000			01849nam a22002417a 4500
005			20240201141706.0
008			240201b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9788195539277
028			_a: Brijwasi Book Distributors _b: H-87, Lalita Park, Laxmi Nagar, Delhi _c: BW/000104 _d: 20/01/2024
082			_a305.512 CHE
100			_aCherian, Divya.
245			_aMerchants of virtue _b: Hindus, Muslims, and untouchables in eighteenth-century South Asia. _c/Divya Cherian.
260			_a, California _b: University of California Press _c, 2023.
300			_ax, 255 pages _b: illustrations (some color), maps _c; 23 cm.
365			_b599
520			_a"Merchants of Virtue explores the question of what it meant to be Hindu in pre-colonial South Asia. Turning to the kingdom of Marwar in eighteenth-century western India, Divya Cherian, through a fine-grained study of everyday life and local politics, uncovers how Marwari merchants enforced their caste ideals of vegetarianism and bodily austerity as universal markers of Hindu identity. Using legal strategies and alliances with elites, these merchants successfully remade the category of "Hindu'" setting it up in contrast to "Untouchable" in a process that also reconfigured Muslims in caste terms. In a history pertinent to understanding India today, Cherian establishes the centrality of caste to the early-modern Hindu self and to its imagination of inadmissible others. The book relies on an analysis of hundreds of orders issued by the Rathor court to its provincial offices. These orders intervene in localized disputes, including those involving individuals from such occupational groups as cobblers, tailors, birdcatchers, and bangle makers"
650			_aCaste
650			_aDalits
650			_aMerchants
650			_aMuslims
700			_aDivya Cherian
942			_cBOOK
999			_c61421 _d61421