The Lotus & The Lion: Essays On India’s Sanskritic And Persianate Worlds

The Lotus and the Lion dwell on Indian history between the eleventh and the eighteenth centuries, when India was the site of the encounter between two great pan-Asian literary traditions, the Sanskrit and the Persian—metaphorically, the lotus and the lion—and the socio-cultural and moral worlds they created and sustained.The first section examines how these traditions influenced regional cultures. The second section features five essays about Islam in precolonial India, covering Islamic traditions and the spread of Islam in Punjab and Bengal. The third section includes two essays on the Mughal Empire, discussing different types of borders in Mughal history and assessing emperors Akbar and ‘Alamgir. The fourth section presents four essays on the Deccan region, addressing the Tughluq invasion and the early use of gunpowder and written languages. The book concludes with five essays on historical study methods, each illustrating a way to understand India’s past. richarD m. eaton is Professor of History at the University of