Table of Contents ; Preface and Acknowledgments; Note on Transliteration and Other Scholarly Conventions; Introduction: The Mughal Culture of Power; 1. Brahman and Jain Sanskrit Intellectuals at the Mughal Court; 2. Sanskrit Textual Production for the Mughals; 3. Many Persian Maha bharatas for Akbar; 4. Abu al-Fazl Redefines Islamicate Knowledge and Akbar's Sovereignty; 5. Writing About the Mughal World in Sanskrit; 6. Incorporating Sanskrit Into the Persianate World; Conclusion: Power, Literature, and Early Modernity
Appendix 1: Bilingual Example Sentences in Krsnadasa's Parasiprakasa (Light on Persian)Appendix 2: Four Sanskrit Verses Transliterated in the Razmna mah (Book of War); Notes; Bibliography; Index
Summary
This history documents the exchange between the Persian-speaking Islamic elite of the early Mughal Empire and traditional Sanskrit scholars. These cross-cultural encounters engendered a dynamic idea of Mughal rule essential to the empire's survival. Many Sanskrit works were translated into Persian, elevating the political position of Brahmans and Jains and cultivating a voracious appetite for Indian writings throughout the Mughal world. The first book to read these Sanskrit and Persian works in tandem, 'Culture of Encounters' recasts the Mughal Empire as a polyglot polity that collaborated with its Indian subjects to envision its sovereignty
