Redefining History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Islamic Invasions and Rule, 1200-1720

FAIN: FEL-257288-18

Audrey Truschke
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Newark (Newark, NJ 07104-3010)

Research and writing leading to publication of a book on the Muslim-led invasions and subsequent Muslim rule of India, c.1200-1720, based on sources in Sanskrit.

My project analyzes Sanskrit texts on Muslim-led invasions and rule in India dating from the twelfth through the eighteenth centuries CE. Islamic migrations to India and the associated cultural and political changes constitute one of the single biggest shifts of the last one thousand years in South Asian history. And yet scholars have long neglected a major archive for understanding this series of historical ruptures: Sanskrit texts authored by premodern India’s Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain elites. My main thesis is that Sanskrit writers wrote extensively about Indo-Islamic political events circa 1200–1720 CE and expressed a wide variety of views of the Islamic Other and themselves in contrast. By capturing the specific ideas, languages, and identities at play in premodern Sanskrit texts, I expand our historical and conceptual resources for understanding South Asian history and the impact of Muslim peoples on non-Muslim societies.

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