Spiritual Markets and Sensory Regimes: Gift Exchange and Early Hindi Song in the Construction of Sufi Authority

Abstract

In early modern Persian Sufi texts from South Asia we find an increasing occurrence of anecdotes relating to the performance of song in early Hindi. Such songs were sung and heard in assemblies of samā‘, often alternated with Persian ghazal, and offered to Sufi saints, listeners, and shrine complexes in performance. Such moments of sung/recited poetry and performance acted as emotive devices given in exchange for both blessings and monetary payment. Appearing in oral and literary narratives of spiritual power and sanctity, these sensory and affective moments became tied to significant figures or communities, forming regional sensorial and emotional regimes. Within these narratives of spiritual authority was the ability to control the senses and emotions, particularly an emotional intimacy constructed around the use of early Hindi vernaculars. Moving beyond traditional models of patronage and consumption to look at processes of vernacularisation and heteroglossia amongst multilingual literary and spiritual communities, instead I argue that by considering relations of gift exchange we can better understand the circulation of early modern Sufi poetry in regional dialects. While metaphors of markets for speech and poetry privilege the figures of the poet and patron, I look instead at the figures through which poetry and song as emotive and sensory device circulate: singers, musicians, and scribes. By extending the market metaphor, the paper argues that such gift exchange relationships between singer/scribe and Sufi saint/shrine complex were not only key to the circulation and valorisation of Sufi and other mystical poetry in regional dialects, but also the construction of emotional regimes of spiritual authority.