Indian Literature I INTRODUCTION Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things Indian author Arundhati Roy poses with a copy of her acclaimed first novel, The God of Small Things (1997). The book, set in southern India, uses vivid, compelling language and imagery to tell the story of a once-prominent family’s decline. The excerpt heard here comes from the beginning of the book, when Rahel, the main character, returns to her childhood home after many years away. Express Newspapers/Archive Photos/"The God of Small Things" written by Arundhati Roy, (c)1997 Arundhati Roy. Courtesy of Harper Perennial, a division of HarperCollins Publishers. (p)2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Indian Literature, writings in the languages and literary traditions of the Indian subcontinent. The subcontinent consists of three countries: India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. The political division of the area into three nations took place in the 20th century; before that, the entire region was generally referred to as India. For centuries Indian society has been characterized by diversity—the people of modern India speak 18 major languages and many other minor languages and dialects; Urdu is the principal language of Pakistan, and Urdu and Bengali are used in Bangladesh. The people of the subcontinent also practice all the world’s major religions. Throughout its history, India has absorbed and transformed the cultures of the peoples who have moved through the region. As a result, the Indian literary tradition is one of the world’s oldest and richest. Religion has long exercised a strong influence on Indian writing. The major religions of the area have been Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Islam. Throughout the history of Indian literature, certain religious doctrines have formed common threads. One such doctrine is karma—the chain of good and bad actions and their inevitable consequences, which result in the repeated birth and death of the soul. The mythology of the dominant Hindu religion portrays the deities Vishnu, Shiva, the Goddess (Devi), and others. This mythology has influenced Indian texts, from ancient epics in the Sanskrit language to medieval poems in the various languages of different regions to modern works in English. The Vedas, which are Hindu sacred texts, are the earliest examples of Indian literature. The Vedas were composed between about 1500 BC and 1000 BC in Old Sanskrit, also called Vedic Sanskrit. This language belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. Indo-Aryan languages dominated northern India in ancient times, and Sanskrit became the major language of Indian religious and philosophical writing and classical literature. It also served as a common language with which scholars from different regions could communicate. No longer spoken widely, it is maintained as a literary language in modern India, meaning that people still use it for written works. The emergence of the popular religions Buddhism and Jainism in the 6th century BC gave rise to literature in Pali and in the several dialects of Sanskrit known as Prakrit (meaning “natural language”). Meanwhile, Tamil, a Dravidian language, emerged as the most important language in the south. A recorded literature in Tamil dates from the 1st century AD. Rich literary traditions have emerged in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam, which are modern languages that developed from Old Tamil and its dialects. Between the 10th and 18th centuries, the medieval dialects of the earlier languages evolved into the modern languages of India. Eighteen of these languages now have official status in India, as does English. As the different tongues evolved, a distinctive literature with particular styles and themes developed in each tongue. At the same time, Indian literature was influenced by the Persian language and its literature, which various Muslim conquerors brought to the Indian subcontinent. Muslims also introduced Islam to India, and Islamic philosophy and traditions affected Indian literature. After the British became active in India in the 1700s, English language and writing had a significant impact on Indian literature. Oral traditions have always been important in Indian literature. Many storytellers present traditional Indian texts by reciting them, often with improvisation. Others use song, dance, or drama to tell tales. In both its oral and written forms, Indian literature has produced great works that have influenced national and regional literary traditions in other parts of the world. II 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. Angelo Hornak/Corbis 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 Rama and Sita Rama is the hero of the Hindu epic the Ramayana. He is shown here with his wife, Sita, in a bas-relief sculpture from a 9th-century Hindu temple in Java, Indonesia. Charles and Josette Lenars/Corbis 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. Mahabharata This illustration is from a 16th-century manuscript of the Mahabharata, an Indian epic poem. It portrays a chariot fight between two related noble families, the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York 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.