Author Description

Multilinguality Gained A New Impetus In North India With The Influx Of West Asian Muslim Communities Around The Thirteenth Century. Over A Period Of Time, It Entered Everyday Life As Well As Creative And Scholarly Pursuits. The Fifteenth Century, In Particular, Saw Unprecedented Vitality For Literary Practice, And The Poet-scholar Vidyapati From Mithila Was One Of The Many Luminaries Of The Time. This Volume Encompasses An Intimate Linguistic, Literary, And Historical Study Of Three Of Vidyapati’s Major Works: A Sanskrit Treatise On Writing (likhanāvalī); A Celebratory Biography In Apabhraṃśa (kīrttilatā); And A Collection Of Mythohistorical Tales In Sanskrit (puruṣaparīkṣā ). Through This Examination, The Author Reveals A World That Is Marked By A Range Of Ideas, Expertise, Literary Tropes, Ethical Regimes, And Historical Consciousness, Drawn Eclectically From Sources That Belong To ‘diverse’ Politico-cultural Traditions. Using Vidyapati’s Narratives, A Political History Of Literature Illustrates That Many Ideals Extolled In Fifteenth Century Literary Cultures Were Associated With An Imperial State—a State That Was A Century Away From Coming Into Being—and Testifies That Ideas Incubate And Get Actualized In Realpolitik Only In The Long Duration.