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“Qayṣar-i Hindūstān Vīktūriyā”: Negotiating Loyalty in Late Nineteenth-Century Parsi Laudatory Verse
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 April 2024
Abstract
To mark Queen Victoria's jubilee celebrations, many Indian authors composed laudatory literature and music in their vernacular languages. Although these works were often dismissed as “enthusiastic effusions” from poets of dubious ability, they offer intricate examples of the varied meanings the queen's presence had for Indian writers. They illustrate the subtle manipulation of laudatory verse for purposes other than praise; and they frequently offer instances of sophisticated, multilingual intertextuality and reuses of literary traditions of praise (and subversion) in India's precolonial past. This article examines examples of Persianate laudatory writing produced by three Parsi writers in colonial India and demonstrates how these works performed “loyalty” in contested, ambivalent ways.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 52 , Special Issue 1: Vernacular Victoria , Spring 2024 , pp. 14 - 39
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press
References
Works Cited
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Choksy, Jamsheed K. “Sacral Kingship in Sasanian Iran.” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 2 (1988): 35–52.Google Scholar
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Palsetia, Jesse. “Partner in Empire: Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy and the Public Culture of Nineteenth-Century Bombay.” In Parsis in India and the Diaspora, edited by Hinnells, John R. and Williams, Alan, 81–99. London: Routledge, 2008b.Google Scholar
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Stronge, Susan. Painting for the Mughal Emperor: The Art of the Book, 1560–1660. London: Victoria & Albert, 2002.Google Scholar
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Willmer, David. “Parsis and Public Space in 19th Century Bombay: A Different Formulation of ‘the Political’ in a Non-European Context.” Critical Horizons 3, no. 2 (2002): 277–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anonymous. “Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy: A Parsee Merchant.” North American Review 73 (1851): 135–52.Google Scholar
Bahmanji, Dosabhai. A New Self-Instructing Work Entitled Idiomatic Sentences. Bombay: Reporters Press, 1876.Google Scholar
Bahmanji, Dosabhai. An Address of Loyalty, in Persian Verse, with Its English Translation, to Her Most Gracious Majesty, the Queen-Empress Victoria, in Celebration of the Official Jubilee in Honor of Her Fiftieth Year on the British Throne. Bombay: Education Society Press, 1886.Google Scholar
Bahmanji, Dosabhai. Tawṣīf-i Malikah-'i Ingilistān va Qayṣar-i Hindūstān Vīktūriyā. MS. Or.14547, British Library, London.Google Scholar
Bavanati, Mirza Muhammad Baqir. Qasidah dar madh a‘lá-hazrat qadar-qudrat Qaysari Hind [Qasidah in praise of Her most exalted Majesty powerful as Fate Empress of India]. MS. Or.1031, Cambridge University Library.Google Scholar
Browne, E. G. The Press and Poetry of Modern Persia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914.Google Scholar
Buist, George. Correspondence, Deeds, Bye-laws, etc, Relating to “Sir Jamshedji Jeejeebhoy's Parsi Benevolent Institution,” Established in Bombay, 1849. Colaba: Times Press, 1849b.Google Scholar
Darmesteter, James, ed. and trans. The Zend-Avesta, Part 1: The Vendidad. Vol. 4 of The Sacred Books of the East. Edited by Müller, F. Max. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895a.Google Scholar
Darmesteter, James. The Zend-Avesta, Part 2: The Sirozas, Yasts, and Nyayis. Vol. 4 of The Sacred Books of the East. Edited by Müller, F. Max. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1895b.Google Scholar
Darmesteter, James, and Mills, Lawrence, eds. and trans. The Zend-Avesta, Part 3: The Yasna, Visparad, Afrinagan, Gahs, and Miscellaneous Fragments. Vol. 4 of The Sacred Books of the East. Edited by Müller, F. Max. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887.Google Scholar
Fazl, Abul. Akbarnāma. Vol. 3 of The History of Akbar. Edited and translated by Thackston, Wheeler M.. Murty Classical Library of India. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2017.Google Scholar
Firdausi, . Shahnāma. Edited and translated by Warner, Arthur George and Warner, Edmond. 9 vols. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1905–22.Google Scholar
Letter from Cursetjee Jamsetjee to John Malcolmson. March 10, 1853. Vol. 382, Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy MSS, University of Mumbai Library.Google Scholar
Letter from Robert Bulwer-Lytton to Victoria. September 11, 1876. IOR MS Eur.E218/18, ff.454–57, British Library, London.Google Scholar
Miscellany Written for Jalāl al-Dīn Iskandar ibn ʻUmar Shaykh. MS. Add.27261. Digitised Manuscripts, British Library, London, www.bl.uk/manuscripts/FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_27261.Google Scholar
Naini, Haji Mohammad ʿAli Pirzada. Safarnāma-’i Hājjī Pīrzāda. Edited by Farmanfarmaʾiyan, Hafiz. Tehran: n.p., 1963.Google Scholar
Parsee Prakash: Being a Record of Important Events in the Growth of the Parsee Community in Western India, Chronologically Arranged. 2 vols. Bombay: Duar Ashkara Press, 1888; Sanj Vartaman Press, 1910 (in Gujarati).Google Scholar
Ramsay, Williamson. Memorandum of the Life and Public Charities of Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy. London: John Edward Taylor, 1855.Google Scholar
Rieu, Charles. Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum. 3 vols. London: n.p., 1879–83.Google Scholar
Sanjana, Behramji. An Address in Pahlavi and Zend with Its English and Gujerati Translations Presented to H.R.H. Prince Alfred Ernest Albert Duke of Edinburgh. Bombay: Daftar Ashkara Press, 1871. 4A.or.2098. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich, https://opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de/title/BV020352924.Google Scholar
Sanjana, Darab. The Collected Works of the Late Dastur Darab Peshotan Sanjana. Bombay: British India Press, 1932.Google Scholar
Shea, David, and Troyer, Anthony, eds. and trans. The Dābistan. 3 vols. Paris: Oriental Translation Fund, 1843.Google Scholar
Taskar, Sohrabji Kuvarji Jivaji. Persian Poems. Bombay: Education Society Press, Byculla, 1881.Google Scholar
Tennyson, Alfred. “Carmen Sæculare. An Ode in Honour of the Jubilee of Queen Victoria.” Macmillan's Magazine 55, no. 330 (April 1887): 401–6.Google Scholar
Alam, Muzaffar. The Languages of Political Islam: India, 1200–1800. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Rev. ed. London: Verso, 1991.Google Scholar
Ashraf, Assef. “Introduction: Pathways to the Persianate.” In The Persianate World: Rethinking a Shared Sphere, edited by Amanat, Abbas and Ashraf, Assef, 1–14. Leiden: Brill, 2018.Google Scholar
Balabanlilar, Lisa. Imperial Identity in the Mughal Empire: Memory and Dynastic Politics in Early Modern South and Central Asia. London: I. B. Tauris, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banerjee, Sukanya. Becoming Imperial Citizens: Indians in the Late Victorian Empire. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
Bayly, C. A. Origins of Nationality in South Asia: Patriotism and Ethical Government in the Making of Modern India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998.Google Scholar
Bayly, C. A.. Recovering Liberties: Indian Thought in the Age of Liberalism and Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Beach, Milo Cleveland. The Imperial Image: Paintings for the Mughal Court. Washington, D.C.: Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, 1981.Google Scholar
Bentley, Michael. “Power and Authority in the Late-Victorian and Edwardian Court.” In The Monarchy and the British Nation, 1780 to the Present, edited by Olechnowicz, Andrzej, 163–87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Boehmer, Elleke. Indian Arrivals, 1870–1915: Networks of British Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Botzenhart, Christof. “Ein Schattenkönig ohne Macht will ich nicht sein”: Die Regierungstätigkeit König Ludwigs II von Bayern. München: C. H. Beck, 2004.Google Scholar
Boyce, Mary. Under the Achaemenians. Vol. 2 of A History of Zoroastrianism. Leiden: Brill, 1982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyce, Mary, ed. and trans. Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.Google Scholar
Brooker, Peter, and Widdowson, Peter. “A Literature for England.” In Englishness: Politics and Culture, 1880–1920, edited by Colls, Robert and Dodd, Philip, 141–88. London: Bloomsbury, 1987.Google Scholar
Choksy, Jamsheed K. “Sacral Kingship in Sasanian Iran.” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 2 (1988): 35–52.Google Scholar
Cunningham, Hugh. “The Language of Patriotism, 1750–1914.” History Workshop Journal 12 (1981): 8–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frye, R. N. The Political History of Iran under the Sasanians. Vol. 3 of The Cambridge History of Iran. Edited by Yarshater, E.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983..Google Scholar
Haynes, Douglas E. “From Tribute to Philanthropy: The Politics of Gift Giving in a Western Indian City.” Journal of Asian Studies 46 (1987): 339–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hodgson, Marshall. The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975.Google Scholar
Khatchadourian, Lori. Imperial Matter: Ancient Persia and the Archaeology of Empires. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lootens, Tricia. “Victorian Poetry and Patriotism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Poetry, edited by Bristow, Joseph, 255–79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luhrmann, T. M. The Good Parsi: The Fate of a Colonial Elite in a Postcolonial Society. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Marsden, Jonathan, ed. Victoria and Albert: Art and Love. London: Royal Collection, 2010.Google Scholar
Moss, Ann. Printed Commonplace-Books and the Structuring of Renaissance Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palsetia, Jesse. Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy of Bombay: Partnership and Public Culture in Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palsetia, Jesse. The Parsis of India: Preservation of Identity in Bombay City. 2001. Reprint, New Delhi: Manohar, 2008a.Google Scholar
Palsetia, Jesse. “Partner in Empire: Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy and the Public Culture of Nineteenth-Century Bombay.” In Parsis in India and the Diaspora, edited by Hinnells, John R. and Williams, Alan, 81–99. London: Routledge, 2008b.Google Scholar
Pearsall, Cornelia. “Assume the Globe: Tennyson's Jubilee Ode and the Institutions of Imperialism.” Victorian Poetry 59, no. 2 (2021): 177–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rall, Hans. König Ludwig II und Bismarcks Ringen um Bayern 1870/71: Unter auswertung unbekannter Englischer, Preussischer und Bayerischer quellen dargestellt. München: C. H. Beck, 1973.Google Scholar
Richards, J. F. “The Formulation of Imperial Authority under Akbar and Jahangir.” In The Mughal State, 1526–1750, edited by Alam, Muzaffar and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, 126–67. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Seyller, John. “The Inspection and Valuation of Manuscripts in the Imperial Mughal Library.” Artibus Asiae 57, nos. 3/4 (1997): 243–349.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siddiqi, Asiya. “The Business World of Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy.” Indian Economic and Social History Review 19, nos. 3/4 (1982): 301–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soucek, Priscilla. “The Manuscripts of Iskandar Sultan: Structure and Content.” In Timurid Art and Culture, edited by Golombek, L. and Subtelny, M., 116–31. Leiden: Brill, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stronge, Susan. Painting for the Mughal Emperor: The Art of the Book, 1560–1660. London: Victoria & Albert, 2002.Google Scholar
Taylor, Miles. Empress: Queen Victoria and India. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Willmer, David. “Parsis and Public Space in 19th Century Bombay: A Different Formulation of ‘the Political’ in a Non-European Context.” Critical Horizons 3, no. 2 (2002): 277–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar