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Sabk-e Hendi and the Crisis of Authority in Eighteenth-Century Indo-Persian Poetics

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Peer-reviewed

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Article

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Abstract

jats:pModern debates over the merits of the so-called Indian Style (jats:italicSabk-e Hendi</jats:italic>) in Persian literature, which was dominant from the late sixteenth to early nineteenth centuries, have been based on problematic assumptions about how literary style is tied to place. Scholars have often therefore interpreted the Persian literary criticism of the first half of the eighteenth century as a contest between Indians who praised Persian texts written in India and Iranians who asserted their privilege as native speakers to denigrate them. A more nuanced reading suggests that the debates mainly addressed stylistic temporality, namely the value of the writing styles of the “Ancients” (jats:italicmotaqaddemin</jats:italic>) versus the innovative style of the “Moderns” (jats:italicmotaʾakhkherin</jats:italic>). In the thought of the Indian critic Serāj al-Din ʿAli Khān Ārzu (d. 1756), there is clear evidence of a perceived rupture in literary culture that we can call a “crisis of authority.” Ārzu was concerned because Persian poetry had been judged according to “jats:italicsanad</jats:italic>” or precedent, but poets—both Indian and Iranian—were composing in a relatively new style (jats:italictāza-guʾi</jats:italic>, literally “fresh speech”) that routinely went beyond the available precedents. All poets who know Persian well, he argued, including Indians, are allowed to innovate. While there was obvious rivalry between Persian-knowing Indians and the many Central Asians and Iranians settled in India, the contemporary terms of the debate have little in common with the later nationalism-tinged framing familiar to us.</jats:p>

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Keywords

Seraj al-Din ʿAli Khān, Ārzu, Khān-e Ārzu, Sabk-e Hendi, Indo-Persian, philology, regionalism

Journal Title

Journal of Persianate Studies

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Journal ISSN

1874-7094
1874-7167

Volume Title

9

Publisher

Brill