Allison Busch. Poetry of Kings: The Classical Hindi Literature of Mughal India. South Asia Research Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011. 368 pp. $74.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-976592-8.

Reviewed by Monika Horstmann

Published on H-Asia (November, 2012)

Commissioned by Sumit Guha (The University of Texas at Austin)

In the sixteenth century, the regional Rajput to an unprecedented height by Keśavdās, who kingdoms of Gwalior and, from the end of the cen‐ worked under the patronage of the Bundela court tury, Orcha, both in the central part of northern of Orcha. The scholarly vernacular poetry that he India, emerged as centers of vernacular poetry in wrote and for which he, in a magisterial fashion, Brajbhasha, and particularly in Orcha, miniature formulated the rules in two poetic manuals bears painting (often named “Malwa painting”) that illu‐ the designation rīti, literally “method,” hence po‐ minated Brajbhasha poetry and poetic manuals. etry following “methodological” poetics. Rīti poet‐ The famboyance of the regional courtly culture ry was frst of all court poetry, but its tradition developed in political and cultural interdepen‐ was taken far afeld into wider milieus until it met dence between the Mughal imperial court and the its end toward the end of the nineteenth century. regional kingdoms. While for the arts this imperi‐ The rīti tradition did not fare well in a period that al/sub-imperial interdependence and cross-fertil‐ witnessed the emergence of literary histories as ization have been examined in considerable projects of nationalism. Hindi literary history depth, if not exhaustively, Brajbhasha literary came to sideline rīti literature--courtly literature production at the courts is now addressed, for the being ipso facto suspect--as l'art pour l’art, deca‐ frst time comprehensively, by Allison Busch in dent, frivolous, and the opposite of what was de‐ her book Poetry of Kings. manded now: vigor, spontaneity, and a social re‐ Busch examines the vernacular poetic tradi‐ formist didactic mood, in brief usefulness for na‐ tion in Brajbhasha as it reached its zenith under tion building. Hindi literature was felt and needed conditions of cultural interdependence, condi‐ to be liberated from the shackles of outmoded tra‐ tions not just concomitant but momentous for the ditions. The literary scholar Ram Chandra Shukla rise of the Brajbhasha courtly literary tradition, as designed a periodization of Hindi literature in the author argues. Brajbhasha poetics was raised which rīti was viewed more or less as the degen‐ H-Net Reviews erate issue of a now exhausted but formerly more hasha poets and Brajbhasha poetry in that web of vital tradition, namely, bhakti. Rīti did not fgure power. Addressing this link is a great merit of the as is it should, as early modern, but was labeled study. For Keśavdās, this is particularly salient be‐ medieval, hence requiring supersession by the cause he also wrote a panegyric of Emperor Ja‐ truly modern. Shukla’s view has tenaciously dom‐ hangir. Analyzing the testimonia, Busch comes to inated textbooks long into the last century. The in‐ the conclusion that there is no conclusive evi‐ terest in rīti has, however, abided, both in literary dence of Keśavdās’s access to the Mughal court. studies and in art historical studies on painting, Two minor corrections seem apposite here. First, where rīti texts--and particularly the manuals of while discussing the role of the high-ranking Keśavdās--met with almost insatiable reception. courtier Rājā Bīrbal as possible mediator, Busch Busch’s focus is on Keśavdās, the matchless cites Kavipriyā, but produces a contradiction be‐ luminary of rīti poetics. In chapter 1, she reviews tween her translation and the original text by his great poetic manuals Rasikpriyā (1591) and adding unnecessary quotation marks in the origi‐ Kavipriyā (1601) as well as his minor poetic writ‐ nal that give the Brajbhasha phrasing an unequiv‐ ing and poetry. In chapter 2, she examines the ocality it actually lacks. Second, Busch’s point that principles of rīti. She then widens the focus to in Kavipriyā 6.76 the Orcha prince Indrajīt is capture the intellectual milieu in which court po‐ mentioned in tandem with the infuential Rājā ets worked and interacted (chapter 3) to subse‐ Bīrbal is not confrmed by the passage that eulo‐ quently address the issue of the link between im‐ gizes the paragons of largesse, all of them divine perial and sub-imperial literary culture (chapter with the exception of two: Amarsingh of Mewar 4). From this she moves her focus to the regional and Rājā Bīrbal, Indrajīt being absent from the courts who where, the foremost patrons of Brajb‐ list. hasha literature, with the intention to elucidate Busch rightly dwells on the issue of Brajb‐ the intellectual dynamics at play in the regional hasha poets working in the penumbra of the courts, whose rulers occupied high status at the Mughal court. While Brajbhasha poetry was avid‐ Mughal court (chapter 5). The last, sixth chapter is ly received in court culture, it is hard to know to devoted to the fate of rīti literature in the colonial what consequence its political content was digest‐ and postcolonial periods. ed. The brisk criticism some Brajbhasha poets ar‐ Emphasizing the political dimensions in ticulated of Mughal rule are not known to have which the oeuvre of Keśavdās inserts itself, the met with reproof. Was this literature read at the author examines how, in the course of his literary Mughal court with diferent eyes, passing as polit‐ production, the poet subtly adapted his art to the ically inconsequential? political requirements of the Orcha rulers who While laying out the principles of Brajbhasha during his time rose to an infuential position at aesthetics (chapter 2), Busch comprehensively the imperial court. She shows how Keśavdās summarizes how they represented a science that building on Sanskrit scholarly poetic models and had to be mastered by both poets and connois‐ the tradition of Brajbhasha poetry cultivated in seurs. This is what conferred high status on the Gwalior used the model of the righteous divine works of Keśavdās. Mastering these gave access to king Rāma to extol the patron he served--as was participation in the recreational (but not leisure‐ the task of a court poet, thus underpinning the as‐ ly) facets of court life in which a courtier’s posi‐ cendancy of the Bundela king at the Mughal court. tion was also confrmed by his aesthetic compe‐ The connection of the Bundela king with the tence. The ability to absorb and reproduce rīti po‐ Mughal court brings in the issue of the Brajb‐ etry ranged as a marker of genuine belonging to

2 H-Net Reviews the courtly sphere. Discussing Keśavdās’s impact performance of Brajbhasha poetry and the subtle on disciples, Busch naturally mentions his fa‐ ways in which poets made creative adjustments vorite woman disciple, the courtesan Pravī. The and brought together the Indic and Persianate lin‐ fgure (2.1, p. 73) of the PravīN garden and palace guistic registers. This is a delicate exercise, for it of Orcha, however, abets deceptive romantic con‐ can be assumed--though often not conclusively clusions. Keśavdās’s PravīN was not raised to the proved--that the rīti poets made conscious choices honor of fguring in the highly political architec‐ from the alternate registers, even when using by tural language as it was articulated by King Bīrs‐ that time long established topoi and phrases in ingh in the space of Orcha’s palace and temple which the Indic and the Persianate registers were complex. According to the historian Edward Le‐ fused. Speaking of creative adjustment, a certain land Rothfarb, the PravīN palace and garden linguistic liberty can be noticed, but not in all of rather postdate Shah Jahan and may be attributed the cases mentioned: Keśavdās does not change to the regnal period of King IndramaNi (1672–75). the phonology of the word bhūmi (the earth) to [1] adapt it to alliteration with /p/, for the resultant Busch discusses the performance conditions word puhumi is not derived from bhūmi, but is a of Brajbhasha poetry and the ways in which poet‐ vernacular equivalent of pRthivī (p. 92). ic creativity unfolded within the rigidly regulated As Busch points out, the self-perception of rīti scientifc poetic system. This is of prime impor‐ poets, one among the various categories of intel‐ tance, both as a topic in its own right and for the lectuals at the early modern courts--though often fate of the Brajbhasha tradition in a colonial and also serving in other functions in the court sys‐ postcolonial world with radically diferent liter‐ tem--is refected in their referring to themselves ary sensibilities. Short, single-stanza poems, ar‐ as a family of poets who act as transmitters of a ranged according to the rīti aesthetic categories, scholarly aesthetic tradition originally deriving operated diferently from epic poems, which were from Sanskrit, but now superseding Sanskrit by a meant for the comparatively relaxed recreational refned Brajbhasha system. She points to net‐ royal assemblies. Single-stanza poetry demanded works spreading widely over northern India and that the listener or reader apply himself studious‐ by this raises a point deserving further probing. ly to them. They were hard, delicious nuts to South Asian social organization exhibits typically crack, and to cope with them served the aesthetic professional or other group organizations. Literati perfection of aspiring poets and cultured and scholars of various descriptions were orga‐ courtiers or other elites alike. It is not by chance nized similarly and entertained networks all over that Rasikpriyā and Kavipriyā and a number of the subcontinent. What was at stake for each of similar texts by other authors were illuminated these and how they negotiated their position also by miniatures. Education in poetic aesthetics and vis-à-vis each other has been intensely discussed the arts fused with contemplation in the erotic of late (Sheldon Pollock and Rosalind O’Hanlon). mood, which blended with the religiously colored In connection with this, Busch’s examination of bhakti mood. The actual intimate gatherings of the rīti poets’ corporate self-perception forms a connoisseurs became a popular topic especially in relevant and original contribution within this on‐ much later Pahārī painting, where groups of con‐ going discourse. noisseurs are shown passing around paintings or In the colonial period, the model of courtly reciting and responding to stanzas from rīti poet‐ poetry was superseded by totally diferent con‐ ry, these stanzas being decipherable for the de‐ cepts and modes of literary production and recep‐ lighted spectator in the paintings that illustrate tion of literature, enhanced by the accessibility of them.[2] Busch describes the various registers of

3 H-Net Reviews literature in print. This is an oft-told story. The [1]. Edward Leland Rothfarb, Orchha and Be‐ ideal of scholarly training in literary aesthetics, yond: Bundela Architecture and Art under Raja considered mandatory for both poets and audi‐ Bir Singh Dev (Mumbai: The Marg Foundation, ence (and thereby naturally predicated on an elite 2012), 98. culture from where it was eventually disseminat‐ [2]. For miniature painting inspected in gath‐ ed also to the common public), was superseded by erings of connoisseurs, see, for example, two Kan‐ an understanding of the poet (kavi) as divinely in‐ gra miniatures in B. N. Goswamy and Eberhard spired and identifed with the Vedic vipra, con‐ Fischer, “Purkhu of Kangra,” in Masters of Indian ceived as an ecstatic seer. At work was a romantic Painting, ed. by M. C. Beach, E. Fischer, and B. N. concept of spontaneous creativity read back into Goswamy (Zurich: Artibus Asiae Publishers, 2011), the hoary past. Past and present now formed the 2:724, 231. For poetry by Bihārī illustrated by and axis along which vitality and spontaneous, emo‐ rendered verbatim in a miniature painting show‐ tional outpour of genius operated. A concurrent, ing a gathering of connoisseurs, I refer to a Pahārī complementary concept was that of literature as a miniature in the unpublished collection of Eva medium of civic education and infusion of vigor and Konrad Seitz. into the new, nationalistically oriented Indian. In H-Asia review editor’s note on missing dia‐ this program, rīti literature represented the dia‐ criticals: Horstmann sent her review with the metrically other, decadent, and sensuous, and standard diacriticals needed to transcribe Indic was seen as diverting attention from nation build‐ fonts into Roman. But software defciencies do not ing. This went hand in hand with new reading allow their insertion here. I have therefore used habits. The arena of literature was no longer a 'R' (pRthivi) to indicate the vocalic 'r' and 'N' to in‐ gathering of connoisseurs in a highly stratifed so‐ dicate the retrofex nasal (PraviN). ciety, but access to literature became more com‐ mon, its function being often avowedly moral edi‐ fcation. “Everyman’s Library” had no use for rīti. A feverish, hothouse rehabilitation of rīti under the dictatorial aegis of the literary historian Na‐ gendra proved abortive. Busch’s elegantly written book traces the rīti tradition up to its expiry. Beyond exploring the di‐ mensions of Keśavdās’s oeuvre, the special achievement of her study lies in examining the rīti tradition while placing it squarely in the social and political context of its period, taking stock of it as a joint project of imperial and sub-imperial patronage, and providing a comprehensive treat‐ ment of rīti principles. This book will be welcome by everyone wishing to familiarize themselves with this tradition, for the discussion of rīti litera‐ ture has hitherto been dispersed over a disci‐ plinary and chronologically wide range of studies. Notes

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Citation: Monika Horstmann. Review of Busch, Allison. Poetry of Kings: The Classical Hindi Literature of Mughal India. H-Asia, H-Net Reviews. November, 2012.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=34842

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