The Cosmopolitan Vernacular

The Cosmopolitan Vernacular
Author(s): Sheldon Pollock

Source: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp. 6-37
Published by: Association for Asian Studies
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The CosmopolitanVernacular
SHELDON
POLLOCK
THROUGHOUT
SOUTHERN ASIA AT DIFFERENT TIMES startingaround1000,butin
mostplacesby 1500, writersturnedto theuse oflocal languagesforliterary
expression
in preference
to thetranslocallanguagethathad dominatedliterary
expressionforthe
at thelevelofculturethesingle
previousthousandyears.This developmentconstitutes
mostsignificant
transformation
in theregionbetweenthecreationofonecosmopolitan
orderat the beginningof the firstmillenniumand anotherand fardifferent
onethroughcolonialismand globalization-at the end of the second.
The vernacularization
of southernAsia is not onlythe most importantcultural
changein the late medievalworld-or perhapswe should say, in the earlymodern
worldthatit helps to inaugurate-but also the least studied.We have no coherent
accountof the matterforany region,let alone a connectedhistoryforsouthernAsia
or forthe largerEurasiaworldwherea developmentverysimilarin culturalform(if
not in social or politicalcontent)appearsto have occurred.We have no well-argued
theoreticalunderstandingof many of the basic problemsat issue. And, what is
in
especiallydisabling,we lack any reliableaccountof the politicaltransformations
southernAsia to whichtheseculturalchangesare undoubtedlyif obscurelyrelated,
or a theoryofpowerand culturebeforemodernity
thatwould allow us to makesense
of thisrelation.
What I aim to do in the space availablehereis tryto sketchout, first,a fewof
the larger conceptual issues that impinge on an analysis of cosmopolitanand
vernacularin literaryculture,and the narrowerquestions that pertain to their
historicization.The very idea of vernacularization
depends upon understanding
somethingof theworldagainstwhichit definesitself,and thisI providewitha brief
and ideationalcharacter
accountofthehistoricalformation
ofwhatI call theSanskrit
I look at theriseand spreadofSanskritinscriptions,
which
cosmopolis.Fortheformer
serveas a synecdochefora rangeof literary-cultural
(and political-cultural)
practices;
forthe latter,I consideras paradigmaticthe space of culturalcirculationas this
structures
to an
the literaryand literary-critical
imagination.All this is preparatory
analysisof one case of the formationof vernacularliteraryculture,that of early
and IndicStudiesat
SheldonPollockis theGeorgeV. Bobrinskoy
Professor
ofSanskrit
theUniversity
ofChicago.
I wishto thankT. V. Venkatachala
Sastry
(Mysore),
myguidein Old Kannada.Benedict
criticism
whenan earlier
Anderson
(Ithaca)offered
helpful
version
ofthepaperwaspresented
at the1995 meeting
oftheAssociation
forAsianStudies.Thanksalsoto Chicagocolleagues
CarolBreckenridge,
andStevenCollinsfortheirsugDipeshChakrabarty,
ArjunAppadurai,
in
and Homi Bhabha,to whoseongoingworkon the "vernacular
gestions,
cosmopolitan"
thepresent
ofa precolonial
postcolonialism
papermaybe viewedas something
complement.
TheJournal
ofAsianStudies
57, no. 1 (February
1998):6-37.
? 1998 bytheAssociation
forAsianStudies,Inc.
6

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
Kannada. Here the localizationof the globalizing literary-cultural

practicesand
representationsof Sanskrit constitutes a model instance of cosmopolitan
At thesametimeI hopeto show,throughone narrowbutsymptomatic
vernacularism.
example (the historyof the literary-critical
discourseon the "Way" of literature,
mdrga),not onlyhow thevernacularreconfigures
the cosmopolitan,but how the two
produceeach otherin thecourseoftheirinteraction.
I end witha briefaccountofthe
failureof existing historicalexplanations(such as they are) to account for the
vernacularturn,and flagsomeofthe challengesforfutureinquiry,mostcruciallythe
relationshipof literarycultureto political culturein the non-Westand the very
problematicofpremodernglobalization.
HypothesizingVernacularization
The possibilityof conceptualizingand historicizing
the cosmopolitan/vernacular
transformation
requiresa workinghypothesiswith a numberof componentsthat,
althoughtheymay appearto attemptto settlethroughdefinitionwhat can onlybe
determinedempirically,
can all be demonstrated
These concerncultural
historically.
choice,therelativity
of"vernacular,"
theliterary,
thehistoricalsignificance
ofwriting,
the meaningof beginnings,and the sociotextualcommunity.I addressthesebriefly
in order.
Cultural Choice
A language-for-literature
is chosenfromamongalternatives,
notnaturallygiven.
Human linguisticdiversitymay be a fatality,in BenedictAnderson'smelancholy
but thereis nothingfated,unselfconscious,
or haphazardabout literaryformulation,
languagediversity;it is willed. Vernacularliterarylanguagesthusdo not "emerge"
like buds or butterflies,
theyare made. Not manyscholarsacknowledgethis factor
do muchwithit. One ofthefewwas Bakhtin,who saw moreclearlythananyonethat
"the activelyliterarylinguisticconsciousnessat all timesand everywhere
(thatis, in
all epochsof literaturehistorically
available to us) comes upon 'languages'and not
language.Consciousnessfindsitselfinevitablyfacingthe necessityof havingtochoose
a language"(1981, 295). Yet so faras I can see whatneitherBakhtinnoranyoneelse
has spelledout in detailedhistoricaltermsforspecificlanguagesin theeveryday
sense
(by "language"Bakhtinusuallymeantsocioideologicalregisters)is what is at stake
in this choice,what else in the social and political world is being chosenwhen a
language-for-literature
is chosen.Forit is one thingto recognizethatliterary-language
diversityis willed, and anotherthing altogetherto specifythe historicalreasons
thiswill.
informing
"Vernacular"/"'Cosmopolitan"
To definevernacularoveragainstcosmopolitanappearsto submergea numberof
relativities.
Althoughnot all cosmopolitanlanguagesmayinitiallybe vernacularshere the historyof Sanskritwhen Sanskritliterature(kdvya)is inventedat the
beginningof the commonera differssharplyfromthat of, say, Latin in the third
B.C. whenLatinliterature
is abruptlyinvented-manyvernaculars
themselves
century
do becomecosmopolitanfortheirregionalworlds.This is trueforBraj, whichwas
rendered rootlessly cosmopolitan by the elimination-conscious elimination,
accordingto some scholars-of local dialectaldifference
in the fifteenth
to sixteenth

SHELDON
POLLOCK
centuries.'Kannada,too,thoughoftenthoughtofas a regionalliterary
code,has long
been transregional
forwritersin yetsmallerzonessuchas Tulu Nadu or theKonkan.
But theserelativities
look less worrisomefromwithinthesubjectiveuniversesofthe
agents involved. Vernacularintellectualsdefine a literaryculture in conscious
oppositionto somethinglarger;theychoose to writein a language that does not
travel-and thattheyknowdoes not travel-as easilyas the well-traveled
language
of the cosmopolitanorder.The new geoculturalspace theyimagine,whichI discuss
in whatfollows,fullytestifies
to this.That this"local" in turntypicallycomesto be
as dominantand dominatingforsmallerculturalspacesis a further
constructed
step
in the cosmopolitan-vernacular
transformation
and unthinkablewithoutit.
The Literary
However much contemporary
thoughtwants to ignore,resist,blur, or trash
definitions
of "literature,"the historicalsocietiesstudiedheremade an unequivocal
distinction,
practicallyand oftenby explicittheorization,
betweena realmoftextual
and anotherthatis somethingelse-call it expressive,
productionthatis documentary
interpretative,
"workly"(dcasWerkhafte,
Heidegger 1960), literary,or whatever.
and
Contemporary
scholarshipis certainlyrightto questiontheselocal distinctions,
to look fortheexpressive
orworklyin thedocumentary
and constative,
and thereverse
(LaCapra 1983, 23-71). But that is a second-orderenterpriseand subsequentto
gaininghistorical-anthropological
knowledgeofwhatpoetsin middle-period
southern
Asia thoughttheyweredoing and whenand why.The distinctionbetweenrestricted
and elaboratedcodes,betweenthedocumentary
and the literary,
was oftenproduced
and reproducedpreciselyby meansof languagechoice,as the historyof inscriptions
clearlyshows. Facts of social or culturalpower seem to have impingedupon this
choice, suggesting that restrictionand elaborationare potentialitiespermitted
developmentin theone case and deniedit in theother.When thisdenialis challenged
in the vernacularization
process,moreover,the challengetypicallytakesthe formof
domesticatingthe literaryapparatus (themes, genres, metrics,lexicon) of the
thatset the rulesof the literary
superposedculturalformation
game.
Writing
The literaryin southernAsia comes increasinglyin the middle period to be
but fromthe oral,and to be evermore
distinguishednot just fromthe documentary
intimatelylinked to writing,with respectto the authorityconferredby it, the
textualityassociatedwith it, and the historyproducedthroughit. The authorization
It is typicallyrelated
to writeis not,like the abilityto speak,a naturalentitlement.
to social and politicalprivileges,which markliteraturein the restrictedsense as a
differentmode of cultural productionand communicationfrom so-called oral
in SouthAsia retainsmanytext-immanent
literature.2
Grantedthatliterateliterature
'Such processeshave been noticedonlyby linguists,who discussthe matterin reference
to "koines"and typicallyignoremostofwhatinterestsculturaltheory.Cf.,e. g., Segal 1993.
For Braj, cf.Snell 1991, 30-32, and, moregenerally,Masica 1991, 54.
2Accordingto well-knownlegends,Tukaram,like Eknanthbeforehim, was forcedby
outragedbrahmansto "throwhis poems into the river."When he defendshis use ofMarathi,
he is thus clearlydefendingthe rightto write,not just to compose(cf. Pollock 1995, 12122).

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
featuresoforality(whatthe late scholarofOld FrenchPaul Zumthorcalledvocalite'),3

and that the principalmode of consumptionwas auditory,still, writingaffected
in profoundways.These await systematic
literarycommunication
analysis,but there
is no doubtthatto writeliterarily
alwaysmeantrendering
languagebothlearnedand
learned,to endow it with new normsand constraints.Historicallyspeaking,what
countsin the historyof vernacularliteraryculture,what makeshistorynot onlyfor
us (byprovidinghistoricalobjects)but fortheprimaryagentsthemselves
(bymarking
a breakin the continuumof history)is literization,the committingof literatureto
writing.
Beginnings
When therefore
throughan act of culturalchoicethe vernacularis deployedfor
theliterary
and theliterary
attainsinscription,
literature
begins-that is, at particular
timespeople begin to inscribetexts,or,whatcomesto thesame thingas a historical
issue,begin to considertextsinscribedin local languagesworthpreserving.In this
sensethe historyof vernacularliterarycultureis not coextensivewith the historyof
vernacularlanguage. Such literarybeginningsin South Asia are the object of
ethnohistorical
representation
and,despitethemanylogicaland ideologicaldifficulties
thatbesettheveryidea of beginnings,are oftensusceptibleto historicalanalysis(cf.
Pollock 1995). I am especiallyinterested
in vernacular
inaugurations,
thoughofcourse
the choiceto be vernacularhas a continuinghistory.
Community
The last, and least disputable of my contentions-though also the least
historicized-is the mutuallyconstitutive
relationshipof literatureand community:
literature
addresses,sometimescalls intobeing,particularsociotextualcommunities.
if variablewayson the basis of the literature
These definethemselvesin significant
in serviceofnewself-definitions.
To choose
theyshare,and theycreatenewliteratures
a language forliterature,then-to committo writingexpressivetextsas defined
models-is at the same timeto choosea community,
accordingto dominant-culture
thoughits precisemeaningand the natureof the identitythat literatureconstructs
and not imagined,fortheworldbeforemodernity.
forit need to be investigated,
Absentthiskindofconceptualframework,
it is hardevento perceivethechoices
to be vernacular-or cosmopolitan-let alone recovertheir historiesand social
meanings.
The choice to be vernacularin South Asia at the beginningof the second
millenniumwas made againstthebackgroundofSanskritand deeplyconditionedby
the literarycultureof Sanskrit.Without understandingthe historyof the literary
world Sanskritcreatedand the work it did there,it is difficultto understandits
what vernacularliterarylanguageswere called upon to do, when,and
supersession,
why.I hope to suggestsomethingof the characterof thiscultureby lookingfirstin
a perhapsunexpectedquarter:thehistoryoftheSanskritinscriptional
discourse.There
are three things I concentrateon here: the historyof the transregionalcultural
formation
ofSanskrit,how it came to be and whatit consistedof;theroleofSanskrit
3Cf.Zumthor1987. RelevanthereforSanskritand earlyKannada textsare the literarylinguisticphenomena(gunas,see below) or the modesofrecitation(pdthaorpathiti)described
by literaryscholarssuch as Rajasekharain the tenthcentury(KdvyamTmrmsd
7), and Bhoja in
th eleventh(?rhgdrapraprakd?(a
7, pp. 379 ff.).

10
SHELDON
POLLOCK
as the vehicleof political expression;and, relatedto this,Sanskrit'shighlymarked

statusas theliterary
languageoveragainstlocal languages.This real-world
formation
providesthebackgroundforthebriefaccountofgeoculturalrepresentations
to which
I thenturn.
Historicizingthe SanskritCosmopolis
As momentousas the vernaculartransformation
at the beginningof the second
millenniumwas the creation,aroundthe beginningof the first,of the cosmopolitan
werefundamental
orderto whichit was theresponse.4
Two new,relateddevelopments
to this order:the use of Sanskritin inscriptionsand the inventionof "literature."
Sanskritinscriptions,
typicallyissuedfromroyalcourts,arecrucialbothas expressions
of the political,and forthe wider trendstheyrevealin literary-language
use and
normsof literariness,
whichthe historyof Sanskritliteratureconfirms.
For its first400 years,inscriptionalculturein South Asia is almostexclusively
non-Sanskrit(the languages used were instead the Middle-Indic dialects called
at thebeginningofthecommonera
Prakrit),but thissituationchangeddramatically
when we firstbegin to findexpressivetexts eulogizing royalelites composed in
a formthat
or copper-plates,
Sanskritand inscribedon rock-faces,
pillars,monuments,
will later receivethe genre nameprasati(praise-poem).The most famousof these
texts,producedforor by the Indo-Scythian(Saka) overlordRudradaman(ca. A.D.
150), has been knownto scholarsformore than a century,and nothinghas been
discoveredsince to alterthe impressionthatit marksa profoundcultural-historical
break.Never beforehad Sanskritspokenas it does in Rudradaman'stext,out in the
to a historicalking,and in aestheticized
open,in writtenform,in reference
language.
And yetalmostimmediately
and forthenextthousandyears,it is thevoice
thereafter,
ofSanskritpoetrythatwould be heardin politiesfromthemountainsofPeshawarto
Prambanamon theplains of centralJava.
It is about this same time that what comes to be called kdvya("[written]
literature")in the emerging scholarlydiscourse of rhetoric(ala ika-rarscastra)
is
whenthegreatgenressuch as mahdkdvya
crystallized,
(courtlyepic) and ndtaka(epic
drama)come into existencealong with the formaltechniques,such as the systemof
figuresof sound and senseand the complexquantitative-syllabic
metrics,thatwere
to defineSanskritliteratureand have such resonancethroughoutAsia. Literaryculturalmemory,as thismaybe discernedin literary
criticismor in thekaviprafsamsds
introduceSanskritliterarytexts,has no reach
(praisesof poets) that conventionally
beyondthesebeginningsin the earlycenturiesof the commonera,and it is difficult
forhistoricalscholarshipto showthatkdvyaas it will henceforth
be practicedis much
earlierthanthis.Sanskritinscriptions
such as Rudradaman'sshouldnot therefore
be
viewed,as theyusuallyare, as the latestdate forthe existenceof literarySanskrit
(kdvya),but as theearliest.And the two together,
kdvyaandpras'ati,
areevidence,not
ofa renaissance(or "resurgence,"
or "revival")ofSanskritcultureafter
"re-assertion,"
a Mauryanhiatus,but of its inaugurationas a new culturalformation.Previousto
thisSanskritcultureappearsto have been restricted
to thedomainofliturgyand the
knowledgesrequiredforits analysis;it can hardlybe said to haveexistedin anything
like the formit was soon to acquire.
4Thisand the followingsectiondrawon the detaileddiscussionin Pollock 1996.

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
11
Whetheror not I overdrawthisdiscontinuity

betweena highlyrestricted
social
sphere of Sanskrit(liturgicaland scholastic)and a new political use of Sanskrit
accompaniedby whollynew formsof writtenliterature,the subsequenthistoryof
Sanskritin inscriptionaldiscourseis the historyof an unprecedentedand vast
diffusion.Once it came to be used forinscriptionalliteraturein NorthIndia in the
second to thirdcenturies,Sanskritwas adopted elsewherewith astonishingspeed.
Prakritdisappearedfromthe epigraphicalrecordthroughoutIndia in the space of a
and retainedonlya residual
century,neverto be revivedforinscriptionsthereafter,
statusin the literary-cultural
order.
A cruciallyimportantdimensionto theuse ofSanskritin epigraphsand the rise
of kdvyais the divisionof linguisticlabor in inscriptional
discourse,and, relatedly,
the literarysilenceof the vernacularsthroughoutthe cosmopolitanformation.
Once
Sanskrithad becomethe languageforthe public literaryexpressionof politicalwill
throughoutmuch of southernAsia, it remainedthe only language used forthat
was notprohibitedfromspeakingin theinscriptional
domain,
purpose.The vernacular
A typicalinscription
but thepermissionwas restricted.
commenceswitha genealogy
and praise-poemof the overlordwho issuesthe document,followedby thedetailsof
the transaction
the inscriptionis meantto record(the boundariesof thegiftedland,
the conditionsof a templeendowment,and the like). When used at all vernacular
language is restrictedto the second or businessportionof the grant,and thus to
function-whereby
power
counting,measuring,and aboveall localizing.The literary
and whichcanperhaps
constructed
foritselfits origins,grandeur,beauty,perdurance,
therefore
be characterized
as thefunction
ofinterpreting
theworldand supplementing
reality-was the workexclusivelyof Sanskritpoetry.The verycontrastgeneratedby
this divisionof labor,a relationof superpositionof unrelatedlanguagesthatI have
termedhyperglossia,
servesto enhance the aestheticismin which one may locate
Sanskrit'ssupremeattractions.
Related to the empiricallyobservabledivision of labor in inscriptionsis the
tradition.Fromtheseventhcenturyon
discourseon literary
languagein thealacgkdra
it became a commonplaceof this traditionthatkadvya
was somethingthatcould be
set of languages.Chiefof thesewas of course
composedonly in a highlyrestricted
productionwereMaharastri
Sanskrit;farbehindboth in theoryand in actual literary
Prakritand Apabhrams'a,
ofSanskrithad been
two languagesthatundertheinfluence
could be and were used for
turnedinto cosmopolitanidioms,and which therefore
literarycompositionanywherein theSanskritcosmopolis.5Kdvyawas notsomething
made in thevernacular;thusa rangeof regionallanguagesfromKannada to Marathi
to Oriyawereliterarily
silent.
As theturnto Sanskritis takingplace in theIndiansubcontinent
forthecreation
and publiclydisplayed,preciselythe same
at once political,literary,
of inscriptions
phenomenonmakesits appearancein whatare nowthecountriesofBurma,Thailand,
thatis
Cambodia,Laos, Vietnam,Malaysia,and Indonesia,and with a simultaneity
again striking.The firstSanskritpublic poems appear in Khmercountry,Champa,
centuryat thelatest,
Java,and Kalimantanall at roughlythesametime,theearlyfifth
a
aftertheirwidespreadappearance
or notmuchmorethan coupleor threegenerations
1.16, 34-36.
5The restriction
on literarylanguagesbeginswith BhamahaKdvydlankdra
Only near the end of the cosmopolitanepoch do Sanskritwritersadmit the possibilityof
producinggrdmya
mahdkdvya,
courtlyepics in the "vulgar"language(cf. the twelfth-century
is noted
Kdvydnus'asana
8.6, p. 449). The linguistically"unlocalized"qualityof Apabhramsia
by Shackle 1993, 266; cf.also Hardy 1994, 5.

12
SHELDON
POLLOCK
in India itself.And theywill continueto be producedin some places forcenturies:

the last dated Sanskritinscriptionin Cambodia is around 1295, a little beforethe
abandonmentofAngkor.
Khmercountry,in fact,fromroughly600-1300 providesa good exampleofthe
politicsof literaryculturenoted above. Here the world of public poetryremained
resolutelya worldof Sanskrit.Inscriptionsin Khmer,to be sure,are producedfrom
virtuallythe same date as inscriptionsin Sanskrit;in fact,nearlyhalfof the extant
inscriptions
are solelyin Khmer,whileone-thirdare in Sanskritalone,and a quarter
utilize both languages. But one invariablefeatureof them all is the linguistic
hyperglossiawe find in India: Sanskrit,and never Khmer, makes expressive
Khmer(and rarelySanskrit)makesconstativestatements.
statements;
When thefame
of the king is celebratedor his lineage or victoriesin battleproclaimed,the writer
employsSanskrit;whentheslavesdonatedto a templeare enumerated,
thecatalogue
is givenin Khmer.Moreover,thetwolanguageshad a veryunequalrelationship
with
each other.WhereasSanskritis, linguistically,
uninfluenced
by Khmer-indeed, it
retains an astonishinggrammaticaland orthographicregularityto the end of
Angkor-Khmer is massivelyinvadedbySanskritfromtheearliestperiod.Foralmost
a thousandyears-as the relationshipbetween political inscriptionand literary
literizationmentionedabove would lead us to expect-literatepoetryin Cambodia
is Sanskritpoetry,neverOld Khmer;literateliterary
productionin Khmerdoes not,
in fact,seemto existbeforethefifteenth
or morethana centuryafterAngkor
century,
is abandonedand the last representative
of the Sanskritcosmopolisin mainland
SoutheastAsia disappears(Khing 1990, 24-59). The characterof Khmerlanguage
usage in textsthatarepreservedto us and the laterhistoricaldevelopmentofKhmer
literature
togethersuggestthatthelattercould notcome intoexistence,as a literized
entityforexpressivepurposes,untilSanskritliteraryculturewaned.
The spreadof politicalSanskrithappensnot onlywithextraordinary
speed over
vastspace,but in a way thatseemsquite withoutparallelin worldhistory.First,no
organizedpoliticalpowersuchas theRomanimperiumwas involved.No colonization
ofSouthIndia or SoutheastAsia can be shownto haveoccurred;therewereno military
conquests,and no demographically
meaningfulmigrations.Nor were any ties of
of
material
politicalsubservience,
dependencyorexploitationeverestablished.Second,
Sanskritwas not diffusedby anysingle,unified,scripture-based
religionimpelledby
religiousrevolutionor new revelation,but by small numbersof literatiwho carried
with them the verydisparate,uncanonizedtextsof a wide varietyof competing
religiousordersas well as textsof Sanskritliteraturehaving no religiouscontent
whatever.Third,Sanskritneverfunctioned
as a linklanguagelike othertransregional
codes such as Greek,Latin,Arabic,Persian,Chinese.In fact,nothingindicatesthat
in thisperiodSanskritwas an everyday
not in
mediumof communication
anywhere,
South let alone SoutheastAsia, or even functionedas a chancerylanguage for
bureaucratic
or administrative
purposes.
What is createdin the periodthatcoversroughlythe millenniumbetween200
or 300 and 1300 (whenAngkoris abandoned)is a globalizedculturalformation
that
seemsanomalousin antiquity.It is characterized
by a largelyhomogeneouspolitical
language of poetryin Sanskritalong with a rangeof comparablecultural-political
practices (temple building, city planning, even geographical nomenclature);
throughoutit-to extendOliver Wolters'wordsas theydeserveto be, to the whole
of this cosmopolitanworld-elites in differentrealms shared "a broadlybased
communalityof outlook" and could perceive"ubiquitous signs" of a common,a
Sanskrit,culture(Wolters1982, 43). But it is producedand sustainedby noneofthe

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
13
of antiquity;it is periphery
forcesthat operatein the othertranslocalformations
withoutunity.One maywell wonderwhatthisglobalized
withoutcenter,community
or religiousconditions
culturemeantifnoneof the familiarmaterial,governmental,
by the
of coherencepertainedto it. What culturalwork,forinstance,was performed
textsinscribedand displayedby rulingelites?Sincethey
ubiquitousSanskritliterary
emergedfromthe verycentersof authoritythroughoutthis world,it is naturalto
factorthe political into any explanation,but it seems to be the political with an
obscure,unfamiliarlogic to it.
Even as we trygrasp this logic, the predicamentof theorizingthe premodern
loomsbeforeus. There
fromwithina conceptualapparatusbequeathedby modernity
the social foundationsof
has largelyprevaileda singleparadigmforunderstanding
Sanskrit cosmopolitan culture, namely, legitimation theory and its logic of
reason:Elites in commandof new formsof social powerdeployedthe
instrumental
symbolsand codes of Sanskritsomehow to secure consent.But this
mystifying
but reallyis a mereassumption,
functionalist
explanationis not onlyanachronistic,
naive
and an intellectuallymechanical,culturallyhomogenizing,and theoretically
assumptionat that.6
Ifwe contemplatetheSanskritecumeneat its height,fromthemiddleto thelast
fewcenturiesof the millennium,it appearsto consistof a limitednumberof largestates
scale agrarianpolities (and their smaller-scaleimitators),"military-fiscal"
gatheringtributefromlarge multiethnicpopulations,and definingtheirpolitical
to definein concreteterms,
difficult
Althoughnotoriously
aspirationsas universalist.
"empires"-the nameusuallygivento theworldsof the Guptas,forexample,or the
One
or Angkor-seem to sharecertainsystemicculturalfeatures.
Gurjara-Pratiharas,
a fieldas it
or empire-modelofpremodernity,
mayevenpostulatean empire-system
of empiresand of the deploymentof the empireform-in
wereof the reproduction
of the system
wherethe structure
of modernity,
thislike the systemof nation-states
(Balibarand Wallerstein1991, 91)-with
itselfproducesa numberofculturaleffects
its own distinctiveculturalrepertory.
In thissystemimitationof an imperialformseemsto be successivelyrecreated,
acrossspace,
not onlyin South and SoutheastAsia but elsewhere,both horizontally
call ''peerpolityinteraction,"
perhapsthrougha processsimilarto whatarchaeologists
and verticallyin time throughhistoricalimagination.One could plot such a form,
on both axes, among a range of embodiments:Achaeminid(and Sassanian,and
Ghaznavid), Hellenic (and Byzantine),Roman (and Carolingian,and Ottonian),
Kushan (and Gupta, and perhapsAngkor)(see also Duverger1980, 21). In manyof
thesecases,qualifyingas empire,whetherimperialgovernancewas actuallyexercised
or not,seemsto have requireda languageof cosmopolitancharacterand transethnic
the rulingelites themselves
or arrestingany ethnoidentity
attraction,transcending
mightpossess. It had to be a language capable of makingthe translocalclaimshoweverimaginarythesewere-that definedthepoliticalimaginationof thisworld.
Moreover,it had to be a languagewhosepowerderived,not fromsacralassociations
but fromaestheticcapacities,its abilityto make realitymore real-more complex
history
and morebeautiful-as evincedby its literaryidiom and style,and a literary
In
the
"Roma
renovata"
of
such
linguisticalchemy.
embodyingsuccessfulexemplars
of Carolingianand Ottonian Europe this language was Latin, which, though in
as a crucialcomponentin
was retainedand reinforced
constantneedofrehabilitation,
and culturein Southand Southeast
6Thenotioncontinuesto shapeworkon stateformation
Asia, cf.e.g., Kulke 1993, and contrastPollock 1996, 236ff.

14
SHELDON
POLLOCK
the politicaland cultural-political

understanding
of polity.In West Asia fromA.D.
1000 on, it was New Persian,whose firstgreatliteraryproduction,the Shahnama,
soughtto link the new politicalformations
with an imaginedIranianimperialpast,
and along with otherbrilliantworksof literaryculturemade it the language that
rulingelites fromSistan to Delhi adopted perforceif theywere to participatein
"imperial"culturalpolitics,regardlessof what theymay have spoken in private.
Similar in its cultural-political
logic to Latin and Persian,as in its temporaland
geographicspread,was Sanskrit.
More than just qualifyingthe polity for imperial status, however,Sanskrit
mediateda set ofcomplexaestheticand moralvaluesofimperialculture,whileat the
same time providinga code forthe expressionof key symbolicgoods-the most
importantamongthesebeingfame-in a wayno otherlanguagewas apparently
able
(orpermitted)to do. The sourceofsuchcapabilitiesis to be locatedin thesophisticated
and immenselyinfluential
Sanskritdisciplinesofgrammar,rhetoric,
and metrics.
Imperiallanguage typicallypresupposedthe dignityand stabilityconferred
by
standardizinggrammar.Only in a language constrainedby such a grammarand
thereforeescaping the danger of degenerationcould fame and distinctionfind
enduring expression. But there is more to grammaticalitythan such quasi
in the Sanskrittradition,somethingdeeper rooted.If the orderof
functionalism
Sanskritpoetrywas tied to the orderof Sanskritgrammar,that orderwas itselfa
model or prototypeof the moral,social,and politicalorder.A just (sddhu)king was
one who himselfused and promotedthe use of correctlanguage (sddhusabda).
Not
the appropriatevehicleforthe expressionof royalwill,
only was Sanskrittherefore
but Sanskritlearningbecamea componentofkingliness.This is demonstrated
bythe
numerousoverlordswho-from our Rudradamanin south Gujarat in A.D. 150 to
II on Tonle Sap a thousandyears later-celebrated their Sanskrit
Siiryavarman
learning,especiallygrammaticallearning,in public poetry,and soughtto confirm
thislearningby patronizingthe productionof almosteveryimportantgrammatical
workknownto US.7
That the traditionof Sanskritrhetoricand metricswas centralto this whole
processis evidencedby the inscriptional
poetryitself.But the textsoftheseformsof
knowledgealso circulatedas somethinglike globalized culturalcommodities,and
wereeventuallyto providea generalframework
withinwhicha numberofvernacular
poetriescould themselvesbe theorized.Thus, forexample,the late seventh-century
rhetorical
treatiseofDandin,the"MirrorofLiterature"
(Kdvyddars'a
[KAI), wasstudied
and adaptedduringtheperiod900-1300 fromSri Lanka to Tamil countryto Tibet.
One could write an equally peripatetic account of metrical texts, such as
ca. 1000). By way
Kedarabhatta's"JewelMine of SanskritMeters"(Vrttaratndkara,
Pali translationVuttodaya,
it played a definingrole in the
of its twelfth-century
creationof Thai poetryat the Ayutthayacourtin the seventeenth
century(Terwiel
1996). It is instancessuch as thesethathelp us gauge the extraordinary
importance
thattheinstruments
and their
ofSanskritculturalvirtuosity
possessedforintellectuals
Asia.
mastersthroughout
As a resultof all this,Sanskritliteraturein general(kdvya)and politicalpoetry
in particularpossessa uniformity
thatgivesa clearstylisticcoherenceto the
(pras'asti)
cosmopolitanculturalform.For withoutdenyingsome local coloring(thoughfor
HartmutScharfewas the firstto perceivea pattern
7SeePollock 1996, 240 forreferences.
of royalpatronage(1977, 187), but it is fardenserthanhe knowsand his examplesare easily
multiplied.

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
15
Angkor,forexample,thishas been exaggerated,

cf.Wolters1982, 91), to participate
in the cosmopolitanordermeantpreciselyto occlude local difference.
The Sanskrit
poethere-this is theinsistentimplicationoftheform,style,idiom,and evencontent
as well as morestrictlyliterary
ofthousandsofinscriptional
texts-participatedboth
culturalspheresimilar
by theoreticaltrainingand literary
practicein a transregional
to thatofhis Latin(and,I wouldguess,Chinese)peersat theotherendsoftheancient
world.8It is thisthatmakesit oftenvirtuallyimpossibleto localizeor date a workof
Sanskritliterature-which,by my argument,is exactlywhat constitutedone of its
greatestattractions.
Thereis no doubt fargreatercomplexityto theinteractions
ofpowerand culture
in the SanskritcosmopolisthanI can capturein my briefaccount,or perhapseven
know. Yet it is arguable that imperial-cultural
associationsand aestheticstyle,
especiallyas theseshapedpoliticalvocabularyand culture,had at leastas muchto do
with the makingof the cosmopolitandimensionof thisworldand its attractions
as
Sanskritgave voice to imperial
persuasion,let alone misrecognition
or mystification.
politicsnotas an actual,materialforcebutas an aestheticpractice,and itwasespecially
thispoetryofpoliticsthatgave presenceto the Sanskritcosmopolis.
At the ideationallevel, the Sanskritcosmopolisfoundexpressionabove all in
certainrepresentations
of the space of culturalcirculation.Two of theseneed to be
introduced,given theirrole in the theoryand practiceof literaryvernacularization:
the epic space ofpoliticalaction,about whichI will be verybrief,and the spacesof
literarystyle,whichneed some detail to make understandable.
Political Space in Cosmopolitan Vision

It is an insistentconcernofa wide varietyofkdvyaandprasastitextsto projecta
meaningfulsupralocalspace of political-cultural
reference.
The tenth-century
poet
Rajasekhara,forexample,court-poetto the kingsof Tripura,was repeatinga longstandingcommonplacewhendescribinghis patronsas universalrulers"in theentire
regionfromwherethe Gafngaemptiesinto the easternsea to wherethe Narmada
emptiesintothewestern,fromtheTamraparn.in thesouthto themilk-oceanin the
north"(ViddhalabhanJika4.21). So are the Kalachurikings themselveswhen they
of
repeatthis in theirepigraphs.The source,or at least most articulateforerunner,
whereplottingthespace ofa large
thisvisionis in theitihdsaor "epic" Mahdbhdrata,
world, a zone within which its political action was held to be operativeand
meaningful,is a central project of the narrative(a pure example, thus, of a
"chronotope,"and with the chronotope'spoliticsof space moreclearlyvisible than
Bakhtinhimselfunderstood,1981, 84-258). This unmappedmapping,in a different
a numberoftheimportant
worldofhistoricalspace,constitutes
but notunintelligible
narrativejuncturesin the text,frombeginningto end. I describeseveralto give a
senseof thepractice.
a pathfrom
On hiswanderings
north
duringhisself-exile
Arjunacharts
Indraprastha
andintotheeastern
toNaimisa,easttoKausikT,
toGafigadvara
Himalayas,
southeast
8Jstressliterarypractice;variousSanskritswerein use outsidethe domainof kdvya.But
a widevarietyofPrakritsdivergentinphonology,
whereastraditionalscholarshipdifferentiated
morphology,and lexicon,no such distinctions(with the exceptionofdrsa or archaic,Vedic)
wereperceivedforSanskritin thepost-Paninianperiod(cf.,e.g.,SarasvatkanthAbharandlahkdra
2.5ff.).The comparableworld of earlyLatinityis well describedby A. H. M. Jones 1964,
1008.

16
SHELDON
POLLOCK
southeastto Gaya, and further

to Vanga, southdown the Kalifiga,overto Gokarna
on the west coast,northto Prabhasaand Dvaraka,northeastto Puskaraand thence
back to Indraprastha
(MBh. 1.200-10). Beforehis consecration
as emperorYudisthira
sendsout his brothersto conquerthe fourdirections:Arjunaproceedsto the north
(Anarta,Kashmir,and Bactria);Bhima to the east (Videha,Magadha,Anga,Vanga,
Tamralipi); Sahadeva to the south (Tripura, Potana, the lands of the Pandyas,
Dravidas, Coladrakeralas,Andhras; Nakula to the west (Marubhtumi,Malava,
Paficanada,as faras the land of the Pahlavas)(MBh. 2.23-29). Afterthe war,when
the Pandavas performthe Horse Sacrificeto affirmand confirmtheir universal
dominion,the wanderingsof the horse plot a map that runs fromTrigartato
Pragyotisa,Maniptura,Magadha, Vafiga, Cedi, Kdsl-,Kosala, Dravida, Andhra,
Gokarna,Prabhasa,Dvaraka, Paficanada,and Gandhara (MBh. 15.73-85). Lastly,
when theyrenouncetheiroverlordshipand begin their"Great SettingForth,"the
Pandavastravelfirstto the Lauhityariverin the east, "by way of the northern
[i.e.,
coastoftheocean to thesouthwestquarter,"thento Dvarakaand from
northeasternl
thereto Himavan,Valukarfnava
(the great"Ocean ofSand") and MountMeru(MBh.
thelastcircumambulation
oftheworld-the sortdescribedand
17), thusperforming
chartedrepeatedlybefore-forthe controlofwhichtheirfamilyhad been destroyed,
and ofwhichtheyfittingly
take leave as theyprepareto die.
Thus, from the opening chapters of the principal narrative,and at its key
of dominion afterthe
points-the royal consecration beforethe war, the reaffirmation
war, the ritual death-march at the end of the story-the epic insists continually on
concretely placing the action. It is the very fact of the existence of this spatial
that interests me, not its precision (indeed, it is
imagination in the Mahdbhdrata
marked by uncertainty, confusion, and at times bizarre exoticism). There is a
conceivable geosphere, the narrativesuggests, where the epic's medium, the culture
of Sanskrit,and its message, a kind of political power, have application.
The spatial imagination that is found in the Sanskrit epics achieves sharper and
more concrete focus in the courtly literaturethat arises in the early centuries of the
common era, as in the "conquest of the quarters" motif appearing in courtly epics.
The most influentialexample, one studied as far as Khmer country,is that found in
Kalidasa's masterpiece, the "Dynasty of Raghu" (Raghuvamsfa
4). Here, the reality
effects,as it were, of the judicious choice of detail are quite apparent. The clearer
image of the spatial domain both of power and, implicitly,of the poetrythat fillsthis
domain and gives voice to power no doubt has something to do with the fact that
Kalidasa borrowed from the Allahabad Pillar inscription of the Gupta king,
Samudragupta (r. A.D. 335-76). It is not that there is something less literary,more
documentaryabout the inscriptionthan the poem (this would be so even if its author,
one Harisena, did not actually name it a kdvya,as he does) that somehow serves, as
model, to render the account of Kalidasa more historical or more "true." Rather, the
point of juxtaposing inscription and text in their historical relatedness is simply to
remind ourselves that the literarygeography of power in Sanskrit culture sometimes
achieved a kind of symmetrywith the living aspirations of historical agents.
However this macrospace may be defined(and note that it did not always embrace
the full cosmopolitan space as mapped by inscriptional and other cultural practices),
and whatever may be the precise nature of the imperial dominion and formof culture
it was imaginatively thought to comprise, it marks a wide range of epic and postepic
texts. And it is against this macrospace that a range of vernacular spaces of culture
and power were to be defined.

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
17
The Space of SanskritLiteraryStyle

The Rajas'ekhara
who wroteoftheuniversalsovereignty
oftheTripurakingsalso
wrotean allegoricalaccountoftheoriginofliterature,
thestoryofthe"PrimalBeing
of Poetry,"or "PoetryMan," Kavyapurusa:
Brahmacreateda sonfortheGoddessofSpeech,hismouthconsisting
ofSanskrit,
hisarmofPrakrit,
hisgroinofApabhramsa,
hisfeetofPaisaca,hischestofmixed
language.Sahityavidya
(PoeticsWoman)wascreatedto be hiscompanion,
andwas
toldto followKavyapurusa
he shouldgo. Theywentfirst
wherever
to theeast,and
as Sahityavidya
triedto enticehim Kavyapurusa
spoketo her in versesfullof
compounds,
andstrings
ofetymologically
whichbecame
alliteration,
complex
words,
knownas thegaudaPath(rLti).
Nexthewentnorthto thecountry
ofPanicala,
where
hespokeinverses
withpartialcompounds,
andmetaphorical
alliteration,
expressions,
whichbecameknownas thepdocdlaPath.Eventually
theyreachedthesouthwhere
he spokein verseswithmoderate
alliteration,
no compounds,
and simplewords,
whichbecameknownas thevaidarbha
Path.
(Kdvyam2mcmsd
4)
Rajasekhara'sallegoryofliterature,
briefly
summarizedhere,picksup several
themes already noted, including the geoculturalspace present to the Sanskrit
on the possible codes in which the literarycan be
imaginationand the restrictions
composed.I cite thispassage,however,to introducethequestionofthetransregional
to Rajasekhara'saccountofmdrga/
geographyofliterary
style.Therewas a prehistory
rTti-the "Way" or "Path" of literaryculture-a somewhatconfusedand tangled
but reasonablystraightforward
in its development
historyin its firstmanifestation,
by the tenthcentury.
Mdrga(thedominantand foundational
term)carriestwoprincipalmeanings.The
firstis that of a "way" othershave gone before,and thus connotesa "custom"or
"tradition"of writing.Like the Greek odos("way"), mdrgaalso comes to imply
in the creationof
somethingof a method or a "followingof a way" (meth-odos)
literature.9
As a termin the Sanskritliterary-critical
vocabularyit has a momentof
primacyin the seventhto tenth centuries-the Kashmiri theoreticianVamana
as thesoul is [to
announcingin theearlyninthcenturythat"the Path is to literature
the bodyl"-and thoughit was eventuallyto cede thisposition,it remainsa crucial
termin the theorization
of both cosmopolitanand vernacularformsofwriting.And
althoughthismayseemto be a narrowissueofphilologicalinquirygivenitsformalist
focus-for the Way concernsthe languagestuffof literature-wedo well to bearin
mindhow seriouslysuchquestionsweretakenby intellectualsacrossthegreaterpart
of southernAsia forcenturies.
As we see fromthe accountof Rajasekhara,the Way of Sanskritliteratureis
conceptualizedas plural and regional:thereis an "eastern"way (gauda, loosely,of
of
Bengal), a "southern"way (vaidarbha,of Vidarbha),a northernway (pdigcdla,
of Lata or southern
Paficla, the northGangeticplain), latera westernway (Idt'y-a,
these nominallyregionalized
Gujarat), and still later others.What differentiates
at the level of
proceduresof literatureare certainqualities of language use (guncas)
phonology(e.g., phonemic texture),syntax(e.g., degree of nominalization),and
9Forthe firstconnotation,cf.,e.g., Manu 4.178; forthe second,e.g. SRK 1729, 1733;
Vakpatiraja(ca. A.D. 730), Gaidavaho 84-85.

18
SHELDON
POLLOCK
lexicon(e.g., the relativeprevalenceof primary[,rfdhijor derivative[yoga]Iwords).

Dandin in the late seventhcenturydefinesvaidarbhaas "endowed with all the
qualities,"whereasgaudcais characterized
by theirinversionor absence(viparyaya).10
The formerthus shows a minimaldegreeof compoundingand of complexlexical
derivatives,
the lattera maximaldegreeof both.
FromthebeginningtheontologyoftheWaysofwritingis implicitlyorexplicitly
is thatwriterscould freelyadopt the one or
queried,and the generalunderstanding
theother.ForVamana"theregionalappellationsmeanonlythatthesestylesarefound
in [thepoetsof]thoseparticularregions;theregionsthemselves
contribute
nothing."
One could and shouldchosethevaidarbhastyle(Kdvydlakdrascstra
1.2.6-10; 14-18).
aremorethana littleconfusedAlthoughhis remarks(like muchofhispresentation)
fortheyexplainnothingabout whyregionalstylesshouldbe foundamongthepoets
in given regions-there is no ambiguitythat forhim regionwas not destiny,as it
was not,a fewcenturieslater,forthe criticKuntaka:
Ifdifferentiation
theformer
wouldbe as
ofstyleweretrulybasedon thatofregion,
a certain
ritidoesnotmeanit
numberless
as thelatter.
Justbecausewriting
exhibits
. . . Furthermore,
it
canbe classified
likecross-cousin
marriage
as a regional
custom,
in thesamewaythatcertainbeautiful
cannotbe said to be a "natural"property
to thesingingofa southerner.
sounds,timbre,
etc.,arenatural
1.24)
(Vakroktijivita
could adoptone styleor another.
For mostofSanskrithistorywritersvoluntarily
The eleventh-century
poet Bilhana,forexample,anotherKashmiri,tells of himself
thathe writesin vaidarbha("a rainofnectarfroma clearsky. .. guarantorofliterary
vs. 9).
beauty-vaidarbhais grantedto only the finestpoets," Vikramdigkadevacarita
And, in fact, the freedomto choose from among regional styles grew into a
requirement
as thedoctrineoftheWays was linkedevermorecloselyto thediscourse
on literary
emotions(,rasa):As theaffective
stateto be generatedin a sceneorpassage
writerRudrata,thevaidarbha
varied,so would the Way. Thus forthe ninth-century
and pdAcd1aPaths are appropriatefor the moods of "love," "pity," "fear,"and
"wonder";the Ways themselveshe classifiesas anubhdvaor the verbalreactionsof a
emotionalsituations(RudrataKdvydl/aikdra
characterin different
15.20).
On the discursiveplane what the categoryof the Ways most insistently
of Sanskritliterature."Regional"
communicatesis in factthe verycosmopolitanism
arepartoftherepertory
ofa global Sanskrit,thesignpreciselyofSanskrit's
differences
and thus
transregionality:
Theywerelocal coloringsthatwereproducedtranslocally,
werean indexof Sanskrit'spervasionof all local space. Eventually,as we will see, it
is preciselythis implicitsense of the Way of Sanskritliteratureas a cosmopolitan
(ratherthan trulyregional)culturalformthat would be made explicit by a new
dichotomycentralto vernacularpoetriesthatarosein the late medievalperiod:Over
against mdrgaor the global Way of well-traveledSanskritculture came to be
constructed
thedesior Place, thatwhichdoes not travelat all.
The Sanskritcosmopolis,createdin South and SoutheastAsia in a moreor less
simultaneoushistoricalprocess,possessedmarkedculturalsimilarities,such as the
whereadherenceto a
productionof a code forpoliticalexpressionand of a literature
10Theevaluativejudgmentimplicithere,and the verydistinction,appear to have been
Kannada
resistedas earlyas Bhamaha (Kdvydlankdra
1.31ff.),though the eleventh-century
distinctionis meaningwriterNagavarmantakesBhamahato mean not thatthe north-south
less,but thatthebeliefthattheone is superiorto theotheris mistaken(Kdvydvalokanam,
s7tra
522).

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
19
sophisticated
bodyofnormative
and metricsensured
discourseson grammar,rhetoric,
a uniformcharacterthroughoutthe cosmopolitanformation.
The monopolizationof
literaryproductionin transregionalcodes was matched at the level of literary
representation
by theprojectionofa supralocalframeofpolitical-cultural
reference
in
epic and postepicnarrative,
and at the levelof literarytheoryby a doctrineofmodes
of writingwhose regionalityconnotesabove all Sanskrit'stranscendence
of region.
These are among the keycomponentsof literaryculturethatwill be engagedin the
vernacularization
process.
ProducingtheVernacular
Few local literaryculturesof premodernity
anywhereshow quite the same selfconsciousnessand permitus to followtheirdevelopmentwiththe same precisionas
we can achievein the case of Kannada,a languagefoundin what is now the Indian
stateofKarnataka.I wantbriefly
to sketchthehistoryofKannadain theinscriptional
record,beforegoing on to consider in more detail the intense and long-term
negotiationbetweencosmopolitanand vernacularin Kannada literary
production.
The statusof Kannada in the domain of the publiclydisplayedinscribedtexts
a textbookcase of the tendenciesdescribedabove. The earliestknowndynasty
offers
Karnataka-the locus of what was to become the prestigeliterary
of northwestern
dialect-the Kadambas (fourthcenturyon), neverused Kannada forpublic records.
The Gafigas,the oldestattesteddynastyin southwestern
Karnataka(fourthto ninth
did
not
use
Kannada
for
the
centuries),
documentary
portionof copper-plategrants
Avinita
in
sixth
until the time of
the
century.We are able to followthe literaryculturalpolitics of Karnatakakingdomsmore closely,however,with the Badami
What we findamong
Calukyas,and especiallywiththeirsuccessors,the Rastrakuitas.
the latter,whenwe look at the matterstatistically,
is a slow but stunningdeclinein
the productionof Sanskritpublic poetrycommencingin the earlyninthcentury.
When thedynastyfirstbeginsissuinginscriptions
startingaroundA.D. 750, Sanskrit
is used in morethan80 percentof the extantrecords;by its end 200 yearslater,less
than5 percentare in Sanskrit(Gopal 1994, 429-65).
Besidestheclearevidenceofshifting
all theearlyinscriptions
languagepreference,
in Kannada among the Badami Calukyas and Rastrakuitasremain resolutely
in Kannada fromwithin
The firstexpressiveor "workly"inscriptions
documentary.
the royalcourtcome to be producedonlyabout the timeof the reignof KrishnaIII
(939, EI 19, 289), or nearlyhalfa millenniumafterinscribedKannada firstappears
(Halmidi ca. 450).
It is notmanygenerations
beforeKrishnaIII thatevidencefortextualizedliterary
productionin thelanguageis firstavailable,duringthe reignof the Rastrakuita
king
In
a
terms
of
this
was
NrpatunigaAmoghavarsa(ca. 814-80).
literaryculture,
and
in
a
remarkableperiod
place manyrespects, site of what appearsto be literary
acrosslanguages.It was then,forexample,thatJainasturndecisively
experimentation
to Sanskritfortheproductionoftheirgreatpoetichistories(as in theAdipurdna
[A.D.
8371 of Jinasena II, the spiritual preceptor of Nrpatuniga, or Asaga's
Vardhamdnapurdna
[8531, the first independent biography of MahavTra),and
undertooktheirfirstgrammaticalanalysisof Sanskritin perhapsfivecenturiesin the

20
SHELDON
POLLOCK
of ?Skatayana.1IHere, too, a littlelateran importantnew currentin

?abddnufsdasana
as we have seen the thirdcosmopolitanliterarylanguagealong with
Apabhramrsa,
Sanskritand Prakrit,findsexpressionin the workof Puspadanta(fl. 950), who was
probablythe firstto write a Jaina universalhistoryin the language.12 But the
historically
crucialinnovationin literarycultureconcernsKannada.
No doubt attemptsto produceliterarytextsin Kannada precededthe periodof
culturethroughout
Nrpatuiiga.In theterritorial
imaginationofKannadaliterary
the
medieval period, the "heartlandof Kannada" ("the very zone (nddu-e)between
Kisuvolal [Pattadakall, the renowned city of Kopana [Koppall, Puligere
and Omkunda[Okkundain the BelgaumDistrict]. . . is wherethe
[Lakshmeshvarl,
veryessence[tirullof Kannada [is found]"[KRM 1.381),in otherwords,the royally
sanctionedprestigedialect,is placed not in northeastKarnatakawhereGovinda II
and his son Nrpatuniga
built theircapital,but 250 km to the southwest,in the core
regionof thepredecessordynastyof the Calukyas."3Yet even if thiswerebecauseof
the presenceof a new Kannada literaturein Badami and Aihole,thiswould take us
back onlya fewgenerations-which,in fact,is about as faras the literary-historical
memoryof Kannada poets themselvesreaches,as this is embeddedin introductory
(the earliestauthorsmentionedare Asaga and Gunavarmaof the early
kaviprars'amsras
a task it is
ninthcentury).The firstextanttextin Kannada describeshow difficult
forthe authorto identifyliterarymodelsforthe prescriptive
projectbeforehim: he
is forcedto "huntforscraps"of Kannada literaturelike a mendicant:
Both Sanskritand Prakritare availableaccordingto one's wish (bagedante)
for
withrefinement
composingliterature
(samari),forto be surethereare already
availablebothliterary
modelsandrules(laksya,
laksana)in greatabundance
foreach
I present
ofthetwo.But thediscourse
here[requiresi
beggingscraps(irikoregozdvu)
It is thusdifficult
to makeit intelligible.
foranyoneto
[sc.,ofKannadaliteraturel
andPrakrit
do in thecaseofKannadathewaytheancientteachers
did).
[ofSanskrit
(KRM 1.41-42)
Kannada literature
was
(in thesenseI have beenusingthetermthroughout)
a recentinvention,of perhapsthe eighthcentury,and it is preciselythe factof its
noveltyin thefaceofSanskritthatpromptedthewriterofthistextto puzzle through,
in a mostdetailedand subtleway,thecomplexdialecticbetweenthelocal and global
in medieval literaryculture. This singular work in the history of literary
vernacularization
is theKavirdjamdrga
(ca. 875), "The Way of the King of Poets,"a
textto place besideDante's De vulgarieloquentia
(1307)-or, rather,beforeit; it may
in factbe the firstworkin worldcultureto constitutea vernacularpoeticsin direct
confrontation
with a cosmopolitanlanguage.14 There are considerablecultural"1HestyleshimselfAbhinavas'arvavaram
in recognitionoftheearliermodel(Sarvavarma's
Kdtantra),and namesthe autocommentary
on his grammarAmoghavrtti
afterhis patron(mentionedin 4.3.208). The Jainaturnto Sanskritforkdvya-and JinasenaII clearlyregardshis
Adipurdnaas such-needs study,especiallythe earlyworksof Ravisena(678) and JinasenaI
(783). For a generalaccount,see Dundas 1996.
12Literaryproductionin Prakrithas been thoughtoddlyabsent(cf.alreadyAltekar1960a,
412), but as notedabove it had becomea residualor even archaicculturalfeature,as inscriptionaldiscoursefromthe mid-fourth
centuryon demonstrates.
"See KRM 1.37; Pa'mpaVAV 14.45. Cf. ChidanandaMurti 1978, 256.
is no doubt earlier(its dating is much disputed;forone sober
14The Tamil Tolkdppiyam
assessmentsee Swamy1975), but thedichotomyoperativethereis notcosmopolitan/local
but
standard/nonstandard,
centamil
(Zvelebil 1992, 134-36).
[kotuntamill

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
21
historicalparallelsbetweentheseworks,but also somesignaldifferences.

At themicro
level,unlikethe Eloquentia,
theKRM aims to producenot a unifiedlanguageforthe
polityfromamongcompetingdialects,but a languagequalifiedforliterature.
At the
macrolevel,theKRM has a lesstransparent
relationship
thanDante's workto political
theoryand practice,but its social locationand authorshipare clearand important.It
and underhis guidance:the"Way oftheKing
was writtenat thecourtofNrpatuniga
of Poets" is the Way of Nrpatungahimself.15
Despite theimportance
ofKRM forthecultural-political
historyofmiddle-period
India, thereexistsno criticalanalysisor evendescriptiveaccountof theworkin any
language otherthan Kannada. Even Kannada-languagescholarshiphas not always
While Kannada in generalis unjustly
appreciatedits largerhistoricalsignificance.
ignored everywherein South Asian research,Old Kannada (Halagannada), the
languageofthisand all literature
oftheregionbeforetheVTras'aiva
culturalrevolution
at the end of the twelfthcentury,is understudiedeven in Karnataka-in largepart
becauseit is hardlyaccessiblewithoutknowledgeof Sanskrit.This paradoxicalfact,
like the text'srelationshipto the traditionof Sanskritpoetics,especiallyDandin's
"Mirrorof Literature,"
are two importantindicatorsof whatvernacularintellectuals
writingin Kannada weretryingto do. We have seen thatthe circulationof textson
Sanskritpoeticswas botha factorand a signofthecreationoftheSanskritcosmopolis
in Asia, and at thesametimeprovideda framework
withinwhichlocal poetriescould
be conceptualized(in Siam,Sri Lanka,Tibet,and so on). The sameprocesstookplace
in the subcontinentitself,firstand nowheremore profoundlythan in Kannada
country.
MakingtheGlobal Local: theKavirajamarga

and theWays ofLiterature
The KRM fullyrecapitulatesthe structureof Dandin's "Mirror"and in some
on the text.It firstdefines
importantwaysevenfunctionsas our oldestcommentary
thatmarit (dosas)and makeit beautiful(gugnas)
literature,
describeslinguisticfeatures
ofsound(chap. 2) and sense(chap. 3). In addition
(chap. 1), and thencataloguesfigures
to similarityin structure,
perhapstwo hundredof the illustrativeversesare closely
adaptedfromSanskritantecedents.But theworkis not a translation
of theSanskrit,
as oftenassumed.Not onlydoes "translation"
as usuallyunderstoodmakeno cultural
senseforthisworldwhereliteracyin Kannada presupposedliteracyin Sanskrit,but
the workhas a quite different
agenda fromits Sanskritmodel. What we are being
offeredin the KRM is an experimentin the localizationof a universalistic
Sanskrit
poetics and an analysisof Kannada literaryidentity.Conversely,however,it has
somethingof interestto revealabout the creationof thispoetics,and about the real
dynamicsof local-globalexchange.I wantto illustratebothfeaturesby an analysisof
somethingthat has long confusedstudentsof the KRM: its appropriationof the
Sanskritdiscourseon the Way of literature.
The KRM firstintroducesthe categorymdrgain its broaderconnotation,
literary
"The Way
method,somethingcoded in the veryname of the work,Kaviradj'amdrga,
oftheKing ofPoetry.""Way" becomesa coveringtermfor"good literature,"
as such
with "corrupt"poetry,dusya,2.7-8, so Jinasena,Adipurdna1.31; 208(contrasting
'5KRM 1.44, 147, etc. The actual redactorof the workwas a poet namedSrTvijaya.

22
SHELDON
POLLOCK
9); "literatureof the Way" is the supremeuse of language,in all its formaland
aestheticcomplexity:
The manwhounderstands
languagecan communicate
withothers,
disclosing
his
thoughts
as he intended.
Wiserthanhe is themanwho can communicate
large
inbrief
meaning
compass,
andwiserstillthemanwhoknowshowtomakehiswords
unitewithmeter.Morelearnedthanall is themanwhocanproduceworksofthe
greatWay(mahddhvakrtigal).
(KRM 1.15-16)
This is a perfectly
intelligibleusage. What has beenfoundpuzzlingis theKRM's
next move of adopting the notion of the regional Ways-whereby Sanskrit
demonstratedits pervasionof all literaryspace-for a differentiation
of Kannada
poetryitself.
It is impossible
oftheWayandreacha conclusion
fully
tocomprehend
theprocedures
aboutthemultiplicity
oftheiroptions.Havingconsidered
therulesonwordsofthe
I willsaya littlewithrespect
ingeneral
toKannadaso thatthematter
earlier
sastras,
in
andthusareinfinite
maybe clear. . . Poetsarisein a worldwithoutbeginning
theirindividualized
areofinfinite
number,
expressions
kinds,andso theWayexists
in infinite
the
variety... But to the best of my abilityI will discussbriefly
writers
distinction-their
differences
whoconsidered
perceived
bytheold [Sanskritj
inthe
andthesouthern,
thematter-between
thetwoexcellent
Ways,thenorthern
it. .. Ofthesetwothesouthern
I understand
manner
Wayhastenvarieties,
according
tothe[tenlanguagefeatures,
differentiated
gunasj. . .The northern
Wayhasvarieties
oftheinverse
ofthesefeatures.
bythepresence
(KRM2.46,49-51, 54-55)
This is followedby exhaustiveinventoryand illustrationof all the language
qualities taken over fromthe Sanskrittradition,which the author concludes is
to Kannadapoetics:"Whateverthewordsemployedin a poem theywill
foundational
enhancethevirtuesofKannadaifmade subjectto thedifferent
usagesassociatedwith
the Ways describedabove" (2.101). The KRM, in short,appearsto have completely
of
graftedthe discoursethat makes Sanskritcosmopolitan-the universalrepertory
styles-onto the local worldof Kannada.
Modern Kannada scholarshave foundthis entireinquiry(of which thereis a
medievaltexton Kannadapoetics,theKdvydvalokanam
reprisein thesecondimportant
of Nagarvarmaca. 1040, at the courtofJayasimhaII of the KalyaniCalukyasto be
not onlyirrelevant
to actual Kannada poetry,but incoherent.No advancewhatever
has been made overR. Narasimhachar's
impatientdismissalof the whole question:
"Northern"and "southern"in Kannada poeticsrefermerelyto the "schoolsor styles
in Sanskrit,"we are told, forthereis no evidencethatanythingcomparableexisted
in Kannada (1934, 121-22). Such a judgmentofcourseexplainsnothingofwhatthe
KRM intendsbyusingthediscourseon theWay foritsanalysisofKannadaliterature,
yet theredoes seem to be everyreasonto interpretit as alien and even meaningless
to a local literaryculture.Designed to reaffirm
the real transregionality
of Sanskrit
literaturepreciselyby identifying
quasi-regionalvarietiesthe madrgas
appear to be
if not ludicrouslypasted onto a real regionalworldof Kannada. The
incongruously
categorycapturesnothingwhateverin the local characterof the literatureand fits
onlyto the degreethisliteraturemimicsSanskrit.
The KRM is a textemergingfromthe verycenterof one of the mostpowerful
political formationsin middle-period India (cf. Inden 1990, 228ff.), and this fact, if

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
23
no generalprincipleofhermeneutic
charity,
shouldinviteus to ponderseriouslywhat
a vernacular-language
it meansbyusingthetalkofcosmopolitanSanskritto represent
poetics. Metadiscursivelyone might argue that, faced with exclusion fromthe
transregionality
ofSanskritand refusingto be caughtin thebracketsofthelocal,the
KRM seeksto remapthecosmopolitanWay ontothelocal worldofKarnataka.There
must therefore
be a northernand a southernstyleof Kannada poetryitself-the
a regional
KannadaNadu mustbe shownto embracea northand a south,to constitute
world-whetheror not such a divisioncorresponds
to any reallyexistingpoetries.16
If Kannada is to participatein the worldof the literary(kdvya),a worlddefinedby
Sanskrit,it mustshowits characteristic
features.In a word,the local mustevinceits
translocalcapacities.
An accountof thissortmaycapturesomethingof the cultural-political
impulse
at workin theKRM, and otherevidenceI look at below seemsto corroborate
it. But
there is anotherand more significant,if somewhatmore complicated,rationale
it. We beginto graspthiswhenwe considerhow theKRM differs
from
underpinning
and supplementsits Sanskritmodels. First,it renamesthe Ways as "north"and
"south"(the categoriesgauda and vaidarbhabeingofcourseimpossibleforKannada),
and therebymoderatesthe narrowlyspatial implicationsof the taxonomy.17More
importantis the distinction-whichfromthe vantagepoint of standardSanskrit
poeticsseemsodd enoughto constitutea categoryerror-that the KRM introduces
in distinguishing
theWays accordingto thetwomaindivisionsofSanskritrhetorical
and svabhdvokti):
practice,indirectand direct("natural")expression(vakrokti
cameintoprominence,
andwiththemtwodifferent
forms
of
TwoWaysaccordingly
Directexpression
is an
the indirect(vakra)and the direct(svabhdva).
expression,
ofthesouthern
ofmanyvarieties,
invariable
characteristic
Way.Indirect
expression,
is foundin thecelebrated
northern
Way.
(2.52-53)
For the Sanskrittradition,as we have seen, the Ways are differentiated
by the
at the level of
presenceor "inversion"or absenceof certainlanguagefeatures(gugnas)
phonology,syntax,and lexicon. Yet here anotherdichotomyis introducedthat,
though largelyunspoken in that tradition,finallyhelps make the whole thing
intelligible:Southernpoetryis devoid of tropes and thus makes prominentthe
languageof literaryexpressionitself,whereasnorthern
poetryreliesmoreon figures
of speech(the "manyvarieties"referred
to above). Althoughthereappearsto be a
faintawarenessofthisfundamental
distinctionearlierthantheKRM, we findit clearly
it should be noted,reflectsno dialect divisionbetweennorthand
16The differentiation,
south in Old Kannada. Ganga poets in the south and Calukya poets in the northused a
homogenizedliteraryidiom, producingand reproducedby the philologicalworkdiscussed
below. (The Kannada Nighantu,s.v. uttaramdrga,
therefore
is mistakento gloss "uttarakannada.")
'7"North"and "south" are used preferentially
by Dandin's tenth-century
commentator,
(so, occasionally,by Dandin himself,KA 1.60, 80, 83). Ratna composedhis
Ratnas'rTjnina
commentary
somewherein the Rastrakutaworld,his patronbeing one Sarvabhyunnatar-asnamed ?rTmattunfganaradhipa.
And it appearsthat the two otherextantcomtraktutatilaka
mentatorson Dandin workedin the Karnatakaregion(if the one, Vadijafighalais the VadighafighalaBhatta mentionedin a tenth-century
Gafiga grant [Annual Reportof theMysore
Archaeological
Dept.,19211 as niravadyasdhityavidycvydkhydnanipuna
(1. 168); and iftheotheris
theTarunavacaspatiwho workedat thetwelfth-century
Hoysala court).Evidentlyit was a text
thatspoke to southernintellectualswithspecial forcefulness.

24
SHELDON
POLLOCK
articulatedonly in a somewhatlaterwork,the ?rggdraPrrakdfa

of King Bhoja (first
quarteroftheeleventhcentury):"Therearethreesourcesofbeautyin poetry:Indirect
expression(vakrokti),direct expression(svabhdvokti),
and expressionof emotion
(rasokti).Indirectexpressionis whenprominenceis givento figuresofspeech,simile
and thelike; directexpression,
whenit is givento languagefeatures(gu?nas)"
(678).18
How deviantfromtheSanskrittraditionthiscorrelation-ofguncas
and thusvaidarbha
stylewith svabhdvokti,
and vakrokti
withgauda-is thoughtto be appearsfromthe
wordsofBhoja's editor,who foundit altogetherunintelligible(Raghavan1963, 13637; it is in factunknownto Indologicalscholarship).In thelightofKRM it becomes
clear.
The logic ofargumentbothin KRM and oftheexamplesit adduces19producesa
geographyofKannadastylesthat,strippedto itsessentials,comprisesa realdichotomy
of practicesforvernacularwriters:(a) "southern"Kannada literatureis thatwhich
focalizeslanguage itself(literatureas "speech-directedspeech"), and accordingly
employsfiguratively
unadorneddescription(the primarymeaningof svabhdvokti),
whereas"northern"Kannada literaturefocalizesrhetoric(vakrokti);(b) among the
mostdistinctive
linguisticfeatures
listedamongthegu?nas
is degreeofnominalization:
"southern"Kannada literatureis uncompounded;"northern"Kannada poetryis the
reverse;20
(c) "southern"Kannada literature
is markedby theprevalenceoflocal (desi)
words (the analog of primarylexemes); northernpoetry by the prevalenceof
unmodifiedSanskritloans (samasamskrta
[tatsamain othertraditions],the analog of
derivativelexemes).
The northern
and southerntypesof Kannada literaturethusprefigure
whatwere
and
eventuallyto be namedliteratureof the Way and literatureof the Place, magrga
set of categories,the KRM is
desi.Far fromanalyzingKannada againstan irrelevant
thetwomodesofwritingthatconstitutethefundamental
identifying
identitychoices
forKannada, and in factforall South Asian regionalliteratures.But thereis an
additionaland tellingironyin the dialecticof cosmopolitanand vernacular:For the
sourceof this organizingtaxonomyof Sanskritpoetrywould appear to lie not in
anythingto do with the natureof Sanskritpoetryas such,but ratherin underlying
inclinations
ofsouthernpoets-such as Kannadapoetslike thoseat Nrpatufiga's
court
or Tamil-bornpoets like Dandin himself-to writeSanskritin conformity
with the
sensibilitiesof thesouthernlanguagesthatare finallymade visibleby theproduction
In theprocessoffullvernacularization
ofpoetryand poetictheoryin thevernacular.21
18Bhamaha regardsgauda as alankdravad,and vaidarbhaas avakrokti
as well as prasanna,
1.34-35), nor
komala,etc., i.e., endowedwith gunas,but he neverelaborates(Kdvydlankara
does Dandin despite his explicitdichotomy(KA 2.360). Vamana illustratesvaidarbhawith
but
?dkuntala2.6, perfectsvabhdvokti,
and gauda with Mahdviracarita
1.54, perfectvakrokti,
otherwisegives no hintthathe understoodthe principlesin play.
(southern)
19Thus KRM vss 2.60 and 62 can be distinguishedon the basis ofsvabhdvokti
and vakrokti
(northern,
the le5saku[-Jvalayam
and otherfigures),
as can thetwohalvesof2.110
(the firstwithouttrope,the second with metaphorcompound).By contrast,in 2.109, the
operativedistinctionis theplay ofgugasin the firsthalfoftheverseindicatingsouthernstyle,
as opposedto the northern
style,whichshowsnothingcomparable.
20Thestatusof ojas was ambiguousalreadyto Dandin, who while listingit as a quality
ofvaidarbhastylemakesit clearthatit is a peculiarfeatureofnorthern
poetry(1.80), ofwhich
southerners
make only moderate(andkulam)use (83). Vamana eliminatedit as a quality of
"pure" southernstyle(1.2.19), whereasforBhoja vaidarbhais "whollyuncompounded"and
gauda "compoundedto the fullestextentpossible"(?P 580).
2'ForRatna svabhdvokti
is "expressionnatural"to southernpoets: "The vaidarbhaWaywhichconsistsof beauty-factors
relatingto wordsthemselves[as words),i.e., the tengunasis naturalto southernpoets (ddksindtydndm
svdbhdvikah),
whereasthe 'eastern'courseofpoetry

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
25
that was engaged in ninth-and tenth-century

Karnataka,the stylesthat southern
writershad alreadytheorizedforSanskritwere naturallyretheorized
as components
ofKannada,ofwhichnoncompounding,
initialalliterationfprdsal,
directdescription,
and the like are realcomponents,
as anypassageofOld Kannada poetrywill testify.
The largerprincipleto extractfromthis apparentlynarrowcase concernsthe
mutuallyconstitutive
interaction
of the local and the global: As the cosmopolitanis
constitutedthroughculturalflowsfromthe vernacular,so the vernacularconstructs
itselfby appropriationfromthe cosmopolitan-a processthat sometimes,as here,
amountsto unwittingreappropriation.22
Philologization
and theProductionof
Difference
The KRM has othercultural-political
aims, whichvariouslynuancethe project
of creatinga cosmopolitanidiom while at the same time identifyingKannada
difference.
Kannada could not achieve its new rank unless it possessed both the
epistemologicalstatusof Sanskritand the dignityof its philologicalapparatus(i.e.,
laksanagranthas
or rule-setting
texts).The KRM achievesthe formerby the veryfact
of engagingin a discourseon Kannada at all, and the latterby the explicitanalysis
ofliterary-language
normswithwhichthegreaterpartoftheworkis concerned.The
textitselfis moreovera performance
of its argument,forit constitutesKannada as a
languageof sciencein theact ofestablishingKannada as a languageof literature
(by
in
contrast,theEloquentiacan onlymake its scholarlyargumentforthevolgare
illustre
Latin).
The precociouslyearly philologizationwe find in the KRM will continue
foranotherfourcenturies.Dictionariesarefoundfromtheend ofthe
uninterruptedly
tenthcentury.A numberof these,like the first,that of the poet Ranna (ca. 990,
and glossingas theyoftendo simple
fragmentarily
preserved)are Kannada-Sanskrit,
KannadawordswithSanskritequivalentsareaimedless at enhancingcommunication
thanachievinglanguageparity(cf.Nagaraj 1996, 223ff.).Fromthe same periodwe
find the firstin a long series of sophisticatedanalysisof Kannada metrics,the
Chandombudhi
or "Sea of Meters" of Nagavarman I. Along with an elaborate
domesticationof the complexquantitative-syllabic
metricof Sanskrit,thisprovides
an accountoftheten "native"meters,karntdtavisayabhdsdjdti,
"indigenous[meters]of
the languageof the Kannada world" (5. 1). The grammaticaltraditionbeginswith
the Karndtakabhdsdbhisana
or "Ornamentof the Kannada Language,"composedin
Sanskrits&trasby NagavarmamII (at the Kalyani courtin northeastern
Karnataka
around1040), and culminatesin one of themostimportantgrammarsofprecolonial
India, the ?abdamanidarpanaof Kesiraja (at the Hoysala court, 1260). This
extraordinary
work,whichlike theKRM remainsvirtuallyunreadoutsideofKannadawould have to occupya centralplace in anyseriousaccountof
languagescholarship,
theprocessesofvernacular
and standardization
beforemodernity.
languageunification
takesnoteof semanticfiguresof speechand grandiloquence"(ad 1. 50). Accordingly,
he sees
the different
Ways as "inborn,""native," "specific"(tajja, sahaja, nija) to the poets of the
particularregionsjust like theirregionallanguage(on 1.40, p. 28).
22Comparethe intertextual
linkagesthatshow the fifteenth-century
Telugu poet Potana
to be reappropriating
and localizingin his campi7
Bhdgavatamu
a Sanskritcourtlypurdna,the
tenth-century
Bhdgavatam,
which itselfappropriated(as Potana was probablyunaware)the
songsof the Tamil Alvars(seventh-ninth
centuries).Cf. Shulman1993.

26
SHELDON
POLLOCK
Sufficeit to say herethatin the ?MD, too, fromthe firstverseto the last, Kannada
is theorizedwithina Sanskritculturalepisteme;it is constructedas an
difference
object of study fromthe perspectiveof a Sanskritthat definedwhat language,
especiallyliterarylanguage,is supposedto be.23
oflife,seems
Everyfeatureoftheliterary
in Kannada,foritsfirsthalf-millennium
to be markedby thekindsofnegotiationsofdifference
and calculationsofvernacularcosmopolitanpredominancethatwe findin theKRM. This textdefinesvirtuallythe
whole rangeof literarythemesthatwill be meditatedoverforthe nextfouror five
centuries,everythingfromthe large questions of genre (KRM 1.33ff.)and the
ifprematurely,
construction,
ofa canonofKannadaproseand versepoetryjuxtaposed
ofcompounds
to and complementing
thatofSanskrit(KRM 1.28-32), to thestructure
and the microanalysis
of whichSanskritand Kannada mayand maynot be joined in
arenotjusttheoretical,
either.They
compound(e.g.,KRM 1.51ff.).Such negotiations
informthe literaryproceduresof the poets themselvesover a whole rangeof texts
whose very titles-beginning with the earliest, the Karndta Kumdrasambhava
(attributedto Asaga, A.D. 853)-bespeak the localizationof the Sanskritglobal,and
is aboutis theverypossibility
suggestthata big partofwhatearlyKannadaliterature
of makingliteraturein Kannada.
VernacularPoliticalSpace
workextantin Kannada,
No textmakesall thismoreexplicitthanthefirst
literary
Pampa's Vikramarjunavijaya
(VAV, ca. 950). Pampa was the courtpoet of Arikesari
II, a Calukyaoverlordin whatis now westernAndhra(Vemulavada)who held actual
rule.The Vikramdrjunavijaya,
conceivedofas
powerin the last decadesof Rastrakiuta
was solicitedby
the first"complete"vernacularversionof the SanskritMahdbhdrata,
the courtlyliteratiand paid forby the king himself:"The learnedfeltthatno great
Bhdrata-an unprecedented
poet in thepast had properly[re-]composedtheComplete
thing-without damagingthe bodyof the tale and retainingits magnitude... and
that this was somethingonly Pampa could do. And so theygatheredtogetherand
undertaketo composethis work . . . Arikesarihimself
besought[me]; I [therefore]
sent a messengerand gave [me] much wealth to have his fameestablishedin the
world,and in this fashionhad [me] composea historicalnarrative[itihdsakathal."24
The negotiationof culturaldifference
mentionedabove is undoubtedlyone of the
"A workof
and is signaledat its verycommencement:
work'smain preoccupations,
.
if
it
entersinto the poetry
literaturebecomesbeautifulif its imaginationis new . .
of Place (desiyolpuguvudu),and havingdone so, penetratesintothepoetryoftheWay
(mdrgadol
ta/vudu)"(VAV 1.8). But Pampa has additionalpurposesin mind,which
come into clear reliefonlyonce we recallsomethingabout the model he soughtto
overcome.
As my briefremarksabove tried to suggest,one of the things the Sanskrit
is about is the productionor organizationof space and of a political
Mahdbhdrata
("the uniquenessof
23Thelast verse in fact framesnine points of Kannada difference
Kannada," aridu ... kannadan)over against Sanskrit,in termsof phonology,sandhi,compounding,prosody,etc. (?abdamanidarpanza
342).
24VAV 1.11; 14.51. In fact,Peruntevanar's
Tamil adaptation,the Pdrat(fragmentary?)
venpa,is about a centuryearlier(at the courtof NandivarmanIII Pallava, r. ca. 830-52).

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
27
visionthatencompassesthisspace.As we saw, theheroes'travelsin theirexile,their

thelevying
conquestof the quarterspriorto thedeclarationofuniversalsovereignty,
of troopsforwar when thatsovereignty
is challenged,the wanderingsof the ritual
horsewhose compassmarksthe extentof theirreacquisitionof imperialstatusand
whose ritualslaughtermarksits confirmation,
and the finalfunerealcircuitbefore
theirdeaths-when theyrenouncethe world of political power in despairat the
slaughtertheyengagedin to win it-reinforcethe imageofa vastyetbounded,ifso
hazilyboundedculture-sphere
ofpoliticalreference,
extendingfromNepal to Assam
(or theplacesnowso called) to thesouthernpeninsula,and thenceto Sind,Qandahar,
Kashmir.It is thisepic space,and thepoliticsthatfillit, thatPampa seeksto redefine
in his vernacularized
version.
Pampa oftenrefersto his work as the samasta-bhdrata,wheresamastahas two
importantmeanings:the authorattemptsto reproduce,as noted,the "whole" of the
mainstoryoftheSanskritpoem.But also he wantshis epic to be seenas a "composite"
narrative.That is, it explicitlyidentifiesthe poem's patron,his family,overlord,
and worldoftheSanskrit
enemies,and his regionwiththeheroes,allies,antagonists,
epic. To be sure,the poet is not a simple allegorist,and his touchis light.But his
in 1.51),
directionsto readersareclearenough(he is explicitabouttheidentifications
and thestoryofCalukyapoliticalfortunes,
as Arikesariassumesthemantleofprimary
vassal (sdmanta)amid the frayingstructureof Rastrakiuta
power,is pushed through
the veil of the myth-epicat criticalpointsin the narrative.A good exampleof the
double narrativeis providedin the verycenterof the poem. When the sons of
Dhrtarastra
in anticipationofbattlebeginto describethegreatdeedsoftheirenemy,
theepic heroArjuna-the hero'spridein fighting
withgreatgod Siva and acquiring
magicweapons,thevalorhe showedin defeatingdemons,thegrandeurofhis sharing
the throneof Indra,king of gods-at this verypoint,where"Indra" king of gods
could just as well stand forIndra III Rastrakutta,
Arikesari'smaternaluncle (and
"gods" could mean "kings"),thediscourseglidesseamlesslyintoa descriptionofthe
poet's royalpatron:
The majestyof this Sea of Virtues. . . who held his ground,shieldingand saving
oftheCalukyafamily,
whenGovindaraja
Forehead
Ornament
[IV
KingVijayaditya,
againthevassals
ragedagainsthim;... whoattackedand conquered
Rastrakuttal
on theorderofthesupreme
whocamein battalions
Emperor
Gojjega[Govindarajal
... and restoredimperialpower[sakalasdmrdjya-J
to King Baddega [ = Amoghavarsa
in him...
1111-whohadcometo himtrusting
(VAV 9.51 +)
Arikesaridefeatsthe usurpingGovindarajaand restoresto power the rightful

ruler,but in doingso constituteshimselfas paramountoverlordin theDeccan in the
middleof the tenthcentury.
It is not thedetailsofthehistoricalcase thatdrawattention,but rathertheform
of culturalcommunicationPampa has inventedto presentthem.He has refashioned
in thevernaculara Sanskritepic discourseon thepoliticaland therebyrevisionedthe
kind of world. And,
transregional
political order for anotherand very different
accordingly,
exactlylike the poem's politicaldiscourse,its geographicalimagination
is adjustedto theprimarynarrative
project.The "CityoftheElephant,"Hastinapura,
which is home to the Bharataclan in the Sanskritepic, becomesVemulavada,the
ofthequarters"ofthesubcontinent
Calukyancapital.The grand"circumambulation
thatrepeatedly
organizestheactionoftheepic becomesa circuitofthecentralDeccan.
Even the list of riversfromwhich the watersare collectedforthe hero'scoronation

28
SHELDON
POLLOCK
ritualat the end of theworkincludesa streamin the Kannada heartlandofBanavasi

(VAV 1.51ff.with Narasimhachar'snote ad loc.; 4.26ff; 14.31). In a word, what
Pampa has done is shrinkthe continentof the Bharatas(bhdratavarsa)
to a Kannada
regionalworld,narrowthe visionofpoliticalpowerto the space in whichit actually
worked,and endowthiswithcomprehensible
pointsofreference,
narrative
sense,and
literarystatus.It is now thekannadadandduof theKRM-"Between the Kaveriand
Godavaririversis thatregionin Kannada (nddaddkannadadol)f= the countryalso
called Karnataka],a well-knownpeople/region
(janapada),an illustriousoutstanding
realm [viyayalwithinthe circle of the earth"(KRM 1.36)-that becomes the allimportantpolitical and aestheticframework.
And it is forthe moral and political
instruction
ofthiscommunitythatPampa has writtenhis Bhdrata:"Having properly
[re-]composedthe celebratedworkof Vyasamuni... an expansivepoem of Place, is
it anywonderthat[Pampa,j the Sea of PoeticVirtues,has becomethe teacherofthe
Nadu?" (14.62).
It is by such an arrayof textsand practices-the KRM's assertingat once the
regionalityand supraregionality
of Kannada,and its literaryvalue, by retrofitting
a
Sanskrittaxonomy;Pampa's localizationof an epic space and politicalvisionto the
worldof Kannadanadu,and the rangeof otherculturalpracticesI have examinedthatthe formof culturalcommunicationI want to call the cosmopolitanvernacular
comesto be produced.But if theKRM, thePampaBhdrata,and othertextscan give
us a vividsenseof thediscursiveand literarystrategiesby whichsuch a high-culture
vernacularis produced,how can we make sense of the time and the place of this
transformation?
Why is it thatvernacularintellectualsstartingin theninthto tenth
fromwithinthecentersofpowerofdominantpolities(Rastrakuita,
centuries,
Calukya,
What is their
Hoysala), turnto Kannada forliteraryand politicalcommunication?
interestthenand therein constituting
theirlanguageas a newepistemological
object,
an object of normativediscourse,a vehicle forcourtlyexpression?What is their
interestin renouncingwhatwas notonlypotentiallybut actuallythetranslocal,
nearglobal audienceof Sanskritand, forthe firsttime,speakinglocally?
Explaining Vernacularization
Similarprocessesto what we have foundin the creationof a Kannada literary
culturemay be observedall over the Sanskritecumenefromthe beginningof the
secondmillennium,fromAssam,Andhra,and Orissato SriLankaandJava,and from
the
Kerala, Maharashtra,and Gujarat to Tibet. Vernacularwriterstransformed
take
inscriptionalrecord,so that the expressionof political will would henceforth
in Tamil underthe imperial
place in thevernacular;thishappensmostspectacularly
Co1as,but can also be seen,nascently,in Marathi,Oriya,Telugu. Theyappropriated
a Sanskritaestheticand a rangeof its literarymodels into theirlanguagesforboth
politicaland imaginativeexpression;Dandin, forexample,is reworkedin Sinhalain
the tenthcentury,Tamil in the twelfth,Tibetan in the thirteenth.
They developed
narrative
the
new notionsofgeoculturalframeworks
fortheirliterary
representations,
same as those in which theirtextswould circulate.It was typicallyby way of a
that we findin
localizationof the Sanskritepics-often with the double-narrative
achievedin a primalmomentof
Pampa-that all thesegoals were simultaneously
ofthe
Witnessin thisconnectionsuchJavanesetextstheRdmdyana
vernacularization.
tenthcentury(representative
of a genrewheredouble-narrative
is fundamental,
cf.

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
29
Robson 1983) and the prose Mahdbhdrata;Nannaya's Telugu version of the

Mahdbhdrataat the court of the Vefigi Calukyas in the mid-eleventh;Madhava
Kandali's Assamese Rdmayana,composed at the request of the Barahi king
Mahamanikyain the mid-fourteenth;
Visnudasa'sBraj Mahdbhdrata
(Pdndavacarita)
and Ramayanakathd
writtenat the courtof the GwaliorTomarsin the mid-fifteenth
century;theOriyaversionsof theepicsand BhdgavatafromtheGajapati courtin the
laterfifteenth
century.This vasttransformation
in thewaypeopleimaginedand wrote
theirnew regionalworldspresentsa complexofproblemsforhistoricalanalysisand
culturaltheory.We are nowherenearto unravelingany of theseforany partof the
newly vernacularized world, let alone constructing a unified theory of
But I thinkwe can identifysome conceptualdead ends and some
vernacularization.
otheravenuesworthfollowing,and formulate
a fewlargerprinciplesthatSouthAsia
vernacularization
suggests.
In tworecentessaysa leadingpoliticaland culturaltheoristofSouthAsia,Sudipta
Kaviraj, considerssome centralissues of writingand being on the eve of British
colonialism(Kaviraj 1992a, 1992b). His reflections
are invaluablefortheirinsistence
on thehistoricity
and therefore
ofrepresentations
variability
ofcommunity,
ethnicity,
identity,and theirterritorial
localizations;even more so fortheirrecognizingand
chartingthe long-termtrend to "incommunication"in South Asia, that is, the
processesbywhichthemultilingualcapacitiesand enthusiasms
ofspeakersandwriters
wereerodedby the monolingualization
effected
But at the same time
by modernity.
a numberof receivedviewsabout the vernacularization
of thisworldare reproduced
thathavegone uncontestedtoo long. Like everyotherscholarwho has writtenon the
issue, Kaviraj ties the "gradual separationof [the] emergingliteratures[of the
vernacularlanguages]fromthehighSanskrittradition"to "religiousdevelopments,"
indeed,religiousdevelopments
hostileto thattradition,againstwhichthevernacular
literaturesmake an "undeclaredrevolution.""The origin of vernacularlanguages
appearsto be intimatelylinked to an internalconceptualrebellionwithinclassical
BrahminicalHinduism."25
In fact, there is precious little evidence to support these generalizations,
universallyaccepted though they are. There is of course no denyingthat some
relationshipmay be foundbetweenlanguagechoice and religiouspracticein South
Asian history;the resistanceto redactingthe Buddha's words in Sanskritand the
preference
ofJainasforeasternPrakritfortheirscriptures
are familiarinstancesfrom
an earlyperiod.But by the beginningof the secondmillenniumthis relationshipis
much etiolated. Sanskrithad long ceased to be a brahmanicalpreserve,just as
brahmanshad long takento expressingthemselvesliterarily
in languagesotherthan
Sanskrit,such as Apabhrams'aor indeed Kannada. The religiousdeterminantin
languagechoice in generalhas been vastlyoverdrawnforpremodernSouthAsia; in
the particularcase of the so-called rebellion in religious consciousnesstermed
devotionalism(bhakti),nothingsuggestsit can be isolatedas a significant
let alone
primarydynamicin the historyof South Asian vernacularization.
Some northern
Indianvernaculars
came firstto be employedforwrittenliterature
altogetheroutside
the brahmanicaltradition:Hindui in the west,forexample,by Mas'ud Sa'd Salman
in Lahoreca. 1100, Avadhiin theeast byMaulana DaiudinJaunpurat theend ofthe
fourteenthcentury.And many vernacularinaugurationsshow no concernwith
religiousdevotionalismwhatever.EarlyBraj crystallizedas a literaryidiom in the
25Whatis meantis the "origin"ofvernacularliteratures,
not languages,a commonslippage promptingmy remarksabove on writingand the beginningof literature.

30
SHELDON
POLLOCK
writingsof Visnudas underthe patronageof the Tomars in Gwalior,and as Stuart

McGregorhas carefullydemonstrated,
his vernacularepics have nothingto do with
bhakti(McGregorn.d.). The same holds true forthe westernend of the Sanskrit
culturalecumene,wherethe earliesttextsin Gujarati,of the fourteenth
to fifteenth
centuries,include Bhalan's courtlyKddambariand the anonymouseroticphdgu,
and forthe eastern,thepolitical-allegorical
kakawinsofJavanese.
Vasantavildsa,
In the case of Kannada,beliefin the religiousimperativeof vernacularization
is
altogetherunchallengedin the scholarlyliterature.Here, however,the putative
impetusis notdevotionalismbut whatone scholara generationago describedas Jaina
loyaltyto "thepreceptofthefounderoftheirfaiththatthevernacular
shouldbe used
forpreachingto themasses"(Altekar1960b, 314). Why it tookmorethana thousand
yearsfor this loyaltyto manifestitselfin literaryproductionin the language of
Karnataka,whereJainashad lived sinceperhaps300 B.C., is a mystery.
Mysterious,
too, is the factthat,at the verytime and place when Kannada literaryproduction
finallydoes make history,the greatestofJainareligiouspoets-those whoseloyalty
shouldbe beyonddoubt-Jinasenaand Gunabhadra(ca. 850-900), choseSanskrit
for
the spiritualpoetryof theirMahdpurdna,
as manydid also forlaukikaor this-worldly
at the Vemulavadacourt,theJaina
moralliterature,
such as Pampa's contemporary
abbot Somadevasturi
(authorof Ya?(astilakacamp7,
A.D. 959).
If a numberof the earlierKannada poets wereJainas,some weredecidedlynot.
It is no anomalythat when a brahmanministerof religiousaffairs(dharmakdryesu
underVikramaditya
VI ofthewesternCalukyas(end oftheeleventhcentury)
niyukta)
-the mostorthodox
giftedland to a Mimaamsa
college(aprdbhdkarasya
vydkhyana?/d
ofall orthodoxies-thelongprasastihe composedwas equallydividedbetweenverses
in Kannada and Sanskrit(El 15, pp. 348ff.).As forJainaauthors,some werealmost
clearlyJainabrahmans(a categorypeculiarto the Digambaralay communityof the
Deccan), includingPampa (cf. VAV 14.49) and NagavarmanII (Kdvydvalokanam
vs.
960). And muchoftheirworkhas littleor nothingto do withJainismas such.Some
mayhavecomposedtheologicalhistories,but theyalso composed,at leastforthefirst
three centuriesof literaryhistory,non-Jainaprose-versecourtlyepics (campz7s),
typicallyfornon-Jainapatrons(Ranna wrotehis Gaddyuddhaca. 1000, fora Saiva
prince,cf. 1.21). Pampa's Vikramarjunavijaya-which
he calls a laukika poem in
contrastto hisjindgamaor theologicaltext,theAdiPurdna
(VAV 14.60), and is, as we
saw, a workdeterminedin its everyimportantfeatureby politicalvision-not to
as KarndtaKddambar7
speakoftheKRM and suchhigh-culture
vernacularizations
(ca.
cultureformedbyvalues
1030), providesevidenceenoughofan audienceand a literary
to which religiousidentitywas subordinate.The one value that the KRM itself
celebratesin describingthe literarycourtis culturalvirtuosity:
to thegreatNrpatufiga
Anyonewhobetakeshimself
to becomea memberofhis
circle(sabhd)mustbe committed
ofall
to thediscriminating
literary
understanding
as well as Uainal scriptural,
vaidikaquestions
and eminent
this-worldly
matters,
He mustbe adorned
withdistinguished
(laukikasdmdyikdruvaidikavis'esa).
utterances,
of literature
analysis,and artsrelatingto the knowledge
(sdhita);he musthave
andhighlyskilledconduct,
andbe totallyclear-thinking,
exceptional
insight,
fully
eachandeverydefinition
andexample[ofliteraturel.
analyzing
(3.219-20)
notdrivenbyreligiousimperatives,
Not onlywas Kannadavernacularization
it was not in anymeaningfulsensepopular.Popularcommunication
can hardlyhave
been servedby a literatureso thoroughly
presupposingSanskrittrainingin lexicon,

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
31
syntax,metric,rhetoric;some textsexplicitlystatetheywerecommissionedby and

intendedfora learnedaudience,as we saw in the case of Pampa.
The dominantexplanations,
derivedultimatelyfroma disciplinary
therefore,
bias
towardreligiousstudiesthatcan oftendeformthinkingaboutprecolonialIndia,26are
thatmarked
theprimarymomentsofvernacularization
oflittlehelp in understanding
much of South Asia in the earlysecond millennium.What is abundantlyclear,
however,in virtuallyeverycase we can historically
capture-and again, Kannada is
paradigmatichere-is the roleof thecourtin thevernacularturn.It is cosmopolitan
elites-men like Pampa fullyin commandof Sanskritand enjoyingrankand status,
paid by the king for his work and rejoicingin his power and grandeur(VAV
13.49ff.)-writingcourtlypoetryfor theirpeers, who firstturnedKannada (and
Telugu, Malayalam,Braj, Assamese) into an instrumentforliteraryand political
will continueto produce the
and who forthe next half-millennium
expressivity,
literary
and philologicaltextsin thelanguage.What we needto understand,
however,
is whatthiscourtlyliterature
meantforthe self-understanding
ofpolity,and whyit
came intoexistencewhenit did.
of contemporary
social theorysuggeststhatwe should seek
The common-sense
fitbetweenvernacularpoetryand polity.The grammaticaland
some instrumental
literary-normative
will-to-unification
of the language,we may be led to assumeby
such theory,is intimatelyconnectedwith the politicalwill-to-unification,
since the
poweroverlanguageis poweroverthe usersof thatlanguage-or moresimplyput,
grammarians
and politicianssharethesamedelusions(Bourdieu1991, 43-65; Fabian
1986, 8). This axiom invitesus to look forsomethingnew politicallyhappeningin
the world of the Rastraku-tasand western Calukyas within which Kannada
vernacularization
is occurring.One may,it is true,discerna different
kindofpolitical
paradigmarisingin SouthAsia at theend ofthefirstmillennium.The old aspiration
of transregional
and trans-"ethnic"
rule,the "imperialpolity"thathad markedthe
forthe previousthousandyears,had begun to give way to something
subcontinent
different,
somethingperhapsto be called vernacularpolity.27Enduringdominance
was no longerto be soughtoutsidethe extendedcore area,whichforits partcame
to coincidewitha languageor culturearea-something thatthepolity,
increasingly
by its cultural-politicalpractices,helped to create-vague though both areas
undoubtedlywerein conceptionand on theground.
When in late middle-periodIndia, one mightbe prone to suppose,kingdoms
beganto replacetheearliersupraregional
empires,ordreamsofsupraregional
empires,
withtherealityofregionalgovernance;whenkingsfromNrpatuniga
in ninth-century
Kannadanaduto Airlanggain eleventh-century
of
Java became less the cakravartins
cosmic imperia and more the overlordsof really existing regional polities, the
of Sanskritceded beforea vernacularthat could definea
cosmopolitanexpressivity
regionalpoliticalspace thatactuallyworkedas such.And thuschoiceoflanguagefor
the making of literature-the inscriptionof new kinds of literarytexts in the
local cultureis authorizedand made availablefordiffusion
and
vernacular-whereby
permanence,could be takento constituteat the level of cultureand communication
a new sense of the permanenceand diffusionof the polityas a formof community
26Thishas broughtus to the point whereeven the most carefulstudentsof the subject
are proneto contrast"Sanskritization"
as a processof "religiousculture"with,say,Islamicization,whichis said to inhabitthe domainof the secular(Wagoner 1996, 872).
27Kulkeunderstandstheselaterkingdomsas "imperialpolities,"without,however,specifyingwhatdistinguishesthemfromthe earlierimperialformations
(1995, 242-62).

32
SHELDON
POLLOCK
self-understanding
and solidarity. And the specific character of this newly
vernacularizing
literature,as a cosmopolitanvernacular,suggeststhat it aimed to
and to recreatetheconditions
usurpthepositionofthesuperposedliterary
formation
of imperialcultureat the level of the region.
The troublewith thisapproach,I earliersuggested,is thatit restsupon a set of
beliefsabout the relationof cultureand power (whetheras instrumentalreason,
legitimation,
or ideology)thathavebeenformedin theage ofcapitalin orderto make
sense of it (cf. Lefort1986, 181-236; Scott 1990, 70-107). These encouragea
conceptualstylethattypicallyreduceslanguageto powerand precludeseven asking
in thepast. It is no easymatter,to state
whatmaybe different
about theirinteraction
the difficulty
moregenerally,to theorizea premodernworldwithoutdeployingthe
theoreticalpresuppositions-theonly ones we have-forged by modernity;to read
the precolonialfroma locationin the postcolonial,to displace let alone replacethe
notionof the nation formand the theoryof cultureit generates.It thus remains
unclearto me what warrantssuch presuppositionsin understandinga differentpotentiallyradicallydifferent-worldof the nonmodernnon-West.As I suggested
earlierto be the case in the Sanskritcosmopolis,one might instead theorizethe
presenceofsome altogetherdifferent
culturallogic,wheretheaesthetic,forexample,
was centrallyin play, or some peculiarnew self-fashioning
throughthe vernacular
distinctionof personsand places. Only moreempiricalwork,however,informedby
a stubbornconceptualautonomy,is going to be able to testsuch hypotheses.28
and culturallysensitiveaccountof the relationshipof
Developinga historically
vernacularpoetryand polity beforewesternmodernityis, however,only part of a
biggercomplexofquestions,whichin lieu ofa prematurehistoricalconclusionabout
the cosmopolitanvernacularas such I want to tryto characterize,
with respectboth
to its historicaland theoreticalchallenges.
This largercomplexis the problematicof premodernglobalization.What used
to be called "Indianization"is one ofthevarietyofhistorically
important
waysin the
past (othercrudebut still necessarycategoriesincludeHellenization,Romanization,
Sinicization)of being translocal,of participatingin social and culturalnetworksin
addition to materialnetworksthat transcendedthe immediatecommunity,and
againstwhicha wide rangeof vernacularculturesdefinedthemselves.Now, despite
the justifiablefascinationof the academywith the new globalization,the historical
studyof the culturaland social dynamicsof premodernglobalizationprocesseswithoutwhichthenewnessofthepresentcase can onlybe imaginedand notknownhas yetto begin in earnestforanypartof theworld.Considerfora momentonlythe
scholarshipon the Romanizationof the westernempire, a process of no little
of "Westerncivilization."In
consequence,I think,in the creationand construction
1990 a leadinghistorianof the Roman empirecould say,"Thereseemsto havebeen
no scholarlyattentionpaid to anythingbut the symptoms"of Romanization;"Even
in so richlyinformeda workas . . . thereare onlytwo or threelines devotedto the
motivesforculturalchange;and I recallnothingmorethanthatin all my reading"
(MacMullen 1990, 60).
On the rareoccasionswhentheglobal and local are analyzedas waysofbeing in
interaction,both are typicallythought of as pregiven,sharplydefinedcultural
theformer
as theexogenous,greattradition,thelatteras theindigenous,
formations,
28 Theorizing
vernacularpolitycomparatively
in SouthAsia and Europe,and thecurrently
dominantaccountsof vernacularization
and nationalismin Europe (Gellner,Anderson),are
further
addressedin Pollock 1998.

THE COSMOPOLITAN
VERNACULAR
33
littletradition-the clichesof the introductory

area-studiescourse.They have taken
on the characterof stable thingsthat interact(or thingsthat "clash," in the more
cartoon-like
versionofcivilizations)ratherthanbeingseenas a congeriesofconstantly
ofpractices;and iftheychangetheyare thoughtto do so notby
changingrepertories
humanchoicefromamongsuch practicesbut as thingsin naturechange.
In an importantrecentessay on globalizationand localization in the early
nineteenth-century
Pacific(East Asia, Polynesia,PacificNorthwest),MarshallSahlins
relationships
has argued that the world systemis not "a physicsof proportionate
betweeneconomic'impacts'and cultural'reactions.'Rather,thespecificeffects
ofthe
global-material
forcesdependon thevariouswaystheyare mediatedin local cultural
schemes.""Indigenouspeoples,"thatis to say,variously"integratetheirexperience
of the world systemin . . . theirown systemof the world" (1988, 4-5). This is a
welcomeand necessarycorrective
to the commonimage of the local as inertwax for
thedevelopmental
imprintoftheglobal. It is, forexample,just suchlocal mediations
in the premodernglobalization process of "Indianization" that have interested
studentsof early Southeast Asia for several decades (Wolters 1982 remains a
stimulatingexample).
But implicitin Sahlins'saccountis a conceptionof local culturalschemesand a
given. Manchu
systemof the world of indigenouspeoples as thingspermanently
emperorsin the eighteenthcenturythusare said to sharethe same systemas Ch'in
Shih Huang-tiin the thirdcenturyB.C. (Sahlins 1988, 22). But we knowsuch local
systemsconstantlychanged, sometimesradically.Certain componentsof literary
culture,forexample,werelongcentralto theChinesesystemoftheworld:The ability
to composeRecent Stylepoetrywas requiredto pass the civil serviceexamination
fromthe Sung periodonward.We now know that definingfeaturesof this poetry
were inventedin the T'ang by the importationof Sanskritliterarytheory,such as
Dandin's "Mirror"(Mair and Mei 1991), one of the importantculturalpreciosities
thatcirculatedin an Asian systemofpremodernglobalization.
Dehistoricizationand the ideology of indigenismthat depends upon it (the
indigenous being nothing but the conceptual consequence of a deficiencyof
whichusuallygovernthestudyoflocal mediationsofglobal cultural
historicization),
are
even
more
forms,
prominentin the studyof theformsthemselves.Discussionsof
the impactof South Asian culturalflowson SoutheastAsia rarelyacknowledgethe
factthatno preternaturally
unifiedIndian cultureexistedto produceIndianization;
what existedwas only a set of recentlydevelopedculturalcodes and acts, some of
Kulke 1990) outside
whicharosealmostsimultaneously
(perhapseven"convergently,"
the subcontinent,and which only gradually coalesced into something like a
cosmopolitanunity.In fact,much of India itselfwas being Indianizedat the very
same periodas Java or Khmercountry-and in a hardlydifferent
way-and it was
the
themselves
who
drove
Indianvernacular
Indianized,
processforward.
intellectuals,
Moreover,fromthe local perspective,we need to see thatwhen Sanskritcomes
to, say, earlyJava, it is not as a medium forthe articulationof realitiesthat are
"properlyJavanese"(Lombard1990, 13-14), as if realitywere constitutedpriorto
somepreexistent
ratherthanlargelyby language,and Javaneseness
thingoverwhich
Sanskritis laid ratherthana continuousprocessofbecomingin whichSanskritis one
element.The role of the Sanskritcosmopolitanin southeast,or southern,Asia was
less to bring"ancientand persistingindigenousbeliefsinto sharperfocus"(Wolters
both as a
1982, 9) in some "native" culturethat itselfretaineda "distinctiveness
wholeand in itsparts"(Reid 1990, 1) thanto participatein theverycreationofthese
cultures,and to be itselfchangedin theprocess.

34
SHELDON
POLLOCK
What needsto supplementSahlins'simportant

critique,then,and futureresearch
on premodernglobalization,of whichthe cosmopolitanvernacularis an instance,is
appreciationofthefactthat"indigenous"culturesareproducedin thecourseoflongtermtranslocalinteractions
by theverysameprocessesthatproducetheglobal itself.
The local/globaldualism,therefore,
needs to be historicizedout of existence,both
because nothingis globally self-identicaland because the local is always "newly
different
while each becomesthe otherin constantlynew ways (Pred
differences,"
1995). But notonlyforthesereasons.If thedualismcontributes
to people's"political
of the largerforcesat workin their
disarming"by producinga falseunderstanding
lives, it may also contributeto theirarmingthemselves-to recreatesome "local"
thatneverexistedin the firstplace.
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Author(s): Sheldon Pollock

This content downloaded from 151.100.161.184 on Thu, 30 Oct 2014 10:47:03 AM

This content downloaded from 151.100.161.184 on Thu, 30 Oct 2014 10:47:03 AM

Kannada. Here the localizationof the globalizing literary-cultural

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This content downloaded from 151.100.161.184 on Thu, 30 Oct 2014 10:47:03 AM

featuresoforality(whatthe late scholarofOld FrenchPaul Zumthorcalledvocalite'),3

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as the vehicleof political expression;and, relatedto this,Sanskrit'shighlymarked

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Whetheror not I overdrawthisdiscontinuity

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in India itself.And theywill continueto be producedin some places forcenturies:

This content downloaded from 151.100.161.184 on Thu, 30 Oct 2014 10:47:03 AM

This content downloaded from 151.100.161.184 on Thu, 30 Oct 2014 10:47:03 AM

the politicaland cultural-political

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Angkor,forexample,thishas been exaggerated,

Political Space in Cosmopolitan Vision

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southeastto Gaya, and further

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The Space of SanskritLiteraryStyle

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lexicon(e.g., the relativeprevalenceof primary[,rfdhijor derivative[yoga]Iwords).

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of ?Skatayana.1IHere, too, a littlelateran importantnew currentin

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historicalparallelsbetweentheseworks,but also somesignaldifferences.

MakingtheGlobal Local: theKavirajamarga

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articulatedonly in a somewhatlaterwork,the ?rggdraPrrakdfa

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that was engaged in ninth-and tenth-century

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visionthatencompassesthisspace.As we saw, theheroes'travelsin theirexile,their

Arikesaridefeatsthe usurpingGovindarajaand restoresto power the rightful

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ritualat the end of theworkincludesa streamin the Kannada heartlandofBanavasi

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Robson 1983) and the prose Mahdbhdrata;Nannaya's Telugu version of the

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writingsof Visnudas underthe patronageof the Tomars in Gwalior,and as Stuart

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syntax,metric,rhetoric;some textsexplicitlystatetheywerecommissionedby and

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littletradition-the clichesof the introductory

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What needsto supplementSahlins'simportant

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Forthcoming.Edited by V. Raghavan. Harvard Oriental Series.

BALIBAR, ETIENNE, and IMMANUEL WALLERSTEIN. 1991. Classes,Nations,States.

1991. Languageand Symbolic

CHIDANANDA MURTI, M. 1978. "Kannada Language and Literature during the

M. S. Nagaraja Rao. Bangalore:MythicSociety.

Formationof Identitiesin India." In NationalstaatundSprachkonflikt

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LACAPRA, DOMINICK. 1983. Rethinking