Plunging the Ocean: Courts, Castes, and Courtesans in the Kathasaritsagara - Hardcover

Malhan, Tara Sheemar

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 9384082864 ISBN 13: 9789384082864

Publisher: Primus Books, 2017

Synopsis

Plunging the Ocean engages with the voluminous content of the Kathāsaritsāgara, a text meant for courtly entertainment, locating the various points of its retelling. The volume weaves gender as the discursive mesh with various themes such as caste, class, occupations, control and flow of resources or wealth, religious practices, sexuality and power structures to highlight the discourse of the text itself. In their creation and negotiation with the past, the narratives are seen as crucially demonstrating the importance of ‘social space’; in the organization of space itself and in the reflection of social relations of production and reproduction. The conclusion highlights the contradictions inherent in the characters and plots, in the folk antecedents and monarchical elite appropriation of the kathās, in conformity and subversion. The structures of power that create systems of knowledge are essentially projected as ominously omnipresent in the ‘Ocean of Stories’.

About this title

About the Author:

Tara Sheemar Malhan teaches history at Janki Devi Memorial College, University of Delhi. She has contributed papers to the Indian History Congress, and received an award from it for her presentation on ‘Merchants Tales: Wealth, Monarchy and Gender’. Her research interests include examining the intersections of caste, gender and power structures.

About this edition

• Publisher: Primus Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 9384082864
• ISBN 13: 9789384082864
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 344