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 them a well-developed language and literature and set of
religious beliefs.

A. Vedic Period (1500 B.C.- 500 B.CC)

This period is named for the Vedas is a set of hymns that formed the cornerstone of Aryan culture. They are transmitted orally by
priests only and considered as the most sacred of all literature for they believe these to have been revealed to humans directly
by the gods.

The Rigveda means ‘hymns of supreme sacred knowledge’. Samhita is its foremost collection, made up of 1028 hymns. The
oldest of the Vedas, comparable to the Psalms in the Old Testament of Christians.

B. Epic and Buddhist Age (500 B.C.-A.D.)

The period of composition of the two great epics, Mahabarata and the Ramayana. This time was also the growth of later Vedic
literature, new Sanskrit literature, and Buddhist literature in Pali.

The Mahabarata, traditionally ascribed to the sage Vyasa, it tells of the struggle for supremacy between cousins, the Kauravas
and the Pandavas. 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).

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 by the Christians.

The Ramayana was composed in Sanskrit by the poet Valmiki and consists of some 24000 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.

C. Classical Period (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.
Poetry and drama peaked during this period.

The Panchatantra is a collection of Indian beast fables originally written in Sanskrit. It is intended as a textbook of artha (worldly
wisdom); the aphorisms tend to glorify shrewdness and cleverness more than helping others. The introduction, which acts as an
enclosing frame for the entire work, attributes the stories to a learned Brahman name Vishnusarman, who used the form of
animal fables to instruct the three dull-witted sons of a king.

Sakuntala, a Sanskrit drama by Kalidasa, tells of the love between Sakuntala and King Dushyanta. What begins as a physical
attraction for both of them becomes spiritual in the end as their love endures and surpasses all difficulties. 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.

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.

D. Medieval and Modern Age (A.D. 1000- present)

Persian influence on literature was considerable during this period. British influence was strong and modern-day Indians are
primarily educated in English.

Gitanjali: Song Offerings. Rabindranath Tagore uses imagery from nature to express the themes of love and the internal conflict
between spiritual longings and earthly desires.

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.

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.

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.

2.1 Hinduism, literally ‘the belief of the people of India’.

The Purusarthas are the three ends of man: dharma- virtue, duty, righteousness, moral law; artha- wealth; and karma- 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. Everything that seems to divide the soul from this reality is maya
or illusion. Life is viewed as an upward development through four stage of effort called the four asmaras: 1) the student stage-
applies to the rite of initiation into study of the Vedas; 2) the householder stage- marries and fulfills the duties as head of the
family where he begets sons and earns a living; 3)the stage of the forest dweller- departs from home and renounces the social
world; and 4) 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. The four Varnas serve as the
theoretical basis for the organization of the Hindu society. 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.

2.2 Buddhism 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 create those of the future.

The Dhammapada (Way of Truth) is an anthology of basic Buddhist teaching in a simple aphoristic style (short sentence
expressing a truth in fewest possible words).

3. MAJOR WRITERS
3.1 Kalidasa a Sanskrit poet and dramatist is probably the greatest Indian writer of all time. His poems suggest that he was a
Brahman (priest).
3.2 Rabindranath Tagore is the son of the great sage, Tagore, he is a Bengali poet and mystic who won the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1913. The death of his wife and two children brought him years of sadness but this also inspired some of his best
poetry. He is also a gifted composer and a painter.
3.3 Prem Chand pseudonym of Dhanpat Rai Srivastava, an Indian author of numerous novels and short stories in Hindi and Urdu
who pioneered in adapting Indian themes to Western literary styles. Some of his works are Sevasadana (House of Service),
Manasarovar (The Holy Lake), and Godan (The Gift of a Cow).
3.4 Kamala Markandaya, her works concern the struggles of contemporary Indians with conflcting Eastern and Western values.
Her first and most popular novel is the Nectar in a Sieve.
3.5 Arundhati Roy is a young female writer whose first book The God of Small Things won for her a Booker Prize.