Synopses & Reviews
Norbert Peabody analyzes changes to the foundations of royal power in the Rajasthani kingdom of Kota during the late precolonial and early colonial eras. Peabody charts these changes in relation to broader socio-economic transformations within the larger royal polity. He concludes that different societies not only establish different co-ordinates of value in their constructions of the past, but also that the very processes of social and political transformation differ from society to society.
Review
"A finely tuned study...[it] will be of great importance to all scholars of South Asia." Religious Studies Review
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 174-185) and index.
Synopsis
In a fascinating book, Norbert Peabody analyses histories written in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to understand the shifts in royal power which took place in Rajasthan. He concludes that different societies establish different co-ordinates to interpret their past, and that these co-ordinates will determine social and political outcomes.
Synopsis
A fascinating study of the precolonial kingdom of Kota through its historical documents.
About the Author
Norbert Peabody is a Graduate Officer in Research at the Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge
Table of Contents
1. Introduction: the logic of the fish; 2. The King is dead, long live the King!: Karmic Kin(g)ship in Kota; 3. In whose turban does the Lord reside?: Kings, Saints, and merchants in western India; 4. Military fiscalism and the cultural economy of devotion in eighteenth-century Rajasthan; 5. From 'Royal Service' to 'maternal devotion' during the Jhala Regency: Local politics at the end of the Old Regime; 6. An incidental history of a supplementary article: Hindu Kin(g)ship and early Colonial rule; 7 Beyond orientalism