Retelling Time: Alternative Temporalities from Premodern South Asia

Retelling Time challenges the hegemony of colonial modernity over academic disciplines and reclaims alternative practices of time from premodern South Asia, which stem from marginalized worldviews. These practices relate to various classical and vernacular genres, including Sanskrit, Persian, Pali, Prakrit, Awadhi, Malayalam, Kannada, and Bengali, and diverse streams, from Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sufi Islam to logic, yoga, tantra, theatre, and poetics. The book proposes that premodern South Asia invested time with cultural function and value, ranging from the contingent to the transcendent, the quotidian to the cosmic, the fleeting to the eternal, and the social to the spiritual. It seeks to decolonize our ways of knowing and being.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 218 pages
Publication date: 25 September 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Retelling Time is a groundbreaking exploration that challenges the dominant hegemony of colonial modernity over academic disciplines and our understanding of time itself. It reclaims a rich tapestry of alternative practices of time from premodern South Asia, rooted in worldviews that have been marginalized. These practices encompass a diverse range of classical and vernacular genres, including alaṃkāra, theravāda, yoga, rāmakathā, tasawwuf, āyāraṃga, purāṇa, trikā-tantra, navya-nyāya, pratyabhijñā, carita, kūṭīyāṭṭam, and maṅgala kāvya. These represent multiple languages such as Sanskrit, Persian, Pali, Prakrit, Awadhi, Malayalam, Kannada, and Bengali, as well as diverse streams, from Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sufi Islam to logic, yoga, tantra, theatre, and poetics.

Retelling Time challenges the modern Eurocentric belief in an empty, homogeneous, abbreviated, secular, and irreversible time. Instead, it proposes that premodern South Asia invested time with cultural function and value, encompassing a spectrum of experiences from the contingent to the transcendent, the quotidian to the cosmic, the fleeting to the eternal, and the social to the spiritual. Time was reworked, stretched, melded, collapsed, recursed, rolled over, and even extinguished. Sacred, social, aesthetic, scientific, fictional, historical, and performative South Asian traditions engage in a dynamic conversation with one another, mediated by an ethical paradigm. Their collective challenge is to decolonize our ways of knowing and being.

This book holds immense interest for scholars engaged in the study of South Asian history, philosophy of history, anthropology, literature, Sanskrit, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, temporality. It offers valuable insights into the rich tapestry of alternative practices of time and their profound impact on our understanding of time and the world. By delving into the complexities of premodern South Asia, Retelling Time provides a fresh perspective on the historical and cultural dynamics that have shaped our contemporary world.

Weight: 453g
Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781032062051