The last two decades of South Asian historical scholarship have seen an increased focus on the era of Mughal India and upon the Indo-Timurid empire for which this period is famed. The latest addition to this grand oeuvre is Allison Busch's Poetry for Kings, which is easily amongst the most fascinating texts of the period that I have read. Simply put, this is a superb book. Wide-ranging and exceptionally persuasive Busch's highly nuanced literary tour de force examines one of the least-known literatures amongst Mughal scholars of this period, Brajbhasha (a form of classical Hindi), little-recognized in part because of Brajbhasha's latter-day identification solely with Hindu devotional traditions rather than grand Islamic or Islamicate ones. Poetry of Kings thus offers a long-awaited corrective to the many monographs and translations that emphasized the empire's impressive Persian contribution alone.
Poetry for Kings is itself divided into six chapters along with an introduction and conclusion. The introduction provides very useful interpretations of the general contours of courtly Brajbhasha literature particularly its most representative and most oft-produced genre the rīti or ‘style’ text (the rītigranth). These texts were based upon classical Sanskrit alaṅkāraśastra works, which expounded the science of rhetorical ornamentation. Brajbhasha authors explained and illustrated these very same rhetorical devices in the vernacular very well aware of Sanskrit's sacrosanct status. Like the Brajbhasha authors themselves Busch keeps this in mind as she weaves her claims about courtly Brajbhasha texts around the theme of apanī mati anusāra ‘according to my own understanding,’ the regular trope of Brajbhasha courtly writers who were attempting to latch onto Sanskrit's grandeur as suravāṇī ‘the language of the gods’ in order to respectfully elevate their chosen vernacular into a semi-divine language (and perhaps allocate a higher status for themselves, and in the process construct a specific vernacular literary community, what court poets later identified as the Brajbhasha kavikul (pp. 188–89). This may thus allow us to think of courtly Brajbhasha along the same lines as the tazah gūùī the ‘fresh speaking’ style of Persian, which marked much of the Indo-Persian poetry produced within the constellation of the Mughal court. Brajbhasha was also a fresh and new way of writing courtly texts, which paid heed to its Sanskrit benefactor but went into new directions.
The next chapters introduce us first to the extraordinary poet and litterateur Keshavdas of Orccha who is representative of the new Brajbhasha kavikul after which we are led into a study of the aesthetics of rīti literature itself and the Brajbhasha intellectuals who spread its ideals. Two following chapters focus upon both the Mughal court and the principal subimperial courts of the Rajputs and the Marathas. In the latter Brajbhahsha literature was also propagated in part because of its promotion by the Mughals. This thus added a magnificence to subimperial courts many of which attempted to emulate to a degree the greatness of the Mughals. It is within the fourth chapter in particular Busch offers one amongst many interesting and exciting claims: it was thanks to Mughal patronage that this literature ultimately became a literature without which kings throughout India ‘could not be kings’ (p. 244). To this end, therefore, she speculates that it was Mughal patronage specifically which ensured the wide geographical spread and continued life of Brajbhasha and classical Hindi, and very importantly of the Khari Boli Hindi later championed by Indian and Hindu nationalists in the early twentieth century. Simply put, this language, which is today claimed to be quintessentially Hindu, owes its origins to Muslim patronage through which it became an important element of manṣabdārī courtly culture (p. 186).
Had the book ended here it would have still been a remarkable text. That Busch continues the discussion into the modern period is nothing short of a gift to her readers marking her scholarly generosity. Busch's penultimate chapter treats us to the continued trajectory of Brajbhasha throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century and situates this within contemporary nationalist discourses within India. Understood as effeminate by the champions of a much more severe Khari Boli Hindi ornamental Brajbhasha was relegated to the margins of Indian literary expression in their quest for a hyper-masculinized Hinduness, something deemed essential for anyone seeking to be independent and free from colonial control. It is within this chapter that Busch offers another wonderful observation, namely that the distinction between religious and courtly Brajbhasha poets is a modern one, that both sets of poets were ranked equally during the period of the Mughals (pp. 230–31).
My complaints are so trifling that I only mention them as this is general fare. The inclusion of lengthier passages in Devanagri script would have made a wonderful visual compliment to her text as too a word or two about the specific use of this script. An examination of more peripheral courts would also have made her insightful arguments more robust. In the end, of course, there is only so much one scholar can do especially with a subject as vast as this one. What Poetry for Kings does do it does excellently and as such must be very highly commended.
