Indian Literature (My student's report for HUM 102, Asian Civilizations, 1st Sem AY 2007-2008)

I. Beginnings
The earliest Indian literary works that survive are religious and heroic texts written in Sanskrit or in languages related to it. These texts were produced between about the 16th century bc and the 1st century ad by a people known as the Aryans. The Aryans were cattle herders who were originally nomadic, traveling from place to place. They eventually settled and became cultivators of the land, establishing kingdoms in north India.

A Religious Texts

Mathura Buddha Many of the earliest texts of Indian literature were religious writings of Buddhism. This Buddha figure carved out of sandstone is from Mathura, a city in northern India that was at the center of Buddhist sculptural activity from the 2nd century bc to the 6th century ad.Corbis/Angelo Hornak

The sacred Vedas were composed in Old Sanskrit by Aryan poet-seers between about 1500 bc and about 1000 bc. The Vedas are compilations of two major literary forms: hymns of praise to nature deities and ritual chants to accompany Aryan religious rituals. There are four Vedas: the Rig-Veda, the Yajur-Veda, the Sama-Veda, and the Atharva-Veda. Considered divine revelations received by the poets, the Vedas constitute the fundamental scripture of the Hindu religion and are used in the sacramental rites of Hinduism.

The Vedas were passed from generation to generation by the spoken word, not by the written word, because Hindus believe that mantras, the utterances of the Vedic hymns out loud, are sacred cosmic powers embodied in sound. The Vedas were not written down until long after they were originally composed. Priests in modern India still recite the Vedas out loud.

After the Vedas were compiled, the Hindu priests composed the Brahmanas, which detail information about rituals. Appended to the Brahmanas are theological texts known as Aranyakas, and attached to these are the Upanishads. The Upanishads were composed between the 8th century bc and the 5th century bc by a group of sages who questioned the usefulness of ritual religion. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (Upanishad of the Great Forest, 8th century bc?), an important early Upanishad, consists of dialogues between teachers and their students about the individual soul’s unity with a divine essence that pervades the universe. The Upanishads are India’s oldest philosophical treatises and form the foundational texts of major schools of Hindu philosophy (see Indian Philosophy).

The major religious texts of Buddhism were compiled in three collections known as the Tipitaka (meaning “three baskets”). The Tipitaka, written in the Pali language, includes the teachings of the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism. The most important of these texts include the Jatakas (Stories of the Births of the Buddha), which tell 547 stories of Buddha’s former births. In the tales, Buddha recounts how he was reborn in the form of animals, human beings, and nature deities as he worked toward enlightenment and, ultimately, toward release from the cycle of rebirths. This release is the aspiration of all Buddhists. The Jatakas and the major narratives and philosophical texts of early Buddhism eventually spread along with Buddhism to Sri Lanka, China, Japan, and the countries of Southeast Asia, including Thailand and Vietnam.

India’s third ancient religion was Jainism, which was founded by Mahavira. The early literature of Jainism flourished mainly in Prakrit dialects. Buddhist and Jain authors wrote many works in Sanskrit as well.

B. Heroic Texts

The most celebrated ancient heroic texts of India are the Mahabharata (The Great Epic of the Bharata Dynasty) and the Ramayana (The Way of Rama). These epics were composed in Sanskrit verse over several centuries and transmitted orally by bards. They describe how the Aryans established control over India and depict Aryan-Hindu life in northern India.

The written version of the Mahabharata is attributed to the legendary poet-editor Vyasa, but it took shape over several centuries from 400 bc to ad 400. The epic tells the tale of a dispute between two branches of the Bharata clan over the right to rule the kingdom. The dispute leads to a great war that involves all the Aryan clans and nearly results in their total destruction. The poet Valmiki, who lived around the 3rd century bc, put the Ramayana into form. This epic tells the story of the hero Rama, prince of Ayodhya and incarnation of the god Vishnu. Rama willingly accepts exile in the forest to redeem a promise made by his father. Rama’s wife Sita is then kidnapped, and Rama rescues her by slaying her abductor, the demon king Ravana.

The Mahabharata and the Ramayana provided the themes for important later literary works in Indian and Southeast Asian languages. These epics have been kept alive through various performance forms—from Ramlila plays in the Hindi language in north India (see Asian Theater) to the Kathakali dance-drama of Kerala (in south India) to the Wayang puppet plays of the island of Java. Recently, Hindi versions of both epics were made for Indian television, and the epics continue to be the most popular traditional literary texts in India.

A major reason for the popularity of the epics is that their characters—heroes and gods in human form—convey the central ethical teachings and cultural values of Hinduism. These teachings and values are encapsulated in the term dharma, meaning “that which is right.” In fact, the Bhagavad-Gita (Song of the Lord), the authoritative text of religious ethics in Hinduism, forms part of the Mahabharata. In this dramatic dialogue, the god Krishna, incarnation of Vishnu, teaches the warrior Arjuna the right way to act in an ethical crisis. Arjuna, he says, should follow the guidelines of unselfish action and duty according to his place in society.

II. CLASSICAL LITERATURE

Gupta Dynasty Emerging around ad 320, the Gupta Empire united much of northern India. It reached its height in the late 300s, and flourished for nearly a century. Hinduism became a more coherent and codified religion because of the efforts of the Gupta kings, who fused elements of Buddhism with Hinduism and emphasized the theistic nature of the religion, particularly the role of the god Vishnu.© Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.

The dominant classical literary tradition in India developed in the Sanskrit language in the first few centuries ad. This literature had its great flowering in the era of the Gupta dynasty of north India, from 320 to 550. This was a time of great achievement in philosophy, the sciences, and the arts. Primarily reflecting the values of Hinduism, classical Sanskrit literature was nurtured at courts of kings and aristocrats and in scholarly gatherings; it expressed the interests of warriors (kshatriya) and scholars and priests (brahman), the elite of the four social classes (varna) of Hindu society. The other two social classes are merchants (vaisya) and laborers (sudra). (In Hinduism, a person’s social class is determined by birth. Each social class is further subdivided into communities called caste. Each caste is ranked as more pure or less pure than other castes. The caste system has been a traditional part of Indian society for centuries, although in modern times it has lost some force.)

Kavya was the major form of classical literature in Sanskrit. The term kavya denoted works that were composed primarily for pleasure and that employed complex literary conventions and elaborate metrical schemes. Kavya works aimed to depict the spheres of politics, commerce, and erotic pleasure. At the same time, these works subordinated these realms of human experience to the ethical ideals of dharma and the Hindu religious goal of moksha, liberation from karma and rebirth. Also important in kavya literature is the idea of rasa (mood), the experience of the essential mood or flavor of a work of art. The major kavya genres—epic, lyric, drama, and various types of fiction—were similar to the chief genres of premodern European literature.

Kalidasa, who lived in the late 4th century and early 5th century, is considered India’s preeminent classical poet. His epic poems include Raghuvamsa (Dynasty of Raghu) and Meghaduta (The Cloud Messenger), which is a beautiful lyric poem about separated lovers. The most famous of Kalidasa’s works is his poetic drama Shakuntala (also known as Abhijnanashakuntala, Shakuntala and the Ring of Recollection). This drama tells the story of a love affair between a king and a woodland maiden named Shakuntala. Yet it is more than that. In this work, the poet transforms a simple tale into a lyrical and universal drama of the passion, separation, suffering, and reunion of lovers. Shakuntala had a profound impact on German author Johann Wolfgang Goethe and on other European writers who encountered it in translation in the 18th century.

Sanskrit drama, a rich pageant of mime, dance, music, and lyrical texts set in the courts of kings and aristocrats, was a productive classical genre. In addition to Kalidasa’s plays, noteworthy classical dramas include the lively urban comedy Mrichchhakatika (The Little Clay Cart) by the 5th-century writer Shudraka and the romantic Malati-Madhava (Malati and Madhava) by the 8th-century writer Bhavabhuti.

Foremost among the works of fiction in classical Sanskrit is the Panchatantra (The Five Strategies) by Vishnusharman. This work is a collection of stories in prose and verse that were composed between the 3rd century bc and the 4th century ad. The stories, which feature animals as the characters, teach lessons about human conduct. Two major 7th-century prose romances are Kadambari by Bana and Dashakumaracharita (The Adventures of the Ten Princes) by Dandin. The popular work Kathasaritsagara (Ocean to the Rivers of Stories), by the 11th-century writer Somadeva, is a collection of witty tales in verse about the love affairs and schemes of merchants, princes, and other adventurers. The Panchatantra and the Kathasaritsagara both use the technique of telling stories within the framework of a main story. This approach, and the technique of using animals as characters, later migrated to European literature through Arab translators and travelers.

Kalidasa Kalidasa was one of the great Sanskrit-language writers of ancient India. He is best known for Shakuntala (Shakuntala and the Ring of Recollection), a lyrical play about a king and his love for a woodland maiden.Dinodia Picture Agency

The brief lyric verse form called the muktaka (independent verse) is perhaps the quintessential genre of classical Sanskrit poetry. A muktaka is a short poem consisting of four lines of verse, each with an identical pattern of syllables. (A line in a muktaka is called a pada, meaning “quarter” in Sanskrit.) Sanskrit poets composed such poems in a variety of meters. The 7th-century writer Bhartrihari wrote epigrams on wisdom and worldly conduct in this genre. The 7th-century writer Amaru used the muktaka form for his erotic vignettes in the Amarusataka (The Century of Love). The verses of these works are still memorized by people interested in Sanskrit literature.

Along with the courtly literature, Sanskrit also nurtured the Puranas, a genre of mythological narratives that were written well into the medieval era. According to tradition, each Purana is supposed to deal with five topics: the creation of the universe, the destruction and re-creation of the universe, the genealogy of the gods and holy sages, the reigns of the Manus (legendary Hindu figures), and the histories of the kings who trace their ancestry to the sun and moon.

In southern India, beginning in the 1st century ad, a magnificent body of nonreligious poetry was written in the Tamil language. The Tamil poets—both men and women—treat sexual love and the heroic ideals of the Tamil people through symbolic landscape images, powerful language, and delicate psychological touches. The early Tamil poems became the foundation of literary traditions in other languages of south India. They later influenced medieval poetry of religious devotion in all the Indian languages.

The literature produced in Tamil between the 3rd and 6th centuries ad is dominated by Jain and Buddhist values combined with Tamil views of the sacred. Tirukkural (The Sacred Short Sayings, 4th century ad?), containing Tiruvalluvar’s brief verses on ethical behavior, has a strongly Jain flavor; it remains a treasured Tamil classic. In the epic Cilappatikaram (The Narrative of the Ankle Bracelet, 5th century?), the Jain monk Ilanko depicts the transformation of the chaste wife Kannaki into a goddess after she avenges the unjust death of her husband. In the Buddhist poet Cattanar’s long poem Manimekalai (The Girdle of Gems, 6th century?), the beautiful heroine Manimekalai rejects worldly life and becomes a Buddhist nun.

Poet-saints called Nayanars and Alvars, who led popular movements of devotion for the Hindu gods Shiva and Vishnu, wrote the Tevaram and the Nalayira Divya Prabandham, respectively, between the 6th and 8th centuries. These hymns served the cause of bhakti, a new aspect of religion that dominated Indian literature in the medieval period. Bhakti literature is discussed below. The hymns of the Nayanar and Alvar poets are sung in temple rituals in southern India to this day.

III. MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: THE RISE OF THE REGIONAL LANGUAGES

By the 10th century the older Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages and dialects had grown into full-blown languages. Each region also began to develop its own distinctive culture. As a result, regional literatures developed in each of the new regional languages, under the patronage of local rulers.

Buddhism had weakened as a religious force in India, but the philosophies of Hinduism and Jainism were still strong. From the 12th century onwards, Indian literature shows the influence of yet another religion, Islam. During medieval times, a succession of Islamic dynasties conquered many territories in north and central India. Some Indian languages were influenced by Islamic religion and culture as well as by the Persian and Arabic languages and the literatures of these two tongues. These influences affected the development of the Hindi language, resulting in the emergence of Urdu, a particular form of Hindi. The Urdu language has a large number of Persian and Arabic words, and is written in the Arabic script.

Although the literatures of the regional languages were as diverse as the languages and subcultures they represented, they also shared a number of characteristics. For example, the older Sanskrit myths, epics, and kavya poems served as sources for some of the best works in the new languages. But also, for the first time in Indian literature, unique versions of local myths, legends, romances, and epics emerged.

A Bhakti: Devotional Literature

Indian Miniature Painting This piece, Radha and Krishna in a Pavillion (1760?), from India’s Punjab Hills, is an illustration of a traditional story of Krishna, a Hindu god, and his lover, Radha. Krishna, the eighth incarnation of the supreme Hindu god Vishnu, serves as one of the central deities in Hinduism. It is an example of the style of Indian miniature painting that was popular from the 16th to the 19th century.Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

The most important genre of the medieval era was the lyric poetry of authors who belonged to Hindu movements dedicated to bhakti. Bhakti was an aspect of religion that involved passionate, emotional devotion to a particular god. Bhakti authors, who are revered as saints, addressed the devotional poems that they wrote to the major Hindu gods and goddesses, especially Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, Rama, and the Goddess (Devi). These poems are among the earliest and most popular literary works in each of the regional languages.

Mira Bai Legend holds that 16th-century Indian poet Mira Bai was so devoted to the god Krishna that when she died, her body flowed into an image of the god. Her writings demonstrate her love for Krishna.Dinodia Picture Agency

Bhakti lyric poems share a number of characteristics. Unlike earlier Indian literature in Sanskrit, they are works of a personal and emotional character. Sung by devotees, the poems often speak from the perspectives of marginalized and excluded groups in Indian society, voicing social criticism. Some of the major bhakti poets were women, and men of the lower castes were also represented.

Notable early bhakti writers include the poets Basava and Mahadevi of the Virashaiva sect. In their Kannada-language poems of devotion to the god Shiva, called vacanas (utterances), these authors criticize social injustice and conventional morality. Other bhakti writers were Tukaram and Bahinabai, who composed poems in the Marathi language; Kabir, Tulsidas, and Surdas, who wrote in dialects of Hindi; and the Vaishnava poets Vidyapati and Chandidas, who wrote devotional poems in Bengali, celebrating the love of Krishna and his beloved, Radha. One of India’s best-known female poets is the bhakti poet Mira Bai, a 16th-century writer who composed poignant songs in Rajasthani-Hindi about her love for the god Krishna.

B Other Literary Forms

The great literary works of medieval India include biographies on the bhakti saints. The Tamil work Periyapuranam (Great Narrative), by the 12th-century writer Cekkilar, tells about the lives of the Tamil Nayanar saints. Chakradhara’s Lilacharitra (Narrative of the Divine Play, 1280?) in Marathi is about the Mahanubhava saints. Palkuriki Somanatha’s Basavapurana (Narrative of Basava, 13th century) in Telugu is about the Virashaiva saints.

The Mahabharata and the Ramayana epics provided the themes for some of the best works in the regional languages. The 12th-century Tamil Iramavataram (Descent of Rama) by Kampan and the 16th-century Hindi Ramcharitmanas (The Holy Lake of the Acts of Rama) by Tulsidas are literary masterpieces of their languages. Both of these works are retellings of the Ramayana story.

Each Indian regional language has romances, folk epics, and ballads focusing on local heroes, heroines, gods, and goddesses. Some of these works are transmitted mainly in oral traditions and are not attributed to any individual. Works of this type include the epics of the heroes Pabuji and Devnarayan in the Rajasthani language, and the Hindi epics Candayan and Dhola. The Pabuji epic describes the exploits of the Rajput warrior Pabuji, who dies in battle and is later worshiped as a god. The Dhola epic treats the themes of the exploits of King Nal and the birth of his son Dhola, the adventures of Dhola, and the beautiful princess Maru’s love for Dhola. The principal characters in many of the oral narratives belong to the lower castes in the Hindu caste system. In the Devnarayan story, Devnarayan, an incarnation of the god Vishnu, is born as a cowherd and fights against Rajput warriors to avenge the deaths of heroes of the cowherd caste. Chandaini, also known as Lorik-Chanda, describes the love affair of the heroine Chandaini, a married woman, with the cowherd Lorik, who is also married.

Some epics are attributed to specific authors. The Hindi Prthviraj Raso (Heroic Narrative of King Prthviraj), by Chand Bardai, sings the exploits of the 12th-century King Prithviraj Chauhan of Delhi, including his resistance to the invader from Central Asia, Muhammad of Ghur. Padumavat (1540), a Hindi romance based on Hindu legends but written by the Sufi Muslim poet Malik Muhammad Jayasi, illustrates the blurring of boundaries between Hindu and Muslim cultures in this period.








































Medieval India


The Gupta Empire faced many challengers. Until about ad 500 it was able to defeat internal and external enemies. In the mid-5th century the White Huns, a nomadic people from Central Asia, moved onto the Indian plains and were defeated by the Guptas. The Huns invaded India again in ad 510, when Gupta strength was in decline. This time the invasion was successful, forcing the Guptas into the northeastern part of their former empire. The Huns established their rule over much of northwest India, extending to present-day western Uttar Pradesh. However, they in turn were defeated by enemies to the west a short time later. The Buddhist monasteries and the cities of this region never recovered from the onslaught of the Huns. By ad 550 both the Hun kingdom and the Gupta Empire had fallen.

The absence of these centralizing powers left India to be ruled by regional kingdoms. These kingdoms often warred with each other and had fairly short spans of power. They developed a political system that emphasized the tribute of smaller chieftains. Later, starting in the 11th century and especially in the south, they legitimized this rule by establishing great royal temples, supported by grants of land and literally hundreds of Brahmans. Literature and art continued to flourish, particularly in south and central India. The distinctive style of temple architecture and sculpture that developed in the 7th and 8th centuries can be seen in the pyramid-shaped towers and heavily ornamented walls of shrines at Māmallapuram (sometimes called Mahabalipuram) and Kānchipuram south of Chennai, and in the cave temples carved from solid rock at Ajanta and Ellora in Mahārāshtra. The religious tradition of bhakti (passionate devotion to a Hindu god), which emerged in Tamil Nādu in the 6th century and spread north over the next nine centuries, was expressed in poetry of great beauty. With the decline of Buddhism in much of peninsular India (it continued in what is now Bangladesh), Hinduism developed new and profound traditions associated with the philosophers Shankara in the early 800s and Ramanuja in about 1100.

The regional kingdoms were not small, but only Harsha, who ruled from 606 to 647, attempted to create an expansive empire. From his kingdom north of Delhi, he shifted his base east to present-day central Uttar Pradesh. After extending his influence as far west as the Punjab region, he tried to move south and was defeated by the Chalukya king Pulakeshin II of Vātāpi (modern Bādāmi) in about 641. By then the Pallava dynasty had established a powerful kingdom on the east coast of the southern Indian peninsula at Kānchipuram. During the course of the next half century the Pallavas and the neighboring Chalukyas of the Deccan Plateau struggled for control of key peninsular rivers, each alternately sacking the other’s capital. The eventual waning of the Pallavas by the late 8th century allowed the Cholas and the Pandya dynasty to rule virtually undisturbed for the next four centuries.

Elsewhere in India, the 8th century saw continued power struggles among states. Harsha died in 647 bc and his kingdom contracted to the west, creating a power vacuum in the east that was quickly filled by the Pala dynasty. (The Palas ruled the Bengal region and present-day southern Bihār state from the 8th through the 12th centuries.) Harsha’s capital of Kanauj was conquered by the Gurjara-Pratiharas, who were based in central India, and who managed to extend their rule west to the borders of Sind (in what is now Pakistan). The Gurjara-Pratiharas fought with the Rashtrakutas for control of the trade routes of the Ganges. The Rashtrakutas controlled the Deccan Plateau from their capital in Ellora, near present-day Aurangābād. Their frequent military campaigns into north and central India kept the small kingdoms ruled by Muslims in Sind and southern Punjab confined. The Western Chalukyas also fought with, and were finally overthrown by, the Rashtrakutas in the 8th century.

The kingdoms persisted despite this protracted warfare because they were more or less equally matched in resources, administrative and military capacities, and leadership. Although particular dynasties did not last long, these kingdoms, which shifted the center of rule in India to areas south of the Vindhya Range, had a remarkable stability, lasting in one form or other in particular regions for centuries.

The kingdoms of the south, especially the Pallavas and Cholas, had links with Southeast Asia. Temples in the style of the early-8th-century Pallavas were built in Java soon after those in the Pallava kingdom. In pursuit of trade, the Cholas made successful naval expeditions at the end of the 10th century to Ceylon, the region of Bengal, Sumatra, and Malaya. They also established direct trade with China. By the 12th century the cities of the southwestern coast of India, in what is now Kerala and southern Karnātaka, housed Jewish and Arab traders who drew on a network centered in the Persian Gulf and reaching through Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea and Italy.