A Persian Praise of Krishna: A Note on the Preface of Amānat Rāy’s Persian Bhāgavaṭa Purāṇa (1733)
This paper deals with the introductory section of a little-known 18th-century Persian versified translation of the tenth skandha of the Bhāgavaṭa Purāṇa, the Jilwa-yi ẕāt "The epiphany of the Essence", completed in Delhi in 1733 by Amānat Rāy, a Vishnuite pupil of the influential poet-phil...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Print Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
[2017]
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| In: |
Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni
Year: 2017, Volume: 83, Issue: 2, Pages: 573-582 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Krishna
/ Jilwa-yi ẕāt
|
| RelBib Classification: | BJ Islam BK Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism |
| Further subjects: | B
Bhāgavaṭa Purāṇa
B Krishna B Bīdil B Traduzione persiana B Persian translation B Amānat Rāy |
| Summary: | This paper deals with the introductory section of a little-known 18th-century Persian versified translation of the tenth skandha of the Bhāgavaṭa Purāṇa, the Jilwa-yi ẕāt "The epiphany of the Essence", completed in Delhi in 1733 by Amānat Rāy, a Vishnuite pupil of the influential poet-philosopher Mīrzā 'Abd al-Qādir Bīdil (1644-1720). Notwithstanding its obvious relevance for the intellectual and religious history of the late Mughal South Asia, especially as far as the use of the Persian as prestigious literary-devontional medium among the communities of Hindu secretaries of North India is concerned, the text has never been the object of any study until now. In these prelimimary remarks, I focus not so much on the translation itself but on the relatively long preface embedded by Amānat in his work: here the author provides an articulate description of Krishna filtered through the Persian poetic canon and a series of conceptual keys for reading his work, showing the deep connections between the poetic lesson of the master Bīdil, the dominant Sufi-Vedantic views and still little understood sphere of Krishnaite devotion in the Persianate environment of courtly Dehli in the 1700s. |
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| ISSN: | 0081-6175 |
| Contains: | In: Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni
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