Genre, Place, and the Persian Literary Imagination in the Punjab, ca. 1650–1750

Abstract

This article examines descriptions of the Punjab, particularly Lahore and its environs, in Persian writings from the mid-seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries. Specifically, it traces the usage and movement of topographical registers and imagery across genres and literary forms that are usually studied separately, highlighting the ways in which they interacted with (and resisted) each other. It suggests that such experimentations with the writing of place were central to the ways in which individuals engaged in processes of self-fashioning. Further, it argues that such experimentations with literary-topographical themes and registers also helps explain the increasing interest in the Punjabi qiṣṣa and other regional narratives in Persian during this period. These observations help to further nuance understandings of the ways in which genres and languages interacted in the early modern Punjab.