Colonial periodization privileged one textual canon per religious period

Evidence

In the cultural domain, this pattern of periodization was further buttressed by the colonial preoccupations with High Textuality, mechanisms of monarchical and imperial centralization, and languages of command, in both religious and material spheres. These preoccupations lednaturally, as it wereto the privileging of the Vedic and Sanskritic texts for the Hindu/Classical period, the Persian and Mughal texts for the Muslim/Medieval period, and the pre-eminence of English texts for the British/Modern. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1165

Categorization

• XREF: Colonial ‘languages of command’ and High Textuality echo Foucault-era discourse formation, materialized here rather than left idealist. — connects to: Canon formation selects and dominates by excluding texts that genuinely belong to a period — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 209; Modern classification of cultures secularized earlier religious structures; The original Third World canon meant pre-colonial texts produced outside the West — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 142 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: How does colonial text-privileging constrain which identity-position can be asserted ‘strategically’ retroactively?

Broader Connections

• Canon formation selects and dominates by excluding texts that genuinely belong to a period #expands (0.85) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 209
• The original Third World canon meant pre-colonial texts produced outside the West #complicates (0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 142
• Modern classification of cultures secularized earlier religious structures #corroborates (0.72)