What ancient Hindu texts tell us about Muslims

Especially in India, Audrey Truschke is better known for her tweets than for her scholarship. Truschke’s new book, The Language Of History: Sanskrit Narratives Of Muslim Pasts, seems to steer clear of any contentious claims and should have smooth passage in this country. She substantiates these hypotheses, in this case, by reading Sanskrit texts that refer to the Muslim presence in their midst in the context of their own literary histories and genre traditions. Truschke quotes texts from different time periods and different parts of the country, such as Jayanayaka’s Prithvirajavijaya, Gangadevi’s Madhuravijaya, and the 15th century Jaina chronicles of Jonaraja/Shrivara called the Rajatarangini. In other words, writing about the violence enacted by Indo-Muslim political leaders likened them to, rather than distinguished them from, other Indian rulers.” It’s easy to see how a contention like this one might become cannon fodder in a pitched battle about how to read Hindu texts about Muslims in the subcontinent—Truschke staunchly insisting that the texts prove that the so-called outsiders were being integrated into the literary imagination and therefore were no longer “foreign”, with the other side remaining adamant that text is greater than context, that literature must be read only as historical truth, that time can flow backwards.