Jean Arzoumanov. Source: Andreea Dican, 2025.
As a historian of early modern and modern Persianate intellectual history in South Asia, Jean Arzoumanov studies the textual encounters between Islamicate and Indic cultures. He earned his PhD in 2021 from the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3. Between 2023–2025, Jean was Rocher Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago.
His current monograph project focuses on the involvement of non-Muslim literati in Persian literary production, with particular attention to the emergence of Hindu devotional literature in Persian. In parallel, he is completing for Primus Books a partial translation of the Tašrīḥ
al-aqvām, a Persian ethnographic compendium composed in 1825 in North India. He has also published several papers on the representation and translation of the Jain tradition in Persian.
Jean is associated with the Max Planck Research Group "Astral Sciences in Trans-Regional Asia" (ASTRA), where his research focuses on the adaptation and translation of Indic astral sciences into Persian in early modern North India.
Projects
SITARA – Sanskrit and Islamicate Traditions of Astrology in Reciprocal Adaptation
Selected Publications
Arzoumanov, Jean (2026). “Jatī, Sīvra, and Srāvagī: A Survey of Persian Descriptions of Jain Mendicant and Lay Communities.” International Journal of Jaina Studies 22 (3): 1–70. https://www.soas.ac.uk/international-journal-jaina-studies.
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Arzoumanov, Jean (2025). “Khusrau Dihlavi, Amir.”. In Dictionnaire encyclopédique des littératures de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, ed. A. Castaing, N. Dejenne, and C. Le Blanc, 470–471. Paris: Classiques Garnier.
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Arzoumanov, Jean (2025). “Littérature indo-persane.”. In Dictionnaire encyclopédique des littératures de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, ed. A. Castaing, N. Dejenne, and C. Le Blanc, 393–396. Paris: Classiques Garnier.
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Arzoumanov, Jean (2025). “Les aventures terrestres de deux mauvais anges jaïns dans le texte anonyme persane Iẓhār al-ḥaqq (1830-1831).”. In Praśasti: Studies in Indology Presented to Nalini Balbir by Colleagues, Students and Friends, ed. J. Petit…
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Past Events
Colloquium
Astronomical Works in the Gentil Collection in Paris
MOREColloquium
Alchemy in the Tamil Siddha Literature: Its Transdisciplinary and Esoteric Aspects
MOREColloquium
Persianate Pythagorean Computing, Early Modern AI and the Imperial Panopticon: From the Safavid World of Geomancy to the Mughal Principles of Guidance
MOREColloquium
Turning Tables: Tracking Movement of Desire in Early Modern South Asia
MOREColloquium
Mahouts’ Secret Language: Human–Elephant Communication in Persianate South Asia
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