Describing the New in Old Style: Technological Modernity and Natural Imagery in A. R. Rājarājavarma’s Āṅgalasāmrājya

Author: David Pierdominici Leão | AAV 38 (2025) | Pages: 151–170 | https://doi.org/10.60018/AcAsVa.jwtg4818

Abstract

The paper focusses on the analysis of selected samples from sarga XX of the Āṅgalasāmrājya, a mahākāvya composed by A. R. Rājarājavarma in 1897. These portions are centred on a description of the first passenger train introduced in India in 1853, during the regency of Lord Dalhousie (1812–1860). These eight stanzas of the Āṅgalasāmrājya, apart from appearing to be the first testimony in Sanskrit literature to reference a train, seem to be particularly relevant on account of their natural imagery, which interacts at different levels with the poetic depiction of modernity and technology offered in the mahākāvya.

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