INDIAN LITERATURE

1. Literary Periods. The Indus Valley civilization flourished in northern India

between 2500 and 1500 B.C. The Aryans, a group of nomadic warriors and herders,
were the earliest known migrants into India. They brought with them a well-
developed language and literature and a set of religious beliefs.
a) Vedic Period (1500 B.C. –500 B.C.). This period is named for the Vedas, a set of
hymns that formed the cornerstone of Aryan culture. Hindus consider the Vedas,
which were transmitted orally by priests, to be the most sacred of all literature for they
believe these to have been revealed to humans directly by the gods.

• The Rigveda which has come to mean “hymns of supreme sacred knowledge,” is the
foremost collection or Samhita made up of 1,028 hymns. The oldest of the Vedas, it
contains strong, energetic, non-speculative hymns, often comparable to the psalms in
the Old Testament. The Hindus regard these hymns as divinely inspired or ‘heard’
directly from the gods.

The Song of Creation

Then was not non-existent nor existent: there was no realm of air, no sky beyond it.
What covered it and where? And what gave shelter? Was water there, unfathomed
depth of water?

Death was not then nor was there aught immortal: no sign was there, the day’s and
night’s divider.
That one thing, breathless, breathed by its own nature: apart from it was
nothing whatsoever.

Darkness there was: at first concealed in darkness, this All was in

discriminated chaos.
All that existed then was void and formless: by the great power of warmth was
born that unit.

b) Epic and Buddhist Age (500 B.C. – A.D.). The period of composition of the two
great epics, Mahabharata and the Ramayana. This time was also the growth of
later Vedic literature, new Sanskrit literature, and Buddhist literature in
Pali. The Dhammapada was also probably composed during this
period. The Maurya Empire (322-230 B.C.) ruled by Ashoka promoted Buddhism
and preached goodness, nonviolence, and ‘righteousness’ although this period was
known for warfare and iron-fisted rule. The Gupta Dynasty (320-467 B.C.) was the
next great political power. During this time, Hinduism reached a full flowering and
was evident in culture and the arts.

• The Mahabharata, traditionally ascribed to the sage Vyasa, consists of a mass of

legendary and didactic material that tells of the struggle for supremacy between two
groups of cousins, the Kauravas and the Pandavas set sometime 3102 BC. The poem
is made up of almost 100,000 couplets divided into 18 parvans or sections. It is an
exposition on dharma (codes of conduct), including the proper conduct of a king, of
a warrior, of a man living in times of calamity, and of a person seeking to attain
emancipation from rebirth.
• The Bhagavad Gita (The Blessed Lord’s Song) is one of the greatest and most
beautiful of the Hindu scriptures. It is regarded by the Hindus in somewhat the same
way as the Gospels are by Christians. It forms part of Book IV and is written in the
form of a dialogue between the warrior Prince Arjuna and his friend and charioteer,
Krishna, who is also an earthly incarnation of the god Vishnu.

From the Bhagavad-Gita

Arjuna: Krishna, what defines a man/ deep in contemplation whose insight/ and
thought are sure? How would he speak?/ How would he sit? How would he move?
Lord Krishna: When he gives up desires in his mind,/ is content with the self within
himself,/ then he is said to be a man/ whose insight is sure, Arjuna. When suffering
does not disturb his mind,/ when his craving for pleasures has vanished,/ when
attraction, fear, and anger are gone,/ he is called a sage whose thought is sure.

• The Ramayana was composed in Sanskrit, probably not before 300 BC, by the
poet Valmiki and consists of some 24,000 couplets divided into seven books. It
reflects the Hindu values and forms of social organization, the theory of karma, the
ideals of wifehood, and feelings about caste, honor and promises.

The poem describes the royal birth of Rama, his tutelage under the sage Visvamitra,
and his success in bending Siva’s mighty bow, thus winning Sita, the daughter of King
Janaka, for his wife. After Rama is banished from his position as heir by an intrigue,
he retreats to the forest with his wife and his half brother, Laksmana. There Ravana,
the demon-king of Lanka, carries off Sita, who resolutely rejects his attentions. After
numerous adventures Rama slays Ravana and rescues Sita. When they return to his
kingdom, however, Rama learns that the people question the queen’s chastity, and he
banishes her to the forest where she gives birth to Rama’s two sons. The family is
reunited when the sons come of age, but Sita, after again protesting her innocence,
asks to be received by the earth, which swallows her up.

From the Ramayana: “Brother’s Faithfulness”

If my elder and his lady to the pathless forests wend,
Armed with bow and ample quiver Lakshman will on them attend,
Where the wild deer range the forest and the lordly tuskers roam,
And the bird of gorgeous plumage nestles in its jungle home,
Dearer far to me those woodlands where perennial bliss prevails!
Grant me then thy sweet permission, - faithful to thy glorious star,
Lakshman, shall not wait and tarry when his Rama wanders far,
Grant me then thy loving mandate, - Lakshman hath no wish to stay,
None shall bar the faithful younger when the elder leads the way!

c) Classical Period (A.D. – 1000 A.D.). The main literary language of northern India
during this period was Sanskrit, in contrast with the Dravidian languages of
southern India. Sanskrit, which means ‘perfect speech’ is considered a sacred
language, the language spoken by the gods and goddesses. As such, Sanskrit was seen
as the only appropriate language for the noblest literary works. Poetry and drama
peaked during this period. Beast fables such as the Panchatantra were popular and
often used by religious teachers to illustrate moral points.
• The Panchatantra is a collection of Indian beast fables originally written in
Sanskrit. In Europe, the work was known under the title The Fables of Bidpai after
the narrator, and Indian sage named Bidpai, (called Vidyapati in Sanskrit). It is
intended as a textbook of artha (worldly wisdom); the aphorisms tend to glorify
shrewdness and cleverness more than helping of others. The original text is a mixture
of Sanskrit prose and stanzas of verse, with the stories contained within one of
five frame stories. The introduction, which acts as an enclosing frame for the entire
work, attributes the stories to a learned Brahman named Vishnusarman, who used the
form of animal fables to instruct the three dull-witted sons of a king.

From the Panchatantra: “Right-Mind and Wrong

Mind” The good and bad of
given schemes/ wise thought must first reveal: the stupid heron saw his chicks/
provide a mongoose meal.

• Sakuntala, a Sanskrit drama by Kalidasa, tells of the love between Sakuntala and
King Dushyanta. What begins as a physical attraction for both becomes spiritual in
the end as their love endures and surpasses all difficulties. King Dushyanta is a noble
and pious king who upholds his duties above personal desire. Sakuntala, on the other
hand, is a young girl who matures beautifully because of her kindness, courage, and
strength of will. After a period of suffering, the two are eventually reunited. Emotion
or rasa dominates every scene in Sanskrit drama. These emotions vary from love to
anger, heroism to cowardice, joy to terror and allows the audience to take part in the
play and be one with the characters.

Excerpt from Sakuntala:

King. You are too modest. I feel honoured by the mere sight of you.
Shakuntala. Anusuya, my foot is cut on a sharp blade of grass, and my dress is
caught on an amaranth twig. Wait for me while I loosen it. (She casts a lingering
glance at the king and goes out with her two friends.)
King. (sighing). They are gone. And I must go. The sight of Shakuntala has made
me dread the return to the city. I will make my men camp at a distance from the
pious grove. But I cannot turn my own thoughts from Shakuntala.
It is my body leaves my love, not I;/ My body moves away, but not my mind;
For back to her struggling fancies fly/ Like silken banners borne against the wind.
(Exit.)

• The Little Clay Cart (Mrcchakatika) is attributed to Shudraka, a king. The

characters in this play include a Brahman merchant who has lost his money through
liberality, a rich courtesan in love with a poor young man, much description of
resplendent palaces, and both comic and tragic or near-tragic emotional situations.

PROLOGUE (Benediction upon the audience)

May His, may Shiva's meditation be
Your strong defense; on the Great Self thinks he,
Knowing full well the world's vacuity.
And again:
May Shiva's neck shield you from every harm,
That seems a threatening thunder-cloud, whereon,
Bright as the lightning-flash, lies Gauri's arm.
d) Medieval and Modern Age (A.D. 1000 – present). Persian influence on literature
was considerable during this period. Persian was the court language of the Moslem
rulers. In the 18th century India was directly under the British Crown and remained
so until its Independence in 1947. British influence was strong and modern-day
Indians are primarily educated in English. Many have been brought into the world of
Western learning at the expense of learning about their own culture.

• Gitanjali: Song Offerings was originally published in India in 1910 and it s

translation followed in 1912. In these prose translations, Rabindranath
Tagore uses imagery from nature to express the themes of love and the internal
conflict between spiritual longings and earthly desires.

Moment’s Indulgence
I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by thy side.
The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.
Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite,
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

• The Taj Mahal, a poem by Sahir Ludhianvi, is about the mausoleum in North
India built by the Mogul emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz-i-Mahal. The
façade of this grandiose structure is made of white marble and is surrounded by water
gardens, gateways, and walks. The tomb at the center of the dome stands on a square
block with towers at each corner. The construction of the building took twenty years
to complete involving some 20, 000 workers.

Excerpt from the Taj Mahal

Do dead king’s tombs delight you?
If so, look into your own dark home.
In this world, countless people have loved.
Who says their passions weren’t true?
They just couldn’t afford a public display like this.

• On Learning to be an Indian an essay by Santha Rama Rau illustrates the telling

effects of colonization on the lives of the people particularly the younger
generation. The writer humorously narrates the conflicts that arise between her
grandmother's traditional Indian values and the author’s own British upbringing.

Because Mother had to fight against the old standards, and because she was brought
up to believe in them, she has an emotional understanding of them which my sister I
will never have. Brought up in Europe and educated in preparatory and public
schools in England, we felt that the conventions were not only retrogressive and
socially crippling to the country but also a little ridiculous.

2. Religions. Indian creativity is evident in religion as the country is the birthplace of

two important faiths: Hinduism, the dominant religion, and Buddhism, which
ironically became extinct in India but spread throughout Asia.
a) Hinduism, literally “the belief of the people of India,” is the predominant faith of
India and of no other nation. The Hindus are deeply absorbed with God and the
creation of the universe.
The Purusarthas are the three ends of man: dharma – virtue, duty,
righteousness, moral law; artha – wealth; and kama – love or pleasure. A fourth
 end is moksha – the renunciation of duty, wealth and love in order to seek spiritual
perfection. It is achieved after the release from samsara, the cycle of births and
deaths. The Hindus believe that all reality is one and spiritual, and that each
individual soul is identical with this reality and shares its characteristics: pure being,
intelligence, and bliss. Everything that seems to divide the soul from this reality
is maya or illusion.
Life is viewed as an upward development through four stages of effort called the
four asramas: a) the student stage – applies to the rite of initiation into the study
of the Vedas; b) the householder stage – marries and fulfills the duties as head of
the family where he begets sons and earns a living; c) the stage of the forest
dweller – departs from home and renounces the social world; and d) ascetic – stops
performing any of the rituals or social duties of life in the world and devotes time for
reflection and meditation.
Kama refers to one of the proper pursuits of man in his role as householder,
that of pleasure and love. The Kama-sutra is a classic textbook on erotics and other
forms of pleasure and love, which is attributed to the sage Vatsyayana.
The Hindus regard Purusha, the Universal Spirit, as the soul and original
source of the universe. As the universal soul, Purusha is the life-giving principle in all
animated beings. As a personified human being, Purusha's body is the source of all
creation. The four Varnas serve as the theoretical basis for the organization of the
Hindu society. These were thought to have been created from Purusha’s body:
- The Brahman (priest) was Purusha’s mouth. Their duty is to perform sacrifices, to
study and to teach the Vedas, and to guard the rules of dharma. Because of their
sacred work, they are supreme in purity and rank.
- The Ksatriyas (warriors) are the arms. From this class arose the kings who are the
protectors of society.
- The Vaisyas (peasants) are the thighs. They live by trading, herding, and farming.
- The Sudras (serfs) are the feet. They engage in handicrafts and manual occupation
and they are to serve meekly the three classes above them. They are strictly forbidden
to mate with persons of a higher varna.

• The Upanishads form a highly sophisticated commentary on the religious thought

suggested by the poetic hymns of the Rigveda. The name implies, according to some
traditions, ‘sitting at the feet of the teacher.’ The most important philosophical
doctrine is the concept of a single supreme being, the Brahman, and knowledge is
directed toward reunion with it by the human soul, the Atman or Self. The nature of
eternal life is discussed and such themes as the transmigration of souls and causality
in creation.

b) Buddhism originated in India in the 6th century B.C. This religion is based on the
teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, called Buddha, or the ‘Enlightened
One.’ Much of Buddha’s teaching is focused on self-awareness and self-development
in order to attain nirvana or enlightenment.
According to Buddhist beliefs, human beings are bound to the wheel of life which is a
continual cycle of birth, death, and suffering. This cycle is an effect of karma in which a
person’s present life and experiences are the result of past thoughts and actions, and these
present thoughts and actions likewise create those of the future. The Buddhist scriptures
uphold the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path. The Four Noble Truths are:
1) life is suffering; 2) the cause of suffering is desire; 3) the removal of desire is the removal of
suffering; and 4) the Noble Eightfold Path leads to the end of suffering. The Noble Eightfold
Path consists of: 1) right understanding; 2) right thought; 3) right speech; 4) right action; 5)
right means of livelihood; 6) right effort; 7) right concentration; and 8) right meditation. The
 Buddhist truth states that bad actions and bad feelings such as selfishness, greed, hostility,
hate are evil not because they harm others but because of their negative influence on the
mental state of the doer. It is in this sense that evil returns to punish the doer

• The Dhammapada (Way of Truth) is an anthology of basic Buddhist teaching in a

simple aphoristic style. One of the best known books of the Pali Buddhist canon, it
contains 423 stanzas arranged in 26 chapters. These verses are compared with the
Letters of St. Paul in the Bible or that of Christ’s Sermon on the Mount.
.
Thought
As a fletcher makes straight his arrow, a wise man makes straight his trembling and
unsteady thought which is difficult to guard, difficult to hold back.
As a fish taken from his watery home and thrown on the dry ground, our thought
trembles all over in order to escape the dominion of Mara, the tempter.
It is good to tame the mind, which is difficult to hold in and flighty, rushing wherever
it listeth; a tamed mind brings happiness.
Let the wise man guard his thoughts, for they are difficult to perceive, very artful,
and they rush wherever they list: thoughts well guarded bring happiness.
Those who bridle their mind which travels far, moves about alone, is without a body,
and hides in the chamber of the heart, will be free from the bonds of Mara, the
tempter

3. Major Writers.
a) Kalidasa a Sanskrit poet and dramatist is probably the greatest Indian writer of all
time. As with most classical Indian authors, little is known about Kalidasa’s person or
his historical relationships. His poems suggest that he was a Brahman (priest). Many
works are traditionally ascribed to the poet, but scholars have identified only six as
genuine.
b) Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941). The son of a Great Sage, Tagore is a Bengali
poet and mystic who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore managed his
father's estates and lived in close contact with the villagers. His sympathy for their
poverty and backwardness was later reflected in his works. The death of his wife and
two children brought him years of sadness but this also inspired some of his best
poety. Tagore is also a gifted composer and a painter.
c) Prem Chand pseudonym of Dhanpat Rai Srivastava (1880-1936). Indian
author of numerous novels and short stories in Hindi and Urdu who pioneered in
adapting Indian themes to Western literary styles. He worked as a teacher before
joining Mahatma Gandhi’s anticolonial Noncooperation Movement.
• Sevasadana (House of Service). His first major novel deals with the problems of
prostitution and moral corruption among the Indian middle class.
• Manasarovar (The Holy Lake). A collection of 250 or so short stories which
contains most of Prem Chand’s best works.
• Godan (The Gift of a Cow). This last novel was Prem Chand’s masterpiece and it
deals with his favorite theme – the hard and unrewarding life of the village peasant.
d) Kamala Markandaya (1924). Her works concern the struggles of contemporary
Indians with conflicting Eastern and Western values. A Brahman, she studied at
Madras University then settled in England and married an Englishman. In her fiction,
Western values typically are viewed as modern and materialistic, and Indian values as
spiritual and traditional.
• Nectar in a Sieve. Her first novel and most popular work is about an Indian
peasant’s narrative of her difficult life.
e) R. K. Narayan (1906). One of the finest Indian authors of his generation writing in
English. He briefly worked as a teacher before deciding to devote himself full-time to
writing. All of Narayan’s works are set in the fictitious South Indian town of
Malgudi. They typically portray the peculiarities of human relationships and the
ironies of Indian daily life, in which modern urban existence clashes with ancient
tradition. His style is graceful, marked by genial humor, elegance, and simplicity.
• Swami and Friends. His first novel is an episodic narrative recounting the
adventures of a group of schoolboys.
• Novels: The English Teacher (1945), Waiting for the Mahatma (1955), The
Guide (1958), The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961), The Vendor of Sweets
(1967), A Tiger for Malgudi (1983), and The World of Nagaraj (1990).
• Collection of Short Stories: Lawley Road (1956), A Horse and Two Goats and
Other Stories (1970), Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories
(1985), and Grandmother’s Tale (1992).
f) Anita Desai (1937). An English-language Indian novelist and author of children’s
books, she is considered India’s premier imagist writer. She excelled in evoking
character and mood through visual images. Most of her works reflect Desei’s tragic
view of life.
• Cry, the Peacock. Her first novel addresses the theme of the suppression and
oppression of Indian women.
• Clear Light of Day. Considered the author’s most successful work, this is a highly
evocative portrait of two sisters caught in the lassitude of Indian life. This was
shortlisted for the 1980 Booker Prize.
• Fire on the Mountain. This work was criticized as relying too heavily on imagery
at the expense of plot and characterization, but it was praised for its poetic symbolism
and use of sounds. This won for her the Royal Society of Literature’s Winifred Holtby
Memorial Prize.
g) Vir Singh (1872-1957). A Sikh writer and theologian, he wrote at a time when Sikh
religion and politics and the Punjabi language were under heavy attack by the English
and Hindus. He extolled Sikh courage, philosophy, and ideals, earning respect for the
Punjabi language as a literary vehicle.
• Kalghi Dhar Chamatkar. This novel is about the life of the 17th century guru
Gobind Singh.
• Other novels on Sikh philosophy and martial excellence include Sundri
(1898) and Bijai Singh (1899).
h) Arundhati Roy. A young female writer whose first book The God of Small
Things won for her a Booker Prize.