Harikala Beli, a Braj Bhasha poem, and immediately contemporary developments in Urdu literature, particularly the shahr ashob genre. As such, it uses poetic responses to traumatic events as a guide to the interaction between multiple intellectual systems concerned with human and divine expectations and obligations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 50 , Issue 5 , September 2016 , pp. 1403 - 1440
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

I am indebted to Jayesh Khandelval for granting me access to the unpublished Braj texts from the Ras Bharati Sansthan used in this article. I am grateful to Imre Bangha for first telling me about the Harikala Beli, and for his guidance in its interpretation. Translations in this article are my own, unless otherwise attributed. Thanks are also due to Rosalind O’Hanlon, Gavin Flood, Francesca Orsini, Muzaffar Alam, Carla Petievich, John Stratton Hawley, Allison Busch, and Katherine Butler Schofield. Needless to say, any mistakes are my own. Research for this article was kindly supported by the European Research Council, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (UK), and the Spalding Trust.

References

1 See, for example, the ‘Ibratnama (‘Book of Warning’) of Fakir Khair ud Din Muhammad (d. 1827), portions of which are translated in Elliot, H.M. and Dowson, J. (1877). The History of India, as Told by its Own Historians: The Muhammadan Period, Trübner, London, Vol. 8, pp. 237–254 Google Scholar.

2 Chatterjee, K. (1998). History as Self-Representation: The Recasting of a Political Tradition in Late Eighteenth-Century Eastern India, Modern Asian Studies, 32:4, pp. 913–948 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 There is, of course, supporting evidence for such assumptions. See, for example, Sheldon Pollock's assertion that not one Varanasi intellectual recorded the region's absorption into the Mughal empire in the seventeenth century, in Pollock, S. (2001). New Intellectuals in Seventeenth-century India, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 38:3, p. 19 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For recent approaches to the interaction between religious traditions and society, see O’Hanlon, R. and Washbrook, D. (2012). Religious Cultures in Early Modern India: New Perspectives, Taylor and Francis, Abingdon Google Scholar.

4 See, for example, Chatterjee, P. (2008). Introduction: History in the Vernacular, in Aquil, R. and Chatterjee, P. History in the Vernacular, Permanent Black, Ranikhet, pp. 1–24 Google Scholar, and the other essays included in this volume. For a discussion of new approaches to multilingual history, see Orsini, F. (2012). How to do Multilingual Literary History? Lessons from Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-century North India, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 49:2, pp. 225–246 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 My understanding of ‘early modern’ in the South Asian context is informed by Pollock, S. (2006). Comparative Intellectual Histories of the Early Modern World, International Institute of Asian Studies Newsletter, 43, pp. 1–13 Google Scholar; and Chatterjee, P. (2012). The Black Hole of Empire: History of a Global Practice of Power, Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp. 73–77 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 See, for example, Rao, V.N., Shulman, D., and Subrahmanyam, S. (2001). Textures of Time: Writing History in South India, 1600–1800, Permanent Black, Delhi Google Scholar.

7 Busch, A. (2005). Literary Responses to the Mughal Imperium: The Historical Poems of Keśavdās, South Asia Research, 25:1, pp. 31–54 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 According to the Tarikh-i-Chaghatai. See Petievich, C.R. (1990). Poetry and the Declining Mughals: The Shahr Āshob, Journal of South Asian Literature, 25:1, p. 101 Google Scholar. Mir's famous autobiography, the Zikr-i Mir, provides another form of literary history of the period that is perhaps more ‘normative’ than his poetry. See Naim, C.M. (1999). Zikr-i Mir: The Autobiography of the Eighteenth Century Mughal Poet: Mir Muhammad Taqi ‘Mir’ (1723–1810), Oxford University Press, New Delhi Google Scholar.

9 Written approximately ten years before the Harikala Beli in Bengal, the Maharashta Purana of Gangaram (MS 1751) recounts in some detail the Maratha raids in Bengal between 1742 and 1744. Gangaram describes the invasion in graphic detail, as well as the attitudes of politicians and the trials endured by villagers. Dimock suggests the author was more motivated by recording history than other, poetry-oriented writers such as Vanesvara Vidyalankara (the court poet of Burdwan), who also provided accounts of the raids (as in the Sanskrit Citracampu, 1744). While it is beyond the purview of the current essay to compare this text to the Harikala Beli, it should be noted that the Maharashta Purana also rejects a mythological apologia for recent events, and did not represent a return to moral order in its conclusion. Unlike Vrindavandas, however, Gangaram understood the invasion as a punishment for sinful behaviour and the neglect of Radha and Krishna's worship. See Dimock, E.C. and Gupta, P.C. (1985). The Mahārāshṭa Purāṇa: An Eighteenth-Century Bengali Historical Text, Orient Longman, Hyderabad Google Scholar; Rao et al., Textures of Time, pp. 236–239; Chatterjee, Introduction, p. 6.

10 Petievich, Poetry and the Declining Mughals, p. 103, emphasis in the original.

11 Alam, M. (2004). The Languages of Political Islam: India 1200–1800, Hurst, London, p. 135 Google Scholar. For a discussion of the Tuhfat al-Hind in relation to Braj Bhasha literature, see McGregor, S. (2003). ‘The Progress of Hindi, Part 1: The Development of a Transregional Idiom’ in Pollock, S. Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, pp. 942–944 Google Scholar.

12 See, for example, Truschke, A. (2011). The Mughal Book of War: A Persian Translation of the Sanskrit Mahabharata, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 31:2, pp. 506–520 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 See Busch, A. (2010). Hidden in Plain View: Brajbhasha Poets at the Mughal Court, Modern Asian Studies, 42:2, pp. 267–309 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Busch, A. (2011). Poetry of Kings: The Classical Hindi Literature of Mughal India, Oxford University Press, Oxford CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Busch, A. (2012). Portrait of a Raja in a Badshah's World: Amrit Rai's Biography of Man Singh (1585), Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 55, pp. 287–328 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Talbot, C. (2012). Justifying Defeat: A Rajput Perspective on the Age of Akbar, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 55, pp. 329–368 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pauwels, H. (2009). The Saint, the Warlord, and the Emperor: Discourses of Braj Bhakti and Bundelā Loyalty, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 52, pp. 187–228 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 For a discussion of the multiple approaches to history-writing, see Amin, S. (2002). ‘On Retelling the Muslim Conquest of North India’ in Chatterjee, P. and Ghosh, A. History and the Present, Permanent Black, New Delhi, pp. 24–43 Google Scholar.

15 This distinguishes Vrindavandas from other, contemporary Braj Bhasha poets who commented on the same period, such as Tilokdas. See Irvine, W. (1897). Nādir Shāh and Muḥammad Shāh, a Hindī Poem by Tilōk Dās, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 66:1, pp. 24–62 Google Scholar.

16 See Khandelval, J. (2002). Caca Srihit Vrindavandasji ki Vani Autsavik Padavali, Radha Press, Delhi Google Scholar; Busch, Poetry of Kings, p. 205; Entwistle, A.W. (1987). Braj, Centre of Krishna Pilgrimage, Forsten, Groningen, pp. 55, 74, 208, 212, 304Google Scholar. For Radhavallabhi theology and literature, see Snatak, V. (1958). Radhavallabha Sampradaya: Siddhanta Aur Sahitya, National Publishing House, Delhi Google Scholar; Snell, R. (1978). Scriptural Literature in the Rādhāvallabha Sampradāya, Bulletin of the International Association of the Vrindaban Research Institute, 4, pp. 22–30 Google Scholar; Snell, R. (1998). The Nikuñja as Sacred Space in Poetry of the Rādhāvallabhī Tradition, Journal of Vaiṣṇava Studies, 7, pp. 63–84 Google Scholar; Beck, G.L. (2005). Alternative Krishnas: Regional and Vernacular Variations on a Hindu Deity, State University of New York Press, Albany Google Scholar; Williams, R.D. (2011). ‘The Poetry of Cācā Vṛndāvandās and the Rādhāvallabhite Sect in 18th Century North India’, MPhil thesis, University of Oxford, Oxford.

17 Snatak, Radhavallabha Sampradaya, p. 514; Khandelval, Caca Vrindavandasji, p. 11. Snatak suggests that Vrindavandas was born between 1693–1708 (i.e. 1750–1765VS). His last known works date from 1787 (1844VS).

18 The painting, in the care of the Norton Simon Museum, California, is catalogued as ‘“Portrait of Vaishnava Teachers”, Kishangarh circa 1775–1800. Opaque watercolour and gold on paper.’ Vrindavandas, dressed in a red jama, sits below his guru, Hit Ruplal Gosvami, and the guru's brother, Kisorilal. Opposite them sit a group of bhaktas, all labelled: Gopaldas, Krishnadas, Premdas, and Kasidas. One unidentified bhakta performs obeisance with all his limbs (sastang pranam), and another plays a drum. The group is assembled in a clean circular space, before a temple structure, with a river (presumably the Yamuna) flowing in the background. See Pal, P. (2004). Painted Poems: Rajput Paintings from the Ramesh and Urmil Kapoor Collection, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, Fig. 77, p. 165 Google Scholar.

19 According to Imre Bangha, although 20,000 verses of Vrindavandas are available, he is thought to have composed 100,000. See Bangha, I. (1997). The Harikala Beli and Ānandghan's Death, Annali dell’Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, 57, p. 231 Google Scholar. The most extensive published collection of Vrindavandas’ works appears in Khandelval, Caca Vrindavandasji.

20 This is in contrast to a near-contemporary, courtly account of Suraj Mal's political and military career during the same events, the Sujanacaritta of Sudan Kavi. See Das, R. (1923). Sujan-caritta, Nagaripracaran Sabha, Kashi Google Scholar.

21 See Pollock, S. (1993). Rāmāyaṇa and Political Imagination in India, The Journal of Asian Studies, 52:2, pp. 261–297 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lutgendorf, P. (1989). ‘Rām's Story in Shiva's City: Public Arenas and Private Patronage’ in Freitag, S.B. Culture and Power in Banaras: Community, Performance, and Environment 1800–1980, University of California Press, London, pp. 34–63 Google Scholar.

22 Pollock, Rāmāyaṇa, pp. 264, 283.

23 Ibid., p.284.

24 For a discussion of alternative forms of patronage to royal support, such as merchants and local service gentry, see Sreenivasan, R. (2005). ‘Genre, Politics, History: Urdu Traditions of Padmini’ in K. Hansen and D. Lelyveld A Wilderness of Possibilities: Urdu Studies in Transnational Perspective, pp. 75f.; Sreenivasan, R. (2007). The Many Lives of a Rajput Queen: Heroic Pasts in India c.1500–1900, Permanent Black, Delhi, p. 13 Google Scholar.

25 For a discussion of decadence as a topos in Mughal literature to explain political failure, see Schofield, K.B. (2012). The Courtesan Tale: Female Musicians and Dancers in Mughal Historical Chronicles, c.1556–1748, Gender and History, 24:1, pp. 150–171 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Presumably referring to the invasion of Nadir Shah (1739).

27 Alternative translation: ‘their subjects are punished by fate’.

28 nīti pātasāha ūkyau sūbani manasūbā cūkyau

bahuta dinani jāṁma kūkyau kābila darauro kiye.

besyā-mada-pāna kari chaki gaye amīra jete

raja-tama kī dhāra kārī būḍe koṁ bilokiye.

dillī bhaī billī kaṭelā kuttā dekhi ḍarī

bhūlyau mahamada sāha pahileṁ aba kāhiṁ ṭokiye.

bābara himāūṁ kau calāū aba baṁsa bhayau

tākau yaha phailyau soka parajā karma ṭhokiye.

Quotations from the Harikala Beli are from my own edition (unpublished). I have consulted three nineteenth and twentieth century manuscripts in the Ras Bharati Sansthan, Vrindavan (of these, only the twentieth century manuscript gives a complete text), and an abridged version published by Varma, T. (1988). Yugyugīn Braj, Bharatiy Itihas Samkalan Samiti, Benares, pp. 223–231 Google Scholar. Translations take into account variant readings, as indicated with footnotes.

29 See Robinson, F. (2007). The Mughal Emperors and the Islamic Dynasties of India, Iran and Central Asia, 1206–1925, Thames and Hudson, London, p. 172 Google Scholar; Sarkar, J. (2007). Fall of the Mughal Empire Vol. II, 1754–1771, Orient Longman, Hyderabad, pp. 1–27 Google Scholar. Sarkar problematically represented Alamgir II as a reclusive and joyless ‘old goat’ who ‘turned his belated elevation to sovereignty into an opportunity for making rapid and numerous additions to his harem’. (p. 2). For an abridged translation of a history of Alamgir II's reign, see Tarikh-i Alamgir-Sani, in Elliot, History of India, pp. 140–143. For an introduction to the divisive, anti-Islamic historiography of pre-colonial India, including the role of Elliot and Dowson's translations, see Metcalf, B.D. (1995). Too Little and Too Much: Reflections on Muslims in the History of India, The Journal of Asian Studies, 54:4, pp. 951–967 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Robinson, Mughal Emperors, pp. 171ff.

31 Sykes, P. (1940). A History of Afghanistan, Macmillan, London, Vol. 1, pp. 356ff Google Scholar.

32 For a discussion of this period in Delhi, and Urdu literary responses to the times, see Russell, R. and Islam, K. (1969). Three Mughal Poets: Mir, Sauda, Mir Hasan, Allen and Unwin, London Google Scholar.

33 Translation by Irvine, W. (1907). Ahmad Shah, Abdali, and the Indian Wazir, ‘Imad-ul-Mulk (1756–7), Bombay Education Society's Press, Bombay, p. 22 Google Scholar.

34 Russell, Three Mughal Poets, p. 31.

35 Pande, R. (1970). Bharatpur up to 1826: A Social and Political History of the Jats, Rama Publishing House, Jaipur, p. 65 Google Scholar; Singh, R.P. (2007). Studies in Jat History, Volume 1, Ballabhgarh, Harman Publishing House, New Delhi, p. 40 Google Scholar; Qanungo, K.R. (1925). History of the Jats: A Contribution to the History of Northern India, M.C. Sarkar, Calcutta, pp. 102f Google Scholar; Natwar-Singh, K. (1981). Maharaja Suraj Mal, 1707–1763: His Life and Times, Allen and Unwin, London, pp. 66f Google Scholar., who says that there were 10,000 in the Jat army.

36 Sarkar, Fall of the Mughal Empire, p. 84.

37 Irvine, Ahmad Shah, pp. 22f.

38 Robinson, Mughal Emperors, p. 173.

39 eka aura doṣa na vicārata vivekī je

dohūṁ ora banyo asamaṁjasa hī joṭo hai.

40 Vikrama years: in Common Era, 1756 (when Abdali entered India) and 1760.

41 The poet's chāp, or signature stamp: vṛṇdāvana hita rūpa, translated by Imre Bangha (1997) and kept here as ‘Vrindavan's Beloved Beauty’. This formula appears in various guises throughout the poems, and may be read both as the dedicatory shorthand for three significant names (Vrindavandas—Hita Harivamsa—Ruplal Gosvami), as well as a divine epithet.

42 ṭhāraha sai teraha au aṭāraha sai satraha varṣa

duhūṁ bāra āya jamana janani tāpa dayau hai.

Hari hī dvai kalā kheli sabani kau haryau garva

dāsa kau tau pahileṁ āpa śrī mukha nirmayau hai.

caitau re cetau upadeśa prabhu karyau hai yaha

deha-sanabaṁdha saba supana sama bhayau hai.

Vṛṅdāvana hita rūpa basa na calyau kāhū kau

dekhau mahā acaraja bhaya khela so hvai gayau hai.

43 Natwar-Singh, Maharaja Suraj Mal, p. 68.

44 bipra gaū sādhuna kī ghaṭatī karāī yamana

tāhī kauṁ bulāya bṛja pherī phīra duhāī hai

āga kau lagāvau bujhāyabe kauṁ tumahī java

corī hūṁ karāvau puni paharau deta āī hai.

Vṛṅdāvana hit rūpa doū bidhi kuśala nātha

bājīgara kī sī kalā parai na lakhāī hai.

45 For a discussion of the difficulties in projecting secular historiography into pre-colonial South Asian texts, see Chakrabarty, D. (1997). ‘The Time of History and the Times of Gods’ in Lowe, L. and Lloyd, D. The Politics of Culture in the Shadow of Capital, Duke University Press, Durham, p. 39 Google Scholar.

46 Other South Asian poets have discussed the inequality inherent in the human–divine relationship. Tamil poets such as Nammalvar lamented their condition of having to wait for divine favour, while writers in Telugu inverted this relationship, representing the devotee as having power over God's affections. Vrindavandas did not refute this inequality, but clarified its terms, and the consequent expectations incumbent upon Krishna. See Ramanujan, A.K., Rao, V.N. and Shulman, D. (1994). When God is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Kṣetrayya and Others, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles Google Scholar.

47 See, for example, Snell, Scriptural Literature, pp. 22–30.

48 See O’Flaherty, W.D. (1976). The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology, University of California Press, London, pp. 258–261 Google Scholar.

49 Smith, F.M. (2009). Dark Matter in Vārtāland: On the Enterprise of History in Early Puṣṭimārga Discourse, Journal of Hindu Studies, 2, pp. 27–47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Peabody, N. (2003). Hindu Kingship and Polity in Pre-colonial India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 53f Google Scholar.

50 Although it is generally assumed that the migration of deities from Braj was a precautionary measure in view of Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir's increasingly hostile policies towards Hindu institutions, this was not always the case, as with the Pushtimarg deity, Balkrishna. See Entwistle, Braj, pp. 183–184.

51 Likewise, a prose text, the Kamban Vilas (n.d., extant manuscript dated 1891), suggests that Muslim oppression ‘was merely a pretext for the removal of the deity called Radhavallabh from Vrindaban to Kaman’ when the said deity wished to enjoy a ‘forest exile’. Ibid., p. 110.

52 Busch, Poetry of Kings.

53 Perhaps the dead devotees themselves, who are eulogized towards the end of the text, are the closest to heroes: but they are not developed in this capacity and merely appear as hagiographical portraits.

54 Baṛī sainā malekṣa kī dekhata hī kumhalāya gaye mānauṁ kaṅja kalī

Vṛṅdāvana hita dhani kaiseṁ kahauṁ bhayau naṅda ke dhām lalā kai lalī.

55 For this episode in the Brahma Vaivarta Purana, see Doniger, W. (1981). Sexual Metaphors and Animal Symbols in Indian Mythology, Banarsidass, Delhi, p. 103 Google Scholar; for the Gitagovinda, see Miller, B.S. (1997). Gītagovinda of Jayadeva: Love Song of the Dark Lord, Columbia University Press, New York Google Scholar; for the Caurāsī Pada, see Snell, R. (1991) The Eighty-four Hymns of Hita Harivaṁśa: An Edition of the Caurāsī Pada, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi Google Scholar.

56 For a translation of the early portion of the text, including the passage referred to here, see Bangha, The Harikala Beli. Rosalind O’Hanlon has discussed near contemporary political and military culture in Farrukhabad in O’Hanlon, R. (1997). Issues of Masculinity in North Indian History: The Bangash Nawabs of Farrukhabad, Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 4:1, pp. 1–19 Google Scholar.

57 See Ahmad, N. (1968). Shahr-Ashob, Maktabah Jami’ah, Delhi Google Scholar; Pegors, M. (1990). A Shahrashob of Sauda, Journal of South Asian Literature, 25:1, pp. 89–97 Google Scholar.

58 Urdu poets associated with this genre include Hatim, Jauhari, Asif, Tajalli, Mus’hafi, Nazir, Kamal, and Jur’at.

59 Sharma, S. (2004). The City of Beauties in Indo-Persian Poetic Landscape, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 24:2, pp. 73–81 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60 Haque, I. (1992). Glimpses of Mughal Society and Culture: A Study Based on Urdu Literature, Concept, New Delhi, p. 66 Google Scholar.

61 Alternatively, ‘in exile’ (paravāsana meṁ).

62 Dhāma sauṁ khase haiṁ, base haiṁ parvāsana meṁ,

bipati sauṁ gase haiṁ, nase hai yavana dala sauṁ.

Bhūle japa jāpa sauṁ, hari ke alāpa sauṁ vichohau,

māī-bāpa sauṁ, macyau hai bāda khala sauṁ.

Vṛṅdāvana hita sauṁ bhayabhīta bhaye citta sauṁ,

nyāre dhām-bitta sauṁ, hari khelī kalā chala sauṁ.

63 Sauda, Muḵẖammas Shahr Āshob, unpublished manuscript, verse 3, cited by Petievich, Poetry and the Declining Mughals, p. 102.

64 Haque, Glimpses, p. 67; Naim, Zikr-i Mir, pp. 19, 77.

65 Translated by Naim, Zikr-i Mir, p. 77.

66 Ibid., p. 85.

67 See Harikala Beli verse 20, cited below.

68 Shikāyat-e-Shahr kā Māh, cited and translated by Petievich, Poetry and the Declining Mughals, p. 100.

69 Petievich, Poetry and the Declining Mughals, p. 104.

70 For other studies of the interaction and shared histories of Hindi and Urdu literary genres, which were prised apart into separate categories over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see the essays in Orsini, F. (2010). Before the Divide: Hindi and Urdu Literary Culture, Orient Blackswan, New Delhi Google Scholar; and more recently, Pauwels, H. (2012). ‘Literary Moments of Exchange in the 18th Century: The New Urdu Vogue Meets Krishna Bhakti’ in Patel, A. and Leonard, K. Indo-Muslim Cultures in Transition, Brill, Leiden Google Scholar.

71 Lehmann, F. (1970). Urdu Literature and Mughal Decline, Mahfil, 6:2–3, pp. 125–131 Google Scholar.

72 Ibid. Behl, A. (2005). ‘Poet of the Bazaars: Nazīr Akbarābādī, 1735–1830’ in Hansen and Lelyveld A Wilderness of Possibilities, pp. 192–222, and Heitzmann, J. (2008). The City in South Asia, Taylor and Francis, Abingdon, pp. 103–105 Google Scholar.

73 Lehmann, Urdu Literature, p. 130.

74 Heitzmann, The City in South Asia, p. 105.

75 ejū kahūṁ kautika maiṁ bhūle ho sanehī syāma

āyau mahākāla yamana bhayau tāpa tapanau.

jñānī bhūle jñāna abhimānī sanamāna bhūle

dhyānī bhūle dhyāna tapī tapa japī japanau.

gehī kāma-dhāma bhūle bhūpati viśrāma bhūle

jīva-jantū akūlāne sadhu hiye kapanau.

76 kuyaśa dhanī kau hoya sevaka kī ghaṭatī parai

yāmeṁ saṁśa na koya bāta bidita yaha jagata meṁ.

77 That is, Vasudeva.

78 This suggests that Krishna was responsible for engineering Rama's exile.

79 Possibly referring to Krishna as Ranchor Raya, the king who fled in battle: he abandoned his fight with Jarasandha and fled to Dvaraka, the island home of Krishna's family, the Yadus. In the Mahabharata and the Puranas, Krishna himself destroyed the city, having slaughtered the men of his own family, and watched their women and children struggle for survival against a flood and abduction. In the Sanskrit corpus this is accounted for through various techniques, such as sages’ curses, oaths, and liberating deities from the human realm. As already noted, Vrindavandas does not use any of these explanatory devices. See O’Flaherty, The Origins of Evil, p. 261.

80 Krishna advised Bhima to kill Jarasandha, the king of Magadha, by tearing his body in two in such a way that the pieces could not reattach. He did not fight Jarasandha himself.

81 janama teṁ pahaleṁ akāsabānī bola kaiṁ jū

kaṁsa kai baḍhāyo dosa bipati ḍārī bāpa kauṁ.

bhuvā ke subana saba dharma hi ke jānanahāra

bana meṁ basāye caudaha varṣa sahyau tāpa kauṁ.

braja ke anurāgī jana chāṁḍe biyoga māṁhi

tanaka hūṁ na bhīje hiya aise hūṁ alāpa kauṁ.

Vṛṅdāvana hita rūpa hamahūṁ kauṁ bharoso nāṁhi

jānata haiṁ bivekī loga aura hī teṁ āpa kauṁ. (13)

kahiyata balavāna aipai tuma teṁ na nibala koū

ripu ḍara bhāje he jāya chipe jala meṁ.

jo pai kachu māno bilagu to pai sākhi mo pai sunau

pīṭhi dai palāneṁ dekhau kāla-yamana-dala maiṁ.

bhāratha meṁ na āyudha dhare māṁgī bhīṣa

māryau tāhi bhīmasaiṁna āpa nipuna chala meṁ

Vṛṅdāvana hita rūpa hama to yadi āpu hi ke

hāryau to bigāri ḍāre saṁgahūṁ ke pala meṁ. (14)

82 Matilal, B.K. (2002). ‘Kṛṣṇa: In Defence of Devious Divinity’ in Ganeri, J. The Collected Essays of Bimal Krishna Matilal: Ethics and Epics, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, p. 95 Google Scholar.

83 Ibid., p. 100.

84 Mathura (and Vrindavan) had been under Mughal influence from the sixteenth century on, and underwent revival from the 1540s when Sher Shah developed the infrastructure between Delhi and Agra. In disputes over families’ rights to superintend the worship of deities, contestants could invoke both the hakim of Mathura and the emperor himself. This prevailed in the seventeenth century when Aurangzeb ‘Alamgir himself abitrated in such disputes. From the first half of the eighteenth century the territory was increasingly dominated by the family of the Jat leader, Badan Singh, who was titled ‘King of Braj’ (braj rāj). See Entwistle, Braj, pp. 144–145, 153, 183, 194–195.

85 guṇagrāhī karuṇāmaya prīti ke pārakhū baṛe

bhaktavatsala birada sadā gāvata hai bāṁkurau.

saba yuga nibhāyau bhaleṁ sākhi śruti agama hai

śaraṇāgatapāla nāma nāhi dūjau āṁkurau.

86 This strategy of engaging the divine listener by recounting their celebrated feats was conventional in non-polemical, devotional contexts and stotra literature. See Gonda, J. (1977). Medieval Religious Literature in Sanskrit, Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, pp. 232–270 Google Scholar. For an example in Braj Bhasha, see Hawley, J.S. (2009). The Memory of Love: Sūrdās Sings to Krishna, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 183 Google Scholar.

87 ‘Calamity’ (bali) may also read ‘sacrifice’ or ‘very (great and unalterable bhakti)’.

88 jayati jayati brajacaṁda naṅdanaṅdana guṇa nāgara

jana hita rakṣā karau birada lajjā guṇa āgara.

yaha tuma bāṁdhī peja sadā braja jana sukha bhārihauṁ

dharihauṁ rūpa aneka hauṁ na braja dhara te ṭarihauṁ.

bacana āpane sudhi karahū prabhu ihi bidhi yaha binatī karī

bhani vṛṅdāvana hita rūpa bali aba thapau bhakti acala harī.

89 phirata haiṁ gāma gāma bigarata hai tumhāro nāma

kāheṁ teṁ dāsa bhaye rāvare ghara āṁke haiṁ.

Vṛṅdāvana hita rūpa ho hari bhalī sicchā daī

jāti hama gulāma te tau sadāī te bāṁke haiṁ.

bhale bure āpa hi ke āpuhī sudhāra lehu āvai

jyoṁ na lāja jū gala parā āpa ghāṁ ke haiṁ.

90 See O’Hanlon, R. (2007). Kingdom, Household and Body: History, Gender and Imperial Service under Akbar, Modern Asian Studies, 41:5, pp. 889–923 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moin, A.A. (2012). The Millennial Sovereign: Sacred Kingship and Sainthood in Islam, Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 212–217 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Balabanlilar, L. (2012). Imperial Identity in the Mughal Empire: Memory and Dynastic Politics in Early Modern South and Central Asia, I.B. Tauris, London, pp. 142–145 Google Scholar.

91 Alam, M. (1986). The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the Punjab, 1707–48, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, p. 42 Google Scholar.

92 Malik, Z.U. (1990). The Core and the Periphery: A Contribution to the Debate on the Eighteenth Century, Social Scientist, 18, p. 14 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

93 For the expectations inherent in late Mughal forms of government, see Alam, The Languages of Political Islam, pp.57–80; Bayly, C.A. (1998). Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India, Oxford University Press, Oxford, especially pp. 63–97 Google Scholar; Richards, J.F. (1984). ‘Norms of Comportment among Imperial Mughal Officers’ in Metcalf, B.D. Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam, University of California Press, London, pp. 255–289 Google Scholar; Vanina, E. (1996). Ideas and Society: India Between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, pp. 23–59 Google Scholar; Hintze, A. (1997). The Mughal Empire and its Decline: An Interpretation of the Sources of Social Power, Ashgate, Aldershot, pp. 28–49 Google Scholar. For the longer history of these expectations in South Asia, see Richards, J.F. (1998). Kingship and Authority in South Asia, Oxford University Press, Delhi Google Scholar; and in South India, Rao, V.N. and Subrahmanyam, S. (2009). Notes on Political Thought in Medieval and Early Modern South India, Modern Asian Studies, 43:1, pp. 175–210 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

94 Cf. verse 25, presumably referring to the Jats.

95 For examples of regional studies of South Asian polities in the eighteenth-century, see Cohn, B.S. (1962). Political Systems in Eighteenth Century India: The Banaras Region, Journal of the American Oriental Society 82:3, pp. 312–320 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Price, P.G. (1996). Kingship and Political Practice in Colonial India, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 9–39 Google Scholar.

96 Bayly, Origins of Nationality, p. 214.

97 O’Hanlon, Kingdom, Household and Body, p. 891.

98 Chatterjee, History as Self-Representation, pp. 927–929.

99 Bayly, Origins of Nationality, pp. 11–20. Recent scholarship has identified processes of Islamicization and the expansion of Islamic secular culture into areas erstwhile considered resolutely ‘Hindu’, including notions of kingship, temple architecture, and ‘religious’ literature. See, for example, Wagoner, P.B. (1996). ‘Sultan Among Hindu Kings’: Dress, Titles, and the Islamicization of Hindu Culture at Vijayanagara, Journal of Asian Studies, 55:4, pp. 851–880 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ghosh, P. (2005). Temple to Love: Architecture and Devotion in Seventeenth-Century Bengal, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indiana Google Scholar; Kapadia, A. (2013). The Last Cakravartin? The Gujarat Sultan as ‘Universal King’ in Fifteenth Century Sanskrit Poetry, The Medieval History Journal, 16:1, pp. 63–88 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 Lehmann, Urdu Literature, pp. 125–131. Cf. Talbot, Justifying Defeat, pp. 357–359.

101 For example, see the Iranian theory of the circle of justice articulated by Jalal al-Din Dawani in the Akhlaq-i Jalali, as discussed by Streusand, D.E. (1989). The Formation of the Mughal Empire, Oxford University Press, Delhi, p. 27 Google Scholar. The recasting of Timurid doctrines by the Mughals has been analysed by Balabanlilar, Imperial Identity. The responsibility of the Islamic ruler to orchestrate justice in his realm provided an opportunity for the patronage of religious scholars in courtly settings; see Hartung, J-P. (2011). ‘Enacting the Rule of Islam: On Courtly Patronage of Religious Scholars in Pre- and Early Modern Times’ in Fuess, A. and Hartung, J-P. Court Cultures in the Muslim World: Seventh to Nineteenth Centuries, Routledge, London and New York, pp. 295–325 Google Scholar.

102 Cited in Sharma, The City of Beauties, p. 78.

103 See, for example, Peabody, Hindu Kingship; and Packert, C. (2010). The Art of Loving Krishna: Ornamentation and Devotion, Indiana University Press, Bloomington Google Scholar.

104 Horstmann, M. (1999). ‘The Temple of Govindadevajī: A Symbol of Hindu Kingship?’ in Singh, N.K. and Joshi, R. Religion, Ritual and Royalty, Rawat, Jaipur, p. 120 Google Scholar. See also Horstmann, M. (1999). In Favour of Govinddevjī: Historical Documents Relating to a Deity of Vrindaban and Eastern Rajasthan, Manohar, New Delhi Google Scholar.

105 Tanabe, A. (1999). ‘Kingship, Community and Commerce in Late Pre-colonial Khurda’ in Karashima, N. Kingship in Indian History. Japanese Studies on South Asia2, Manohar, New Delhi, p. 199 Google Scholar.

106 Referring to Krishna in relation to Vyas, the compiler of the Mahabharata.

107 kṛṣṇadās chakani soṁ chakeī rahe jugala bhāva

āyau jamana hālī sṛṣṭi bhāyahūṁ na bhaī hai.

byāsanaṁdana caranani sau gāḍhī ati niṣṭhā bāḍhī

yadyapi malekṣani tāpa nānā bhāṁti daī hai.

raja kī abhilāṣa baḍī rahata ho nisi dina

vahī deha raja meṁ sāṁce pana sauṁ milaī hai.

Vṛṅdāvana hita ananya vāṁke hita rīti patha

unkī sama veī upamā na banai naī hai.

108 tāhū ne maleccha kauṁ ju agama suni apane hātha

ṭūka ṭūka kari kai deha ḍārī kahauṁ kahā.

Vṛṅdāvana hita rūpa samajhi raja milāyau tana

kahā na upāsī karaiṁ ai pai kautika mahā.

109 Cf. Pauwels, H. (2010). Hagiography and Community Formation: The Case of a Lost Community of Sixteenth-Century Vrindāvan, The Journal of Hindu Studies, 3, pp. 53–90, especially p. 68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

110 Ahmad, A. (1963). Epic and Counter-Epic in Medieval India, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 83:4, pp. 470–476 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

111 Sreenivasan, The Many Lives, p. 13.

112 For a discussion of these terms in the context of representing ‘Muslim’ communities, see Metcalf, Too Little and Too Much, p. 958, and Talbot, C. (1995). Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 37:4, pp. 692–722, especially pp. 698–699CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

113 The distance indicated by one kos varies regionally, between 1.5 and 2.5 miles or more. Therefore the cloud of dust was visible from anywhere between 12 and (over) 20 miles away.

114 Irvine, Ahmad Shah, p. 7. The representation of an army through a cloud of dust is a familiar image in Sanskrit poetics. For example, Raghuvamsa IV:29–30, in Devadhar, C.R. (1985). Raghuvamśa of Kālidāsa, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, pp. 63–64 Google Scholar.

115 diśā bhaī bhaya kī abhaya kī na ṭhaura koū

ghaṇahū ghaharāya kai karata jana ghāva re.

mahā ugra pavana gavana raja baraṣai hai

nācata sira kāla matta hāthī jyauṁ chāva re. (18.1–2)

pralai kāla ghaṭā jaisī umḍī malekṣa senā

uḍī khura reṇu tāsauṁ nabha chāya gayau hai. (21.1)

116 The equally barbarous ‘villains’ of the Maratha invasions of Bengal (1742–1744) recounted in the Maharashta Purana were, like the poem's author, Hindu. Dimock, The Mahārāshṭa Purāṇa, p. 1. For the different kinds of community formation that occurred in early modern Vrindavan, and their relationship to hagiography, see Pauwels, Hagiography.

117 Talbot, C. (2000). ‘The Story of Prataparudra: Hindu Historiography on the Deccan Frontier’ in Gilmartin, D. and Lawrence, B.B. Beyond Turk and Hindu: Rethinking Religious Identities in Islamicate South Asia, University Press of Florida, Gainesville, p. 294 Google Scholar. A similar concept is found in Nile Green's work on Sufi histories; see Green, N. (2004). Stories of Saints and Sultans: Re-membering History at the Sufi Shrines of Aurangabad, Modern Asian Studies, 38:2, p. 424 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

118 Natwar-Singh, Maharaja Suraj Mal, p. 64.

119 Ibid., p. 65.

120 Irvine, Ahmad Shah, pp. 17, 25.

121 Ibid., pp. 22f.

122 Tieffenthaler, J., Anquetil Du Perron, A.H. and Rennell, J. (1786). Description historique et géographique de l’Inde, Berlin, Vol. 1, pp. 203f.

123 Indeed, this was not the only time Abdali's armies campaigned in Braj: they returned between 18 March 1760 and 5 April 1761.

124 Snatak, Radhavallabha Sampradaya, pp. 517–521.

125 Williams, The Poetry, p. 4.

126 jaḍa hū kauṅ ye bacana kṛpā upajāyahaiṅ.

Hari hāṅ, vṛṅdāvana hita rūpa, śyāma mana bhāyahaiṅ.

Kuyaśa dhanī kau hoya sevaka kī ghaṭatī parai,

yāmeṅ saṅśa na koya bāta bidita yaha jagata meṅ.

Mana dai sunata na kāna ete daye urāhane,

kahiyata kṛpānidhāna aipai baraṣata būṅda nahiṅ.

Bājī ropī śyāma kautika dekhyau bahuta aba,

sṛṣṭi bhaī saṅgrāma parama dharma thiru thāpiye.

Hamate kauna ayāna svāmī soṅ etī kahai,

hiye bhaī akulāna samaratha soṅ binatī karī.

127 Referring to Krishna's biological, royal lineage and his adopted, pastoral family.

128 Jayati jayati braja bhūmi, jayati rakṣaka muralīdhara,

kara-kamalani kī chāṅha sadā rākhau apanenu para.

Jaya vipaneśvari sakhī-bṛṅda-nāyaka śrī rādhā,

praṇatana kī bhaya harau meṭi saba hiya kī bādhā.

Nita jayati ghoṣa pālaka mahī, bhani vṛṅdāvana hita rūpa hari,

dhani gopa opa duṅhu kula udita aba rakṣa rakṣa jana su bidhi kari. (192)

129 O’Hanlon and Washbrook, Religious Cultures, p. 1.

130 Cf. Chakrabarty, ‘The Time of History’, p. 39.