Dear All,

we are pleased to announce the recent  publication of
Walter Slaje, Kaschmir im 16. Jahrhundert
Vom unabhängigen Sultanat zur mogulischen Annexion
(Śukas Rājataraṅgiṇī, A. D. 1513–1597)
Halle/Saale: Universitätsverlag Halle-Wittenberg
Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis, vol. 27.
The present work, handed down under the name of a certain Śuka and supple­mented by anonymous authors, constitutes the fourth so-called Rājataraṅgiṇī (“River of Kings”) in the series of Kashmirian historio­graphies begun by Kalhaṇa and continued by Jonarāja and Śrīvara. It is a chronicle of Kashmir’s rule and events in history, spanning the 16th century. It begins after the end of Bhaṭṭa Prājya’s lost historical work Rājāvalipatākā in 1513, while Fatḥ Šāh was still exercising his second reign, and ends in 1597 with the con­struction of the Naganagarī city fort just before Emperor Akbar’s third visit to Śrīnagara. The 16th century in Kashmir was marked by the spread of Nūrbaḫšiyya-Sufism and the decades-long struggle for the throne between two agnates, both of whom were in the line of the Šāhmīrīs: Fatḥ Šāh and Maḥmūd Šāh. After a Mughal inter­regnum by Mirzā Ḥaydar Dūġlāt (1541–1551) and sub­sequent successions to the throne at short intervals, the inde­pendent sultanate of Šāhmīrī rule was first over thrown by the dynasty of the Čaks (1555–1586), whose rule in turn was ended by Akbar in October 1586 annexing Kashmir to his Mughal Empire. According to our sources, assaults by an aggressive soldiery, epidemics, famines and earth­quake disasters were the living conditions of a largely defence­less population at that time.
Due to the translation by Dutt (1898) and the edition by Kaul (1966), both of whom had interfered massively and without substantiation with the textual structure as transmitted, the chrono­logical course and temporal scope of the work were disturbed to such an extent that they were no longer properly recognisable.
In this new edition, which is accompanied by an annotated German translation and indexes, the original structure and thus also the largely – though not com­pletely – intact chrono­logy of the text have been restored according to the manus­cript tradition as repre­sented by the older editions Calcutta 1835 and Bombay 1896.

hardbound, 262 pages
ISBN 978-3-86977-263-9
The book can be ordered directly from the publisher
https://uvhw.de/neu-erscheinungen/product/230828_08-263-9.html


Best wishes,
Petra Kieffer-Pülz