Song of Auspiciousness: Ethics, Humaneness and the Auspicious in an Eighteenth-Century Court Poem From Bengal

Abstract

Maṅgalkāvya texts—belonging to a South Asian genre of Middle Bengali literature—ubiquitously, and without exception, claim that they will bestow auspiciousness, or maṅgal, on their audiences. This study investigates the claim of auspiciousness in the most important maṅgalkāvya and court poem of eighteenth century Bengal, the Annadāmaṅgal. An examination of what auspiciousness means and how it is represented in the poem leads to a consideration of maṅgal’s ethical implications, understood in terms of humaneness, and aesthetically explored through the compositional practices of the poet. Findings suggest that the Annadāmaṅgal’s presentation of auspiciousness and its ethics offer an emic account of religious differences and a distinctively vernacular aesthetic in a multi-lingual and multi-religious landscape.