The language of the gods in the world of men : Sanskrit, culture, and power in premodern India / Sheldon Pollock.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Pollock, Sheldon I.

Series:

ACLS Fellows' Publications.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sanskrit literature--To 1500--Political aspects.

Sanskrit literature.

Sanskrit literature--To 1500--History and criticism.

Indic literature--To 1500--History.

Indic literature.

Indic literature--To 1500--Political aspects.

Politics and literature--India--History.

Politics and literature.

Literature and society--India--History.

Literature and society.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 684 pages) : maps

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Sanskrit, culture, and power in premodern India

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this work of impressive scholarship, Sheldon Pollock explores the remarkable rise and fall of Sanskrit, India's ancient language, as a vehicle of poetry and polity. He traces the two great moments of its transformation: the first around the beginning of the Common Era, when Sanskrit, long a sacred language, was reinvented as a code for literary and political expression, the start of an amazing career that saw Sanskrit literary culture spread from Afghanistan to Java. The second moment occurred around the beginning of the second millennium, when local speech forms challenged and eventually replaced Sanskrit in both the literary and political arenas. Drawing striking parallels, chronologically as well as structurally, with the rise of Latin literature and the Roman empire, and with the new vernacular literatures and nation-states of late-medieval Europe, The Language of the Gods in the World of Men asks whether these very different histories challenge current theories of culture and power and suggest new possibilities for practice.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Preface And Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. The Language Of The Gods Enters The World

Chapter 2. Literature And The Cosmopolitan Language Of Literature

Chapter 3. The World Conquest And Regime Of The Cosmopolitan Style

Chapter 4. Sanskrit Culture As Courtly Practice

Chapter 5. The Map Of Sanskrit Knowledge And The Discourse On The Ways Of Literature

Chapter 6. Political Formations And Cultural Ethos

Chapter 7. A European Counter cosmopolis

Chapter 8. Beginnings, Textualization, Superposition

Chapter 9. Creating A Regional World: The Case Of Kannada

Chapter 10. Vernacular Poetries And Polities In Southern Asia

Chapter 11. Europe Vernacularized

Chapter 12. Comparative And Connective Vernacularization

Chapter 13. Actually Existing Theory And Its Discontents

Chapter 14. Indigenism And Other Culture-Power Concepts Of Modernity

Appendix A

Appendix B

Publication History

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

"Philip E. Lilienthal book."

Includes bibliographical references (p. 603-648) and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786612357749

9781282357747

1282357743

9780520932029

0520932021

9781601293848

1601293844

OCLC:

475990159