• Walter POHL – Andre GINGRICH (Eds.) - Annamaria Pazienza - Irene Bavuso - Clemens Gantner - Cinzia Grifoni (Guest Eds.)

medieval worlds • no. 20 • 2024

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"medieval worlds" provides a forum for comparative, interdisciplinary and transcultural studies of the Middle Ages. Its aim is to overcome disciplinary boundaries, regional limits and national research traditions in Medieval Studies, to open up new spaces for discussion, and to help developing global perspectives. We focus on the period from c. 400 to 1500 CE but do not stick to rigid periodization.
medieval worlds is open to submissions of broadly comparative studies and matters of global interest, whether in single articles, companion papers, smaller clusters, or special issues on a subject of global/comparative history. We particularly invite studies of wide-ranging connectivity or comparison between different world regions.

Apart from research articles, medieval worlds publishes ongoing debates and project and conference reports on comparative medieval research.


In this volume S. Liccardo and S. Wabnitz provide an in-depth study of Western and Chinese sources on marriage strategies, especially levirate in the early Middle Ages, drawing on anthropological insights and providing historical context for the latest results of archaeogenetic research.

Our thematic section Moving Jobs: Occupational Identity and Motility in the Middle Ages was collected by guest editors Annamaria Pazienza and Irene Bavuso and focuses on the mobility of people in connection with their work. It offers case studies on the Southern Tarim Basin (T. Høisæter), central Greece (G. Wu), Italy (A. Pazienza) and southern Germany (W. North). A second instalment of this section will follow in December 2025.

In our second thematic section Cultural Brokers in European and Asian Contexts. Investigating a Concept guest editors Clemens Gantner and Cinzia Grifoni present contributions which explore this possible approach to agents of knowledge transfer in the context of their disciplines: K. Schaeffer in Tibetan Buddhist history, Ch. Pecchia in Colonial South Asia, C. Grifoni in early medieval Francia and C. Gantner in early medieval Italy/Byzantium. Introductions to both clusters provide methodological context and comparative insights.

Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
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Tel. +43-1-515 81/DW 3420, Fax +43-1-515 81/DW 3400
https://verlag.oeaw.ac.at, e-mail: verlag@oeaw.ac.at

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medieval worlds • no. 20 • 2024

ISSN 2412-3196
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ISBN 978-3-7001-9704-1
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Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
Austrian Academy of Sciences Press
A-1011 Wien, Dr. Ignaz Seipel-Platz 2,
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Scholarly Personae in Colonial South Asia: Cultural Brokers and their Antagonists

    Cristina Pecchia

medieval worlds • no. 20 • 2024, pp. 126-145, 2024/06/27

doi: 10.1553/medievalworlds_no20_2024s126

doi: 10.1553/medievalworlds_no20_2024s126


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doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no20_2024s126



doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no20_2024s126

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the pandit as a scholarly persona of the Sanskritic culture in colonial South Asia. It looks at how the interaction between pandits and Orientalists brought about and characterized the new persona of the »orientalist pandit« in late 18thcentury to 19th-century Calcutta. Furthermore, it shows how the idea of cultural broker as described in the field of social anthropology can be usefully applied to the »orientalist pandit «, as it encourages us to investigate social aspects and authority-related issues in processes of mediation of knowledge between pandits and British scholars. The community of specialists of the Sanskritic culture reacted in various ways to the knowledge brokerage of some pandits. The philological and intellectual activity of Gangadhar Ray Kaviraj, a specialist of the Ayurvedic tradition, showcases an antagonistic reaction to such brokers in the first half of the 19th century, when pandits had already been marginalized but contributed in different functions to the production of knowledge about »the Orient« in colonial South Asia.

Keywords: scholarly persona, cultural broker, pandit, Orientalists, Sanskritic culture, colonial South Asia, Ayurveda, Madhusudan Gupta, Gangadhar Kaviraj