1.
Paper 14: The African Literature
Subject : Re-reading the civilization against
Barbarism (with special ref. to India in
Gujarati novel KURUKSHETRA)
Presented by: Ruchi Joshi
ruchivjoshi101@gmail.com
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Department of English
Enrollment no. 2069108420200018
MA Semester 4
Batch year: 2019 - 21

2.
Barbarism
(Barbarism)
of, relating to, or
characteristic of a group of
people who are alien to
another land, culture, or
people and who are
usually believed to be
inferior
an idea, act, or expression
that in form or use offends
against contemporary
standards of good taste or
acceptability
Civilization
(Civilization)
a relatively high level of
cultural and technological
development
specifically : the stage of
cultural development at
which writing and the
keeping of written records
is attained
Meaning of Barbarism and Civilization

3.
Characteristics of Barbarians
Characteristics
of barbarian
Complex
culture
Usually
believed to
inferior
marked by a
lack of
restraint
Many times
they are
referred
wild
having a
bizarre,
primitive, or
unsophisticat
ed quality
Who
surrendered
their
cultural
autonomy

4.
Characteristics of Civilized
Characteristics
of Civilized
the process
of
becoming ci
vilized
Usually
believed to
superior /
authority
refinement
of thought,
manners, or
taste
a situation
of urban
comfort
Trade and
Availability
of Goods
Defined
Societal
Roles

5.
Acculturation
(contagion and Contamination)
• Are they not different terms for the same thing?
• If our attitudes towards the influence of civilization upon
primitives has usually been disapproving, it has at least been
realistic.
(Adams Civilizations, Barbarians, and Savages : The Social
and Political Nexus of Diffusion)

6.
Civilisation without Hierarchy?
(Bowden Civilisation and Hierarchy Go Hand-in-Hand)
• Standards of civilization are an explicit tool of hierarchy,
separating those admitted to the international society of
states from those deemed unworthy and denied entry, at
least until they can measure up. As the term standard
suggests in many contexts, standards of civilisation are
largely about widely accepted norms and expectations, or
the norm; in this case, what is required in terms of
perceptions about civilised behaviour.

7.
Barbarian in Early India
(Thapar The Image of the Barbarian in Early India)
Sanskrit word for Barbarian ‘mleccha’.
Represents a
cultural event
rather than a
linguistic fact
As a term of exclusion also carried
within it the possibility of
assimilation, in this case the process
by which the norms of the sub-
culture find their way in varying
levels.

8.
Who are real Barbarians on the name of civilization?
• Khandav Van is set afire by Arjun and Krishna as
coveted by Agni. (Jhaveri Mahabharat and
Environment)
• Friendship between Takshak Nag or snake tribe
could well be an earlier historical pact of peaceful
coexistence and cooperation between the force of
urbanizes and power of primitives.
Main plot
Story of Takshak and Tapti at
Khandav Van
Sub plot
War between Kauravas and
Pandvas

9.
As Rousseau eloquently put it…
“The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, to who it
occurred to say this is mine, and found people sufficiently simple to
believe him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes,
wars, murders, how many miseries and horrors” would humankind
“have been spared by him who, pulling up the stakes or filling in the
ditch, had cried out to his kind: Beware of listening to this impostor;
[y]ou are lost if you forget that the fruits are everyone’s and the Earth
no one’s.”

10.
incidents which discuss about Mleccha and Arya…
(Barbarian and Civilized)
Dhaumya Rishi’s talks
on assimination
Khandav Dahan
Education
Chitrarath
(aspect of negritude)
Takshak’s suffering in
between Arya and
Nagas
Approach of Takshak’s
father
Thought of Hinata
Questions to Dhaumya
Rishi
Fight of justice proved
NAGAS / snake tribes
as barbaric

11.
What may be justifiable is not necessarily inevitable!
(Jhaveri Mahabharat and Environment)
Arjuna
• Anagh
• Pious
• Without sin
• Kills many innocent
people on Khandav Van
by taking their land
Krishna
• Veer mahatma
• Brave and noble soul
Dhaumya Rishi
• Talks more ideally to
Yudhishthira about human
rights of Nagas
• Ideals are proved just ideals
and incapable of putting
them into real life with the
tribe community of Nagas
• Appears as if he works for
the betterment of snake
tribes but it is just show off
only
Here, juxtaposition is an
opportunity to set a stage where
unruly, impulsive and obdurate
violation of Khandav Van and
mask of civilization can be
counterpoised by a carefully
crafted catastrophe.
(De Mora The ‘Mahabharata’: A
Portrait of Humanity.)

12.
Burden of civilization?
the cradle of civilization is also war’s cradle
(Bowden Civilization and Its Consequences)
In barbarism people largely lived in towns, each such town being an
independent. In that civilization Khandavprashtha / Indraprastha
emerged and results into unknown barbarism of Nagas, a terror of
barbarism.
Since we slaughtered our own, what good can possibly come
from ruling?
Damn the ways of kings!
Damn might makes right!
Damn the turmoil that brought us to this disaster!
(Truschke The Indian epic Mahabharata imparts a dark,
nuanced moral vision – Audrey Truschke: Aeon Essays)

13.
Passing reference to the character of Rumi
Was eating from
trash, dust and
cow dunk
Screaming and
running behind
people
Was living with
dog (animal)
Civilized people
were throwing
Molestation
behind temple

14.
Rebuilding the meaning of Civilization
• As Emile Benveniste states, “[C]ivilité, a static term, was no longer sufficient,”
requiring the coining of a term that “had to be called civilization in order to define
together both its direction and continuity”
• “civilization is a powerful stimulus to theory,” and despite its ambiguities, there is an
overwhelming “temptation to clarify our thinking by elaborating a theory of civilization
capable of grounding a far-reaching philosophy of history.”
• J. B. Bury asserts that the “idea [of progress] means that civilization has moved, is
moving, and will move in a desirable direction.”

15.
References (1)
• “Barbarism.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-
Webster, www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/barbarism.
• “Civilization.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-
Webster, www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/civilization.

16.
Work cited (2)
• Adams, William Y. “Civilizations, Barbarians, and Savages : The Social and Political Nexus of
Diffusion.” Civilisations, vol. 25, no. 3/4, 1975, pp. 319–324. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/41229295. Accessed 26 Apr. 2021.
• Bowden, Brett, and About The Author(s) Brett Bowden is Professor of History and Politics at the
University of Western Sydney and Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales at
the Australian Defence Force Academy. His recent major publ. “Civilisation and Hierarchy Go
Hand-in-Hand.” E, 30 Apr. 2015, www.e-ir.info/2015/04/27/civilisation-and-hierarchy-go-hand-
in-hand/.
• Bowden, Brett. “Civilization and Its Consequences.” Oxford Handbooks Online, 11 Feb. 2016,
www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199935307.001.0001/oxfordhb-
9780199935307-e-30.
• De Mora, Juan Miguel. “The ‘Mahabharata’: A Portrait of Humanity.” Indian Literature, vol. 49,
no. 1 (225), 2005, pp. 137–145. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23346583. Accessed 26 Apr. 2021.

17.
Work Cited (3)
• J. W. Powell. “From Barbarism to Civilization.” American Anthropologist, vol. 1, no. 2,
1888, pp. 97–123. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/658712. Accessed 26 Apr. 2021.
• Jhaveri, Dileep. “Mahabharat and Environment.” Indian Literature, vol. 50, no. 5
(235), 2006, pp. 162–168. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23340742. Accessed 26 Apr.
2021.
• Thapar, Romila. “The Image of the Barbarian in Early India.” Comparative Studies in
Society and History, vol. 13, no. 4, 1971, pp. 408–436. JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/178208. Accessed 26 Apr. 2021.
• Truschke, Audrey. “The Indian Epic Mahabharata Imparts a Dark, Nuanced Moral
Vision – Audrey Truschke: Aeon Essays.” Aeon, Aeon, 26 Apr. 2021,
aeon.co/essays/the-indian-epic-mahabharata-imparts-a-dark-nuanced-moral-vision

18.
• . For Collingwood, “Civilization is something which
happens to a community…. Civilization is a process
of approximation to an ideal state” (1992, 283). In
essence, Collingwood is arguing that civilized
society—and thus civilization itself—is guided by
and operates according to the principles of the rule
of law. When we combine these three elements of
civilization, what they amount to is what I would
call sociopolitical civilization, or the capacity of a
collective to organize and govern itself under some
system of laws or constitution.