Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Foul Language

This may be utterly juvenile, especially for those who contemplate the rhetoric of language and the politics of discourse, but whilst reading a Mughal historical source I came across this awesome sentence:
حضرت  بزبان هندستانی فرمودند که ای گاندو، چرا اتکهٔ مارا کشتی؟
Silly I know, but I did not expect it to pop up. I guess whats good for the bazaars is good for the emperors.

Okay, enough lollygagging, back to writing a paper that has been due for quite a while, after which I have four papers to write on; (i) a late Mughal prosopography (ii) late Timurid court culture (iii) something on the Ottomans (most likely eunuchs at the court), and finally (iv) Zoroastrians in Mughal India.

9 comments:

  1. It's from Bayazid Bayat's Tarikh-i Humayun/Tazkhirat-i Humayun wa Akbar/Mukhtasar. There is a Thackston edition and a M. Hidayat Hosayn edition. In Thackston's its at the start of fol. 105b.

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  2. Now that I know that the source is legitimate, I can safely have a belly laugh.

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  3. What is the date of composition?

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  4. Its funny right? It was composed in 999/1590-1.

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  5. On a completely unrelated note, this query popped up on the H-ASIA listserve: 'I remember a conversation with Phil Barker many decades ago about a board game he created, Mughal Monopoly. "Go to jail" became "Go on hajj," for example. Does anyone actually have that game?'

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  6. It just so happened I subscribed to H-ASIA listserve maybe two or three days ago (since I realized I wasn't on any listserve that covered South Asia) and I saw that. Wouldn't it be utterly wonderful if there was such a game. I have half a mind to ditch working on Khwandmir for tomorrow and try and re-create such a game.

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  7. Simon Digby published an essay in the journal South Asian Studies on a "Mughal" board game called ganj; I wonder if that was the inspiration?

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  8. Oh Simon Digby! Thanks for the reference Notes. I just started reading the article. I think it's fair to say I know what I shall be doing this weekend.

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