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The Chandayan: Identity in a Sufi Vernacular Masnavi in Medieval Sultanate India

Presenter(s)

Richard Cohen

Date

November 11, 2024
One of the greats of Hindi literature, The Chandayan is an epic, presented here in English translation along with all 528 known paintings used to illustrate it in the sultanate period. My translation and linguistic analysis is accompanied by essays by Naman Ahuja, Qamar Adamjee and Vivek Gupta, on art, language, literary traditions and religion, highlighting India’s composite culture.
This talk emphasizes the vernacular identity of the text. There is no Persian vocabulary in The Chandayan, which itself is an interesting fact, though the text is construed as a masnavi. I combine textual and art historical comments in my presentation.

Richard Cohen holds a PhD from the University of Pennsylvania’s Oriental Studies Department. His academic research focus is on the successor languages to Sanskrit, such as Prakrit, Apabhramsha and Hindavi (Old Hindi). He is also interested in the rise of the literary vernaculars such as Awadhi (eastern Old Hindi). This includes an interdisciplinary approach involving historical linguistics, the rhetoric deployed in medieval Indian compositions and the linking of painterly practices with texts. Cohen’s teaching at the University of Virginia includes courses on pre-modern Indian literature, Indian Ocean trade during the pre-modern era and India in global perspective since independence in 1947.