Scribal elites in Sultanate and Mughal Bengal

This article studies the importance of scribal skills in sustaining political regimes and the function of scribal careers in shaping and creating social and ritual status with particular reference to Bengal from the thirteenth till the eighteenth centuries. Based on histories of landed families, mid...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Indian economic and social history review 2010-10, Vol.47 (4), p.445-472
Main Author: Chatterjee, Kumkum
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bengal
Careers
Colonialism
Eighteenth Century
Elites
Family
Genealogy
Geography
Human geography
India
Linguistics
Literature
Political regimes
Ritual
Rituals
Scribal communities
Social status
West Bengal
Writers
Writing
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Summary:This article studies the importance of scribal skills in sustaining political regimes and the function of scribal careers in shaping and creating social and ritual status with particular reference to Bengal from the thirteenth till the eighteenth centuries. Based on histories of landed families, middle period Bengali literature and the large genealogical corpus (kulagranthas) of this region, the article surveys the social geography of literate–scribal communities and their long association with a number of Indo–Islamic regimes which ruled over Bengal during these centuries. The article explores the social and cultural implications of scribal careers as well as the educational and linguistic proficiencies which undergirded them. Finally, the article notes the role played by polities in regulating jati hierarchies and boundaries and comments on its implications for the period studied here as also for the colonial/modern period.
ISSN:0019-4646
0973-0893
DOI:10.1177/001946461004700402