Audrey Truschke
Biographic Data
| ID | 256295 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Audrey Truschke |
| GIVEN NAMES | Audrey |
| FAMILY NAME | Truschke |
| SIGNATURE | TRUSCHKE A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 37 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent
A dazzling new history of the Indian subcontinent and its diverse peoples in global context—from antiquity to today Much of world history is Indian history. Home today to one in four people, the subcontinent has long been densely populated and deeply connected to Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas through migration and trade. In this magisterial history, Audrey Truschke tells the fascinating story of the region historically known as India—whi…
Rama’s Ayodhya: Creating and Contesting Hindu Identity
In 1992, a Hindu mob destroyed an early sixteenth-century mosque, known as the Babri Masjid, in the north Indian city of Ayodhya through an act of violence that, the attackers said, honored the Hindu deity Rama. The Babri Masjid’s demolition has drawn robust scholarly attention, predominantly focused on its implications for Hindu-Muslim relations in present-day India. Historians who have analyzed this event have generally centered on disproving t…
Hearing Hindu Stories
This article presses on some of the key insights from Mack’s seminal essay on Christianity vis-à-vis scholarship on a different religion, namely Hinduism. I suggest some extensions of Mack’s argument to the academic study of Hindu traditions, such as identifying the harms posed by the soft inclusion of Christian theology within the discipline of Religious Studies. I argue that this is a structural problem in the modern academy that sidelines scho…
Hindu: A History
This article provides a textured history of the multivalent term 'hindu' over 2,500 years, with the goal of productively unsettling what we think we know. 'Hindu' is a ubiquitous word in modern times, used by scholars and practitioners in dozens of languages to denote members of a religious tradition. But the religious meaning of 'hindu' and its common use are quite new. Here I trace the layered history of 'hindu,' part of an array of shifting id…
The Mughal Self and the Jain Other in Siddhicandra's Bhanucandraganicarita
Siddhicandra's Bhanucandraganicarita (Biography of Bhanucandra, ca. 1620s) enacts a stunning development in Sanskrit historiography. The text's title bills it as a biography of a Jain mendicant, a standard genre of Jain-authored works. But, in fact, the text treats cross-cultural relations between Jain ascetics and Mughal elites as its main subject. It is arguably the first Sanskrit text to focus specifically and exclusively on Mughal contexts. T…
Hindu Supremacists in a White World
HINDU RIGHT assaults on North American academics unfold within, to borrow WEB Du Bois's phrase, a "white world" (Du Bois 2007, 69). This context is critical for understanding how Hindu supremacists have advanced some of the broad goals of white supremacy through anti-intellectual attacks. Scholars have long recognized that the Hindu Right-a broad group of individuals who sympathize with aspects of the political ideology known as Hindutva or Hindu…
Intertwined History: Hindutva Attacks and the Study of Hinduism
THE LARGE-SCALE campaigns orchestrated by Hindu supremacist groups against academics working on South Asia, and especially on Hinduism, are hard to ignore. As our roundtable contributions demonstrate, this is not a new phenomenon. The pervasive and ongoing attacks on academics build upon decades of organizing and mobilizing by Hindu far-right groups. The suppression of academic freedom in India has been the subject of a recent study (Sundar and F…
Recovering Hindustan and India
A new book explores a premodern idea of the Indian subcontinent as a home for members of all religious traditions: the vision of Hindustan developed by the seventeenth-century historian Firishta, a Persian-speaking Muslim. His perspective was neglected and distorted by colonial-era historians who contributed to a Hindu-centric idea of India
Hindutva's Dangerous Rewriting of History
Hindu nationalists are heavily invested in rewriting Indian history to advance their modern and unrepentantly hateful political agenda. Hindu nationalism or Hindutva is a political ideology that advocates Hindu supremacy, specifically over Muslims who comprise around fourteen percent of modern India’s population. The similarity in name notwithstanding, Hindutva is distinct from Hinduism, a broad-based religious tradition, although Hindutva ideolo…
The Power of the Islamic Sword in Narrating the Death of Indian Buddhism
Translating the Solar Cosmology of Sacred Kingship
Cosmopolitismes en Asie du Sud: Sources, itinéraires, langues (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle)
Le cosmopolitisme est-il un enfant de la modernité occidentale ou peut-on le trouver en d’autres temps et d’autres lieux ? Cet ouvrage entend apporter une réponse à cette question aujourd’hui vivement débattue en retraçant ses contours en tant que pratique et Weltanschauung dans une région du monde - l’Asie du Sud - pôle majeur de l’espace de circulation de l’Asie musulmane et nœud des flux humains, matériels et immatériels reliant l’Occident à l…
Contested History: Brahmanical Memories of Relations with the Mughals
Brahman Sanskrit intellectuals enjoyed a century of relations with the Mughal elite. Nonetheless, such cross-cultural connections feature only sporadically in Persian chronicles, and Brahmans rarely elaborated on their imperial links in Sanskrit texts. In this essay I analyze a major exception to the Brahmanical silence on their Mughal connections, the Kavīndracandrodaya (“Moonrise of Kavīndra”). More than seventy Brahmans penned the poetry and p…
Dangerous Debates: Jain responses to theological challenges at the Mughal court
In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Jain leaders faced a series of religious questions at the royal Mughal court. At the request of their imperial Muslim hosts, Jain representatives discussed aspects of both Islam and Jainism on separate occasions, including the veracity of Islam, whether Jains are monotheists, and the validity of Jain asceticism. The Mughals sometimes initiated these conversations of their own accord and at ot…
Setting the record wrong: A Sanskrit vision of Mughal conquests
In 1589, Padmasāgara wrote the first Sanskrit account of the Mughal rise to power within a short poem titled Jagadgurukāvya (Poem on the Teacher of the World). The work primarily eulogizes the life of a Jain religious leader named Hīravijaya, but Padmasāgara devotes one-third of the text to detailing the military exploits of Humayun and Akbar. Moreover, Padmasāgara departs significantly from known Indo-Persian historiography and imagines a startl…
Defining the Other: An Intellectual History of Sanskrit Lexicons and Grammars of Persian
The Mughal Book of War: A Persian Translation of the Sanskrit Mahabharata
This article presents the first in-depth textual analysis of the Razmnamah (Book of War), the Persian translation of the Mahabharata sponsored by the Mughal emperor Akbar in the late sixteenth century. I argue that the Razmnamah was a central literary work in the Mughal court and of deep relevance to Akbar’s imperial and political ambitions. I pursue my analysis of the Mughal Mahabharata in two sections, focusing first on the work’s Sanskrit sour…
Dangerous Debates: Jain responses to theological challenges at the Mughal court
In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Jain leaders faced a series of religious questions at the royal Mughal court. At the request of their imperial Muslim hosts, Jain representatives discussed aspects of both Islam and Jainism on separate occasions, including the veracity of Islam, whether Jains are monotheists, and the validity of Jain asceticism. The Mughals sometimes initiated these conversations of their own accord and at ot…
The Mughal Book of War: A Persian Translation of the Sanskrit Mahabharata
This article presents the first in-depth textual analysis of the Razmnamah (Book of War), the Persian translation of the Mahabharata sponsored by the Mughal emperor Akbar in the late sixteenth century. I argue that the Razmnamah was a central literary work in the Mughal court and of deep relevance to Akbar’s imperial and political ambitions. I pursue my analysis of the Mughal Mahabharata in two sections, focusing first on the work’s Sanskrit sour…
Hindu: A History
This article provides a textured history of the multivalent term 'hindu' over 2,500 years, with the goal of productively unsettling what we think we know. 'Hindu' is a ubiquitous word in modern times, used by scholars and practitioners in dozens of languages to denote members of a religious tradition. But the religious meaning of 'hindu' and its common use are quite new. Here I trace the layered history of 'hindu,' part of an array of shifting id…
The Power of the Islamic Sword in Narrating the Death of Indian Buddhism
Translating the Solar Cosmology of Sacred Kingship
Defining the Other: An Intellectual History of Sanskrit Lexicons and Grammars of Persian
Intertwined History: Hindutva Attacks and the Study of Hinduism
THE LARGE-SCALE campaigns orchestrated by Hindu supremacist groups against academics working on South Asia, and especially on Hinduism, are hard to ignore. As our roundtable contributions demonstrate, this is not a new phenomenon. The pervasive and ongoing attacks on academics build upon decades of organizing and mobilizing by Hindu far-right groups. The suppression of academic freedom in India has been the subject of a recent study (Sundar and F…
Hindutva's Dangerous Rewriting of History
Hindu nationalists are heavily invested in rewriting Indian history to advance their modern and unrepentantly hateful political agenda. Hindu nationalism or Hindutva is a political ideology that advocates Hindu supremacy, specifically over Muslims who comprise around fourteen percent of modern India’s population. The similarity in name notwithstanding, Hindutva is distinct from Hinduism, a broad-based religious tradition, although Hindutva ideolo…
The Mughal Self and the Jain Other in Siddhicandra's Bhanucandraganicarita
Siddhicandra's Bhanucandraganicarita (Biography of Bhanucandra, ca. 1620s) enacts a stunning development in Sanskrit historiography. The text's title bills it as a biography of a Jain mendicant, a standard genre of Jain-authored works. But, in fact, the text treats cross-cultural relations between Jain ascetics and Mughal elites as its main subject. It is arguably the first Sanskrit text to focus specifically and exclusively on Mughal contexts. T…
Setting the record wrong: A Sanskrit vision of Mughal conquests
In 1589, Padmasāgara wrote the first Sanskrit account of the Mughal rise to power within a short poem titled Jagadgurukāvya (Poem on the Teacher of the World). The work primarily eulogizes the life of a Jain religious leader named Hīravijaya, but Padmasāgara devotes one-third of the text to detailing the military exploits of Humayun and Akbar. Moreover, Padmasāgara departs significantly from known Indo-Persian historiography and imagines a startl…
The Mughal Book of War: A Persian Translation of the Sanskrit Mahabharata
This article presents the first in-depth textual analysis of the Razmnamah (Book of War), the Persian translation of the Mahabharata sponsored by the Mughal emperor Akbar in the late sixteenth century. I argue that the Razmnamah was a central literary work in the Mughal court and of deep relevance to Akbar’s imperial and political ambitions. I pursue my analysis of the Mughal Mahabharata in two sections, focusing first on the work’s Sanskrit sour…
Setting the record wrong: A Sanskrit vision of Mughal conquests
In 1589, Padmasāgara wrote the first Sanskrit account of the Mughal rise to power within a short poem titled Jagadgurukāvya (Poem on the Teacher of the World). The work primarily eulogizes the life of a Jain religious leader named Hīravijaya, but Padmasāgara devotes one-third of the text to detailing the military exploits of Humayun and Akbar. Moreover, Padmasāgara departs significantly from known Indo-Persian historiography and imagines a startl…
Defining the Other: An Intellectual History of Sanskrit Lexicons and Grammars of Persian
Cosmopolitismes en Asie du Sud: Sources, itinéraires, langues (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle)
Le cosmopolitisme est-il un enfant de la modernité occidentale ou peut-on le trouver en d’autres temps et d’autres lieux ? Cet ouvrage entend apporter une réponse à cette question aujourd’hui vivement débattue en retraçant ses contours en tant que pratique et Weltanschauung dans une région du monde - l’Asie du Sud - pôle majeur de l’espace de circulation de l’Asie musulmane et nœud des flux humains, matériels et immatériels reliant l’Occident à l…
Contested History: Brahmanical Memories of Relations with the Mughals
Brahman Sanskrit intellectuals enjoyed a century of relations with the Mughal elite. Nonetheless, such cross-cultural connections feature only sporadically in Persian chronicles, and Brahmans rarely elaborated on their imperial links in Sanskrit texts. In this essay I analyze a major exception to the Brahmanical silence on their Mughal connections, the Kavīndracandrodaya (“Moonrise of Kavīndra”). More than seventy Brahmans penned the poetry and p…
Dangerous Debates: Jain responses to theological challenges at the Mughal court
In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Jain leaders faced a series of religious questions at the royal Mughal court. At the request of their imperial Muslim hosts, Jain representatives discussed aspects of both Islam and Jainism on separate occasions, including the veracity of Islam, whether Jains are monotheists, and the validity of Jain asceticism. The Mughals sometimes initiated these conversations of their own accord and at ot…
Translating the Solar Cosmology of Sacred Kingship
The Power of the Islamic Sword in Narrating the Death of Indian Buddhism
Hindutva's Dangerous Rewriting of History
Hindu nationalists are heavily invested in rewriting Indian history to advance their modern and unrepentantly hateful political agenda. Hindu nationalism or Hindutva is a political ideology that advocates Hindu supremacy, specifically over Muslims who comprise around fourteen percent of modern India’s population. The similarity in name notwithstanding, Hindutva is distinct from Hinduism, a broad-based religious tradition, although Hindutva ideolo…
Recovering Hindustan and India
A new book explores a premodern idea of the Indian subcontinent as a home for members of all religious traditions: the vision of Hindustan developed by the seventeenth-century historian Firishta, a Persian-speaking Muslim. His perspective was neglected and distorted by colonial-era historians who contributed to a Hindu-centric idea of India
The Mughal Self and the Jain Other in Siddhicandra's Bhanucandraganicarita
Siddhicandra's Bhanucandraganicarita (Biography of Bhanucandra, ca. 1620s) enacts a stunning development in Sanskrit historiography. The text's title bills it as a biography of a Jain mendicant, a standard genre of Jain-authored works. But, in fact, the text treats cross-cultural relations between Jain ascetics and Mughal elites as its main subject. It is arguably the first Sanskrit text to focus specifically and exclusively on Mughal contexts. T…
Hindu Supremacists in a White World
HINDU RIGHT assaults on North American academics unfold within, to borrow WEB Du Bois's phrase, a "white world" (Du Bois 2007, 69). This context is critical for understanding how Hindu supremacists have advanced some of the broad goals of white supremacy through anti-intellectual attacks. Scholars have long recognized that the Hindu Right-a broad group of individuals who sympathize with aspects of the political ideology known as Hindutva or Hindu…
Intertwined History: Hindutva Attacks and the Study of Hinduism
THE LARGE-SCALE campaigns orchestrated by Hindu supremacist groups against academics working on South Asia, and especially on Hinduism, are hard to ignore. As our roundtable contributions demonstrate, this is not a new phenomenon. The pervasive and ongoing attacks on academics build upon decades of organizing and mobilizing by Hindu far-right groups. The suppression of academic freedom in India has been the subject of a recent study (Sundar and F…
Hearing Hindu Stories
This article presses on some of the key insights from Mack’s seminal essay on Christianity vis-à-vis scholarship on a different religion, namely Hinduism. I suggest some extensions of Mack’s argument to the academic study of Hindu traditions, such as identifying the harms posed by the soft inclusion of Christian theology within the discipline of Religious Studies. I argue that this is a structural problem in the modern academy that sidelines scho…
Hindu: A History
This article provides a textured history of the multivalent term 'hindu' over 2,500 years, with the goal of productively unsettling what we think we know. 'Hindu' is a ubiquitous word in modern times, used by scholars and practitioners in dozens of languages to denote members of a religious tradition. But the religious meaning of 'hindu' and its common use are quite new. Here I trace the layered history of 'hindu,' part of an array of shifting id…
India: 5,000 Years of History on the Subcontinent
A dazzling new history of the Indian subcontinent and its diverse peoples in global context—from antiquity to today Much of world history is Indian history. Home today to one in four people, the subcontinent has long been densely populated and deeply connected to Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas through migration and trade. In this magisterial history, Audrey Truschke tells the fascinating story of the region historically known as India—whi…
Rama’s Ayodhya: Creating and Contesting Hindu Identity
In 1992, a Hindu mob destroyed an early sixteenth-century mosque, known as the Babri Masjid, in the north Indian city of Ayodhya through an act of violence that, the attackers said, honored the Hindu deity Rama. The Babri Masjid’s demolition has drawn robust scholarly attention, predominantly focused on its implications for Hindu-Muslim relations in present-day India. Historians who have analyzed this event have generally centered on disproving t…
Philosophy (14 works) · History (11 works) · Art (10 works) · Indian and Buddhist Studies (9 works) · Religious studies (9 works) · Hinduism (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Literature (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Ancient history (7 works)