Indian Literature

What is Literature?

It is a fictional written full of meaning selected words-based text, fruit of a disciplined writer's imagination about human condition and a type of world different from the real one that models ourselves through reading and causes delight as well as produces emotions on the reader and whose purpose is mainly aesthetics.

Indian literature is usually considered one of the oldest in the world.

The early Indian literature (XIIth century BC), like the rest of Eastern literature, is characterized by its strong religious breath. It is the first literature of the Far East people, which, through the Aryans, was related to the Western world through emigration.

The Vedas, sacred books, written in Sanskrit, are the first model of Indian literature. They represent mythical narratives of sacred art.

The form and style of classic Sanskrit literature are usually different from the Vedic ones. Thus, while the literature of the Vedic period gave prose works as the Yajur-Veda, the Brahmana (commentaries related to the Vedas) and the Upanishads (scriptures explaining the mystical aspect of reality, the nature of God and the relationship between the soul and matter), of a high level, the classical Sanskrit used the prose only for scientific texts and grammar and philosophy, as well as short stories, novels and some plays.

The Vedas

The Vedas (Sanskrit वेदाः véda, "knowledge") are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, these texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. They were written by Vyasa.

The vedas are divided in four books:

The Rigveda, containing hymns to be recited by the hotar, or presiding priest;

The Yajurveda, containing formulas to be recited by the adhvaryu or officiating priest;

The Samaveda, containing formulas to be sung by the udgatar or priest that chants;

The Atharvaveda, a collection of spells and incantations, apotropaic charms and speculative hymns.

The Great epics of ancient Indian literature

Two great epic poems constitute the epics of the Indian people: the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. This literature, which genre is the Puranas, is oriented towards Hinduism. These poems were transmitted by oral and written tradition.

RAMAYANA

Written by Valmiki. It consists in seven books or “Kandas” and depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal father, ideal servant, the ideal brother, the ideal wife and the ideal king. It tells the story of Rama (an avatar of the Hindu Supreme-God Vishnu), whose wife Sita is abducted by the king of Ravan.

Seven Kandas:

1. Bala Kanda (book of childhood)

2. Ayodhya Kanda

3. Aranya Kanda (book of the forest)

4. Kishkindha Kanda (book of the monkey kingdom)

5. Sundara Kanda (book of beauty)

6. Yuddha Kanda (book of war)

7. Uttara Kanda (Last book)

MAHABHARATA

Traditionally attributed to Vyasa. Besides its epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kaurava and the Pandava princes, the Mahabharata contains much philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or purusharthas (12.161). Among the principal works and stories that are a part of the Mahabharata are the Bhagavad Gita, the story of Damayanti, an abbreviated version of the Ramayana, and the Rishyasringa, often considered as works in their own right.

The Puranas

The Puranas are ancient Hindu texts eulogizing various deities, primarily the divine Trimurti God in Hinduism through divine stories. Puranas may also be described as a genre of important Hindu religious texts alongside some Jain and Buddhist religious texts, notably consisting of narratives of the history of the universe from creation to destruction, genealogies of kings, heroes, sages, and demigods, and descriptions of Hindu cosmology, philosophy, and geography.

Literary representatives

Ancient Literature

VALMIKI

Valmiki (Sanskrit: वाल्मीकि; Vālmīki) is celebrated as the harbinger-poet in Sanskrit literature. He is the author of the epic Rāmāyaṇa, based on the attribution in the text of the epic itself. He is revered as the Ādi Kavi, which translates to First Poet, for he invented śloka (i.e. first verse or epic metre), which set the base and defined the form to Sanskrit poetry.

Hagiography: Legend has it that Valmiki was the son of a king. With just a few months old was abandoned by his family in the forest. Thieves found, they called Vailía Koli and taught his craft. Over the years, Valmiki started a family, which kept robbing travelers. Another legend says that the god Brahma appeared before him and said that Valmiki wrote the Ramayana.

VYASA

Vyasa (Devanagari: व्यास, vyāsa) is a central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions. He is also sometimes called Veda Vyasa (वेद व्यास, veda vyāsa). He is the author of the Mahabharata, as well as a character in it. He is considered to be the scribe of both the Vedas and Puranas. Vyasa is a kala-Avatar or part-incarnation of the God Vishnu. 

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RABINDRANATH THAKUR

Rabindranath Thakur, anglicised to Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali, he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing the best of Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of modern South Asia.

His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced), and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. 

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JHUMPA LAHIRI

Jhumpa Lahiri (Bengali: ঝুম্পা লাহিড়ী; born on July 11, 1967) is an Indian American author. Lahiri's debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies (1999), won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her first novel, The Namesake (2003), was adapted into the popular film of the same name.

Lahiri is a member of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, appointed by U.S. President Barack Obama.

Lahiri's writing is characterized by her "plain" language and her characters, often Indian immigrants to America who must navigate between the cultural values of their homeland and their adopted home.Lahiri's fiction is autobiographical and frequently draws upon her own experiences as well as those of her parents, friends, acquaintances, and others in the Bengali communities with which she is familiar. Lahiri examines her characters' struggles, anxieties, and biases to chronicle the nuances and details of immigrant psychology and behavior.