This roundtable is the annual celebration and exploration of the most recent winner of the John F. Richards Prize in South Asian history. The work under discussion is the 2017 winner, Audrey Truschke's Culture of Encounters: Sanskrit at the Mughal Court (Columbia University Press, 2016). Chaired by John Pincince, the expertise of panelists range from modern Indian history, early modern South Asia, and South Asian art history, and include Ananya Chakravarti, Audrey Truschke, and Santhi Kaveri-Bauer.