The King’s Poetic Body

This article considers the relationships between poetry, comportment, and performativity in early-19th century Rajput courts. I argue that in their historical and textual representations, court intellectuals fashioned kings’ poetic bodies, which coded their behaviour through literary conventions—drawn from Sanskrit and Hindi poetics and more local traditions of Rajasthan—and modelled refined, aesthetically nuanced dispositions for later rulers. I foreground these intellectuals’ interest in pleasure and play, and underline the significance of sexuality and embodiment in their accounts. My focus is on the Jayavaṁśa mahākāvya, which narrates the lives, reigns, and passions of the rulers of Amer-Jaipur. The text was first written in Sanskrit, and then re-interpreted in Hindi prose, and I suggest this vernacular interpretation speaks to an evolving understanding of kingship in the colonial period.