what is Indian literature?
Ufff, Indian literature is very hard to grasp. It would be like European literature all in one, a vast mosaic of languages and local traditions, with an enormous chronological depth. Even if we know nothing of its beginnings. The Indus Valley Bronze Age civilisation, Harappa (3300-1300 BC), had its own writing, but it is still undeciphered; we know nothing of its language, except the presupposition that it must have been some sort of proto-Dravidic tongue. Indian literature that is known to us starts, thus, with the Aryan conquest, and it is immediately a great, major, prestigious tradition: that of the Vedas (1500-500 BC), a large collection of hymns. When the early Indo-Aryan janapadas (chieftaincies) transformed into bigger states with new urban centres, the ascetic movements appeared, giving rise to great religions: Jainism and Buddhism, which opposed Brahmanism as the religion of rituals, based on Vedas. Each of the new movements evidently meant the rise of sacred texts and new strands of literacy that would develop around them. Jain canonical texts are called Agamas. They are believed to reflect the oral teachings of the 24 Tirthankaras (ancient great teachers; Mahavira was just the last of them), transmitted by the Ganadharas (their disciples). The main language of this tradition is believed to be Ardhamagadhi Prakrit, a Middle Indo-Aryan tongue spoken in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. There is a lot of divergence between two main branches of Jainism: the Śvētāmbara keep this old tradition, Digambaras believe that it was lost, and the last ascetic who had the knowledge of the original canon was Āchārya Bhutabali. The Āchāryas recreated the teachings. There is thus a secondary canon of Jain Vedas, created between 600 and 900 CE, speaking not only of ethics but also cosmography, philosophy, and history. There is also non-canonical Jain literature, such as Kalpa Sutras written by Bhadrabahu (c. 300 BC) and Tattvarthasūtra (On the nature of reality) written in Sanskrit by Umaswati (sometime between 3rd and 5th c. CE).
Similarly, Buddhism was originally an oral tradition transmitted in another Middle Indo-Aryan language (Prakrit), called Pali. The earliest written texts derived from this oral tradition probably appeared in Sri Lanka to become part of the Tripitaka (the "Triple Basket"). Later on, each local Buddhist tradition elaborated its own canon based on ancient Pali and Sanskrit texts, as well as its own scholarly commentaries.
The great caesura in Indian history is the Maurya Empire in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. This period also marks a divide between Pali and Prakrit literature in the north and the Tamil Sangam literature ("the poetry of the noble ones") in the south. This Tamil literature developed under the auspices of the so-called Three Crowned Kings of Tamilakam (Chera, Chola, and Pandya dynasties), speaking of war, politics, history, and connected topics. Sangam scholars working under the protection of these rulers were not Brahmins; on the contrary, they were coming from various social groups and wrote also about the common people. The oldest text of this literature appeared between 300 BC and 200 CE: it is the Pathupattu, an anthology of Ten Idylls. Ettuthogai ("The Eight Collections") is yet another poetic anthology. On the other hand, this period will also bring about two of the five Great Tamil Epics: Silappatikaram by Ilango Adigal and its sequel, Manimekalai by Satthanar. This is not an epic of any usual warrior male hero; on the contrary, it tells the story of a heroine, Kannaki. When the husband Kovalan is killed due to an abuse of justice at the Pandyan court, the woman wreaks her revenge. Still focusing on the female part of history, the sequel speaks of Kovalan's daughter.
What followed the Maurya Empire in the north was the Shunga Empire (185-75 BC). Yet the Classical period in Indian history is a mosaic of dynasties, the most prominent of them being the Gupta Empire (4th to 6th c. CE), a period of great intellectual excellence and far-flung contacts both in the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the Southeast Asia, where the Indianised kingdoms (so-called Greater India) emerged at that time.
Indian history between the 7th and 11th centuries was shaped by the Tripartite struggle ("the Kannauj Triangle wars" waged by three empires: Pala, Rashtrakuta, and Gurjara-Pratihara). The history of the South followed almost a separate history as a mosaic of dynasties and empires such as Chalukya, Pallava, Chera, and Pandyan. The Chola dynasty was the most successful in the 11th century when it invaded islands such as Sri Lanka and the Maldives, as well as Bengal and parts of Southeast Asia.
The Islamic history of India started already in the 8th century with the conquest of Afghanistan and Sindh, but the most important Islamic state appeared at the beginning of the 13th century: it was the Sultanate of Delhi created by Central Asian Turks. The 14th century saw the decomposition of this state and the emergence of various Deccan sultanates, as well as the Bengal Sultanate (14th to 16th c.). At the same time, there existed also powerful Hindu states farther south, such as Vijayanagara (Karnata), Rajput, Mewar. In the 15th century appeared the youngest of the religions of India, Sikhism.
Early-modern India starts in the 16th century with the advent of the powerful Mughal Empire. The gradual decline of this state in the 18th century fostered the emergence of new local dynasties, centres, and forms of power, such as the Maratha Confederacy, the Sikh Empire in Punjab, the Kingdom of Mysore in the south, the Nizams in Hyderabad and the Nawabs of Bengal.
From mid-18th to the mid-19th century, the new form of power in India was that of the East India Company, locally acting as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Empire. The first great revolt against its rule happened in 1857. It led to the dissolution of the Company and the advent of the British Raj. After the ww1, the National Congress launched the fight for Indian independence, illustrated by the figure and doctrine of non-violence of Gandhi. Finally, in 1947, the British Indian Empire was partitioned into the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, each of them gaining independence as a separate state.
Similarly, Buddhism was originally an oral tradition transmitted in another Middle Indo-Aryan language (Prakrit), called Pali. The earliest written texts derived from this oral tradition probably appeared in Sri Lanka to become part of the Tripitaka (the "Triple Basket"). Later on, each local Buddhist tradition elaborated its own canon based on ancient Pali and Sanskrit texts, as well as its own scholarly commentaries.
The great caesura in Indian history is the Maurya Empire in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. This period also marks a divide between Pali and Prakrit literature in the north and the Tamil Sangam literature ("the poetry of the noble ones") in the south. This Tamil literature developed under the auspices of the so-called Three Crowned Kings of Tamilakam (Chera, Chola, and Pandya dynasties), speaking of war, politics, history, and connected topics. Sangam scholars working under the protection of these rulers were not Brahmins; on the contrary, they were coming from various social groups and wrote also about the common people. The oldest text of this literature appeared between 300 BC and 200 CE: it is the Pathupattu, an anthology of Ten Idylls. Ettuthogai ("The Eight Collections") is yet another poetic anthology. On the other hand, this period will also bring about two of the five Great Tamil Epics: Silappatikaram by Ilango Adigal and its sequel, Manimekalai by Satthanar. This is not an epic of any usual warrior male hero; on the contrary, it tells the story of a heroine, Kannaki. When the husband Kovalan is killed due to an abuse of justice at the Pandyan court, the woman wreaks her revenge. Still focusing on the female part of history, the sequel speaks of Kovalan's daughter.
What followed the Maurya Empire in the north was the Shunga Empire (185-75 BC). Yet the Classical period in Indian history is a mosaic of dynasties, the most prominent of them being the Gupta Empire (4th to 6th c. CE), a period of great intellectual excellence and far-flung contacts both in the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the Southeast Asia, where the Indianised kingdoms (so-called Greater India) emerged at that time.
Indian history between the 7th and 11th centuries was shaped by the Tripartite struggle ("the Kannauj Triangle wars" waged by three empires: Pala, Rashtrakuta, and Gurjara-Pratihara). The history of the South followed almost a separate history as a mosaic of dynasties and empires such as Chalukya, Pallava, Chera, and Pandyan. The Chola dynasty was the most successful in the 11th century when it invaded islands such as Sri Lanka and the Maldives, as well as Bengal and parts of Southeast Asia.
The Islamic history of India started already in the 8th century with the conquest of Afghanistan and Sindh, but the most important Islamic state appeared at the beginning of the 13th century: it was the Sultanate of Delhi created by Central Asian Turks. The 14th century saw the decomposition of this state and the emergence of various Deccan sultanates, as well as the Bengal Sultanate (14th to 16th c.). At the same time, there existed also powerful Hindu states farther south, such as Vijayanagara (Karnata), Rajput, Mewar. In the 15th century appeared the youngest of the religions of India, Sikhism.
Early-modern India starts in the 16th century with the advent of the powerful Mughal Empire. The gradual decline of this state in the 18th century fostered the emergence of new local dynasties, centres, and forms of power, such as the Maratha Confederacy, the Sikh Empire in Punjab, the Kingdom of Mysore in the south, the Nizams in Hyderabad and the Nawabs of Bengal.
From mid-18th to the mid-19th century, the new form of power in India was that of the East India Company, locally acting as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Empire. The first great revolt against its rule happened in 1857. It led to the dissolution of the Company and the advent of the British Raj. After the ww1, the National Congress launched the fight for Indian independence, illustrated by the figure and doctrine of non-violence of Gandhi. Finally, in 1947, the British Indian Empire was partitioned into the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, each of them gaining independence as a separate state.
I have readKiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss (2006)
Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide (2004) Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (1997) Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children (1981), The Satanic Verses (1988), Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) Mulk Raj Anand, Selected Short Stories (ca. 1934-1953) Rabindranath Tagore, ঘরে বাইরে | Ghare Baire | The Home and the World (1916), Sadhana: The Realisation of Life (1913) Kabir, poems translated into Polish by Czesław Miłosz as Hymn o Perle (15th c.) श्रीमद भगवद्गीता | Bhagavadgītā (sometime between 5th and 2nd century BC) |
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The Song in my library
Bhagavadgītā, or a Polish translation of it, a modest, badly printed volume from a series on world literature published by Ossolineum at the time of East European economic crisis that preceded the fall of Soviet empire, was one of those books were everything began, both in world literature and in my life. Even if I do not actually remember having read it in my youth. For many years, I just kept it in my possession like a sacred relic, a symbol of the destiny I chose for myself, of my aspiration, of everything. One of those books that transform, emanating an invisible light.
One of those summers when I returned to my flat in Krakow between stays in western Europe, I took it in my hands, brittle and yellowed with age, and read, just like Augustin might have read his epistles of Paul, obeying to a mysterious voice telling him Tolle, lege. How Krishna explained to Arjuna the virtue of his participation in the battle that was just about to begin, why he should take part in the bloodshed. A pervert form of "inner renunciation" and of "selfless action", one might say. Nonetheless, as more than two thousand years passed by, we are still sending soldiers to Afghanistan to seek some sort of virtue in the selfless fulfilment of what we call their duty. They lose their legs on old Soviet mines, certainly reaching far greater abnegation than those archers of the dawn of History, asking their divine mentors why on earth they should do such things. And Krishna explains.
Shooting at his adversaries during the great epic battle (the philosophical dialogue of some 700 verses make a part of Bhishma Parva, the 6th book among the 18 that make an even greater epic whole, Mahabharata), Arjuna is supposed to achieve some sort of synthesis of three spiritual dimensions, action (karma), knowledge (gyaana), and devotion (bhakti). This is what Krishna says, and Krishna is none other than the Lord Vishnu, i.e. his avatar. Although the text has a presumed human author, a rishi (sage) called Vyasa, it may be considered as a book of Revelation. This is why Bhagavadgītā is equally seen as a part of Prasthanatrayi, the Three Sources, together with Upanishads and Brahma sutras.
Part of many overlapping wholes, Bhagavadgītā's great wisdom may be resumed as a recommendation to look beyond the perspective of profit and loss, just like the outcome of the battle, a victory or a disaster, lays inward of the warrior's heroism. This is why I ask myself what actually happened, did Arjuna win this war, or to the contrary. In fact, it is not so very obvious. I suppose many an erudite person would be in trouble of telling who won in the Mahabharata. And who won in the Iliad? I suppose the Greek did, but it is all about the anger of Achilles, isn't it?
Well, in general, Mahabharatha is all about a war between two groups of cousins, Kauravas and Pandavas, who competed for the throne of Hastinapura (a city somewhere in Uttar Pradesh). It opens the Kali Yuga, the eon of cruelty and conflict in which we still live today (some people say it has been going on and on and on since the year 3102 BC). In the end, Pandavas won. Yudhishthira occupied the throne, and after many years he passed it on to Arjuna's grandson, Parikshit. So, in the end, it was worth it. Or not, because Arjuna died during the journey into the Himalayas, where the remaining Pandavas were to seek final enlightenment. So it was once again the pious Yudhishthira who was the sole survivor and the sole victor in the heaven of Dharma.
It is, as I presume, another important piece of wisdom to recall. However virtuous and heroic be the war we wage, it is usually someone else who takes the great prize. The hero's heroism is his sole reward.
One of those summers when I returned to my flat in Krakow between stays in western Europe, I took it in my hands, brittle and yellowed with age, and read, just like Augustin might have read his epistles of Paul, obeying to a mysterious voice telling him Tolle, lege. How Krishna explained to Arjuna the virtue of his participation in the battle that was just about to begin, why he should take part in the bloodshed. A pervert form of "inner renunciation" and of "selfless action", one might say. Nonetheless, as more than two thousand years passed by, we are still sending soldiers to Afghanistan to seek some sort of virtue in the selfless fulfilment of what we call their duty. They lose their legs on old Soviet mines, certainly reaching far greater abnegation than those archers of the dawn of History, asking their divine mentors why on earth they should do such things. And Krishna explains.
Shooting at his adversaries during the great epic battle (the philosophical dialogue of some 700 verses make a part of Bhishma Parva, the 6th book among the 18 that make an even greater epic whole, Mahabharata), Arjuna is supposed to achieve some sort of synthesis of three spiritual dimensions, action (karma), knowledge (gyaana), and devotion (bhakti). This is what Krishna says, and Krishna is none other than the Lord Vishnu, i.e. his avatar. Although the text has a presumed human author, a rishi (sage) called Vyasa, it may be considered as a book of Revelation. This is why Bhagavadgītā is equally seen as a part of Prasthanatrayi, the Three Sources, together with Upanishads and Brahma sutras.
Part of many overlapping wholes, Bhagavadgītā's great wisdom may be resumed as a recommendation to look beyond the perspective of profit and loss, just like the outcome of the battle, a victory or a disaster, lays inward of the warrior's heroism. This is why I ask myself what actually happened, did Arjuna win this war, or to the contrary. In fact, it is not so very obvious. I suppose many an erudite person would be in trouble of telling who won in the Mahabharata. And who won in the Iliad? I suppose the Greek did, but it is all about the anger of Achilles, isn't it?
Well, in general, Mahabharatha is all about a war between two groups of cousins, Kauravas and Pandavas, who competed for the throne of Hastinapura (a city somewhere in Uttar Pradesh). It opens the Kali Yuga, the eon of cruelty and conflict in which we still live today (some people say it has been going on and on and on since the year 3102 BC). In the end, Pandavas won. Yudhishthira occupied the throne, and after many years he passed it on to Arjuna's grandson, Parikshit. So, in the end, it was worth it. Or not, because Arjuna died during the journey into the Himalayas, where the remaining Pandavas were to seek final enlightenment. So it was once again the pious Yudhishthira who was the sole survivor and the sole victor in the heaven of Dharma.
It is, as I presume, another important piece of wisdom to recall. However virtuous and heroic be the war we wage, it is usually someone else who takes the great prize. The hero's heroism is his sole reward.
