Truschke, however, cautions against linking the decline with Aurangzeb's alleged bigotry, and instead cites two reasons for this: One, during the 17th century, especially in the second half, Sanskrit was slowly giving way to Hindi, and "Aurangzeb's reign simply happened to coincide with the waning of Sanskrit and the rise of literary Hindi". It was only when Aurangzeb came to power that it started losing ground. According to the author, Sanskrit flourished in the Mughal court, especially under Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan. It tells how over the course of 100 years, from 1560 to nearly 1660, the Mughals "cultivated a thoroughly multicultural and multilingual imperial image that involved repeated attention to Sanskrit texts, intellectuals and knowledge systems". By Utpal Kumar/Mail Today: Audrey Truschke's Culture of Encounters is an interesting book.
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