Localized Literary History

Abstract

The article critically discusses the underlying principles for the writing of literary history. It rejects a universalized model and proposes a new approach of "localized literary history" that is theoretically rooted in metahistorical concepts of "textory" and "sub-text". The method takes its starting point in local text-collections rather than national literature. With the Jain Āmer Śāstrabhaṇḍhār repository in Jaipur as a point of departure, it is demonstrated how a study of a local manuscript collection reveals a literary history, which cannot be encountered by the universalized approach.