Lesson 4: Indian Literature

1. Afro-Asian Literature
The Indian Literature
Reported By:
Ma. Theresa P. Abellada
Kaye U. Alejandrino
Joycelene P. Hidalgo
Angela Lagsa
Shannon Lyn L. Nombrado
“Namaste!”
HISTORY and BACKGROUND
Hinduism developed out of a
multiplicity of local gods, goddesses, and
heroes.
Gradually the belief arose that all these
gods were manifestation of the OneBrahma.
Thus in India we find a multiplicity of
ethnic groups-- hundreds of separate
languages are spoken-- a multiplicity of
castes within each community-- and the
worship of a multiplicity of gods that vary
according to locality, caste, and personal
preference.
Although there are many local
deities, there are certain deities that are
believed to be preeminent, and are widely
recognized. Four in particular are of major
importance:
Brahma-- the creator
Vishnu-- the preserver
Shiva-- the destroyer
Kali/Durga/Parvati-- the goddess in
three incarnations: death and destruction,
maiden, and mother.
Reincarnation- is the religious or
philosophical concept that the soul or spirit,
after biological death, begins a new life in a
new body.
Karma- the universal causal law by
which good or bad actions determine the
future modes of an individual’s existence.
Moksha- the achievement of
spiritual perfection which will enable the
soul to achieve release from the wheel of
life, and attain oneness with Brahma.
Buddhism first arose in India in the
6th BC as an alternative to Hinduism. It was
accepted By King Asoka in the 3rd BC.
Buddhist monuments and shrines
are to be found in many parts of India.
Among the most important are the stupas.
A stupa is a monument which either
shelters a sacred relic, or marks the site of
an important event in the life of a Buddhist
saint.
Islamic art in India includes fine
examples of painting and architecture; the
best known example is the TajMahal , a
tomb built for MumtazMahal, the wife of the
Mogul emperor, Shah Jehan. Islamic style
in India shares many features with the
Islamic traditions of Persia.
Characteristics of Indian Literature
There are three observable characteristics
of Indian Literature.
1. Indian literature is based on piety, a
deeply religious spirit.
The oldest know literature in India is
the Vedas. According to Hindu
tradition,
the
Vedas
are apauruṣ eya “not
of
human
agency”, are supposed to have been
directly revealed, and thus are
called śruti (“what is heard”). This
contains hymns and prayers for
gods.
Vedas- contains hymns address to
Indian gods.
Indians believe that a knowledge of
gods and a strong belief in Hinduism
is necessary to save mankind.
2. Indian literary masterpieces are written in
epic form, corresponds to the great epochs
in the history of India.
The
Ramayana
and
the
Mahabharata
are
the
most
important epics of India; the latter is
the longest epic in the world.
The
Indians
believe
in reincarnation, meaning that the
soul of a person after death returns
to the earth in the body of another
person, animal or even a plant.
Consequently, they believe in
kindness to other people and to

2. animals. They also abstain from
destroying plants because in that
plant might be reincarnated one’s
dead elative.
MAHARABATA
The Mahabharata tells the story of two sets
of paternal first cousins--the five sons of the
deceased king Pandu (the five Pandavas
and the one hundred sons of blind King
Dhritarashtra--who became bitter rivals, and
opposed each other in war for possession of
the ancestral Bharata kingdom with its
capital in the "City of the Elephants,"
Hastinapura , on the Ganga river in north
central India. What is dramatically
interesting within this simple opposition is
the large number of individual agendas the
many characters pursue, and the numerous
personal conflicts, ethical puzzles, subplots,
and plot twists that give the story a strikingly
powerful development.
GITANJALI
most intricate which leads to the utter
simplicity of a tune.
The traveller has to knock at every alien
door to come to his own, and one has to
wander through all the outer worlds to reach
the innermost shrine at the end.
My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut
them and said 'Here art thou!'
The question and the cry 'Oh, where?' melt
into tears of a thousand streams and deluge
the world with the flood of the assurance 'I
am!'”— Song XII, Gitanjali, 1913
If thou speakest not I will fill my heart with thy
silence and
endure it. I will keep still and wait like the night
(Bengali:
) is a collection of poems by
the Indian poet Rabindranath
Tagore.
The
original Bengali collection of 157 poems was
published
on
August
14,
1910.
The
English Gitanjali or Song Offerings is a collection
of 103 English poems of Tagore's own English
translations of his Bengali poems first published
in November 1912 by the India Society of
London. It contained translations of 53 poems
from the original Bengali Gitanjali, as well as 50
other
poems
which
were
from
his
drama Achalayatan and eight other books of
poetry
—
mainly Gitimalya (17
poems), Naivedya (15 poems) and Kheya(11
poems).
“The time that my journey takes is long and
the way of it long.
I came out on the chariot of the first gleam
of light, and pursued my voyage through the
wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on
many a star and planet.
It is the most distant course that comes
nearest to thyself, and that training is the
with starry
vigil and its head bent low with patience.
The morning will surely come, the darkness will
vanish, and
thy voice pour down in golden streams breaking
through the sky.
Then thy words will take wing in songs from
every one of my
birds' nests, and thy melodies will break forth in
flowers in all
-Gitanjali- XIX