‘To Mount or Not to Mount?’

Abstract

This chapter examines documentary culture in eighteenth-century Rajasthan through an exploration of the legal archive—the Sanad Parwana Bahis—of the kingdom of Jodhpur. More particularly, it studies the petitions that were written in the course of a series of protracted disputes during which the ceremonial and ritual claims made by low-caste Sunars were contested by upper castes. The increasing importance of the written record in the administration and courts both caused, and was an outcome of a nascent “literate mentality” that existed even amongst those social groups like the Sunars who were not traditionally associated with scribal work. What is particularly telling is the shift from oral testimonies to written evidence as verifiable and authentic, both in the royal courts and in lower assemblies like caste councils. The pervasive culture of record keeping, and the significance of writing both for the state and its subjects at this time allows us to interrogate any easy bifurcation between the modern and the premodern.