Kalhaṇa’s Kashmir

Abstract

This essay argues for moving beyond the binary of ‘cosmopolitan’ and ‘vernacular’ in our understanding of language and expressions of space in early medieval South Asia. Drawing attention to a classic literary representation of regional space which is in the cosmopolitan Sanskrit and not in the vernacular, the paper examines Kalhan.a’s twelfth century Rājataraṅgiṇī for its depiction of Kashmir. It looks at some of the constituent elements of the spatial imaginary constructed in the text, and at the literary and discursive strategies employed in its construction, including the reworking of intertextual traditions from within Sanskrit literary culture. This essay suggests that more than an objectivist historical narrative which modern historians like to believe it is, the Rājataraṅgiṇī should be viewed as a whole as the traditional kāvya that it is, representing a specific language practice articulative of the poet’s vision.