Cynthia Talbot
Biographic Data
| ID | 359343 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Cynthia Talbot |
| GIVEN NAMES | Cynthia |
| FAMILY NAME | Talbot |
| SIGNATURE | TALBOT C |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Texas at Austin |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8291-6773 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 155 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1991 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Caught in a Conflict of Loyalties
In tribute to Allison Busch, who did so much to restore the reputation of vernacular literature not just as poetry but also as history, Talbot offers an account of an obscure Rajput warrior from Bikaner who decided it would be better to die. In asking why Ramsingh Kalyanmalot sought death in 1577, we must address the larger issue of the changes wrought on the Rajput world by the expanding power of the Mughal empire, one of the main questions that…
Anger and Atonement in Mughal India: An alternative account of Akbar's 1578 hunt
Anger as an emotion is seldom attributed to Akbar (r. 1556-1605), the most admired of the Mughal emperors. Yet, on one notable day in 1578, he allegedly got so enraged that he almost lost his mind, according to Dalpat Vilas, an obscure chronicle composed in the vernacular. While the aftermath of Akbar's anger was reported in several Persian histories emanating from court circles, the royal rage itself was not. Why and how Dalpat Vilas ascribed an…
A Poetic Record of the Rajput Rebellion, c. 1680
Through comparison of three poetic texts describing the career of Rana Raj Singh of Mewar (r. 1652–1680), this paper demonstrates how representations of Aurangzeb could vary dramatically even when they were produced for the same Rajput court. Much of the paper focuses on Rāj-vilās, a vernacular-language work with a lengthy account of conflict between Aurangzeb and the Rajput lords of Marwar and Mewar. Rāj-vilās is also noteworthy for its negative…
The Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Chauhan and the Indian Past, 1200–2000
This fascinating new study traces traditions and memories relating to the twelfth-century Indian ruler Prithviraj Chauhan; a Hindu king who was defeated and overthrown during the conquest of Northern India by Muslim armies from Afghanistan. Surveying a wealth of narratives that span more than 800 years, Cynthia Talbot explores the reasons why he is remembered, and by whom. In modern times, the Chauhan king has been referred to as 'the last Hindu …
Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Chauhan and the Indian Past, 1200-2000
Romila Thapar. The Past before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India
Journal Article Romila Thapar. The Past before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India. Get access Romila Thapar. The Past before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013. Pp. xvii, 758. $55.00. Cynthia Talbot Cynthia Talbot University of Texas at Austin [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Vol…
Forms of Knowledge in Early Modern Asia
SHELDON POLLOCK (ed.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011. 376 pp. US$24.95, paper. Although Orientalism and colonial knowledge have been the subjects of intense scholarly inquiry for several
Justifying Defeat: A Rajput Perspective on the Age of Akbar
This article explores a darker side of cultural dialogue—the experience of subjugation to a cultural “other”—through a case study of Rao Surjan of Bundi, a Rajput warrior who was defeated by Mughal emperor Akbar in 1569. Surjan’s surrender of Ranthambhor fort was celebrated in Mughal chronicles such as the Akbarnama but condemned in Nainsi’s Khyat and other Rajput texts. Drawing primarily on Surjanacarita , a Sanskrit poem from about 1590, this a…
Becoming Turk the Rajput Way: Conversion and Identity in an Indian Warrior Narrative
The Kyamkhanis were a small Indian Muslim community who flourished in northern Rajasthan from c. 1450 to 1730. This article examines memories of the Kyamkhani past recorded in a seventeenth-century history of the ruling lineage, as a case study of both the process of Islamic expansionism in South Asia and the self-identity of rural Muslim gentry. While celebrating the ancestor who had converted to Islam generations earlier, the Kyamkhanis also re…
The Mertiyo Rathors of Merto, Rajasthan: Select Translations Bearing on the History of a Rajput Family, 1462–1660. Vols. 1–2. Translated By Richard D. Saran and Norman P. Ziegler. Ann Arbor: Centers f…
This book is a treasure for scholars of Rajput history. Richard D. Saran and Norman P. Ziegler, whose contributions to Rajput studies are well known to specialists in the field, have given us a work of deep and exacting scholarship. It is the culmination of decades devoted to the study of Middle Marwari chronicles from Rajasthan. The sources translated here provide access to the fortunes of a branch of the Jodhpur royal family, and in doing so th…
Conclusion: Toward a New Model of Medieval India
Author Webpage The inscribing on stone of records relating to religious endowments is one of the few cultural practices of precolonial India for which the surviving evidence is both copious and measurable. Due to the large number of tangible objects produced as a result, we can more easily witness the growing momentum and eventual waning of the impulse to make stone inscriptions than we can in the case of many other contemporary trends. Precisely…
Introduction: Medieval India: A History in Transition
Author Webpage From the scattered hints contained in the writings of the Greeks, the conclusion has been drawn, that the Hindus, at the time of Alexander's invasion, were in a state of manners, society, and knowledge, exactly the same with that in which they were discovered by the nations of modern Europe; nor is there any reason for differing widely from this opinion. It is certain that the few features of which we have any description from the …
The Kakatiyas in Telugu Historical Memory
After the fall of the Kakatiya capital, Warangal, to an army of the Delhi Sultanate in 1323, the Andhra region was not politically unified again until modern times. The local chiefs who flourished in subsequent centuries utilized the historical memory of the Kakatiya dynasty as a means of enhancing their own legitimacy. Although the historical traditions of the Kakatiyas were most persistent in Warangal, they were transmitted throughout South Ind…
The Kakatiya Political Network
The expansion of Kakatiya power from the core area of central Telangana throughout much of Andhra Pradesh is traced through the mapping of inscriptions acknowledging their overlordship. Analysis of Kakatiya political subordinates reveals an early preponderance of local chiefs and princes who were later superseded by a more humble class of warrior officers. The titles (biruda) and eulogies (prasasti) in Kakatiya‐ era inscriptions emphasize martial…
The Society of Kakatiya Andhra
Although the caste system is thought to have dominated the society of traditional India, people who commissioned inscriptions in Kakatiya Andhra (a.d.1175–1324 ) mentioned their clan or lineage affiliation far more often than their varna. Status titles based on occupation were widely used and could vary from generation to generation within a family, demonstrating that social identities were linked to individual achievement. There were many opport…
Andhra's Age of Inscriptions, 1000–1650
The distributions of all stone inscriptions from Andhra Pradesh dating from a.d. 1000–1650 are analyzed in order to uncover the historical processes underlying their production. The largest numbers of inscriptions were issued during the periods of greatest political unity, under the Kakatiya and Vijayanagara states of the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Inscriptional production followed the frontier of agrarian settlement as it moved outward …
Temples and Temple Patronage in Kakatiya Andhra
Stone inscriptions document religious gifts made to Hindu temples by a wide range of donors who sought not only religious benefit but also social prestige and political advancement. Temple patronage was a major stimulus to economic growth since it led to the extension of agriculture and the creation of irrigation facilities. The older temples of coastal Andhra such as Draksharama and Srisailam received the most endowments, mainly in the form of l…
Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra
The desire to have their charitable deeds documented in permanent form led thousands of Hindu temple donors in the Andhra Pradesh region of South India to get the details of their gifts inscribed on stone pillars, rock slabs, and temple walls. Using these records of what people actually did, Cynthia Talbot reconstructs the precolonial past as it existed in practice during the era when India's distinctive regional societies were taking shape. The …
Inscriptions of Gopakṣetra: Materials for the History of Central India
Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India
The nature of medieval Hindu-Muslim relations is an issue of great relevance in contemporary India. Prior to the 200 years of colonial subjection to the British that ended in 1947, large portions of the Indian subcontinent were under Muslim political control. An upsurge of Hindu nationalism over the past decade has led to demands that the state rectify past wrongs on behalf of India's majority religion.' In the nationalist view, Hindu beliefs wer…
Political intermediaries in Kakatiya Andhra, 1175-1325
A History of India
Vijayanagara
A revised view of ‘traditional’ India: Caste, status, and social mobility in medieval Andhra
South Asia: A Short History
Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India
The nature of medieval Hindu-Muslim relations is an issue of great relevance in contemporary India. Prior to the 200 years of colonial subjection to the British that ended in 1947, large portions of the Indian subcontinent were under Muslim political control. An upsurge of Hindu nationalism over the past decade has led to demands that the state rectify past wrongs on behalf of India's majority religion.' In the nationalist view, Hindu beliefs wer…
Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra
The desire to have their charitable deeds documented in permanent form led thousands of Hindu temple donors in the Andhra Pradesh region of South India to get the details of their gifts inscribed on stone pillars, rock slabs, and temple walls. Using these records of what people actually did, Cynthia Talbot reconstructs the precolonial past as it existed in practice during the era when India's distinctive regional societies were taking shape. The …
Becoming Turk the Rajput Way: Conversion and Identity in an Indian Warrior Narrative
The Kyamkhanis were a small Indian Muslim community who flourished in northern Rajasthan from c. 1450 to 1730. This article examines memories of the Kyamkhani past recorded in a seventeenth-century history of the ruling lineage, as a case study of both the process of Islamic expansionism in South Asia and the self-identity of rural Muslim gentry. While celebrating the ancestor who had converted to Islam generations earlier, the Kyamkhanis also re…
Political intermediaries in Kakatiya Andhra, 1175-1325
Temples, Donors, and Gifts: Patterns of Patronage in Thirteenth-Century South India
The common model of the Hindu temple of South India has stressed its significance as the main integrative factor binding the disparate elements of precolonial society into one social fabric. As a focal point for economic redistribution, the South Indian temple was the conduit through which exchange occurred: material goods were transformed into the symbols of prestige and influence known as temple honors (Appadurai and Breckenridge 1976). The leg…
Justifying Defeat: A Rajput Perspective on the Age of Akbar
This article explores a darker side of cultural dialogue—the experience of subjugation to a cultural “other”—through a case study of Rao Surjan of Bundi, a Rajput warrior who was defeated by Mughal emperor Akbar in 1569. Surjan’s surrender of Ranthambhor fort was celebrated in Mughal chronicles such as the Akbarnama but condemned in Nainsi’s Khyat and other Rajput texts. Drawing primarily on Surjanacarita , a Sanskrit poem from about 1590, this a…
A revised view of ‘traditional’ India: Caste, status, and social mobility in medieval Andhra
A Poetic Record of the Rajput Rebellion, c. 1680
Through comparison of three poetic texts describing the career of Rana Raj Singh of Mewar (r. 1652–1680), this paper demonstrates how representations of Aurangzeb could vary dramatically even when they were produced for the same Rajput court. Much of the paper focuses on Rāj-vilās, a vernacular-language work with a lengthy account of conflict between Aurangzeb and the Rajput lords of Marwar and Mewar. Rāj-vilās is also noteworthy for its negative…
The Mertiyo Rathors of Merto, Rajasthan: Select Translations Bearing on the History of a Rajput Family, 1462–1660. Vols. 1–2. Translated By Richard D. Saran and Norman P. Ziegler. Ann Arbor: Centers f…
This book is a treasure for scholars of Rajput history. Richard D. Saran and Norman P. Ziegler, whose contributions to Rajput studies are well known to specialists in the field, have given us a work of deep and exacting scholarship. It is the culmination of decades devoted to the study of Middle Marwari chronicles from Rajasthan. The sources translated here provide access to the fortunes of a branch of the Jodhpur royal family, and in doing so th…
Caught in a Conflict of Loyalties
In tribute to Allison Busch, who did so much to restore the reputation of vernacular literature not just as poetry but also as history, Talbot offers an account of an obscure Rajput warrior from Bikaner who decided it would be better to die. In asking why Ramsingh Kalyanmalot sought death in 1577, we must address the larger issue of the changes wrought on the Rajput world by the expanding power of the Mughal empire, one of the main questions that…
Anger and Atonement in Mughal India: An alternative account of Akbar's 1578 hunt
Anger as an emotion is seldom attributed to Akbar (r. 1556-1605), the most admired of the Mughal emperors. Yet, on one notable day in 1578, he allegedly got so enraged that he almost lost his mind, according to Dalpat Vilas, an obscure chronicle composed in the vernacular. While the aftermath of Akbar's anger was reported in several Persian histories emanating from court circles, the royal rage itself was not. Why and how Dalpat Vilas ascribed an…
South Asia: A Short History
Temples, Donors, and Gifts: Patterns of Patronage in Thirteenth-Century South India
The common model of the Hindu temple of South India has stressed its significance as the main integrative factor binding the disparate elements of precolonial society into one social fabric. As a focal point for economic redistribution, the South Indian temple was the conduit through which exchange occurred: material goods were transformed into the symbols of prestige and influence known as temple honors (Appadurai and Breckenridge 1976). The leg…
A revised view of ‘traditional’ India: Caste, status, and social mobility in medieval Andhra
Political intermediaries in Kakatiya Andhra, 1175-1325
A History of India
Vijayanagara
Inscribing the Other, Inscribing the Self: Hindu-Muslim Identities in Pre-Colonial India
The nature of medieval Hindu-Muslim relations is an issue of great relevance in contemporary India. Prior to the 200 years of colonial subjection to the British that ended in 1947, large portions of the Indian subcontinent were under Muslim political control. An upsurge of Hindu nationalism over the past decade has led to demands that the state rectify past wrongs on behalf of India's majority religion.' In the nationalist view, Hindu beliefs wer…
Inscriptions of Gopakṣetra: Materials for the History of Central India
Conclusion: Toward a New Model of Medieval India
Author Webpage The inscribing on stone of records relating to religious endowments is one of the few cultural practices of precolonial India for which the surviving evidence is both copious and measurable. Due to the large number of tangible objects produced as a result, we can more easily witness the growing momentum and eventual waning of the impulse to make stone inscriptions than we can in the case of many other contemporary trends. Precisely…
Introduction: Medieval India: A History in Transition
Author Webpage From the scattered hints contained in the writings of the Greeks, the conclusion has been drawn, that the Hindus, at the time of Alexander's invasion, were in a state of manners, society, and knowledge, exactly the same with that in which they were discovered by the nations of modern Europe; nor is there any reason for differing widely from this opinion. It is certain that the few features of which we have any description from the …
The Kakatiyas in Telugu Historical Memory
After the fall of the Kakatiya capital, Warangal, to an army of the Delhi Sultanate in 1323, the Andhra region was not politically unified again until modern times. The local chiefs who flourished in subsequent centuries utilized the historical memory of the Kakatiya dynasty as a means of enhancing their own legitimacy. Although the historical traditions of the Kakatiyas were most persistent in Warangal, they were transmitted throughout South Ind…
The Kakatiya Political Network
The expansion of Kakatiya power from the core area of central Telangana throughout much of Andhra Pradesh is traced through the mapping of inscriptions acknowledging their overlordship. Analysis of Kakatiya political subordinates reveals an early preponderance of local chiefs and princes who were later superseded by a more humble class of warrior officers. The titles (biruda) and eulogies (prasasti) in Kakatiya‐ era inscriptions emphasize martial…
The Society of Kakatiya Andhra
Although the caste system is thought to have dominated the society of traditional India, people who commissioned inscriptions in Kakatiya Andhra (a.d.1175–1324 ) mentioned their clan or lineage affiliation far more often than their varna. Status titles based on occupation were widely used and could vary from generation to generation within a family, demonstrating that social identities were linked to individual achievement. There were many opport…
Andhra's Age of Inscriptions, 1000–1650
The distributions of all stone inscriptions from Andhra Pradesh dating from a.d. 1000–1650 are analyzed in order to uncover the historical processes underlying their production. The largest numbers of inscriptions were issued during the periods of greatest political unity, under the Kakatiya and Vijayanagara states of the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Inscriptional production followed the frontier of agrarian settlement as it moved outward …
Temples and Temple Patronage in Kakatiya Andhra
Stone inscriptions document religious gifts made to Hindu temples by a wide range of donors who sought not only religious benefit but also social prestige and political advancement. Temple patronage was a major stimulus to economic growth since it led to the extension of agriculture and the creation of irrigation facilities. The older temples of coastal Andhra such as Draksharama and Srisailam received the most endowments, mainly in the form of l…
Precolonial India in Practice: Society, Region, and Identity in Medieval Andhra
The desire to have their charitable deeds documented in permanent form led thousands of Hindu temple donors in the Andhra Pradesh region of South India to get the details of their gifts inscribed on stone pillars, rock slabs, and temple walls. Using these records of what people actually did, Cynthia Talbot reconstructs the precolonial past as it existed in practice during the era when India's distinctive regional societies were taking shape. The …
The Mertiyo Rathors of Merto, Rajasthan: Select Translations Bearing on the History of a Rajput Family, 1462–1660. Vols. 1–2. Translated By Richard D. Saran and Norman P. Ziegler. Ann Arbor: Centers f…
This book is a treasure for scholars of Rajput history. Richard D. Saran and Norman P. Ziegler, whose contributions to Rajput studies are well known to specialists in the field, have given us a work of deep and exacting scholarship. It is the culmination of decades devoted to the study of Middle Marwari chronicles from Rajasthan. The sources translated here provide access to the fortunes of a branch of the Jodhpur royal family, and in doing so th…
Becoming Turk the Rajput Way: Conversion and Identity in an Indian Warrior Narrative
The Kyamkhanis were a small Indian Muslim community who flourished in northern Rajasthan from c. 1450 to 1730. This article examines memories of the Kyamkhani past recorded in a seventeenth-century history of the ruling lineage, as a case study of both the process of Islamic expansionism in South Asia and the self-identity of rural Muslim gentry. While celebrating the ancestor who had converted to Islam generations earlier, the Kyamkhanis also re…
Justifying Defeat: A Rajput Perspective on the Age of Akbar
This article explores a darker side of cultural dialogue—the experience of subjugation to a cultural “other”—through a case study of Rao Surjan of Bundi, a Rajput warrior who was defeated by Mughal emperor Akbar in 1569. Surjan’s surrender of Ranthambhor fort was celebrated in Mughal chronicles such as the Akbarnama but condemned in Nainsi’s Khyat and other Rajput texts. Drawing primarily on Surjanacarita , a Sanskrit poem from about 1590, this a…
Forms of Knowledge in Early Modern Asia
SHELDON POLLOCK (ed.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011. 376 pp. US$24.95, paper. Although Orientalism and colonial knowledge have been the subjects of intense scholarly inquiry for several
Romila Thapar. The Past before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India
Journal Article Romila Thapar. The Past before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India. Get access Romila Thapar. The Past before Us: Historical Traditions of Early North India. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013. Pp. xvii, 758. $55.00. Cynthia Talbot Cynthia Talbot University of Texas at Austin [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Vol…
The Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Chauhan and the Indian Past, 1200–2000
This fascinating new study traces traditions and memories relating to the twelfth-century Indian ruler Prithviraj Chauhan; a Hindu king who was defeated and overthrown during the conquest of Northern India by Muslim armies from Afghanistan. Surveying a wealth of narratives that span more than 800 years, Cynthia Talbot explores the reasons why he is remembered, and by whom. In modern times, the Chauhan king has been referred to as 'the last Hindu …
Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Chauhan and the Indian Past, 1200-2000
A Poetic Record of the Rajput Rebellion, c. 1680
Through comparison of three poetic texts describing the career of Rana Raj Singh of Mewar (r. 1652–1680), this paper demonstrates how representations of Aurangzeb could vary dramatically even when they were produced for the same Rajput court. Much of the paper focuses on Rāj-vilās, a vernacular-language work with a lengthy account of conflict between Aurangzeb and the Rajput lords of Marwar and Mewar. Rāj-vilās is also noteworthy for its negative…
Anger and Atonement in Mughal India: An alternative account of Akbar's 1578 hunt
Anger as an emotion is seldom attributed to Akbar (r. 1556-1605), the most admired of the Mughal emperors. Yet, on one notable day in 1578, he allegedly got so enraged that he almost lost his mind, according to Dalpat Vilas, an obscure chronicle composed in the vernacular. While the aftermath of Akbar's anger was reported in several Persian histories emanating from court circles, the royal rage itself was not. Why and how Dalpat Vilas ascribed an…
History (22 works) · Ancient history (20 works) · Political science (14 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (13 works) · Indian and Buddhist Studies (12 works) · South Asian Studies and Conflicts (12 works) · History (11 works) · Law (11 works) · Geography (10 works) · Politics (10 works)