Hindi Before the Nation

Convener Professor Sheldon Pollock, the William B. Ransford Professor of Sanskrit and Indian Studies Columbia University

In this lecture I discuss the major features of Hindi literary culture from Mughal to colonial times. Hindi poets working in the classical dialect of Brajbhasha became spectacularly popular in North India during the sixteenth century, finding an enthusiastic audience in both imperial and regional courts. Hindi textual culture of the period in many respects acted as a bridge between older Indian poetic practices in Sanskrit and the Persianate style of the Mughal rulers. With their diverse repertoire of devotional lyrics, rhetorical treatises, love poetry, panegyrics, and historical literature the poets were able to serve a range of constituencies and forge a dynamic new literary tradition. This highly pluralistic literary tradition came to be dismantled under conditions of colonialism and nationalism in the modern period. I conclude with some reflections on the reasons for, and implications of, its demise.