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"Seeing You Is Equivalent to Being the King": Loyalty, Ethics & Piety in 16th Century India

819 views · Published 28 January 2012 · 57:50 · Indexed 28 October 2026

Channel: Library of Congress · 2012 · Education

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A look through a literary window into the politics and culture of pre-colonial South India. Christopher Chekuri examines loyalty and piety in the making of an ethical kingship during the seventeenth century. The talk will explore vernacular concepts of Hindu kingship through a close reading of the Telugu-language text Tanjavuri Andhra Rajula Caritra, which recounts the life histories of courtly figures of the 16th- and 17th-century Vijayanagara Empire. He will reveal the culture of the Nayaka elite and their state-making practices, and describe ways of reading texts and inscriptions in the study of empire and sovereignty in
medieval India.

Speaker Biography: Christopher Chekuri is assistant professor of at San Francisco State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research interests include the study of states and families, early modern empires in the Indo-Islamic world, comparative colonialism and nationalism, modern Telugu literary criticism, and globalization.

For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5240.

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