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" Ordering subjects: Merchants, the state, and Krishna devotion in eighteenth-century Marwar "
Divya Cherian
Dirks, Nicholas B.
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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803606
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| Doc. No
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TL48402
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| Call number
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1721464444; 3722720
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| Main Entry
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McCaffrey, Charles A.
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| Title & Author
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Ordering subjects: Merchants, the state, and Krishna devotion in eighteenth-century Marwar\ Divya CherianDirks, Nicholas B.
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| College
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Columbia University
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| Date
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2015
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| field of study
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History
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2015
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| Page No
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366
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| Note
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Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-1-339-05015-7
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| Abstract
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“Ordering Subjects” argues that the merchants of Marwar led efforts to demarcate a new, exclusive community of elites, one that they conceptualized of as self-consciously ‘Hindu’ and forged through the application of state power. This early modern Hindu community defined itself in opposition not to the figure of the Muslim but to that of the ‘Untouchable,’ a category that included but was not limited to the Muslim. The early modern Hindu identity was thus deeply imagined in caste terms. This elite community organized around Krishna devotion, especially the Vallabh Sampraday, and demarcated itself through cultural markers such as the practice of vegetarianism, teetotalism, and austerity. Merchants, often joined by <i>brahmans</i>, waged their battles for the demarcation of this new community by petitioning the crown and by successfully deploying the control that they had gained in prior centuries over the state apparatus as bureaucrats. State power, consisting of its judicial, fiscal, recordkeeping, and surveillance mechanisms, played a central role in the implementation of laws and regulations, including spatial, economic, social, and ritual segregation, enforced vegetarianism, and the moral policing of elite subjects’ lives. Most of these petitions and state responses were legitimized with reference to ethics, marking a departure from the until-then prevalent emphasis on custom as the basis for legislating society. “Ordering Subjects” suggests that this marked a shift towards a more universal law and that the turn to ethical principles made possible the disregard for the force of custom that these departures marked. Further, the dissertation demonstrates that these processes enabled the ascendance of a mercantile ethos as the preeminent cultural code of the region, displacing that of the warrior and modifying that of the <i>brahman</i>. Lastly, it shows the extent to which the state in eighteenth century Marwar had penetrated society and was capable of intervening in it using surveillance and judicial methods.
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| Subject
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Religious history; History; South Asian Studies
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| Descriptor
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Philosophy, religion and theology;Social sciences;Caste;Eighteenth century;Hindus;India;Krishna;Vaishnav
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| Added Entry
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Dirks, Nicholas B.
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HistoryColumbia University
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