Letters Home: Banaras pandits and the Maratha regions in early modern India

Maratha Brahman families migrated to Banaras in increasing numbers from the early sixteenth century. They dominated the intellectual life of the city and established an important presence at the Mughal and other north Indian courts. They retained close links with Brahmans back in the Maratha regions...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Modern Asian studies 2010-03, Vol.44 (2), p.201-240
Main Author: O'HANLON, ROSALIND
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
16th century
17th century
Ancient languages
Asian history
Brahmins
Cities
Communities
Correspondence
Courts
Disputes
Family names
FORUM: Knowledges in circulation in early modern India
Geographic regions
Gurus
Identity
India
Intellectuals
Knowledge
Letters
Mathematics
Migration
Modern history
Mughal Empire
Regions
Religious rituals
Rural Areas
Rural-urban migration
Sanskrit
Social Change
Social history
Social order
Sons
Urban life
Villages
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Summary:Maratha Brahman families migrated to Banaras in increasing numbers from the early sixteenth century. They dominated the intellectual life of the city and established an important presence at the Mughal and other north Indian courts. They retained close links with Brahmans back in the Maratha regions, where pressures of social change and competition for rural resources led to acrimonious disputes concerning ritual entitlement and precedence in the rural social order. Parties on either side appealed to Banaras for resolution of the disputes, raising serious questions about the nature of Brahman community and identity. Banaras pandit communities struggled to contain these disputes, even as the symbols of their own authority came under attack from the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. By the early eighteenth century, the emergence of the Maratha state created new models of Brahman authority and community, and new patterns for the resolution of such disputes.
ISSN:0026-749X
1469-8099
DOI:10.1017/S0026749X09990229