Ogura Satoshi
From Taraṅgiṇī to Tārīḫ
Studies in the Historiography of Kashmir, 1459–1621
Sultanate and early Mughal Kashmir witnessed a change of language of historiography from Sanskrit to Persian. Under the rules of the Šāhmīrid and Čakid sultanates, Paṇḍits Jonarāja, Śrīvara, Prājyabhaṭṭa, and Śuka composed their Sanskrit historical writings one after another, and anonymous authors produced appendices to Śuka’s Rājataraṅgiṇī; the narration of the latest appendix covers up to the royal visit of the third Muġal emperor Akbar (r. 1556–1605) to Śrīnagar in 1589. These works provide us with valuable information about Hindu Paṇḍits’ firsthand views on Muslims and Muġals.
When Akbar stayed in Śrīnagar, a manuscript of the Rājataraṅgiṇīs was dedicated to the emperor and he ordered a Muslim intellectual, Mullā Šāh Muḥammad Šāhābādī (d. 1598) to translate it into Persian. Šāhābādī’s Persian translation of the Rājataraṅgiṇīs gained wide readership in the courts of Akbar and the ‘Ādil Šāhī dynasty in Bijapur; contemporary Muslim historians represented by Abū’l Fażl (d.1602), Niẓām ad-Dīn Aḥmad (d. 1594), and Firišta (d. 1620) wrote the chapters on the history of Kashmir in their history of the subcontinent relying on Šāhābādī’s translation. On the other hand, during the period of the fourth Muġal emperor Ǧahāngīr (r. 1605–27), Persian provincial histories of Kashmir were vigorously produced, and the latest one, the Tārīḫ-i Kašmīr of Ḥaydar Malik established a typical chronological line of the history of Kashmir.
The present monograph deals with the following subjects: 1) representations of Muslims by Jonarāja, Śrīvara, and Śuka, 2) representations of the Muġals and the Empire by Śuka and anonymous authors of the appendices, 3) Muḥammad Šāhābādī’s translation strategy on the Rājataraṅgiṇīs, 4) a reconstruction of textual transmission from the Rājataraṅgiṇīs to Ḥaydar Malik’s Tārīḫ-i Kašmīr, 5) making an ‘Islamic’ history of Kashmir by Muslim chroniclers. This book also includes a partial edition of Muḥammad Šāhābādī’s Persian translation of the Rājataraṅgiṇīs and its English translation.
Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis | Volume 32
1st edition
hardback edition
ISBN 978-3-86977-264-6
(not yet published)
