Pushkar Sohoni | |
---|---|
Born | 1976 Pune |
Academic background | |
Education | Ph.D. (2010) M.S. (2002) B.Arch. (1999) |
Alma mater | University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia University of Pune, Pune |
Doctoral advisor | Michael W. Meister |
Other advisors | Renata Holod, Daud Ali |
Academic work | |
Discipline | History of art History of architecture Archeology |
Institutions | Indian Institute of Science Education and Research,Pune, University of Pennsylvania,Philadelphia University of British Columbia,Vancouver University of the Arts,Philadelphia Philadelphia Museum of Art,Philadelphia |
Pushkar Sohoni is an architect,and an architectural and cultural historian. He is an associate professor and the chair of the department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research,Pune. [1] [2]
Pushkar Sohoni attended Loyola High School (Pune). After graduating with a Bachelor of Architecture (B.Arch.) degree from the University of Pune in 1999,he attended the University of Pennsylvania School of Design (then known as the Graduate School of Fine Arts) to get a Master of Science (M.S.) in Historic Preservation. In 2002,he wrote a Master's Thesis under the guidance of Prof. Frank Matero on preservation policy for the city walls of Cairo. [3] From 2002,he was in the Department of History of Art of the University of Pennsylvania School of Arts and Sciences while being a Graduate Advisor in Fisher-Hassenfeld College House. [4] In 2010,he received his doctoral degree (Ph.D.) from the University of Pennsylvania for his dissertation on the architecture of the Nizam Shahi dynasty. [5] [6] He worked under the supervision of Prof. Michael W. Meister and Prof. Renata Holod. Pushkar Sohoni was the post-doctoral fellow for Indo-Persian Studies in the Department of Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia in 2010–2011,where he was a resident of Green College. [7] [8]
In October 2016,Pushkar Sohoni joined the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research,Pune as an assistant professor,and became an associate professor in 2019. [9] Before that,he worked as the South Asia Bibliographer and Librarian at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, [10] [11] [12] [13] and a lecturer in the Department of South Asian Studies from 2011 to 2016. [14] In this period,Pushkar Sohoni was in charge of the South Asia Collection at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries,and wrote a "widely circulated blog post" on collecting practices for libraries. [15] He was on the advisory board of the Title VI South Asia Center. [16] Pushkar Sohoni also served as a member of the Committee on South Asian Libraries and Documentation (CONSALD), [17] and was on the executive board of the South Asia Materials Project (SAMP) from 2013 to 2015. [18] In 2017–18,he was a visiting associate professor at Anant National University. [19] [20] His work on the palaces of the Nizam Shahs has been cited in several popular and scholarly articles and essays. [21] He has also written about language,scripts,numismatics,and material culture. [22] [23] [24]
Pushkar Sohoni often speaks at public events,and has led heritage walks. [25] [26] [27] He often speaks on the local history of Pune. [28] [29] Dr. Sohoni has lectured extensively on the architecture of the Deccan. [30] [31] [32] He has lectured on several occasions at Jnanapravaha in Mumbai. [33] [34] He has also appeared in a documentary film Tales of Ahmednagar on historic Ahmednagar produced by Live History India,a portal for which he was one of the earliest contributors. [35] He has also featured in other films on the kings of Ahmadnagar,such as The Mad King Murtaza. In January 2020,he was on a panel at the Kerala Literature Festival to discuss Tony Joseph's book Early Indians . [36] [37]
He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania,the University of the Arts (Philadelphia),the University of British Columbia,and Comenius University in Bratislava,in addition to the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research,Pune. [38] [39] He has been a visiting critic at KRVIA. [40]
Pushkar Sohoni worked on conservation projects in Mesa Verde National Park and in the Saint Louis Cemetery in New Orleans,as part of the Centre for Architectural Conservation (then known as the Architectural Conservation Laboratory) at the University of Pennsylvania. [41] [42] [43] He was a member of the archaeological expedition to Iran in 2004,to excavate sites of the Jiroft culture. [44] In 2005,he worked for the Architectural Heritage division of INTACH,New Delhi,working on the documentation of Durbar Hall in Qila Mubarak,Patiala.
Since 2015,he is an Associate Editor of South Asian Studies (Journal of the British Association for South Asian Studies (BASAS)). [45] [46] Pushkar Sohoni was on the Board of Studies for Architecture (Department of Science and Technology),Savitribai Phule Pune University from 2018 and the Board of Studies for Architecture at Vishwakarma University from 2019 to 2022.
The American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) awarded Pushkar Sohoni a Junior Research Fellowship in 2007–08. [47] He was a member of the project Art Space and Mobility in the Early Ages of Globalization, [48] organized by the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz. [49] While in residence at Green College,University of British Columbia,Pushkar Sohoni served on the executive board of the Dining Committee,Residents' Council,and the Membership Committee. [50] He was a Guest Fellow at the Wolf Humanities Center at the University of Pennsylvania is 2012-13. [51] Along with Lisa Mitchell and Raili Roy,he won a Penn Global Engagement Fund Award for the academic year 2013–14,for undergraduate research and cultural immersion experiences in India for students. [52] In 2013,he was a sub-reviewer for projects that had received the Aga Khan Architectural Award. He is interested in numismatics,and has lent coins to exhibitions,including the show Sultans of Deccan India,1500–1700:Opulence and Fantasy at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. [53] [54] [55] [56] In 2016–17,he and C. Ryan Perkins won an award from the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS) to conduct workshops for the cataloging and preservation of the Anjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu library in Karachi. [57] Pushkar Sohoni was a non-residential visiting scholar of the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania in the year 2016–17. [58] He has received research grants from the Department of Science and Technology,Government of India,the Indian Council of Historical Research,and the Indian Council of Social Science Research.
In 2015,he authored a book,Aurangabad,with Daulatabad,Khuldabad,and Ahmadnagar,focused on the sultanate architecture in the region. [59] [60] The book was quoted in a Bombay High Court order in 2018. [61] In 2017,he co-authored with Kenneth X. Robbins,a book on the Jewish heritage in the western Deccan,titled Jewish Heritage of the Deccan:Mumbai,the Northern Konkan and Pune. [62] [63] [64] [65] In 2018,his book on the Nizam Shahs of Ahmadnagar and their architectural legacy in 2018,called The Architecture of a Deccan Sultanate:Courtly Practice and Royal Authority in Late Medieval India ,was published. [66] [67] [68] In 2021,he co-edited a book (with Torsten Tschacher) on the practices of Muharram across the world among South Asian communities:Non-Shia Practices of Muḥarram in South Asia and the Diaspora:Beyond Mourning. [69] Along with Riyaz Latif,he wrote Sultanate Ahmadabad and its Monuments,published by Primus in 2022. [70] His research on the colonial market halls of India was published in 2023 as Taming the Oriental Bazaar:Architecture of the Market-halls of Colonial India. In the same year,along with Pika Ghosh,he co-edited the festschrift to Michael W. Meister,titled Chakshudana or Opening the Eyes:Seeing South Asian Art Anew. [71]
He has written extensively on the history of architecture,the Deccan sultanates,numismatics,socio-linguistics,and aspects of material culture.
In 2017–2018,he wrote a fortnightly column called 'By the Wayside' for the Pune Mirror. [72] He has been a consultant for the Sahapedia project on culturally mapping the city of Pune. [73]
Ahmednagar is a city in,and the headquarters of,the Ahmednagar district,Maharashtra,India,about 120 km (75 mi) northeast of Pune and 114 km (71 mi) from Aurangabad.
Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent is conventionally said to have started in 712,after the conquest of Sindh and Multan by the Umayyad Caliphate under the military command of Muhammad ibn al-Qasim. It began in the Indian subcontinent in the course of a gradual conquest. The perfunctory rule by the Ghaznavids in Punjab was followed by Ghurids,and Sultan Muhammad of Ghor is generally credited with laying the foundation of Muslim rule in Northern India.
Aurangabad,officially known as Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar,or Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, is a city in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarters of Aurangabad district and is the largest city in the Marathwada region. Located on a hilly upland terrain in the Deccan Traps,Aurangabad is the fifth-most populous urban area in Maharashtra after Mumbai,Pune,Nagpur and Nashik with a population of 1,175,116. The city is known as a major production center of cotton textile and artistic silk fabrics. Several prominent educational institutions,including Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University,are located in the city. The city is also a popular tourism hub,with tourist destinations like the Ajanta and Ellora caves lying on its outskirts,both of which have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1983. Other tourist attractions include the Aurangabad Caves,Devagiri Fort,Grishneshwar Temple,Jama Mosque,Bibi Ka Maqbara,Himayat Bagh,Panchakki and Salim Ali Lake. Historically,there were 52 Gates in Aurangabad,some of them extant,because of which Aurangabad is nicknamed as the "City of Gates". In 2019,the Aurangabad Industrial City (AURIC) became the first greenfield industrial smart city of India under the country's flagship Smart Cities Mission.
The Deccan Sultanates were five late-medieval Indian kingdoms—on the Deccan Plateau between the Krishna River and the Vindhya Range—that were ruled by Muslim dynasties:namely Ahmadnagar,Berar,Bidar,Bijapur,and Golconda. The sultanates had become independent during the break-up of the Bahmani Sultanate. The five sultanates owed their existence to the declaration of independence of Ahmadnagar in 1490,followed by Bijapur and Berar in the same year. Golconda became independent in 1518,and Bidar in 1528.
DaulatabadFort originally DeogiriFort,is a historic fortified citadel located in Daulatabad village near Aurangabad,Maharashtra,India. It was the capital of the Yadavas,for a brief time the capital of the Delhi Sultanate,and later a secondary capital of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate.
The Bahmani Sultanate was a Muslim empire that ruled the Deccan Plateau in South India. The Bahmani Sultanate came to power in 1347 during the Rebellion of Ismail Mukh after Ismail Mukh abdicated in favour of Zafar Khan,who would establish the Bahmani Sultanate. The Bahmani Sultanate was in perpetual war with its neighbors,including its rival,the Vijayanagara Empire.
Indo-Persian culture refers to a cultural synthesis present on the Indian subcontinent. It is characterised by the absorption or integration of Persian aspects into the various cultures of modern-day republics of Bangladesh,India,and Pakistan. The earliest introduction of Persian influence and culture to the subcontinent was by various Muslim Turko-Persian rulers,such as the 11th-century Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi,rapidly pushed for the heavy Persianization of conquered territories in northwestern Indian subcontinent,where Islamic influence was also firmly established. This socio-cultural synthesis arose steadily through the Delhi Sultanate from the 13th to 16th centuries,and the Mughal Empire from then onwards until the 19th century. Various Muslim dynasties of Turkic,local Indian and Afghan origin patronized the Persian language and contributed to the development of a Persian culture in India. The Delhi Sultanate developed their own cultural and political identity which built upon Persian and Indic languages,literature and arts,which formed the basis of an Indo-Muslim civilization.
The Battle of Talikota,also known as that of Rakkasagi–Tangadagi,was a watershed battle fought between the Vijayanagara Empire and an alliance of the Deccan sultanates. Despite the Vijayanagara army being larger,they were comprehensively defeated. The battle resulted in the defeat and death of Rama Raya,the de facto ruler of the Vijayanagara Empire,which led to the immediate collapse of the Vijayanagara polity and reconfigured South Indian and Deccan politics.
Malik Ambar was a military leader who served as the Peshwa of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate in the Deccan region of India.
The Ahmadnagar Sultanate or the Nizam Shahi Sultanate was a late medieval Indian Muslim kingdom located in the northwestern Deccan,between the sultanates of Gujarat and Bijapur,ruled by the Nizam Shahi or Bahri dynasty. Malik Ahmed,the Bahmani governor of Junnar after defeating the Bahmani army led by general Jahangir Khan on 28 May 1490 declared independence and established the Nizam Shahi dynasty rule over the sultanate of Ahmednagar. Initially his capital was in the town of Junnar with its fort,later renamed Shivneri. In 1494,the foundation was laid for the new capital Ahmadnagar. In 1636 Aurangzeb,then Mugal viceroy of Deccan,finally annexed the sultanate to the Mughal Empire.
Lakhuji Jadhav Rao,also known as Lakhuji Jadhav was a Maratha statesman and Mansabdar who initially served the Ahmadnagar Sultanate and later joined the Mughals. He was a prominent figure in the politics of Deccan. Lakhuji was a well-known member of Jadhav Rao clan who claim to be descendants of the Yadavas of Devagiri. He was also a Jagirdar of Sindkhed Raja. He was father of Jijabai,and grandfather of Shivaji,who was founder of the Maratha Empire.
Michael W. Meister is an art historian,archaeologist and architectural historian at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the W. Norman Brown Professor in the Department of History of Art and South Asia Studies,and has served as chair of the Department of South Asia Studies and as the director of the University of Pennsylvania's South Asia Center. In addition,he is Consulting Curator,Asian Section,University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology,and Faculty Curator of the South Asia Art Archive within the Penn Library's South Asia Image Collection.
Hyderabad was the capital of the Indian states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. It is a historic city noted for its many monuments,temples,mosques and bazaars. A multitude of influences has shaped the character of the city in the last 400 years.
Deccani Architecture refers to the architectural styles developed during the Deccan sultanate period. The Deccan sultanates were five dynasties that ruled late medieval kingdoms,namely,Bijapur,Golkonda,Ahmadnagar,Bidar,and Berar in south-western India. The Deccan sultanates were located on the Deccan Plateau. Their architecture was a regional variant of Indo-Islamic architecture,heavily influenced by the styles of the Delhi Sultanate and later Mughal architecture,but sometimes also directly from Persia and Central Asia.
The Deccanis or Deccani people are an ethnoreligious community of Urdu-speaking Muslims who inhabit or are from the Deccan region of Central and Southern India,and speak the Deccani dialect of Urdu. The community traces its origins to the shifting of the Delhi Sultanate's capital from Delhi to Daulatabad in 1327 during the reign of Muhammad bin Tughluq. Further ancestry can also be traced from immigrant Muslims referred to as Afaqis,also known as Pardesis who came from Central Asia,Iraq and Iran and had settled in the Deccan region during the Bahmani Sultanate (1347). The migration of Muslim Hindavi-speaking people to the Deccan and intermarriage with the local Hindus whom converted to Islam,led to the creation of a new community of Urdu-speaking Muslims,known as the Deccani,who would come to play an important role in the politics of the Deccan. Their language,Deccani Urdu,emerged as a language of linguistic prestige and culture during the Bahmani Sultanate,further evolving in the Deccan Sultanates.
The Battle of Bhatvadi was fought in 1624,near modern Bhatodi Pargaon village in Maharashtra,India. The Ahmadnagar army led by Malik Ambar defeated a combined Mughal-Bijapur force led by the Bijapuri general Mullah Muhammad Lari.
Sabaji Koli was the commander-in-chief of the army of Ahmednagar Sultanate. Sultan Burhan Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar conferred the title of Parvat Rai on Sabaji Koli. After the Sultan's death,Koli fought against the Vijayanagara Empire during the reign of the new Sultan Husain Nizam Shah. Burhan Nizam Shah also used to call Sabaji Koli Prataparaja,Parashurampratap and Narasimha Pratap.
Qila-e-Ark is a 17th-century palace/citadel complex in Aurangabad,Maharashtra. Built by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb when he was a prince,it served as his royal residence during his subsequent reign as emperor. The site is currently ruined,and has no legal protected status;several modern-day buildings also encroach the complex. Notable surviving structures include a royal mosque,and a palatial building.
The Architecture of a Deccan Sultanate:Courtly Practice and Royal Authority in Late Medieval India is a book by the architectural and art historian Pushkar Sohoni,published in 2018 by I.B. Tauris. It is one of the most comprehensive works on the architecture and urban settlements of the Nizam Shahs of Ahmadnagar,who ruled in the sixteenth century.
The Tomb of Malik Ambar is a mausoleum located in Khuldabad,in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the burial place of Malik Ambar,a military leader who served as the prime minister of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate. Ambar built the tomb for himself,and was interred here upon his death in 1626. It is listed as a monument of national importance.
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