Vali Dakhani and the Early Rekhtah Networks - (Library of Islamic South Asia) by Heidi Pauwels & Purnima Dhavan (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Placing the earliest Urdu poets and their craft in the lively social gatherings, bazaars, shrines, and courts of eighteenth century South Asia, this book reframes the history of Urdu within the diverse contexts from which it emerged. Dhawan and Pauwels re-examine the long-dominant mischaracterization of Urdu as an elite language of South Asian Muslims by analysing the poetic biographies of Vali Dakhani and his contemporaries Fa'iz, Abru and Hatim. The authors reveal how selective attention to a handful of poets and rarefied courtly texts obscured the much more diverse roots of an important vernacular tradition, thereby reconstructing a lost literary network of speakers, poets and participants in Urdu's past"--

Book Synopsis

This book reexamines the emergence of Urdu as a literary and poetic language in the 18th century, at the time called Rekhtah, highlighting its engagement with diverse regional cultures and communities in South Asia.

Sharing Poetry's Pleasures reframes the history of Urdu within the diverse contexts from which it emerged. It places the earliest Urdu-Rekhtah poets and their craft in the lively social gatherings, bazaars, shrines, and courts of 18th century South Asia.

Through aesthetic analysis and historical contextualization of poems, using primary sources in manuscripts, the authors reveal why everyday vernaculars, multi-lingual puns, alongside the use of courtly Persian and complex metaphors attracted a wide audience for this new literary language.

Dhavan and Pauwels re-examine the long-dominant mischaracterization of Urdu as an elite language of South Asian Muslims by analysing the poetic biographies of Vali Dakhani and his contemporaries Fa'iz, Abru and Hatim. The authors reveal how selective attention to a handful of poets and rarefied courtly texts obscured the much more diverse roots of an important vernacular tradition, thereby reconstructing a lost literary network of speakers, poets and participants in Urdu's past.

Review Quotes

"Brilliantly meticulous study of the composite literary traditions of eighteenth-century India with Vali as the pivot. Literary histories of Hindi and Urdu covering this period with such depth, insight and eloquence are rare." --Syed Akbar Hyder, The University of Texas at Austin, Professor & Director of South Asia Institute, USA

"This engrossing study of the flowering of the literary language Rekhtah, precursor to modern Urdu and Hindi, is the result of close collaboration between two eminent scholars from different disciplines. At its center is the poet Vali whose oeuvre emerges as part of a broad community of poets, connoisseurs, and critics. The surprising and delightful connections between multiple eighteenth century literary cultures in India deepen our knowledge of the period." --Sunil Sharma, Professor of Persianate & Comparative Literature, Boston University, USA

"Sharing Poetry's Pleasures, a remarkable product of a years'-long collaboration between two fine scholars, opens to us the vibrant, multi-faceted, self-aware and interactive literary culture of 18th century India, with the poet Vali at its center. Taking on existing scholarship and revisiting the older classics, this book is comprehensive, corrective, informative, smart, and a great pleasure to read." --Carla Petievich, Professor Carla Petievich (Retd.), South Asia Institute, University of Texas at Austin, USA

About the Author

Purnima Dhavan is Associate Professor of History at the University of Washington, USA. She is the author of When Sparrows Became Hawks: The Making of the Sikh Warrior Tradition (2011).

Heidi Pauwels is Professor Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington, USA. She is the author of The Voice of the Indian Mona Lisa: Gender and Culture in Rajasthan (2023).