Cosmopolitan Soirées in Eighteenth-Century North India: Reception of Early Urdu Poetry in Kishangarh

This paper looks at poetic dialogues and exchange of ideas in eighteenth-century North India. The focus is on the reception of the new Urdu poetry (then called Rekhta) in the lesser-known Rajasthani principality, Kishangarh. This small kingdom near Jaipur is known in the art world for its gorgeous paintings, especially the delicate depictions of the love of Radha and Krishna that have made the Kishangarhi school famous and give it an air of timelessness. Sometimes the school is also considered ‘provincial’. Yet, there is more to this small principality than is commonly known. This paper shows how it was in fact quite cosmopolitan, very much in the midst of new intellectual and artistic developments at the Mughal court in the first half of the eighteenth century under Maharaja Raj Singh (r. 1706-1748). The paper’s point of departure consists of two Kishangarhi paintings that were produced during Raj Singh’s reign. Both pictures portray mixed Hindu-Muslim gatherings. They show how there was more to the culture of Kishangarh than the world of Braj Bha?a poetry about Radha and Krishna. These are read in conjunction with literary material that illustrates that in Kishangarh there were also experiments with the then-new style of poetry, later called Urdu. The paper presents evidence of poetic dialogues between what are now regarded as separate poetic traditions, Urdu and Braj. The paper is based on recent manuscript research in India of Kishangarhi poems and collections. Methodologically it seeks to establish what can be gained in understanding by reading paintings together with contemporary literary sources.