Pedagogical Otherness: The Use of Muslims and Untouchables in Some Hindu Devotional Literature

Abstract

This article reconsiders some cases of interreligious and intercaste alterity in early modern India by highlighting a motive for depicting otherness that has been neglected in recent scholarship. I argue that depicting otherness can play an important pedagogical role for those who represent it, and I show this by discussing a set of Marathi texts involving Muslims and Untouchables that are attributed to a distinguished and controversial poet-saint from sixteenth-century western India. I also argue that reading with sensitivity to the difference between a discursive other and a historical other is helpful for regarding vernacular devotional literature as a source of historical information.

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