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The Cosmopolitan VernacularAuthor(s): Sheldon PollockSource: The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 57, No. 1 (Feb., 1998), pp. 6-37Published by: Association for Asian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2659022

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The CosmopolitanVernacularSHELDON POLLOCKTHROUGHOUT SOUTHERN ASIA AT DIFFERENT TIMES startinground 000,but nmostplacesby 1500, writers urned o theuse of ocal anguages or iteraryxpressionin preferenceo thetranslocalanguage hathad dominated iteraryxpression or heprevious housand ears. his developmentonstitutestthe evelof ulture he inglemost ignificantransformationn theregion etween he reation f ne cosmopolitanorder t thebeginning f the firstmillennium nd another nd fardifferentne-through olonialismndglobalization-at theendof thesecond.The vernacularizationf southern sia is not only the most mportant ulturalchange n thelatemedievalworld-or perhapswe should say, n theearlymodernworldthat t helps to inaugurate-but also the east studied.We have no coherentaccount f the matter or ny region, et alonea connected istory or outhern siaor for he arger urasiaworldwhere development ery imilar n cultural orm ifnot n socialorpoliticalcontent) ppears o have occurred.We have no well-arguedtheoretical nderstanding f many of the basic problems t issue. And, what isespecially isabling,we lackany reliable ccountof thepoliticaltransformationsnsouthern sia towhich thesecultural hanges re undoubtedlyfobscurely elated,ora theoryfpower nd culture eforemodernityhatwould allow us tomake enseof thisrelation.What I aim to do in thespaceavailablehere s try o sketch ut, first, fewofthe larger conceptual ssues that impinge on an analysisof cosmopolitan ndvernacularn literary ulture, nd the narrower uestionsthat pertainto theirhistoricization. he very idea of vernacularization epends upon understandingsomethingf theworld gainstwhich t definestself,ndthis providewith briefaccount fthe historical ormationndideational haracter fwhat call theSanskritcosmopolis. ortheformer look at therise ndspread fSanskritnscriptions,hichserve s a synecdocheor range f iterary-culturaland political-cultural)ractices;for the latter, consider s paradigmatic he space of culturalcirculation s thisstructureshe iterarynd literary-criticalmagination. ll this s preparatoryo ananalysisof one case of the formationf vernacular iterary ulture, hatof early

Sheldon ollock s theGeorge . BobrinskoyrofessorfSanskritnd ndic tudiesttheUniversityfChicago.I wish othank . V. VenkatachalaastryMysore), y uide n Old Kannada. enedictAndersonIthaca) fferedelpfulriticism hen nearlierersionf hepaperwaspresentedat the1995 meetingftheAssociationorAsian tudies. hanks lsotoChicago olleaguesArjunAppadurai,arolBreckenridge,ipeshChakrabarty,ndSteven ollins or heirug-gestions,ndHomiBhabha, o whose ngoingwork n the"vernacularosmopolitan"npostcolonialismhepresentapermay e viewed s somethingf precolonialomplement.

The ournalfAsian tudies7,no.1 February998):6-37.? 1998 bytheAssociationorAsian tudies,nc.6

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 7Kannada. Here the localization of the globalizing literary-culturalractices ndrepresentations f Sanskrit constitutes a model instance of cosmopolitanvernacularism.tthe ametime hopeto show, hrough ne narrow utsymptomaticexample the history f the literary-criticaliscourse n the "Way" of literature,mdrga), otonlyhowthe vernacular econfigureshecosmopolitan, ut how thetwoproduce ach othernthe course f theirnteraction. endwith brief ccount fthefailureof existing historical xplanations such as they are) to account forthevernacularurn, ndflag omeof thechallenges or uturenquiry,most rucially herelationship f literary ultureto politicalculture n the non-West nd the veryproblematic f premodernlobalization.

HypothesizingVernacularizationThe possibility fconceptualizingndhistoricizinghecosmopolitan/vernaculartransformationequires workinghypothesiswitha number fcomponentshat,although heymay appearto attempt o settle hrough efinition hatcan only bedeterminedmpirically,anall be demonstratedistorically.hese concern ulturalchoice, herelativityf vernacular,"he iterary,hehistoricalignificancefwriting,themeaning fbeginnings,nd thesociotextualommunity. address hesebrieflyin order.

Cultural ChoiceA language-for-literatures chosen rommong lternatives,otnaturally iven.Human linguisticdiversitymay be a fatality,n BenedictAnderson'smelancholyformulation,ut there s nothing ated, nselfconscious,rhaphazard bout iterary-languagediversity;t is willed. Vernaculariteraryanguages husdo not"emerge"likebuds orbutterflies,hey re made.Not many cholars cknowledge his fact rdomuchwith t.One ofthe fewwasBakhtin,who saw more learly han nyone hat"theactivelyiteraryinguistic onsciousnesst all times nd everywherethat s, inall epochsof literature istoricallyvailableto us) comesupon languages' nd notlanguage.Consciousness inds tselfnevitably acing he necessity f havingochoosea language"1981, 295). Yet so far s I can see what neither akhtinnor nyone lsehasspelledout ndetailedhistorical erms or pecificanguagesntheeverydayense(by "language"Bakhtinusuallymeant ocioideological egisters)s what s at stakein thischoice,whatelse in the social and politicalworld s being chosenwhenalanguage-for-literatures chosen. or t sonething o recognizehat iterary-languagediversitys willed, and another hing altogether o specify he historical easonsinforminghiswill.

"Vernacular"/"'Cosmopolitan"To define ernacularver gainst osmopolitanppears osubmerge number frelativities. lthoughnotall cosmopolitananguagesmay nitially e vernaculars-here the history f Sanskritwhen Sanskrit iteraturekdvya) s invented t thebeginning f the commonera differsharply rom hatof, say,Latin in the thirdcentury.C. whenLatin iteraturesabruptlynvented-many ernacularshemselvesdo becomecosmopolitan or heirregionalworlds.This is trueforBraj,whichwasrenderedrootlessly cosmopolitan by the elimination-conscious elimination,according o some scholars-of local dialectaldifferencen the fifteentho sixteenth

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8 SHELDON POLLOCKcenturies.' annada, oo, though ften hought f s a regional iteraryode,has ongbeentransregionalorwritersnyet maller ones uchas Tulu Nadu or theKonkan.But theserelativitiesook less worrisomeromwithin he subjective niverses ftheagents involved. Vernacular ntellectualsdefine a literary ulture in consciousopposition o something arger; heychoose to write n a language that does nottravel-and that theyknow does nottravel-as easily s the well-traveledanguageof thecosmopolitan rder.The newgeocultural pace they magine,which discussinwhatfollows, ully estifieso this.That this "local" in turn ypically omesto beconstructeds dominant nddominating or maller ultural paces s a furthertepin the cosmopolitan-vernacularransformationnd unthinkable ithout t.

The LiteraryHowever much contemporaryhoughtwants to ignore,resist,blur, or trashdefinitionsf "literature," he historical ocieties tudiedheremadean unequivocaldistinction, racticallyndoften y explicit heorization,etween realm f textualproductionhat s documentaryndanother hat s something lse-call itexpressive,interpretative,workly" dcasWerkhafte,eidegger 1960), literary, r whatever.Contemporarycholarships certainly ight o questionthese ocaldistinctions,ndto ook for heexpressiverworklynthedocumentaryndconstative,ndthereverse(LaCapra 1983, 23-71). But that is a second-order nterprisend subsequent ogaininghistorical-anthropologicalnowledge fwhatpoets nmiddle-periodouthernAsia thought heyweredoingandwhen nd why.The distinction etween estrictedandelaborated odes,between hedocumentarynd the iterary, as often roducedand reproduced recisely y meansof anguagechoice, s the history f nscriptionsclearly hows. Facts of social or culturalpowerseem to have impingedupon thischoice, suggestingthat restrictionnd elaboration re potentialities ermitteddevelopmentntheonecase and denied t n theother.Whenthisdenial schallengedin the vernacularizationrocess,moreover,hechallenge ypicallyakesthe form fdomesticating he literary pparatus themes, genres, metrics, exicon) of thesuperposedultural ormationhat et the rulesof the iterary ame.Writing

The literaryn southernAsia comes increasinglyn themiddle periodto bedistinguished ot ustfrom hedocumentaryut from heoral, ndto be evermoreintimately inked to writing,with respectto the authority onferredy it, thetextualityssociatedwith t,and thehistory roduced hrought. The authorizationto write s not, ike theability o speak, natural ntitlement.t is typically elatedto social and politicalprivileges,whichmark iteraturen the restrictedenseas adifferentmode of culturalproductionand communication romso-called oralliterature.2 ranted hat iterate iteraturenSouthAsia retainsmany ext-immanent

'Such processes ave been noticedonly by inguists,who discussthe matter n referenceto "koines"and typicallygnoremostof what nterests ultural heory. f.,e. g., Segal 1993.For Braj, cf. Snell 1991, 30-32, and,moregenerally,Masica 1991, 54.2According o well-knownegends,Tukaram, ike Eknanthbefore im,was forced youtraged rahmans o "throwhispoems ntotheriver."Whenhedefends is useofMarathi,he is thus clearly efending he right o write,not ust to compose cf. Pollock1995, 121-22).

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 9features foralitywhatthe atescholar fOld French aul Zumthor alledvocalite'),3and that the principalmode of consumptionwas auditory, till, writing ffectedliteraryommunicationnprofound ays.These awaitsystematicnalysis, utthereis no doubt that o write iterarilylwaysmeant enderinganguageboth earned ndlearned, o endow it with new norms nd constraints. istorically peaking,whatcounts n thehistory fvernaculariterary ulture,whatmakes history otonlyforus byproviding istoricalbjects)but for heprimarygents hemselvesbymarkinga break n the continuum f history)s literization,he committingf iterature owriting.

BeginningsWhen thereforehroughn actof cultural hoicethe vernaculars deployed orthe iteraryndthe iteraryttainsnscription,iteratureegins-that is,atparticulartimespeople beginto inscribe exts, r,what comesto the samething s a historicalissue,begin to consider exts nscribedn local languagesworthpreserving.n thissensethehistoryf vernaculariteraryulture s not coextensive iththehistoryfvernacular anguage. Such literary eginnings n South Asia are the object ofethnohistoricalepresentationnd,despite hemany ogical nd deological ifficultiesthatbesettheverydea ofbeginnings,reoften usceptible ohistoricalnalysis cf.Pollock 1995). I amespeciallynterestednvernacularnaugurations,hough f oursethe choiceto be vernacular as a continuing istory.

CommunityThe last, and least disputable of my contentions-thoughalso the leasthistoricized-is themutually onstitutive elationshipf iteraturend community:literatureddresses, ometimesalls into being,particular ociotextual ommunities.These define hemselvesn significantfvariablewayson thebasisof the iteraturethey hare, ndthey reatenew iteraturesnservice fnew elf-definitions.o choosea language for iterature,hen-to commit to writing xpressive exts s definedaccording odominant-culture odels-is at the same timeto choose community,

though tsprecisemeaning nd the nature f the dentityhat iterature onstructsfor t need to be investigated,ndnot magined, or he worldbeforemodernity.Absent hiskindofconceptual ramework,t is hard ven toperceive hechoicesto be vernacular-or cosmopolitan-let alone recover heirhistories nd socialmeanings.The choice to be vernacularn South Asia at the beginningof the secondmillenniumwasmadeagainst hebackgroundf Sanskrit nddeeply onditioned ythe literaryultureof Sanskrit.Withoutunderstandinghehistory f the literaryworld Sanskrit reated nd the work t did there, t is difficult o understand tssupersession, hatvernaculariteraryanguageswere calleduponto do, when, ndwhy. hopeto suggest omethingf the characterfthisculture y lookingfirstna perhaps nexpected uarter: hehistoryf heSanskritnscriptionaliscourse. hereare threethings concentrate n here: the history f the transregionalulturalformationfSanskrit, ow t cameto be andwhat tconsisted f;the roleofSanskrit

3Cf.Zumthor1987. Relevantherefor anskrit nd earlyKannadatexts re the iterary-linguistic henomenagunas, ee below) orthemodes of recitationpdtha rpathiti) escribedby iterarycholars uch as Rajasekharan the tenth enturyKdvyamTmrmsd), andBhoja intheleventh ?rhgdrapraprakd?(a, pp. 379 ff.).

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10 SHELDON POLLOCK

as the vehicleof political expression; nd, related o this,Sanskrit's ighlymarkedstatus s the iteraryanguage ver gainst ocal anguages. his real-worldormationprovides he background or he brief ccount fgeocultural epresentationso whichI then urn.

Historicizing the SanskritCosmopolisAs momentous s thevernacular ransformationt thebeginning f the secondmillenniumwas the creation,round he beginning fthefirst,f thecosmopolitanorder o which twastheresponse.4wo new,related evelopments ere undamentalto this order: he use of Sanskritn inscriptions nd the invention f "literature."Sanskritnscriptions,ypicallyssuedfrom oyal ourts,recrucial oth s expressionsof thepolitical, nd forthe widertrends heyreveal n literary-languagese andnorms f iterariness, hichthe history f Sanskrit iteratureonfirms.For its first 00 years, nscriptionalulture n SouthAsia is almostexclusivelynon-Sanskritthe languages used were instead the Middle-Indic dialects calledPrakrit), ut this ituation hanged ramaticallytthebeginning fthecommon rawhen we first egin to findexpressive extseulogizingroyalelites composed nSanskritnd nscribednrock-faces,illars,monuments,rcopper-plates,form hatwill later receive hegenrenameprasati praise-poem). he most famous f these

texts,producedforor by the Indo-ScythianSaka) overlordRudradamanca. A.D.150), has been knownto scholars ormore thana century,nd nothinghas beendiscovered inceto altertheimpressionhat tmarks profoundultural-historicalbreak.Neverbefore ad Sanskritpoken s it does in Rudradaman's ext, ut in theopen, nwritten orm,nreferenceoa historical ing, nd inaestheticizedanguage.Andyet lmost mmediatelyhereafter,nd for he next housand ears,t isthevoiceofSanskrit oetry hatwouldbe heard npolitiesfromhemountains fPeshawar oPrambanam n theplainsofcentral ava.It is about this same time that what comes to be called kdvya "[written]literature") n the emerging scholarlydiscourse of rhetoric ala ka-rarscastra)scrystallized, henthegreatgenres uch as mahdkdvyacourtly pic) andndtakaepicdrama)come into existence longwith the formal echniques,uch as thesystem ffiguresf sound and sense and thecomplex uantitative-syllabicetrics,hatwereto defineSanskrit iteraturend have such resonance hroughoutAsia. Literary-culturalmemory,s thismaybe discerned n literaryriticismr nthekaviprafsamsds(praises fpoets)thatconventionallyntroduce anskrititerary exts,has no reachbeyond hesebeginningsn theearly enturiesf the common ra, nd it is difficultforhistoricalcholarshipo showthatkdvyas it willhenceforthepracticeds muchearlier hanthis.Sanskritnscriptionsuch as Rudradaman's hould notthereforeeviewed, s theyusually are,as the latest date forthe existence f literary anskrit(kdvya), ut as theearliest.Andthe twotogether, dvyandpras'ati,reevidence, otofa renaissanceor "resurgence,"re-assertion,"r"revival") fSanskrit ulture ftera Mauryanhiatus,but of its inauguration s a new cultural ormation. revious othisSanskritulture ppears ohave beenrestrictedothedomainof iturgyndtheknowledges equired or tsanalysis; tcan hardly e said tohave existed n anythinglike theformtwas soonto acquire.

4This nd thefollowing ectiondrawon thedetaileddiscussionn Pollock1996.

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 11

Whether r not overdrawhisdiscontinuityetween highly estrictedocialsphere of Sanskrit liturgical nd scholastic) nd a new political use of Sanskritaccompaniedby whollynew forms f written iterature,he subsequenthistory fSanskrit n inscriptional iscourse s the history f an unprecedentednd vastdiffusion. nce it came to be used for nscriptionaliteraturenNorth ndia in thesecond to thirdcenturies, anskritwas adoptedelsewherewithastonishing peed.Prakrit isappeared rom he epigraphical ecord hroughoutndia in the space of acentury, ever o be revived or nscriptionshereafter,nd retained nlya residualstatus n the iterary-culturalrder.A crucially mportant imension o theuse ofSanskrit n epigraphs nd the riseofkdvyas the divisionof inguistic abor n inscriptional iscourse, nd, relatedly,the iteraryilenceof the vernacularshroughouthe cosmopolitan ormation. nceSanskrit ad becomethe anguagefor hepublic literary xpression f politicalwillthroughoutmuch of southernAsia, it remained he only language used forthatpurpose. he vernacular as notprohibitedrom peakingn the nscriptionalomain,but thepermission as restricted. typical nscriptionommences ith genealogyandpraise-poem f the overlordwho issuesthedocument, ollowed ythedetailsofthe transactionhe nscriptions meant o recordthe boundaries f thegifted and,theconditions fa templeendowment,nd thelike). When used at all vernacularlanguage s restricted o the second or businessportionof the grant, nd thus tocounting,measuring,nd aboveall localizing.The literary unction-whereby owerconstructedor tself tsorigins, randeur, eauty, erdurance,ndwhich anperhapsthereforee characterizeds thefunction f nterpretingheworld ndsupplementingreality-was the work xclusively f Sanskrit oetry. he very ontrast enerated ythisdivisionof abor, relation fsuperpositionf unrelatedanguages hat havetermedhyperglossia,erves to enhance the aestheticismn which one may locateSanskrit'supreme ttractions.Related to the empirically bservabledivisionof labor in inscriptionss thediscourse n literaryanguage n the lacgkdraradition. rom he eventh enturynit becamea commonplace f this traditionhatkadvyaas somethinghatcould becomposedonly n a highlyrestrictedet oflanguages.Chiefofthesewas of courseSanskrit; arbehindboth n theorynd in actual iterary roduction ereMaharastriPrakritndApabhrams'a,wo anguages hatunder he nfluencefSanskrit adbeenturned ntocosmopolitan dioms,and which thereforeould be and were used forliteraryomposition nywheren the Sanskritosmopolis.5 dvyawas notsomethingmade n thevernacular;hus range fregionalanguages romKannadatoMarathitoOriyawere iterarilyilent.As the turn o Sanskrits taking lace nthe ndian ubcontinentor hecreationofinscriptionst oncepolitical, iterary,nd publiclydisplayed, recisely he samephenomenonmakes tsappearancen what re now thecountries fBurma, hailand,Cambodia,Laos, Vietnam,Malaysia, nd Indonesia, ndwitha simultaneityhat sagain striking. he first anskrit ublic poemsappear n Khmercountry, hampa,Java, nd Kalimantan ll atroughlyhe ametime, heearly ifthenturytthe atest,or notmuchmore han coupleor three enerationsfter heirwidespread ppearance

5The restrictionn literaryanguagesbeginswith Bhamaha Kdvydlankdra.16, 34-36.Only near the end of the cosmopolitan pochdo Sanskritwriters dmitthepossibility fproducing rdmya ahdkdvya,ourtly pics in the "vulgar" anguage cf. the twelfth-centuryKdvydnus'asana.6, p. 449). The linguisticallyunlocalized"qualityof Apabhramsias notedby Shackle 1993, 266; cf. also Hardy 1994, 5.

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12 SHELDON POLLOCKin India itself.And theywill continue o be produced n some places for enturies:the last datedSanskrit nscriptionn Cambodia is around1295, a little before heabandonment fAngkor.Khmer ountry,n fact, rom oughly 00-1300 provides good example fthepolitics of literaryulturenotedabove. Here the world ofpublic poetry emainedresolutely worldofSanskrit. nscriptionsn Khmer, o be sure, re produced romvirtually he samedate as inscriptionsn Sanskrit; n fact,nearly alfof the extantinscriptionsre solely nKhmer,while one-third re nSanskrit lone, nda quarterutilize both languages.But one invariablefeature f themall is the linguistichyperglossiawe find in India: Sanskrit, nd never Khmer, makes expressivestatements; hmer andrarely anskrit)makes onstativetatements.Whenthefameofthe king is celebrated rhis lineage or victoriesn battleproclaimed, he writeremploys anskrit;whenthe slavesdonated oa temple reenumerated,hecatalogueis given n Khmer.Moreover,hetwo anguageshad a very nequal relationship itheach other.WhereasSanskrits, linguistically, ninfluencedy Khmer-indeed, itretains an astonishinggrammatical nd orthographic egularity o the end ofAngkor-Khmer smassivelynvadedby Sanskrit rom he arliest eriod.For lmosta thousandyears-as the relationship etween political inscription nd literaryliterizationmentioned bove would lead us to expect-literatepoetryn Cambodiais Sanskrit oetry, everOld Khmer; iterate iterary roductionn Khmerdoes not,infact, eemto existbefore hefifteenthentury,r more han centuryfter ngkoris abandoned nd the last representativef the Sanskrit osmopolis n mainlandSoutheastAsia disappearsKhing 1990, 24-59). The character fKhmer anguageusage n texts hat represervedo us and the aterhistorical evelopmentf Khmerliteratureogetheruggest hat he atter ould not come ntoexistence,s a literizedentity or xpressiveurposes, ntilSanskrititeraryulturewaned.The spreadofpoliticalSanskrit appensnotonlywithextraordinarypeedovervastspace,but in a waythat eemsquitewithout arallel nworldhistory. irst,noorganized oliticalpower uch s theRoman mperium as nvolved.No colonizationofSouth ndia orSoutheast sia canbe shown o haveoccurred;herewerenomilitaryconquests, nd no demographicallymeaningfulmigrations.Nor wereany ties ofpolitical ubservience,fmaterial ependencyrexploitationver stablished.econd,Sanskritwasnotdiffusedy any ingle,unified, cripture-basedeligion mpelledbyreligious evolutionrnewrevelation,utbysmallnumbers f iteratiwho carriedwith them the verydisparate, ncanonized exts of a wide variety f competingreligiousorders s well as textsof Sanskrit iterature avingno religious ontentwhatever. hird, anskrit ever unctioneds a link anguage ike other ransregionalcodes such as Greek,Latin,Arabic,Persian,Chinese. n fact,nothingndicates hatin thisperiodSanskritwas an everydaymedium fcommunicationnywhere,ot nSouth let alone SoutheastAsia, or even functioned s a chancery anguage forbureaucraticradministrativeurposes.What is createdn theperiodthatcovers oughlyhe millennium etween 00or300 and 1300 (whenAngkors abandoned) s a globalizedcultural ormationhatseems nomalous n antiquity.t is characterizedya largely omogeneous oliticallanguageofpoetryn Sanskrit longwitha rangeofcomparable ultural-politicalpractices (temple building, city planning, even geographical nomenclature);throughoutt-to extendOliverWolters'words s theydeserve o be, to the wholeof this cosmopolitanworld-elites in differentealmsshared"a broadlybasedcommunalityf outlook"and could perceive ubiquitoussigns" of a common,Sanskrit, ulture Wolters 1982, 43). But it is produced nd sustained y noneofthe

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 13forces hatoperate n the othertranslocal ormationsf antiquity; t is peripherywithout enter,ommunity ithout nity.One maywellwonderwhat hisglobalizedculturemeant fnoneofthe familiarmaterial, overnmental,rreligious onditionsof coherence ertained o it. What culturalwork, or nstance,was performedy theubiquitous anskrititeraryexts nscribednd displayed y ruling lites? ince theyemergedfrom he very enters f authorityhroughouthis world, t is natural ofactor hepolitical nto anyexplanation, ut it seemsto be the politicalwith anobscure, nfamiliarogicto it.Even as we trygraspthis ogic, thepredicamentf theorizing hepremodernfromwithin conceptual pparatus equeathed y modernityoomsbefore s.Therehas largely revailed singleparadigmforunderstandinghe socialfoundations fSanskrit cosmopolitan culture, namely, legitimationtheoryand its logic ofinstrumentaleason:Elites in command f new forms f social powerdeployed hemystifyingymbols and codes of Sanskrit omehowto secure consent.But thisfunctionalistxplanations notonlyanachronistic,ut really s a mere ssumption,and an intellectuallymechanical, ulturally omogenizing,nd theoreticallyaiveassumptiont that.6Ifwe contemplateheSanskrit cumene t its height, rom he middle o the astfew enturiesf the millennium,t appears o consist fa limitednumber f arge-scale agrarianpolities (and their smaller-scalemitators), military-fiscal"tatesgathering ribute rom argemultiethnic opulations, nd defining heirpoliticalaspirationss universalist. lthoughnotoriouslyifficulto definenconcrete erms,"empires"-the nameusuallygivento the worlds f theGuptas,for xample, rtheGurjara-Pratiharas,r Angkor-seem toshare ertain ystemic ultural eatures. nemayevenpostulate n empire-systemrempire-modelf premodernity,field s itwereof thereproductionf empires nd of thedeploymentf theempireform-inthis ike thesystem fnation-statesfmodernity, here he structuref thesystemitself roduces number fcultural ffectsBalibar nd Wallerstein 991,91)-withitsown distinctive ultural epertory.In thissystemmitation fan imperial orm eemsto be successively ecreated,not only n South and SoutheastAsia but elsewhere, othhorizontallycross pace,perhaps hrough process imilar o what rchaeologistsall 'peerpolitynteraction,"and verticallyn timethrough istorical magination. ne couldplot sucha form,on both axes, among a rangeof embodiments:Achaeminid and Sassanian, ndGhaznavid),Hellenic (and Byzantine),Roman (and Carolingian, nd Ottonian),Kushan andGupta,andperhapsAngkor) see also Duverger1980, 21). In many fthese ases, ualifyings empire,whethermperial overnance asactually xercisedornot, eemstohaverequired languageofcosmopolitanharacternd transethnicattraction,ranscendingr arrestingny ethnoidentityherulingelitesthemselvesmightpossess. t had to be a languagecapable ofmakingthe translocal laims-howevermaginaryhesewere-that defined hepolitical magination fthisworld.Moreover,t had to be a languagewhosepowerderived, otfrom acral ssociationsbut from esthetic apacities, ts ability o makerealitymore real-more complexand morebeautiful-as evincedby ts iterarydiomandstyle, nd a literary istoryembodyinguccessfulxemplars f such inguistic lchemy.n the "Roma renovata"of Carolingian nd OttonianEurope this languagewas Latin,which, though nconstant eedofrehabilitation,asretainedndreinforceds a crucial omponentn

6Thenotion ontinueso shapework n state ormationnd culturenSouth ndSoutheastAsia, cf.e.g.,Kulke 1993, and contrast ollock1996, 236ff.

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14 SHELDON POLLOCKthe politicaland cultural-politicalnderstandingf polity. n West Asia from .D.1000 on, it was New Persian,whose first reat iterary roduction, heShahnama,sought o linkthe new politicalformations ithan imagined ranian mperial ast,and along with otherbrilliantworksofliterary ulturemade it the language thatruling elites from istan to Delhi adoptedperforcef theywere to participate n"imperial" culturalpolitics, regardless fwhat they may have spoken n private.Similar n its cultural-politicalogic to Latin and Persian, s in its temporal ndgeographic pread,was Sanskrit.More than just qualifying he polity for mperial status, however, anskritmediated set of complex esthetic nd moralvaluesof mperial ulture,while t thesame timeproviding code forthe expression fkey symbolicgoods-the mostimportantmongthesebeing fame-in a wayno other anguagewas apparentlyble(orpermitted)odo. Thesource f uch apabilitiessto be located nthe ophisticatedand immenselynfluentialanskrit isciplines fgrammar, hetoric,nd metrics.Imperial anguage typically resupposed he dignity nd stability onferred ystandardizing rammar.Only in a language constrained y such a grammar ndthereforescaping the danger of degeneration ould fame and distinctionfindenduring expression. But there is more to grammaticality han such quasifunctionalismn the Sanskrit radition, omething eeperrooted. f the orderofSanskrit oetrywas tied to the orderof Sanskrit rammar, hatorderwas itselfmodel or prototype f the moral, ocial, and politicalorder.A just sddhu) ingwasone whohimself sed and promoted heuse ofcorrectanguage sddhusabda). otonlywas Sanskrit hereforeheappropriate ehiclefor heexpression froyalwill,but Sanskritearning ecame componentfkingliness. his is demonstratedythenumerous verlordswho-from ourRudradamann south Gujaratin A.D. 150 toSiiryavarmanI on Tonle Sap a thousandyears ater-celebrated their Sanskritlearning, specially rammatical earning,n public poetry, nd sought to confirmthis earning y patronizingheproduction f almostevery mportant rammaticalwork nownoUS.7That the tradition f Sanskrit hetoricnd metricswas central o thiswholeprocess s evidenced ythe nscriptional oetrytself. ut the texts ftheseforms fknowledge lso circulated s something ike globalizedcultural ommodities,ndwere ventuallyoprovide general ramework ithinwhich number fvernacularpoetries ould themselves e theorized. hus,for xample, he lateseventh-centuryrhetoricalreatise fDandin,the Mirror fLiterature"Kdvyddars'aKAI),was studiedandadaptedduring heperiod900-1300 from riLanka to Tamil countryo Tibet.One could write an equally peripateticaccount of metrical texts, such asKedarabhatta's JewelMine ofSanskritMeters" Vrttaratndkara,a. 1000). By wayof its twelfth-centuryali translation uttodaya,t playeda defining ole in thecreation fThai poetry t theAyutthayaourt n the seventeenthenturyTerwiel1996). It is instances uchas these hathelpus gauge theextraordinarymportancethat he nstrumentsfSanskrit ultural irtuosityossessed or ntellectualsnd theirmasters hroughout sia.As a result fall this,Sanskrit iteraturen general kdvya) ndpoliticalpoetry(pras'asti)nparticular ossess uniformityhatgivesa clear tylisticoherence o thecosmopolitan ulturalform.For withoutdenying ome local coloring thoughfor

7SeePollock 1996, 240 for eferences.artmut charfewas the first o perceive patternof royal atronage 1977, 187), but it is fardenser hanheknows nd hisexamples re easilymultiplied.

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 15Angkor, or xample, hishas been exaggerated,f.Wolters1982, 91), to participatein the cosmopolitan rdermeantprecisely o occlude ocal difference.he Sanskritpoet here-this is the nsistentmplication ftheform, tyle, diom, nd even ontentofthousands f nscriptionals well as more trictlyiteraryexts-participated othbytheoreticalrainingnd literary racticen a transregionalultural phere imilarto that fhis Latin and, would guess,Chinese)peers t theother ndsofthe ncientworld.8 t is thisthatmakes t often irtuallympossible o localizeor datea work fSanskrit iterature-which, y my argument,s exactlywhat constituted ne of tsgreatest ttractions.There s no doubt far reater omplexity o the nteractionsfpower nd culturein the Sanskrit osmopolis han can capture n my brief ccount, r perhaps venknow. Yet it is arguable that imperial-culturalssociations nd aesthetic tyle,especially s these hapedpoliticalvocabularyndculture, ad at leastasmuchto dowith themakingof thecosmopolitan imension f this world nd its attractionsspersuasion,et alone misrecognitionr mystification.anskrit ave voice to imperialpoliticsnot sanactual,material orce utas anaesthetic ractice,nd twas especiallythispoetry fpolitics hatgave presence o the Sanskritosmopolis.At the ideational evel, the Sanskrit osmopolisfound xpression bove all incertain epresentationsf thespace of cultural irculation. wo of theseneed to beintroduced, iven theirrole n thetheorynd practice f iterary ernacularization:the epic space of political ction, bout which will be very rief, nd the spacesofliterarytyle,whichneed some detail to make understandable.

Political Space in Cosmopolitan VisionIt is an insistent oncern fa wide variety fkdvyandprasasti exts o projectmeaningful upralocal pace of political-cultural eference. he tenth-centuryoetRajasekhara, or xample, ourt-poet o thekings of Tripura,was repeating long-standing ommonplace hendescribing ispatrons s universal ulers in the entireregionfromwheretheGafnga mpties ntotheeastern ea to wheretheNarmadaempties ntothewestern,rom heTamraparn.n the south o the milk-oceannthe

north"ViddhalabhanJika .21). So are the Kalachurikingsthemselves hentheyrepeat his n their pigraphs. he source, r at least most articulate orerunner,fthisvision s in the tihdsa r"epic" Mahdbhdrata,here lotting he paceof largeworld,a zone within which its political action was held to be operative ndmeaningful,s a centralproject of the narrativea pure example, thus, of a"chronotope,"nd with thechronotope's oliticsofspacemoreclearly isiblethanBakhtinhimself nderstood, 981, 84-258). Thisunmappedmapping,na differentbut notunintelligible orld fhistoricalpace, onstitutes number f he mportantnarrativeuncturesn thetext,from eginning o end. I describe everal o give asenseofthepractice.Onhiswanderingsuring is elf-exilerjunahartspath romndraprasthaorthtoGafigadvarand nto he astern imalayas,outheastoNaimisa,ast oKausikT,8J tress iterary ractice; arious anskritswere n use outsidethedomain of kdvya. utwhereas raditionalcholarship ifferentiatedwidevariety fPrakrits ivergentnphonology,morphology,nd lexicon,no such distinctionswiththe exception f drsa or archaic,Vedic)wereperceived or anskritnthepost-Paninian eriod cf., .g.,SarasvatkanthAbharandlahkdra2.5ff.).The comparableworld of earlyLatinity s well describedbyA. H. M. Jones1964,1008.

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16 SHELDON POLLOCKsoutheast oGaya,and furtheroVanga, southdowntheKalifiga, verto Gokarnaon the westcoast,north o Prabhasa nd Dvaraka,northeast o Puskara nd thencebackto ndraprasthaMBh. 1.200-10). Before is consecrations emperor udisthirasends out his brotherso conquer hefour irections: rjunaproceeds o the north(Anarta,Kashmir, nd Bactria);Bhimato theeast 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, s far s the and of thePahlavas) MBh. 2.23-29). After he war,whenthe Pandavas perform he Horse Sacrifice o affirm nd confirm heir universaldominion,the wanderings f the horse plot a map that runs fromTrigarta toPragyotisa,Maniptura,Magadha, Vafiga,Cedi, Kdsl-,Kosala, Dravida, Andhra,Gokarna,Prabhasa,Dvaraka, Paficanada, nd Gandhara MBh. 15.73-85). Lastly,whentheyrenounce heiroverlordshipnd begintheir GreatSettingForth," hePandavastravel irst o the Lauhitya ivern the east, "by way of the northerni.e.,northeasternloastof the ocean to thesouthwest uarter," hen o Dvaraka nd fromthere o Himavan,Valukarfnavathe great OceanofSand") and MountMeru MBh.17), thusperforminghe ast circumambulationf heworld-the sortdescribedndcharted epeatedlyefore-for he control fwhich heir amily ad beendestroyed,and ofwhich heyfittinglyake eave as they repare o die.

Thus, from the opening chapters of the principal narrative, nd at its keypoints-the royalconsecration beforethewar, the reaffirmationf dominion after hewar, the ritual death-marchat the end of the story-the epic insists continually onconcretely placing the action. It is the very fact of the existence of this spatialimagination in the Mahdbhdratahat interestsme, not its precision (indeed, it ismarked by uncertainty, confusion, and at times bizarre exoticism). There is aconceivable geosphere, the narrative uggests,where the epic's medium, the cultureofSanskrit,and its message, a kind ofpolitical power, have application.The spatial imagination that is found in the Sanskritepics achieves sharperandmore concrete focusin the courtly iteraturethat arises in the earlycenturies of thecommon era, as in the "conquest of the quarters" motifappearing in courtly epics.The most influentialexample, one studied as far as Khmer country, s that found inKalidasa's masterpiece, the "Dynasty of Raghu" (Raghuvamsfa). Here, the realityeffects, s it were, of the judicious choice of detail are quite apparent. The clearerimage of the spatial domain both ofpower and, implicitly,of thepoetrythatfillsthisdomain and gives voice to power no doubt has something to do with the fact thatKalidasa 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,moredocumentary bout the inscriptionthanthepoem (thiswould be so even if ts author,one Harisena, did not actually name it a kdvya, s he does) that somehow serves,asmodel, to render the account ofKalidasa more historical or more "true." Rather,thepoint of juxtaposing inscriptionand text in theirhistorical relatednessis simply toremind ourselves that the literarygeographyofpower in Sanskrit culture sometimesachieved a kind ofsymmetrywith the living aspirationsof historicalagents.However thismacrospace maybe defined and note that it did notalwaysembracethe full cosmopolitan space as mapped by inscriptionaland other cultural practices),and whatevermaybe theprecisenature ofthe imperial dominion and formof cultureit was imaginatively thoughtto comprise,it marksa wide rangeofepic and postepictexts. And it is against this macrospace that a range of vernacularspaces of cultureand power were to be defined.

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 17The Space of SanskritLiterary tyle

TheRajas'ekhara ho wrote f theuniversal overeigntyftheTripurakings lsowrote n allegorical ccount ftheorigin f iterature,he tory f the"PrimalBeingofPoetry," r "PoetryMan," Kavyapurusa:Brahma reated sonfor heGoddess fSpeech, is mouthonsistingfSanskrit,hisarm fPrakrit,isgroin fApabhramsa,is feet fPaisaca, is chest fmixedlanguage.ahityavidyaPoeticsWoman)was createdo be hiscompanion,ndwastold o follow avyapurusaherevereshould o. Theywent irsto the ast, ndas Sahityavidyaried o enticehim Kavyapurusapoke o her n verses ullofcompounds,lliteration,nd tringsf tymologicallyomplex ords, hich ecameknown s the auda ath rLti). exthewent ortho the ountryfPanicala, herehe pokenverses ith artial ompounds,lliteration,ndmetaphoricalxpressions,which ecame nown sthe docdlaPath.Eventuallyhey eachedhe outhwherehe spoke nverseswithmoderatelliteration,o compounds,nd simplewords,which ecame nown s thevaidarbhaath. (Kdvyam2mcmsd)

Rajasekhara'sllegory f iterature,rieflyummarized ere, icksup severalthemes already noted, includingthe geocultural pace present to the Sanskritimaginationnd therestrictionsn thepossible codes in whichtheliteraryan becomposed. cite thispassage,however,o introduce hequestion fthetransregionalgeographyf iterarytyle.Therewasa prehistoryoRajasekhara's ccount fmdrga/rTti-the "Way" or "Path" of literary ulture-a somewhat onfused nd tangledhistoryn its firstmanifestation,ut reasonably traightforwardn itsdevelopmentbythe tenth entury.Mdrga thedominant nd foundationalerm) arries woprincipalmeanings. hefirst s thatofa "way"othershavegone before, nd thus connotes "custom"or"tradition" f writing.Like the Greek odos "way"), mdrga lso comes to implysomething f a methodor a "following f a way" (meth-odos)n the creation fliterature.9 s a term n theSanskrititerary-criticalocabularyt has a moment fprimacy n the seventhto tenthcenturies-the Kashmiritheoretician amanaannouncingntheearlyninth enturyhat thePath s to literatures the soul s [tothebodyl" and though twas eventuallyo cedethisposition, t remains crucialterm n the theorizationf bothcosmopolitanndvernacular orms fwriting.Andalthough hismay eemtobe a narrowssueofphilologicalnquiry iven tsformalistfocus-fortheWay concernshe anguage tuff f iterature-we do well to bear nmind howseriouslyuchquestionswere akenby ntellectualscross hegreater artofsouthern sia for enturies.As we see from he account ofRajasekhara, heWay ofSanskrit iteraturesconceptualizeds pluraland regional: here s an "eastern"way gauda, oosely, fBengal), a "southern"way (vaidarbha, f Vidarbha),a northernway (pdigcdla,fPaficla, the northGangeticplain), later westernway Idt'y-a,fLata or southernGujarat),and still later others.What differentiateshesenominally egionalizedprocedures f literaturere certain ualitiesof language use (guncas)t the level ofphonology e.g., phonemictexture), yntax e.g., degreeof nominalization),nd

9Forthe first onnotation, f.,e.g., Manu 4.178; for he second,e.g. SRK 1729, 1733;Vakpatiraja ca. A.D. 730), Gaidavaho 84-85.

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18 SHELDON POLLOCK

lexicon e.g., the relative revalence f primary,rfdhij r derivativeyoga]I ords).Dandin in the late seventh entury efinesvaidarbha s "endowed with all thequalities,"whereas audcas characterizedytheir nversion r absence viparyaya).10The former hus showsa minimaldegree ofcompounding nd of complex exicalderivatives,he atter maximaldegree f both.From hebeginning heontology f heWaysofwriting s implicitly rexplicitlyqueried, nd thegeneralunderstandings thatwriters ould freely dopt the one ortheother. orVamana "theregional ppellationsmeanonly hat hese tyles refoundin [thepoetsof]thoseparticular egions; heregions hemselvesontribute othing."One couldand shouldchose the vaidarbhatyleKdvydlakdrascstra.2.6-10; 14-18).Although is remarkslike much fhis presentation)remore han little onfused-for hey xplainnothing bout whyregional tyles houldbe found mongthepoetsin given regions-there s no ambiguity hat forhim regionwas not destiny, s itwas not, few enturiesater, or hecriticKuntaka:

Ifdifferentiationf tylewere ruly ased nthat fregion,he ormer ould e asnumberlesss the atter. ust ecausewritingxhibitscertainiti oesnotmean tcanbe classifiedsa regionalustom,ike ross-cousinarriage . Furthermore,tcannot e saidtobe a "natural" ropertyn the ameway hat ertain eautifulsounds, imbre,tc., renaturalo the ingingf southerner.(Vakroktijivita.24)For mostof Sanskrit istory riters oluntarilyould adopt one style r another.The eleventh-centuryoet Bilhana, for xample, notherKashmiri, ells of himselfthathe writes n vaidarbha"a rainof nectar rom clear ky .. guarantor f iterarybeauty-vaidarbha s granted o onlythe finest oets," Vikramdigkadevacaritas. 9).And, in fact, the freedom o choose fromamong regional styles grew into arequirements thedoctrine ftheWays was linked vermore losely o thediscourseon literarymotions,rasa): s the affectivetate o be generatedn a sceneorpassagevaried, owould theWay. Thus for heninth-centuryriter udrata, he vaidarbhaand pdAcd1a aths are appropriate or the moods of "love," "pity," "fear," nd"wonder"; heWays themselves e classifiess anubhdva r theverbalreactions facharactern differentmotional ituationsRudrataKdvydl/aikdra5.20).On the discursiveplane what the categoryof the Ways most insistentlycommunicatess in fact hevery osmopolitanismf Sanskrit iterature.Regional"differencesrepart ftherepertoryf globalSanskrit,he ignpreciselyfSanskrit'stransregionality:heywere ocal colorings hatwereproduced ranslocally,nd thuswere n indexof Sanskrit's ervasion fall local space. Eventually,s we will see, tis precisely his mplicit ense of theWay ofSanskrit iterature s a cosmopolitan(rather hantrulyregional)culturalform hatwould be made explicit by a newdichotomyentral o vernacularoetries hat rose n the ate medieval eriod:Overagainst mdrga r the global Way of well-traveled anskrit ulture came to beconstructedhedesi rPlace,thatwhichdoesnottravel t all.The Sanskrit osmopolis, reated n Southand SoutheastAsia in a moreor lesssimultaneous istorical rocess, ossessedmarked ultural imilarities,uch as theproduction fa codefor olitical xpressionndofa literature here dherence o a10The valuative udgment mplicithere, nd theverydistinction, ppear to havebeenresisted s early s Bhamaha Kdvydlankdra.31ff.), houghthe eleventh-centuryannadawriterNagavarman akesBhamahato mean not thatthenorth-southistinctions meaning-less,but that he belief hat he one s superior o the others mistakenKdvydvalokanam,7tra522).

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 19sophisticated odyofnormativeiscoursesngrammar, hetoric,ndmetrics nsureda uniform haracterhroughout he cosmopolitan ormation. he monopolization fliterary roduction n transregional odes was matched at the level of literaryrepresentationy theprojection f supralocal rame fpolitical-culturaleferencenepic and postepicnarrative,ndat the evelof iteraryheory ya doctrine f modesof writingwhoseregionalityonnotes bove all Sanskrit's ranscendencefregion.Theseareamong thekey components f iterary ulture hatwill be engaged n thevernacularizationrocess.

Producing heVernacularFew local literaryultures f premodernitynywhere how quite the same self-consciousnessndpermit s to follow heirdevelopment iththesameprecision swe can achieve n the case ofKannada,a languagefound n what s nowthe ndianstate fKarnataka. wantbrieflyo sketch hehistoryfKannada nthe nscriptionalrecord,beforegoing on to consider n more detail the intense and long-termnegotiation etween osmopolitannd vernacularn Kannada iterary roduction.The statusof Kannada in thedomainof thepubliclydisplayed nscribed extsoffers textbook aseofthe tendencies escribed bove.The earliest nowndynastyof northwesternarnataka-the locus of what was to becometheprestige iterarydialect-the Kadambas fourth entury n), never sedKannada forpublic records.The Gafigas, he oldestattested ynastyn southwesternarnatakafourthoninthcenturies), id not use Kannada for hedocumentaryortion fcopper-plate rantsuntil the time ofAvinita n thesixthcentury.We are able to follow he literary-culturalpoliticsof Karnatakakingdomsmoreclosely,however,with the BadamiCalukyas, ndespeciallywiththeir uccessors,heRastrakuitas. hatwe find mongthe atter,whenwe lookat the matter tatistically,s a slow butstunning ecline ntheproduction f Sanskrit ublic poetry ommencingn the earlyninthcentury.

Whenthedynastyirst egins ssuing nscriptionstartinground .D. 750, Sanskritis usedinmore han80 percent ftheextant ecords; y ts end200 years ater, essthan5 percent re n SanskritGopal 1994, 429-65).Besides he lear vidence f hiftinganguage reference,ll the arly nscriptionsin Kannada among the Badami Calukyas and Rastrakuitas emain resolutelydocumentary.he firstxpressiver "workly" nscriptionsn Kannadafromwithintheroyal ourt ometo be produced nly bout thetimeof thereignof Krishna II(939, EI 19, 289), ornearly alf millennium fternscribedKannada firstppears(Halmidi ca. 450).It is notmany enerations efore rishnaII that vidence or extualizediteraryproductionn the anguage s firstvailable,during hereign f theRastrakuitaingNrpatunigaAmoghavarsaca. 814-80). In terms of literary ulture,this was aremarkableeriodand place in manyrespects, site of whatappears o be literaryexperimentationcross anguages. twasthen, or xample, hatJainas urn ecisivelytoSanskrit or heproductionftheir reatpoetichistoriesas intheAdipurdnaA.D.8371 of Jinasena II, the spiritual preceptor of Nrpatuniga,or Asaga'sVardhamdnapurdna8531, the first ndependent biographyof MahavTra), ndundertookheir irst rammaticalnalysis f Sanskritnperhaps ive enturiesnthe

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20 SHELDON POLLOCK

?abddnufsdasanaf?Skatayana.1I ere, too,a little ater n important ew currentnApabhramrsa,s we have seen the third osmopolitan iteraryanguage along withSanskrit nd Prakrit, inds xpressionn the workof Puspadanta fl. 950), who wasprobablythe first o write a Jaina universalhistory n the language.12 But thehistoricallyrucial nnovationn literaryulture oncerns annada.No doubtattempts oproduce iteraryexts n Kannadapreceded heperiodofNrpatuiiga.n the territorialmaginationfKannada iteraryulture hroughouthemedieval period, the "heartland f Kannada" ("the very zone (nddu-e)betweenKisuvolal [Pattadakall, the renowned city of Kopana [Koppall, Puligere[Lakshmeshvarl,nd Omkunda Okkunda ntheBelgaum District] . . is where hevery ssence tirullofKannada is found]" KRM 1.381), n otherwords, heroyallysanctioned restige ialect, s placed not in northeast arnatakawhereGovinda Iandhis son Nrpatuniga uilttheir apital,but 250 km to thesouthwest,n the coreregion f the predecessor ynasty f the Calukyas."3 et even f thiswerebecauseofthe presence f a new Kannada iteraturen Badami and Aihole, this would take usbackonly fewgenerations-which,n fact, s about as far s the iterary-historicalmemory f Kannada poets themselves eaches, s this s embedded n introductorykaviprars'amsrasthe earliest uthorsmentioned re Asaga andGunavarma f the earlyninth entury). he first xtant ext n Kannadadescribeshowdifficult task t isfor he author o identifyiterarymodels for heprescriptiverojectbefore im:heis forced o "huntfor craps" fKannada iteratureikea mendicant:

Both Sanskrit nd Prakritre available ccording o one's wish bagedante)orcomposingiterature ithrefinementsamari), or o be surethere realreadyavailable oth iterary odels ndrules laksya,aksana)ngreat bundanceor achof he wo.Butthediscoursepresentererequiresiegging crapsirikoregozdvu)[sc.,ofKannadaiteraturelo make t ntelligible.t is thus ifficultornyoneodointhe ase fKannada heway he ncienteachersof anskritndPrakritid).(KRM 1.41-42)Kannada iteraturein the sense have beenusingthe term hroughout) asa recentnvention,fperhaps heeighth entury,nd it is precisely he factof its

noveltyntheface fSanskrithatpromptedhewriter fthis ext opuzzle through,in a mostdetailed nd subtleway, hecomplexdialectic etween he ocal andglobalin medieval literaryculture. This singular work in the historyof literaryvernacularizations theKavirdjamdrgaca. 875), "The Way of theKing ofPoets,"atext oplace besideDante's De vulgari loquentia1307)-or, rather, eforet; itmayin factbe the first ork nworldculture o constitute vernacularoetics n directconfrontation ith a cosmopolitan anguage.4 There are considerable ultural-"1He tyles imself bhinavas'arvavaramn recognition fthe earliermodel Sarvavarma'sKdtantra),nd namestheautocommentaryn his grammar moghavrttifter is patron men-

tioned n 4.3.208). The Jaina turn o Sanskrit orkdvya-and Jinasena I clearly egards isAdipurdna s such-needs study, specially he earlyworks f Ravisena 678) and Jinasena(783). For a general ccount, eeDundas 1996.12Literary roductionn Prakrit as been thought ddly bsent cf. lreadyAltekar 960a,412), but as noted boveithad become residual r even archaic ultural eature,s inscrip-tionaldiscourse rom hemid-fourthentury n demonstrates."See KRM 1.37; Pa'mpaVAV 14.45. Cf. ChidanandaMurti1978, 256.14TheTamil Tolkdppiyams no doubt earlier its dating s muchdisputed;for ne soberassessment ee Swamy1975), butthe dichotomy perative here s not cosmopolitan/localutstandard/nonstandard,entamilkotuntamillZvelebil 1992, 134-36).

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 21historical arallels etween heseworks, ut also some ignaldifferences.t themicrolevel,unlikethe Eloquentia,heKRM aims to producenot a unified anguagefor hepolityfrom mongcompeting ialects, ut a language ualified or iterature. t themacro evel, heKRM has a less transparentelationshiphanDante's work o politicaltheory nd practice, ut its social ocation nd authorshipre clear nd important.twas writtent thecourt fNrpatunigandunderhisguidance: he"Way oftheKingof Poets" s theWay of Nrpatungahimself.15Despite the mportancefKRM for hecultural-politicalistoryfmiddle-periodIndia, there xistsno critical nalysis r even descriptiveccount f the work n anylanguage otherthan Kannada. Even Kannada-language cholarship as not alwaysappreciatedts largerhistorical ignificance.While Kannada in general s unjustlyignored everywheren South Asian research,Old Kannada (Halagannada), thelanguage f his ndall literaturef heregion efore heVTras'aivaultural evolutionat the end of the twelfth entury,s understudied ven n Karnataka-in largepartbecause t is hardly ccessiblewithoutknowledge f Sanskrit. his paradoxical act,like the text's relationship o the tradition f Sanskrit oetics, speciallyDandin's"Mirror f Literature,"re two mportantndicators f what vernacularntellectualswritingn Kannadaweretrying o do. We have seenthat he circulation f texts nSanskrit oeticswasboth factor nda sign ofthecreation ftheSanskrit osmopolisinAsia, andat the ame timeprovided framework ithinwhich ocal poetries ouldbe conceptualizedin Siam,SriLanka,Tibet,andso on).The sameprocess ookplacein the subcontinent tself,first nd nowheremore profoundlyhan in Kannadacountry.

Making he Global Local: theKavirajamargaand theWays ofLiteratureThe KRM fullyrecapitulateshe structuref Dandin's "Mirror" nd in someimportant ayseven functionss ouroldestcommentaryn the text. t first efinesliterature,escribesinguistic eatureshatmar t dosas) nd make tbeautifulgugnas)

(chap. 1),andthen atalogues iguresf ound chap. 2) andsense chap. 3). In additionto similarityn structure,erhaps wo hundred f the illustrative erses re closelyadaptedfrom anskrit ntecedents. ut the work s nota translation f the Sanskrit,as often ssumed.Not onlydoes "translation"s usually nderstoodmakeno culturalsensefor hisworldwhere iteracyn Kannadapresupposed iteracyn Sanskrit, utthe work has a quite differentgenda from ts Sanskritmodel. What we are beingofferedn theKRM is an experimentn thelocalization fa universalisticanskritpoeticsand an analysisof Kannada literary dentity.Conversely, owever,t hassomething f nterest o reveal boutthecreation f thispoetics, nd aboutthe realdynamics f ocal-global xchange. want to illustrate othfeaturesyan analysis fsomething hathas long confused tudents f theKRM: its appropriationf theSanskrit iscourse n theWay of iterature.The KRM firstntroduces hecategorymdrgan its broader onnotation,iterarymethod, omething oded in theveryname of thework,Kaviradj'amdrga,The WayoftheKingofPoetry." Way" becomes coveringerm or good literature,"s such(contrasting ith"corrupt" oetry, usya, .7-8, soJinasena, dipurdna .31; 208-

'5KRM 1.44, 147, etc. The actual redactorf the workwas a poet namedSrTvijaya.

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22 SHELDON POLLOCK

9); "literature f the Way" is the supremeuse of language, n all its formal ndaesthetic omplexity:Themanwho understandsanguage an communicateith thers, isclosing isthoughtss he intended.Wiser hanhe is themanwho can communicateargemeaningnbriefompass,ndwisertill hemanwhoknows ow omake iswordsunitewithmeter.More earnedhan ll is themanwho anproduce orks fthegreatWay mahddhvakrtigal). (KRM 1.15-16)This is a perfectlyntelligible sage. Whathasbeen found uzzling s theKRM'snext move of adopting the notion of the regional Ways-whereby Sanskritdemonstratedts pervasion f all literary pace-for a differentiationf Kannada

poetrytself.It s mpossibleullyocomprehendhe roceduresf heWay ndreach conclusionabout hemultiplicityf heir ptions. aving onsideredhe ules n words f heearlierastras,will ay littlewith especto Kannadaothat hematterngeneralmay eclear . Poets risena worldwithouteginningndthus re nfinitennumber,heirndividualizedxpressionsre f nfiniteinds,nd o theWay xistsin infiniteariety.. But to the best ofmy ability will discuss rieflyhedistinction-theirifferenceserceivedy he ld Sanskritjritersho onsideredthematter-betweenhe wo xcellent ays, henorthernndthe outhern,nthemannerunderstandt .. Of hese wo he outhern ayhas en arieties,ccordingto the ten anguage eatures,unasj . .Thenorthern ayhasvarietiesifferentiatedby hepresencef he nversef hese eatures. (KRM 2.46, 49-51, 54-55)This is followedby exhaustivenventorynd illustration f all the languagequalities taken over from he Sanskrit radition,which the author concludes sfoundationalo Kannadapoetics: Whatever hewords mployedn a poem theywillenhance hevirtues fKannada fmadesubject othedifferentsages ssociatedwiththe Waysdescribed bove" 2.101). The KRM, in short, ppears o havecompletelygrafted hediscourse hatmakes Sanskrit osmopolitan-the universal epertoryf

styles-ontothe ocal worldof Kannada.Modern Kannada scholarshave foundthis entire nquiry ofwhich there s areprisenthe econd mportant edieval ext n Kannadapoetics, heKdvydvalokanamofNagarvarma a. 1040, at thecourt fJayasimhaI oftheKalyani Calukyas o benotonly rrelevanto actualKannadapoetry, ut incoherent. o advancewhateverhas been made overR. Narasimhachar'smpatient ismissal fthewholequestion:"Northern"nd "southern"nKannadapoeticsrefermerely o the"schools rstylesin Sanskrit,"we aretold,for here s no evidence hatanything omparable xistedinKannada 1934, 121-22). Sucha judgment fcourse xplainsnothing fwhat heKRM intends yusingthediscourse n theWayfor tsanalysis fKannada iterature,yettheredoes seem to be every eason o interprett as alien and evenmeaninglessto a local literaryulture.Designedto reaffirmhe realtransregionalityf Sanskritliterature recisely y identifyinguasi-regional arieties hemadrgasppearto beincongruouslyfnotludicrously astedontoa realregionalworld of Kannada. Thecategory apturesnothingwhatevern the local character f the literaturend fitsonlyto thedegree his iteraturemimics anskrit.The KRM is a textemerging rom hevery enter fone of the mostpowerfulpolitical formations n middle-period India (cf. Inden 1990, 228ff.), and this fact, f

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 23no general rinciple fhermeneuticharity,hould nvite s to ponder eriously hatitmeansbyusing hetalkof osmopolitan anskrit o representvernacular-languagepoetics. Metadiscursivelyne might argue that, facedwith exclusionfrom thetransregionalityf Sanskrit nd refusingo be caught n the brackets f the ocal, theKRM seeks o remap he cosmopolitanWay onto the ocal world fKarnataka. heremust therefore e a northernnd a southern tyle of Kannada poetry tself-theKannadaNadu mustbe shown o embrace north nda south, oconstitute regionalworld-whetheror notsucha division orrespondso any really xisting oetries.16If Kannadais to participaten the worldof the iterarykdvya), worlddefined ySanskrit,tmust how ts characteristiceatures.n a word, he ocal mustevince tstranslocal apacities.An account f this sortmay capture omething f the cultural-politicalmpulseatwork n theKRM, and other vidence look at below seems o corroboratet. Butthere s another nd more significant,f somewhatmore complicated, ationaleunderpinningt. We begintograsp hiswhenwe consider ow theKRMdiffersromand supplements ts Sanskritmodels. First, t renames he Ways as "north" nd"south" the categories audaandvaidarbha eingofcourse mpossible orKannada),and therebymoderates he narrowly patial implications f the taxonomy.17Moreimportant s the distinction-which from he vantage point of standard anskritpoetics eemsodd enoughto constitute categoryrror-that theKRM introducesindistinguishingheWays according o thetwomaindivisions fSanskrit hetoricalpractice, ndirect nd direct "natural") xpressionvakroktindsvabhdvokti):

TwoWays ccordinglyame nto rominence,ndwith hem wodifferentormsfexpression,he ndirectvakra) nd the directsvabhdva).irect xpressions aninvariableharacteristicf he outhern ay. ndirectxpression,fmany arieties,is foundnthe elebratedorthernay. (2.52-53)For the Sanskrit radition,s we have seen, the Ways are differentiatedy thepresence r "inversion" rabsenceof certainanguagefeaturesgugnas)t the evel ofphonology, yntax, nd lexicon. Yet here anotherdichotomys introduced hat,

though argely unspoken n that tradition, inallyhelps make the whole thingintelligible: outhernpoetry s devoid of tropesand thus makes prominent helanguageof iterary xpressiontself,whereasnorthernoetry eliesmoreon figuresofspeech the "manyvarieties" eferredo above). Although here ppearsto be afaintwareness f hisfundamentalistinctionarlier han heKRM,we find tclearly16Thedifferentiation,t should be noted,reflects o dialectdivisionbetweennorth ndsouthin Old Kannada. Ganga poets in the southand Calukya poets in the northused ahomogenized iterarydiom, producing nd reproduced y the philologicalworkdiscussedbelow. (The Kannada Nighantu, .v. uttaramdrga,herefores mistaken o gloss "uttarakan-

nada.")'7"North"nd "south"areusedpreferentiallyyDandin's tenth-centuryommentator,Ratnas'rTjninaso, occasionally, y Dandin himself, A 1.60, 80, 83). Ratna composedhiscommentaryomewheren theRastrakutaworld,his patronbeingone Sarvabhyunnatar-as-traktutatilakaamed ?rTmattunfganaradhipa.nd it appears that the two other xtant om-mentators n Dandin worked n the Karnatakaregion if the one, Vadijafighala s the Vadi-ghafighala hatta mentioned n a tenth-centuryafiga grant Annual Report f theMysoreArchaeologicalept.,19211as niravadyasdhityavidycvydkhydnanipuna1. 168); andif heother stheTarunavacaspati ho worked tthe twelfth-centuryoysala court).Evidentlyt wasa textthat poke to southern ntellectuals ith special forcefulness.

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24 SHELDON POLLOCKarticulated nly n a somewhataterwork, he?rggdra rrakdfaf King Bhoja (firstquarter fthe eleventh entury):There rethree ources fbeauty n poetry:ndirectexpression vakrokti), irectexpression svabhdvokti),nd expression f emotion(rasokti).ndirect xpressionswhenprominences givento figures f peech, imileand the ike; direct xpression, hen t is givento languagefeaturesgu?nas)"678).18How deviant rom heSanskritradition his orrelation-of uncasnd thusvaidarbhastylewithsvabhdvokti,nd vakrokti ith gauda-is thought o be appearsfrom hewords fBhoja's editor,who foundtaltogether nintelligibleRaghavan1963, 136-37; it is infact nknown o Indological cholarship).n the ightofKRM itbecomesclear.The logic of argument oth nKRM andof the examples t adduces19roducesgeography fKannada tyles hat, trippedo tsessentials, omprises realdichotomyofpractices orvernacularwriters:a) "southern"Kannada literatures thatwhichfocalizes anguage itself literature s "speech-directedpeech"),and accordinglyemploysfigurativelynadorneddescription the primarymeaningofsvabhdvokti),whereas northern" annada literature ocalizes hetoricvakrokti);b) amongthemostdistinctiveinguistic eaturesisted mong hegu?nass degree fnominalization:"southern" annada literatures uncompounded;northern" annadapoetry s thereverse;20c) "southern" annada iteratures marked y theprevalence f ocal desi)words (the analog of primary exemes); northern oetry by the prevalenceofunmodified anskrit oans samasamskrtatatsaman other raditions],heanalog ofderivativeexemes).

The northernnd southernypes fKannada iteraturehusprefigure hatwereeventuallyo be named iterature f theWay and literature f thePlace, magrganddesi.Farfrom nalyzingKannadaagainst n irrelevantet ofcategories,heKRM isidentifyinghetwomodesofwritinghat onstitute hefundamentaldentityhoicesforKannada,and in factfor ll SouthAsian regional iteratures. ut there s anadditional nd telling ronyn thedialectic f cosmopolitan nd vernacular: or thesourceof thisorganizing axonomy f Sanskrit oetrywould appearto lie not inanything o do withthenature fSanskrit oetry s such,butrathern underlyinginclinations f outhernoets-such asKannadapoets ike those tNrpatufiga'sourtorTamil-born oets ikeDandin himself-towrite anskritn conformityiththesensibilities fthesouthernanguages hat refinallymadevisiblebytheproductionofpoetryndpoetictheorynthevernacular.21n theprocess ffullvernacularization

18Bhamaharegards auda as alankdravad, nd vaidarbha s avakroktis well as prasanna,komala, tc., i.e., endowed with gunas,but he never laborates Kdvydlankara.34-35), nordoes Dandin despite his explicitdichotomy KA 2.360). Vamana illustrates aidarbhawith?dkuntala .6, perfect vabhdvokti,nd gaudawithMahdviracarita .54, perfect akrokti,utotherwise ivesnohintthathe understood heprinciplesn play.19ThusKRM vss 2.60 and 62 can be distinguished n the basis of vabhdvoktisouthern)and vakroktinorthern,he le5sa u[-Jvalayamnd other igures),s can the twohalves f2.110(the firstwithout rope, he second with metaphor ompound).By contrast,n 2.109, theoperative istinctions theplayofgugas nthefirst alf fthe verse ndicatingoutherntyle,as opposed to thenortherntyle,which howsnothing omparable.20The tatusof ojas was ambiguous lready o Dandin, who while isting t as a qualityofvaidarbhatylemakes tclearthat t is a peculiar eaturefnorthernoetry 1.80), ofwhichsoutherners ake onlymoderateandkulam) se (83). Vamana eliminated t as a quality of"pure" southerntyle 1.2.19), whereas orBhoja vaidarbhas "whollyuncompounded"ndgauda "compounded o the fullest xtent ossible" ?P 580).2'ForRatna svabhdvoktis "expression atural" o southern oets: "The vaidarbhaWay-whichconsists fbeauty-factorselating o words hemselvesas words), .e., thetengunas-is natural o southern oets ddksindtydndmvdbhdvikah),hereas he eastern' ourse fpoetry

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 25that was engaged n ninth- nd tenth-centuryarnataka, he styles hatsouthernwriters ad already heorized or anskritwere naturally etheorizeds componentsofKannada,ofwhichnoncompounding,nitial lliterationprdsal,irect escription,and the ike are real components,s anypassage of Old Kannadapoetrywill testify.The largerprinciple o extract rom his apparently arrow ase concerns hemutually onstitutiventeractionf the ocal andthe global:As thecosmopolitansconstitutedhrough ultural lows rom hevernacular,o thevernacular onstructsitselfby appropriation rom hecosmopolitan-a process hatsometimes, s here,amounts ounwitting eappropriation.22

Philologizationnd the Production fDifference

The KRM has other ultural-politicalims, whichvariously uancethe projectof creating cosmopolitan diom while at the same time identifying annadadifference. annada could not achieve ts new rank unless it possessed both theepistemologicaltatusofSanskrit nd thedignity f ts philological pparatus i.e.,laksanagranthasr rule-settingexts).The KRM achieves he formerythevery actofengaging n a discourse n Kannadaat all, and the atterbytheexplicit nalysisof iterary-languageormswithwhich hegreater artofthework s concerned. hetext tselfs moreover performancef ts argument, or t constitutes annada as alanguageofscience n the actofestablishing annadaas a languageof iteraturebycontrast,heEloquentiaanonlymake tsscholarly rgument or hevolgarellustrenLatin).The precociously arly philologizationwe find in the KRM will continueuninterruptedlyor nother our enturies. ictionaries refound rom heend ofthetenth entury. number fthese, ike thefirst,hatofthepoet Ranna (ca. 990,fragmentarilyreserved)reKannada-Sanskrit,ndglossing s they ften o simpleKannadawordswithSanskritquivalentsre aimed essatenhancingommunicationthan chieving anguageparity cf.Nagaraj 1996, 223ff.). romthesameperiodwefindthe first n a long series of sophisticated nalysisof Kannada metrics, heChandombudhir "Sea of Meters" of Nagavarman . Along with an elaboratedomestication f thecomplexquantitative-syllabicetric fSanskrit,hisprovidesan account fthe ten "native"meters, arntdtavisayabhdsdjdti,indigenousmeters] fthe anguageof theKannada world" 5. 1). The grammaticalradition eginswiththeKarndtakabhdsdbhisanar "Ornament f the KannadaLanguage," composed nSanskrit&tras y Nagavarmam I (at theKalyanicourt n northeasternarnatakaaround1040), and culminatesn one of the most mportant rammarsfprecolonialIndia, the ?abdamanidarpanaf Kesiraja (at the Hoysala court, 1260). Thisextraordinaryork,which ike theKRMremains irtuallynread utside fKannada-language cholarship, ould have to occupy central lace in anyserious ccount ftheprocesses fvernacularanguageunificationnd standardizationeforemodernity.takesnote ofsemantic iguresfspeech nd grandiloquence"ad 1. 50). Accordingly, e seesthe different ays as "inborn," native," "specific"tajja, sahaja, nija) to the poets of theparticular egions ust iketheir egional anguage on 1.40, p. 28).22Comparehe ntertextualinkages hatshow thefifteenth-centuryelugu poetPotanato be reappropriatingnd localizing n his campi7 hdgavatamu Sanskrit ourtly urdna, hetenth-centuryhdgavatam, hich tself ppropriatedas Potana was probablyunaware) hesongsof the Tamil Alvars seventh-ninthenturies). f.Shulman 1993.

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26 SHELDON POLLOCKSufficet to say herethat n the ?MD, too, from he first erse o the ast, Kannadadifferences theorizedwithina Sanskrit ultural pisteme; t is constructed s anobject of study fromthe perspective f a Sanskrit hat definedwhat language,especially iteraryanguage, s supposed o be.23Every eature fthe iteraryn Kannada,for ts first alf-millenniumf ife, eemsto be marked y thekinds fnegotiations fdifferencend calculations fvernacular-cosmopolitan redominancehatwe findn the KRM. This textdefines irtually hewhole rangeof iterary hemes hatwill be meditated ver for he nextfour r fivecenturies, verything rom the large questions of genre (KRM 1.33ff.)and theconstruction,fprematurely,f canonof Kannadaprose nd verse oetryuxtaposedto and complementinghat fSanskritKRM 1.28-32), to the tructuref ompoundsand the microanalysisf whichSanskrit nd Kannada mayandmaynot be joined ncompound e.g., KRM 1.51ff.). uchnegotiationsrenot usttheoretical,ither. heyinform he literary rocedures f the poets themselvesvera wholerange of textswhose very titles-beginning with the earliest,the KarndtaKumdrasambhava(attributedoAsaga,A.D. 853)-bespeak the ocalization f the Sanskrit lobal, andsuggest hat big part fwhat arlyKannada iteratures about s thevery ossibilityofmaking iteraturenKannada.

Vernacular olitical paceNo textmakes ll thismore xplicit han hefirstiterary ork xtant nKannada,Pampa's VikramarjunavijayaVAV,ca. 950). Pampawas the courtpoet ofArikesariII, a Calukyaoverlordn what s now western ndhra Vemulavada)who heldactualpower n the astdecadesofRastrakiutaule.The Vikramdrjunavijaya,onceived f sthe first complete"vernacular ersion f the SanskritMahdbhdrata,as solicited ythe courtly iterati nd paid forbytheking himself: The learned elt hatno greatpoet n thepasthadproperlyre-]composedheCompletehdrata-an unprecedentedthing-without damaging hebodyof the tale and retainingtsmagnitude.. andthatthiswas something nly Pampa could do. And so theygathered ogether ndbesought me]; I [therefore]ndertake o composethis work . . Arikesari imselfsenta messengernd gave [me] much wealth to havehis fameestablishedn theworld, nd in this fashion ad [me] compose historical arrativeitihdsakathal."24The negotiation f culturaldifference entioned bove is undoubtedly ne of thework'smainpreoccupations,nd is signaled t itsvery ommencement:A workofliterature ecomesbeautifulf tsimaginations new . . if t enters nto the poetryofPlace desiyolpuguvudu),ndhavingdoneso, penetratesntothepoetry f theWay(mdrgadola/vudu)"VAV 1.8). But Pampa has additionalpurposes n mind,whichcomeinto clear relief nlyoncewe recall omethingboutthe model he soughtto

overcome.As my briefremarks bove tried to suggest,one of the thingsthe SanskritMahdbhdratas about is theproduction r organizationfspace and ofa political23The ast verse n fact framesnine pointsof Kannada difference"the uniquenessofKannada," aridu .. kannadan) ver againstSanskrit, n termsof phonology, andhi, om-pounding, rosody, tc. ?abdamanidarpanza42).24 AV 1.11; 14.51. In fact,Peruntevanar'sfragmentary?)amil adaptation, he Pdrat-venpa,s abouta centuryarlierat thecourt f NandivarmanII Pallava,r. ca. 830-52).

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 27vision hat ncompasses his pace. As we saw, the heroes' ravelsn their xile,theirconquest f the quarters rior o the declaration funiversal overeignty,he evyingof troopsforwar whenthatsovereigntys challenged, hewanderings f the ritualhorsewhose compassmarks he extent f theirreacquisition f mperial tatus ndwhose ritual laughtermarks ts confirmation,nd thefinalfunereal ircuitbeforetheirdeaths-when they renounce he world of political power n despair at theslaughter hey ngaged n to win it-reinforce he mage ofa vastyetbounded, f ohazilybounded ulture-spherefpoliticalreference,xtending romNepal to Assam(or theplaces now so called)to the outherneninsula, ndthence o Sind,Qandahar,Kashmir.t is this pic space, nd thepolitics hatfill t,thatPampa seeks o redefinein his vernacularizedersion.Pampa oftenreferso his work as thesamasta-bhdrata,where amastahas twoimportantmeanings: he author ttempts o reproduce,s noted, he "whole" of themain tory ftheSanskrit oem.Butalso he wantshis epictobeseen sa "composite"narrative. hat is, it explicitlydentifies he poem's patron,his family, verlord,enemies, nd his regionwiththeheroes, llies, ntagonists,nd world f the Sanskritepic.To be sure, hepoet is nota simple allegorist,nd his touch s light.But hisdirections o readers re clear nough he is explicit boutthe dentificationsn 1.51),and the tory fCalukya oliticalfortunes,s Arikesari ssumes hemantle fprimaryvassal sdmanta)mid thefrayingtructure fRastrakiutaower, s pushed throughthe veil of the myth-epict critical oints n the narrative. good exampleof thedouble narrative s provided n the verycenterof the poem. When the sons ofDhrtarastran anticipation f battlebegin to describe hegreatdeeds of their nemy,the epic heroArjuna-the hero'spride n fighting ithgreatgod Siva and acquiringmagicweapons, hevalorhe showed n defeating emons, hegrandeurfhissharingthe throne f Indra,king of gods-at this verypoint,where Indra" king of godscould just as well standfor ndra III Rastrakutta,rikesari'smaternal ncle (and"gods" could mean"kings"), he discourse lidesseamlesslyntoa descriptionfthepoet's royal atron:

The majesty f thisSea of Virtues . . who held his ground, hielding nd savingKingVijayaditya,orehead rnamentf heCalukya amily,henGovindarajaIVRastrakuttalaged gainst im; .. who attackedndconqueredgain hevassalswho amenbattalionsn the rderf he uprememperor ojjega Govindarajal... and restoredmperial ower sakalasdmrdjya-JoKing Baddega = Amoghavarsa1111-who adcome o him rustingnhim .. (VAV 9.51 +)Arikesari efeats heusurpingGovindaraja nd restores o powerthe rightfulruler, ut ndoingso constitutes imself s paramountverlordntheDeccaninthemiddleof the tenth entury.It is not the detailsof the historical asethatdraw ttention,utrather heform

of cultural ommunicationampahas invented opresent hem.He has refashionedin thevernacular Sanskritpicdiscourse n thepolitical ndtherebyevisioned hetransregional olitical order for another nd verydifferentind of world.And,accordingly,xactlyikethepoem's politicaldiscourse,tsgeographicalmaginationis adjusted otheprimary arrativeroject.The "CityoftheElephant,"Hastinapura,which s home to theBharataclan in the Sanskrit pic, becomesVemulavada, heCalukyan apital.The grand circumambulationf thequarters" fthesubcontinentthat epeatedlyrganizeshe ction f he picbecomes circuit f he entral eccan.Even the ist of rivers romwhich the waters re collectedfor he hero's oronation

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28 SHELDON POLLOCK

ritual t the end of the work ncludes stream n the Kannada heartland fBanavasi(VAV 1.51ff.withNarasimhachar's ote ad loc.; 4.26ff; 14.31). In a word,whatPampa has done is shrink he continent f the Bharatasbhdratavarsa)o a Kannadaregionalworld,narrow hevisionofpoliticalpower o the space n which t actuallyworked, nd endowthiswithcomprehensibleoints f reference,arrativeense, ndliterarytatus. t is now thekannadadanddu f theKRM-"Between the Kaveri ndGodavaririvers s thatregion n Kannada nddadd annadadol) = the country lsocalledKarnataka], well-known eople/regionjanapada), n illustrious utstandingrealm viyayalwithinthe circle of the earth" KRM 1.36)-that becomes the all-important olitical and aesthetic ramework. nd it is for he moral and politicalinstructionfthis ommunity hatPampa has written is Bhdrata: Having properly[re-]composedhecelebratedworkofVyasamuni.. an expansive oemofPlace, sit anywonder hat Pampa,j the Sea of Poetic Virtues, as becomethe teacher f theNadu?" (14.62).It is by suchan array f texts nd practices-the KRM's asserting t once theregionalitynd supraregionalityf Kannada, and its literary alue, by retrofittingSanskrit axonomy; ampa's localization fan epic spaceandpoliticalvision to theworldofKannadanadu, nd therangeof other ultural ractices haveexamined-thatthe form f cultural ommunication wantto call thecosmopolitan ernacularcomes to be produced.But iftheKRM, thePampaBhdrata, nd other exts angiveus a vivid senseof the discursive nd literarytrategies ywhich ucha high-culturevernaculars produced,how can we make sense of thetimeand theplace of thistransformation?hyis it thatvernacularntellectualstartingn theninth o tenthcenturies,romwithin he enters fpower fdominant olities Rastrakuita,alukya,Hoysala),turnto Kannada for iterarynd politicalcommunication?What is theirinterest hen nd there nconstitutingheiranguage s a newepistemologicalbject,an object of normative iscourse, vehicle forcourtly xpression?What is theirinterestnrenouncing hatwas notonlypotentiallyutactually hetranslocal, ear-globalaudienceofSanskritnd, for hefirstime, peaking ocally?

ExplainingVernacularizationSimilarprocesses o what we have found n the creation fa Kannada literaryculturemaybe observed ll over the Sanskrit cumenefrom hebeginning f thesecondmillennium,romAssam,Andhra, nd OrissatoSri LankaandJava, nd fromKerala, Maharashtra,nd Gujarat to Tibet. Vernacularwriters ransformedheinscriptional ecord, o thatthe expression fpoliticalwill would henceforthakeplace in thevernacular;hishappensmost pectacularlynTamil under he mperialCo1as,butcan alsobe seen,nascently,nMarathi,Oriya,Telugu. They appropriated

a Sanskrit esthetic nd a rangeof ts literarymodels nto their anguagesforbothpolitical nd imaginativexpression; andin,for xample, s reworkedn Sinhala nthetenth entury, amil in thetwelfth, ibetan n thethirteenth.hey developednew notions fgeocultural rameworksor heir iteraryarrativeepresentations,hesame as those n which their textswould circulate. t was typically y way of alocalization f the Sanskrit pics-often with thedouble-narrativehatwe find nPampa-that all thesegoals weresimultaneouslychieved n a primalmoment fvernacularization. itness n this onnectionuchJavanese exts heRdmdyanaf hetenth enturyrepresentativef a genrewheredouble-narratives fundamental,f.

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 29Robson 1983) and the prose Mahdbhdrata;Nannaya's Telugu versionof theMahdbhdrata t the court of the VefigiCalukyas n the mid-eleventh;MadhavaKandali's Assamese Rdmayana, omposed at the request of the Barahi kingMahamanikya n themid-fourteenth;isnudasa'sBrajMahdbhdrataPdndavacarita)andRamayanakathdrittent the court ftheGwaliorTomars n themid-fifteenthcentury;heOriyaversions f theepicsand Bhdgavata rom heGajapaticourt n thelater ifteenthentury. hisvasttransformationnthewaypeople magined nd wrotetheirnewregionalworldspresents complex fproblems orhistoricalnalysis ndcultural heory.We are nowhere ear to unraveling nyofthesefor ny partofthenewly vernacularizedworld, let alone constructinga unified theory ofvernacularization.ut I thinkwe can identifyomeconceptual ead endsand someother venuesworth ollowing,nd formulate few arger rinciples hatSouthAsiavernacularizationuggests.In tworecentssays leadingpolitical ndcultural heoristfSouthAsia,SudiptaKaviraj,considers ome central ssuesofwriting nd being on the eve ofBritishcolonialismKaviraj1992a, 1992b). His reflectionsre nvaluable or heirnsistenceonthehistoricityndthereforeariabilityfrepresentationsf ommunity,thnicity,identity,nd their erritorialocalizations; venmore so fortheirrecognizingndcharting he long-term rend to "incommunication"n SouthAsia, that is, theprocesses ywhich hemultilingualapacities ndenthusiasmsf peakers ndwriterswere rodedbythemonolingualizationffectedymodernity.ut at thesame timea number freceived iewsaboutthevernacularizationf thisworld rereproducedthathavegoneuncontested oolong.Like every ther cholarwhohas writtenntheissue, Kaviraj ties the "gradual separation f [the] emerging iteraturesof thevernacularanguages] romhehighSanskrit radition" o "religious evelopments,"indeed, eligious evelopments ostile othat radition,gainstwhich hevernacularliteraturesmake an "undeclared evolution." The originof vernacularanguagesappearsto be intimatelyinked to an internal onceptual ebellionwithin lassicalBrahminical induism."25In fact, there is precious little evidence to support these generalizations,universally cceptedthoughtheyare. There is of course no denyingthat somerelationshipmay be foundbetween anguagechoice and religious ractice n SouthAsian history; heresistance o redacting he Buddha'swords n Sanskrit nd thepreferencefJainasfor astern rakrit or heir cripturesre familiarnstances roman early eriod.But bythebeginning f thesecondmillenniumhisrelationshipsmuch etiolated.Sanskrithad long ceased to be a brahmanical reserve,ust asbrahmans ad longtaken o expressinghemselvesiterarilyn languages ther hanSanskrit, uch as Apabhrams'a r indeed Kannada. The religiousdeterminantnlanguagechoice n generalhas beenvastly verdrawn orpremodernouthAsia; inthe particular ase of the so-called rebellion n religious consciousness ermeddevotionalismbhakti), othing uggests t can be isolated s a significantet aloneprimary ynamic n the history f South Asian vernacularization.ome northernIndianvernacularsamefirst obe employed orwritteniteratureltogetherutsidethebrahmanicalradition: indui in thewest,for xample,byMas'ud Sa'd SalmaninLahore a. 1100,Avadhi nthe eastbyMaulanaDaiud nJaunpurt theend ofthefourteenthentury.And manyvernacular naugurations how no concernwithreligiousdevotionalismwhatever. arly Braj crystallizeds a literarydiom in the

25Whats meant s the"origin"ofvernaculariteratures, ot anguages, common lip-pagepromptingmy remarks boveon writing ndthebeginning f iterature.

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30 SHELDON POLLOCKwritings fVisnudasunderthe patronage f the Tomars n Gwalior, nd as StuartMcGregorhas carefully emonstrated,is vernacular pics have nothing o do withbhaktiMcGregorn.d.). The same holds true forthe western nd of the Sanskritcultural cumene,where he earliest exts n Gujarati, fthe fourteentho fifteenthcenturies, nclude Bhalan's courtlyKddambari nd the anonymous roticphdgu,Vasantavildsa,nd for heeastern,hepolitical-allegoricalakawinsfJavanese.In the case of Kannada, belief n the religious mperative f vernacularizationsaltogether nchallenged n the scholarly iterature.Here, however, he putativeimpetus s notdevotionalism ut whatone scholar generationgo described s Jainaloyalty o "theprecept f thefounder ftheir aith hat hevernacularhouldbe usedfor reachingo themasses" Altekar 960b, 314). Why ttookmore han thousandyearsfor this loyalty o manifest tself n literary roductionn the languageofKarnataka,whereJainashad lived since perhaps 00 B.C., is a mystery. ysterious,too, is the factthat, t the very ime and place when Kannada literary roductionfinally oes make history, he greatest fJainareligious oets-those whose oyaltyshouldbe beyond oubt-Jinasena ndGunabhadra ca. 850-900), chose anskrit orthespiritual oetry f theirMahdpurdna,s manydid alsoforaukika rthis-worldlymoral iterature,uch as Pampa's contemporaryt the Vemulavada ourt, heJainaabbotSomadevasturiauthor fYa?(astilakacamp7,.D. 959).Ifa number f the earlierKannadapoetswereJainas, ome weredecidedly ot.It is no anomaly hatwhena brahmanminister f religious ffairsdharmakdryesuniyukta)nderVikramaditya I ofthewestern alukyas endoftheeleventhentury)giftedand toaMimaamsaollege aprdbhdkarasyaydkhyana?/dthe most rthodoxofall orthodoxies-the ongprasasti ecomposedwasequallydividedbetween ersesin Kannada and SanskritEl 15, pp. 348ff.).As forJaina uthors,omewere lmostclearly ainabrahmansa category eculiar o theDigambara ay communityf theDeccan), includingPampa cf. VAV 14.49) and NagavarmanI (Kdvydvalokanams.960). And muchof theirworkhas little rnothing o dowithJainism s such.Somemayhavecomposed heological istories, ut they lso composed, t leastfor hefirstthree centuriesof literaryhistory,non-Jaina rose-verse ourtly pics (campz7s),typically ornon-Jaina atrons Ranna wrotehis Gaddyuddhaa. 1000, for Saivaprince, f. 1.21). Pampa's Vikramarjunavijaya-whiche calls a laukika poem incontrast o his indgama rtheological ext, heAdiPurdnaVAV 14.60), andis,as wesaw, a work determinedn its every mportant eature y politicalvision-not tospeakoftheKRM and suchhigh-cultureernacularizationssKarndta ddambar7ca.1030), provides vidence nough f naudience nda literaryulture ormedyvaluesto whichreligious dentitywas subordinate. he one value thatthe KRM itselfcelebratesn describinghe iteraryourt s cultural irtuosity:

Anyone ho betakes imselfo thegreatNrpatufigaobecome member f hisliteraryirclesabhd)must e committedo thediscriminatingnderstandingf llthis-worldlyatters,s well as Uainalscriptural,ndeminent aidika uestions(laukikasdmdyikdruvaidikavis'esa).e must e adorned ith istinguishedtterances,analysis,ndartsrelatingo theknowledgef iteraturesdhita); e musthaveexceptionalnsight,ndhighlykilled onduct,nd betotallylear-thinking,ullyanalyzingach ndeveryefinitionndexampleof iteraturel. (3.219-20)

Not onlywas Kannadavernacularizationot driven y religious mperatives,itwas not n any meaningfulensepopular.Popular ommunicationanhardly avebeen servedby a literatureo thoroughly resupposinganskrit raining n lexicon,

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THE COSMOPOLITAN VERNACULAR 31syntax,metric, hetoric;ome texts xplicitlytatetheywerecommissionedyandintended or learned udience, s we saw in thecase of Pampa.

The dominant xplanations,herefore,erived ltimatelyrom disciplinary iastoward eligious tudies hat an often eformhinking boutprecolonial ndia,26reof ittlehelp nunderstandingheprimarymoments fvernacularizationhatmarkedmuch of South Asia in the early secondmillennium.What is abundantly lear,however, n virtually very ase we can historicallyapture-and again, Kannada isparadigmatic ere-is theroleof the court n the vernacular urn. t is cosmopolitanelites-men likePampafullyn command f Sanskrit nd enjoying ank ndstatus,paid by the king forhis workand rejoicing n his power and grandeur VAV13.49ff.)-writingcourtlypoetryfor theirpeers, who first urnedKannada (andTelugu, Malayalam,Braj, Assamese) nto an instrument or iterary nd politicalexpressivity,nd who for the next half-millenniumill continue o producetheliterarynd philological extsn the anguage.What weneedto understand, owever,is what thiscourtlyiteraturemeantfor heself-understandingfpolity, ndwhy tcame nto existencewhen tdid.The common-sensefcontemporaryocial theory uggests hatwe should seeksome instrumentalitbetweenvernacular oetry nd polity.The grammaticalndliterary-normativeill-to-unificationf thelanguage,we maybe led to assumebysuchtheory,s intimatelyonnectedwith thepoliticalwill-to-unification,ince thepowerover anguage s powerovertheusersofthat anguage-or more imply ut,grammariansnd politicians hare he amedelusions Bourdieu1991, 43-65; Fabian1986, 8). This axiom nvites s to look for omething ewpolitically appeningnthe world of the Rastraku-tasnd westernCalukyas within which Kannadavernacularizations occurring. ne may, tis true, iscern differentindofpoliticalparadigm rising n SouthAsia at the end of the firstmillennium. he old aspirationoftransregionalnd trans-"ethnic"ule,the"imperialpolity"thathad marked hesubcontinentor heprevious housandyears,had begunto give wayto somethingdifferent,omething erhaps o be called vernacular olity.27 nduringdominancewas no longer o be soughtoutside the extended orearea,which for tspartcameincreasinglyo coincidewitha languageor culture rea-somethingthat hepolity,by its cultural-political ractices,helped to create-vague though both areasundoubtedly ere n conceptionnd on theground.When in latemiddle-periodndia, one mightbe proneto suppose,kingdomsbegan oreplace he arlierupraregionalmpires,r dreams f upraregionalmpires,with herealityfregional overnance; henkingsfrom rpatuniganninth-centuryKannadanadu o Airlangga n eleventh-centuryavabecame ess thecakravartinsfcosmic imperiaand more the overlords f really existing regional polities,thecosmopolitan xpressivityf Sanskrit eded before vernacularhatcould defineregional olitical pacethat ctuallyworked s such.And thuschoiceof anguageforthe makingof literature-the inscription f new kinds of literary extsin thevernacular-wherebyocal culture s authorized nd made availablefor iffusionndpermanence,ould be taken o constitutet the evelofculture nd communicationa new senseofthepermanencend diffusionfthepolity s a form fcommunity

26Thishas brought s to the point where ven the most car