ABSTRACT
One of the principal aims of postcolonial scholarship is to theorize a means by which the colonized or subaltern can find himself in time, a retroactive witness to his own exclusion. This critical intervention into history’s telling begins with the politics of authorship. Thus a certain kind of reader might mistrust the previous chapter’s treatment of Ajanta, given that it privileges accounts written by the British and by anglicized Indians. Does history change depending upon whether an author is a citizen of the United Kingdom or of India? An ethnic Bhil or caste brahmin? A Buddhist? A historian by profession, or a licensed tour guide? Or a young man romancing his girl by telling mock-serious stories as they stroll among the caves? This is the question of authority writ large, suggestive of a multiplicity of possible histories, mostly untold.
