Sanjay Subrahnanyam’s Courtly Encounters delves into questions about the encounters between the South Asian empires and European ones. Subrahnanyam challenges those who have limited translation and encounter to the initial contact between societies. Instead, he opens the question to what he terms “courtly encounters.” The book examines the cross encounters between “potentially secular spheres” (xiv) as well as relations between Muslims, Catholics and the “newly emergent ‘Hindu’ sphere” (xv). Further, he tackles incommensurability, and argues that it is not only at the time of encounter and in terms of precise and literal vocabulary translations but extends to issues such as the court, warfare, diplomacy and “visual representations” (7).
