Zurkhāneh, Akhāṛā, Pahlavān, and Jyeṣṭhī-mallas: Cross Cultural Interaction and Social Legitimisation at the Turn of the 17th Century

The tradition of Turco-Persian wrestling, including its programme of physical education based at dedicated gyms known as zurkhāneh (literally “houses of strength”), contains elements that would appear to merge Turkish, Iranian, Central-Asian, and Indian influences within a mystical (Sufi) Islamic framework potentially affected to a certain degree by Buddhism. The chapter discusses the relations and interaction between the Turco-Persian athletic tradition and the one existing in India on the basis of a parallel reading of four key textual sources, two from each tradition. On the Indian side we will draw on the analysis of the Mallapurāṇa and of the Mānasollāsa, while the Persian documents that inform our discussion are the Tumār-e afsāneh-ye Puryā-ye Vali and the Gol-e koshti of Mir-Nejāt Qomi known as Esfahāni. The chapter will first survey the evolution of the tradition of Turco-Persian wrestling from the middle of the 13th through to the end of the 16th century, and then make a comparative analysis of the connections between Turco-Persian wrestling and the Indian tradition of the jyeṣṭhī-mallas of Gujarat. Based on these observations it will then proceed to ask how one might explain the commonalities between the two traditions. Attention will be brought to the consideration that certain physical practices gain recognition thanks to being performed at royal courts, and, in India, also at temples, due to the intellectualisation, and hence legitimisation, of these borrowed practices by learned representatives of the dominant schools of thought present at the seats of political and/or spiritual power.