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The Frontiers of Memory: What the Marathas Remembered of Vijayanagara1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2009

SUMIT GUHA
SUMIT GUHA*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, NJ, USA Email: sguha@history.rutgers.edu
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Abstract

The past two decades have seen a dramatic renewal of interest in the subject of historical memory, its reproduction and transmission. But most studies have focused on the selection and construction of extant memories. This essay looks at missing memory as well. It seeks to broaden our understanding of memory by investigating the way in which historical memory significant to one historical tradition was slighted by another, even though the two overlapped both spatially and chronologically. It does this by an examination of how the memory of the Marathi-speaking peoples first neglected and then adopted the story of the Vijayanagara empire that once dominated southern India.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 269 - 288
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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References

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3 Here and throughout the rest of this paper, the Common Era dates are inserted without specific marking; the calendrical system is indicated in all other cases.

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25 Cited in Potdar, “Marathit Vijayanagara”, pp. 339–40.

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29 As Zerubavel points out, beginnings are highly significant. “Origins help articulate identities, and where communities locate their beginnings tells us quite a lot about how they perceive themselves.” Time-Maps, p. 101, emphasis original.

30 T. Sambamurti Row copied and published, The Marathi Historical Inscription at the Sri Brihadeeswaraswami Temple at Tanjore, (Tanjore: The Editor 1907), pp. 1–2.

31 Equally interesting but not relevant to the present theme is the systematic downplaying of Shivaji and his line.

32 Incomplete text, without ascription, published as “Aitihasik sphuta lekha” pp. 21–9, in Itihasa Samgraha, Vol. 1, Nos. 10–11 (1908–9).

33 Internal evidence suggests that this was a copyist's error, and either the year was in Fasli or the number should perhaps be 1224. The regimes covered extend up to Sake 1739, or 1817–18.

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37 Potdar, “Marathit Vijayanagara” p. 350.

38 This is something that if held in the mouth gives supernatural powers to the holder.

39 adl means justice; adalat meaning court of law was assimilated into Marathi. The function of Adal-shah is thus fancifully reconstructed from the dynastic title. Bahiri-sasana is the Marathi for peregrine falcon—hence the occupation of the Nizam Shah!

40 An echo of the derogatory tradition found in the Rayavacakamu: “a fellow named Barid of Bidar . . . began to rule . . . His hawk keeper came to be known as Nizam Shah, his water-pot bearer became known as Adil Shah, and the man who was in charge of keeping the dogs became known as Qutb Shah. Each of the three was given charge over a province. . .” Wagoner trans. Tidings of the King, p. 123.

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46 Phillip Wagoner (personal communication) suggests that it might even have been written for, or at the behest of, Colin Mackenzie in 1809–10 when his research assistants, Narrain Row and Ananda Row were both in the vicinity of Bellari.

47 I have translated and discussed this text in “Literary Tropes and Historical Settings: A study from Southern India” in Rajat Datta (ed.), Rethinking a Millennium: India from the Eighth to the Eighteenth Centuries Delhi, forthcoming.

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49 Gramopadhye, 18 footnote.

50 Wagoner, Tidings of the King, pp. 5–9.

51 Every sixty years, the planets return to a particular configuration and the cycle resumes. Each year has a specific name - the first being Prabhava and the last Akshaya.

52 Sovani (ed.), Aitihasika Bakhari, pp. 22–23.

53 On the political and cultural significance of the Mandala, see Prachi Deshpande, Creative Pasts, pp. 117–20.

54 Karamarkar (ed.), Vijayanagara Smaraka Grantha, pp. 1–2.

55 Ibid., pp. 1–7.

56 T. S. Shejwalkar, “Vijayanagara Samrajyace Maratheshahivarila parinama” in Vijayanagara Smaraka Grantha, pp. 64–5.