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International Journal of Hindu Studies

, Volume 22, Issue 1, pp 71–103 | Cite as

Black Curls in a Mirror: The Eighteenth-Century Persian Kṛṣṇa of Lāla Amānat Rāy’s Jilwa-yi ẕāt and the Tongue of Bīdil

  • Stefano Pellò
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Abstract

This paper is the first substantial study of the Jilwa-yi ẕāt, an unabridged Persian verse translation of the tenth skandha of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa, completed in Delhi in 1732–33 by Amānat Rāy, a Vaiṣṇava pupil of the influential poet-philosopher Mīrzā ‘Abd al-Qādir Bīdil. The paper focuses especially on the textualization of Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇaite devotion within the framework of Persian literary conventions and the dominant Ṣūfī-Vedāntic conceptual atmosphere, with a special attention for the intertextual ties with the works of Bīdil. A few philological remarks on the contours of a hitherto largely ignored Kṛṣṇaite subjectivity in Persian are also included.

Keywords

Amānat Rāy Bīdil Kṛṣṇa Bhāgavata Purāṇa Persian translation 
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Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Ca’Foscari University of VeniceVeniceItaly

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