Jayasinhji Jhala - Genealogy, Archive, Image

Jayasinhji Jhala (Ed.)

Genealogy, Archive, Image:
Interpreting Dynastic History in Western India, c.1090-2016

ISBN: 978-3-11-060128-2

e-ISBN: 978-3-11-060129-9

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/.

2018 Jayasinhji Jhala and chapters contriburors.

Published by De Gruyter Open Ltd, Warsaw/Berlin

Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

The book is published with open access at www.degruyteropen.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.

Managing Editor: Katarzyna Michalak

Associate Editors: Sam Pack and ukasz Poczyski

Language Editor: Adam Tod Leverton

www.degruyteropen.com

Cover illustration: Molly Zenobia Matrisciano, Rani JijiBa amongst her beloved spirited horses.

For Bava
H. H. Maharaja Meghrajji III of Dhrangadhra
Writer, Anthropologist, Artist, Politician, Historian

This book could not have been made possible without access to Jhallesvar Meghrajji IIIs invaluable textual archive. His life long collection of genealogical and historical materials enabled this exploration into Jhala dynastic history. Without it, we could not have imagined either the paintings or the essays, which compose this volume.

We also thank our fellow contributors whose diversity of approaches and subjects of inquiry have enriched our understanding of the genealogy, music, history, poetry and paintings of Jhalavad. Many of them have visited the region and know firsthand the generous spirit of its people through lived encounter.

We are grateful to the many residents of Jhalavad who have given much of themselves in the making of this work. Thanks go to Kalu Amra and Amrit Kalu Bhavaiya, theater players of the village of Kankavati, poets Bhachu Gadhvi and Charan Kirtidan, painters Vijay Chauhan and Hemendra Bhai Valera, the Bharvad pastoralists of Jesada village, Mera Bhai Gamara and Arjan Bhai Gamara, musicians and singers, Bhagavati Shankar Prasad Bhat, Mehul Bhai Seth, Alarakhi Bai Langha and Hemu Bai Mir, the priest Nana Lal Dave, lineage historians Raj Rana Harisinhji of Tana, Mangalsinhji of Bavali, Udesinhji and his wife BharatiBa of Bhrigupur and Rajendrasinhji of Ganad.

Several filmmakers and artists have also been involved in earlier visual interpretations of Jhalavad. Anthropologist and ethnographic filmmaker Roger Sandall documented the visual and performance traditions of Jhalavad during his first visit in 1979. Aspiring filmmakers, Sam Pack, Lindsey Powell, Paul Osorio, Philip Rached, Rhett Grumbkow, Brendan Muzinski, Keith Machiafava, Hanah Angle and Travis Doyle have made contribution up to 2016. John Infante and Premji Rudatala, have recorded dynamic expressions of village and town life, celebrating memory and its historical legacy in the several decades since. Katey Mangels and Vijay Raol were most helpful in the early stages of developing this digital archive of paintings, while Molly Zenobia Matrisciano has refined the images seamlessly in the final stages, merging image and text.

Anthropologists and ethnographic filmmakers have shaped our inquiry into the present and past of Jhalavad and we are grateful for the support of Asen Balikci, John Bornaman, Richard Chalfen, Robert Gardner, Carol Henderson, Charles Lindholm, John Lord, Norbert Peabody, Harold Prins, Clair Ritchie, Jean Rouch, Christopher Steiner, Paul Stoller, Stanley J. Tambiah, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, Maxine Weisgrau and Nur Yalman. In particular, Richard Leacock inspired Jayasinhji Jhalas first foray into documentary film and Sally Falk Moore has been a generous guide and support throughout the years.

We are also indebted to various institutions, which enabled this decades-long project. The National Center for the Performing Arts, Mumbai showed early interest in the musical documentation of Jhalavad court singers in the 1970s. Temple University allowed us to bring students, faculty and interested researchers to this remote region, as well as support the study and understanding of Jhalavad through research grants and sabbatical leaves. Temples Center for the Humanities hosted the first exhibition of paintings referred to in this collection during 2013. In 2014, the paintings were also shown at Mehrangarh Fort Museum in Jodhpur, India, and we thank H. H. Maharaja Gajsinh II of Jodhpur, Rajkumar Martand Singh of Kapurthala and Director Karni Singh Jasol, for exhibiting these works. We are grateful to Harvard Universitys Library of World Music for their interest in the preservation and collection of Jhalavadi music and Tozzer Library for their acquisition of the documentary film, Halo of Heroes. In particular, we thank the late John Marshall and Documentary Education Resources for their decades of interest in the ethnographic films of Jhalavad.

To Liluye Jhala, we owe a particular debt for her innovative vision in creating this wholly new and hybrid form of Jhalavadi miniature painting. We especially thank Rajkumari Rajasree Jhala, a steadfast partner in this endeavor of exploration and interpretation of discovery, for her many insights.

Abhishekh of Jhalleshvar Jayasinhji on December 12, 2017 at Dhrangadhra.

Dr. H.H. Jhallesvar Maharaja Sriraj Jayasinhji of Halvad-Dhrangadhra.

Angma D. Jhala is an Associate Professor of History at Bentley University and was a visiting scholar at Harvard (2015-16). She received her doctoral degree in modern history from Oxford University and her Masters in Divinity and A.B. from Harvard. Her work focuses on modern South Asian history and religion, with a particular emphasis on politics, gender and material culture in nineteenth and twentieth century India. She has published Courtly Indian Women in Late Imperial India (2008) and Royal Patronage, Power and Aesthetics in Princely India (2011). Her newest book, An Endangered History: Religion, Politics and Indigeneity at the Crossroads of India, Bangladesh and Burma, forthcoming with Oxford University Press, examines histories of indigeneity and colonial systems of knowledge (botany, gender, enumerative statistics and ethnography) in constructing the India/Burma border. Dr. Jhala currently serves on the editorial board of South Asian History and Culture and as an advisor to the Museum of Fine Art, Houstons forthcoming exhibition on Jodhpur royal arts.

Jayasinhji Jhala is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Temple University. He studied English at St Stephens College in Delhi, India, Filmmaking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Anthropology at Harvard University. He has worked with many communities in Jhalavad including the Bhavaiya, Bharvad, Habshi, Jain, Kanbi, Langha, Mir, Rabari and Rajput. He has made several ethnographic films. In India, these include A Zenana (1981), Tragada Bhavai (1981), Bharvad Predicament (1983), Close Encounters of No Kind (2002), Shaktima Noh Veh (2006), Last Rites of the Honorable Mr. Rai