@article{TEXTUAL,
      recid = {13665},
      author = {Smolin, Justin N.},
      title = {Kṛṣṇa the Magician: Metapoesis and ambivalence in Faiḍī's  <i>Mahābhārat</i>},
      journal = {Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society},
      address = {2024-02-15},
      number = {TEXTUAL},
      abstract = {In this article, I discuss the vilification of Kṛṣṇa as a  deceitful sorcerer in the Mughal poet-laureate Shaikh Abū'l  Faiḍ bin Mubārak, or ‘Faiḍī's Mahābhārat and his  correspondent apotheosis as the ‘essence of the True God'  in the Shāriq al-maʿrifat, a treatise also ascribed to  Faiḍī. As I argue, this inconsistency, or ambivalence, is a  common and overlooked facet of the elite Islamicate  engagement with religious diversity and difference in early  modern Hindustan. In the case of the Mahābhārat, however,  Faiḍī's portrayal of Kṛṣṇa as a deceitful illusionist  reflects not only an Islamic discomfort with Vaishnavite  theology, but Faiḍī's own performative insecurities as a  Hindustani writer of Persian poetry and literary prose.  Kṛṣṇa's so-called ‘magic’ lies in large part in his way  with words: the verbal and social manipulation he uses to  stoke the flames of conflict. The character thus becomes a  kind of shadow or double of Faiḍī himself-a demiurgic  author of the Mahābhārat upon which the poet can displace  the classical Islamicate association of poetry with sorcery  and deceit.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/13665},
}