LOVE IN SOUTH ASIA

Love may be a universal feeling, but culture and language play a crucial role in defining it. Idioms of love have a long history, and within every society there is always more than one discourse, be it prescriptive, religious, or gender-specific, available at any given time. This book explores the idioms of love that have developed in South Asia, those words, conceptual clusters, images and stories which have interlocked and grown into repertoires. Including essays by literary scholars, historians, anthropologists, film historians and political theorists, the collection unravels the interconnecting strands in the history of the concept (shringara, ‘ishq, prem and ‘love’) and maps their significance in literary, oral and visual traditions. Each essay examines a particular configuration and meaning of love on the basis of genre, tellers and audiences, and the substantial introduction sets out the main repertoires, presenting the student of South Asia with an important cultural history.

FRANCESCA ORSINI is Lecturer in Hindi at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of The Hindi Public Sphere: 1920–1940. Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism (2002).

University of Cambridge Oriental Publications 62

Love in South Asia

A series list is shown at the back of the book

Love in South Asia A Cultural History

Edited by

FRANCESCA ORSINI

University of Cambridge

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title:www.cambridge.org/9780521856782

©Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Cambridge, 2006

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2006

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data

Love in south Asia: a cultural history / edited by Francesca Orsini.
p. cm.   (University of Cambridge oriental publications, 62)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-521-85678-2 (hardback)
ISBN-10: 0-521-85678-7 (hardback)
1. Love – South Asia. 2. South Asia – Civilization. 3. Love in literature. I. Orsini, Francesca.
II. Title. III. Series: University of Cambridge oriental publications, no. 62.
DS339.L68 2006
954–dc22 2005022416

ISBN-13 978-0-521-85678-2-hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-85678-7-hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Ad Anna, la mia amica più cara

In memoriam (1964–2004)

CONTENTS

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

MUZAFFAR ALAM is Professor of South Asian History in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago. His most recent book is The Languages of Political Islam: India 1200–1800 (2004).

DAUD ALI is Lecturer in Ancient and Medieval Indian History in the Department of History at SOAS, University of London. He is the author of Courtly Culture and Political Life in Early Medieval India (2004) and, with Ron Inden and Jonathan Walters, of Querying the Medieval: Texts and the History of Practices in South Asia (2000).

KATHERINE BUTLER BROWN is Junior Research Fellow in Ethnomusicology at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. She has a Ph.D. on ‘Hindustani music in the time of Aurangzeb’ from SOAS, University of London (2003).

VASUDHA DALMIA is Professor of South and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions: Bharatendu Hariśchandra and Nineteenth-Century Banaras (1997) and, most recently, of India's Literary History: Essays on the Nineteenth Century (2004) with Stuart Blackburn.

JEEVAN S. DEOL is Lecturer in Urdu in the Department of the Languages and Cultures of South Asia at SOAS, University of London. He is the author of numerous articles on Punjabi literature and Sikh history.

RACHEL DWYER is Reader in Indian Studies and Cinema in the Department of the Languages and Cultures of South Asia at SOAS, University of London. Her most recent books are Yash Chopra (2002) and Cinema India. The Visual Culture of Hindi Film (2002), with Divia Patel.

ANN GRODZINS GOLD is Professor of Religion and Anthropology at Syracuse University. Her most recent book is In the Time of Trees and Sorrows: Nature, Power, and Memory in Rajasthan (2002), with Bhoju Ram Gujar.

ANURADHA KAPUR is Professor of Acting and Direction at the National School of Drama, New Delhi. She is the author of Actors, Pilgrims & Gods: The Ramlila at Ramnagar (1990) and of several articles on the Parsi theatre.

SUDIPTA KAVIRAJ is Reader in Politics in the Department of Economics and Politics at SOAS, University of London. His most recent book is Civil Society: History and Possibilities (2001), with Sunil Khilnani.

PERVEEZ MODY is Junior Research Fellow at King's College, Cambridge. She has a Ph.D. on ‘Love-Marriage in Delhi’ from the Faculty of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

FRANCESCA ORSINI is Lecturer in Hindi in the Faculty of Oriental Studies in Cambridge. She is the author of The Hindi Public Sphere. Language and Literature in the Age of Nationalism (2002).

KUMKUM SANGARI is Vilas Professor at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She is the author of Politics of the Possible: Essays on Gender, History, Narrative and Colonial English (2002).

CHRISTOPHER SHACKLE is Professor of Modern Languages of South Asia at SOAS, University of London. He is the author of many books and articles on Punjabi literature and the Sikh religion, most recently a co-edited volume, Sikh Religion, Culture and Ethnicity (2001), with Guharpal Singh and Arvind Mandair.

SANJAY SUBRAHMANYAM is Navin and Pratima Doshi Chair in Indian History at the University of California, Los Angeles and the author of many books on Indian history. The latest is Land, Politics and Trade in South Asia: 18th to 20th Centuries (2004).