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The Uses of Books in a Late Mughal Takiyya: Persianate Knowledge Between Person and Paper*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2009

NILE GREEN
NILE GREEN*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Bunche Hall, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This paper addresses several questions that appear preliminary to understanding the circulation of knowledge in early modern India (circa 1500 to 1800): What work did writing do? What was the relationship between writing and speaking? And what can our answers to these questions tell us about cultural formulations of ‘knowledge’ in this period? After addressing these questions on ‘modes’ of circulation, this paper turns to the more practical issue of ‘means’ of circulation, looking at the intersection between religious and bureaucratic patterns of the production and consumption of books in the absence of printing in Indian languages. Overall, the paper argues for early modernity as a period of tension and transition between ‘anthropocentric’ and ‘bibliocentric’ attitudes towards the location and thence circulation of knowledge in a Persianate context. The issues are exemplified by reference to the various and, at times, perplexing uses of books in an imperial dervish lodge or takiyya.

Type
Forum: Knowledges in circulation in early modern India
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , March 2010 , pp. 241 - 265
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

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