Begun in October 2025, Beyond the Court: Sanskrit Expert Knowledge in Brahmanical Communities of the Kaveri Delta, 1650-1800 is a five-year, AHRC-funded research project exploring a little-known yet vibrant chapter in recent South Asian intellectual history. Challenging the assumption that Sanskrit scholarship declined under early British colonial rule, the project investigates how pandits based in the Kaveri delta (Tamil Nadu) produced innovative works in Sanskrit philosophy, theology, poetry, legal literature, and drama between the 17th and mid-19th centuries. Through archival research, manuscript analysis, collaborative expert readings, and fieldwork, the project seeks to demonstrate that Sanskrit literary and intellectual culture was not confined to courts and urban centres, but also thrived 'beyond the court' in rural settlements and monasteries in the delta. It also examines how scholars writing in Sanskrit interacted with Tamil-speaking centres of learning across Tamil Nadu.
Based at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, and in collaboration with the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the French Institute of Pondicherry, the project will produce a comprehensive geospatial database of works and authors (hosted on this website), a co-edited volume, and a series of articles and public talks aimed at both scholarly and broader audiences.
