Indian literature

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With Indian literature , the literatures are called, which are written on the Indian subcontinent and since independence, Government of India in 1947 in India and written by Indian writers. Because of the multitude of languages ​​spoken and written in India, Indian literature can only be spoken in the plural.

Indian literatures are among the oldest literary traditions in the world. Classical Sanskrit poetry was replaced in the Middle Ages by the literatures of regional Indian languages ​​such as Hindi or Tamil . In the Mughal empires in northern India, Islamic poetry, mainly written in Urdu , was added from the 16th century . With the independence of the country in 1946, the romantic literature of the Indian regional languages ​​experienced a modernist counter-movement, with which new topics such as social issues came into focus. With the colonization of India as a British crown colony, English was added as another literary language of India.

Today in India there is literature in 24 languages ​​officially recognized by the Indian Academy of Literature, as well as literature in numerous Indian dialects.

Indian literature in classical ancient Indian languages

Scriptures of Hinduism

The oldest texts in Indian literature were written in Vedic and previously passed on orally. The literary works in the Vedic language are primarily religious, they form the main sacred texts of Hinduism . They were created anonymously by many scholars and priests.

The most important text is the Veda , a collection of hymns of the gods, religious formulas and regulations as well as theological-philosophical texts that were written between the second millennium BC. BC and 500 BC Were created. The Veda can be divided into four parts, Rigveda , Samaveda , Yajurveda and Atharvaveda . The earliest and most literary part of the Veda is the Rigveda, a collection of hymns to the gods. Following the Vedas, the Brahmanas (ritual texts), Aranyakas ("forest books") and the Upanishads (philosophical teachings) emerged.

Other important literary works of the Vedic period are the two epics Mahabharata and Ramayana . A component of the Mahabharata is the Bhagavadgita , a spiritual poem, perhaps the most important text for Hindus today. The Puranas are also an indispensable source for popular Hinduism . The Puranas are poetic stories that tell, among other things, about the creation of the world and the deeds of gods and heroes. The most famous Purana is the Bhagavatapurana , which is important for Vishnu worship.

Also of great importance is Arthashastra , which is often compared to Machiavelli's Il Principe . It is a state textbook that describes the duties of the king and strategic principles. The Manusmriti , the "Code of Manu", is a moral guide that sets up ethical rules and norms for social life. The Kamasutra , the oldest surviving erotic textbook from India , has also become known in the West .

Buddhist scriptures

The teachings of the Indian sage Gautama, called Buddha (died approx. 480 BC), have been handed down in a large number of writings, some of which are included in world literature. Many early Buddhist scriptures are not written in Sanskrit, but in Pali , which, along with Sanskrit and Tamil, is one of the classic literary languages ​​of India. The most important literary works of early Buddhism in India include collections of teaching lectures such as the Pali canon , the Digha-Nikaja and the Kuddaka-Nikaja. The most important work of Buddhism in Sanskrit is A Life of the Buddha, written by Ashvaghosha around 100 AD.

Classical art poetry in Sanskrit (approx. 200 BC to 1200 AD)

Sanskrit developed from the Vedic language . Often one speaks of Vedic Sanskrit and the later classical Sanskrit (from 500 BC).

From around 200 BC One speaks of the classical Indian Sanskrit poetry, which flourished between 400 and 700 AD. Important Sanskrit poets were the poet and playwright Kalidasa (around the end of the 4th century AD) and the poets Bhartrihari (7th century) and Amaru (9th century). Kalidasa's drama Shakuntala also fascinated Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , who wrote a poem called Sakontala . The poetry of the Bengali author Djajadeva has been called the Indian Song of Songs.

In addition to drama and poetry, the novel and fairy tale poetry are also establishing themselves as separate literary genres. The ten princes by the poet and poet Dandin is considered the most important novel of this time . Examples of the extensive Indian fairy tale poetry, which also influenced Arabic, Persian and European fairy tales, are the fable book Pantshatantra (probably written around 300 AD in Kashmir) and Shukasaptati (The Parrot's Seventy Tales).

Old Tamil literature

In South India, Tamil was the first to develop into a classical literary language. Alongside Sanskrit and Pali, Tamil is an important classical literary language in India. It can look back on a literary tradition stretching back over 2000 years. Sangam literature , which was not influenced by Sanskrit, dates from the heyday of early Tamil . In addition to the glorification of heroic deeds of kings and warriors, it mainly includes love poetry. The most important work of classical Tamil literature is the Kural from the 1st to 3rd centuries, a lyrical work with aphorisms on the subjects of virtue, prosperity and enjoyment.

UV Swaminatha Iyer edited numerous rediscovered manuscripts of the largely forgotten Sangam literature at the end of the 19th century and is considered the founder of the Tamil renaissance .

Indian Middle Ages

The Indian Middle Ages as a literary epoch extends from the 10th to the 18th century. This epoch is characterized by a large number of literatures in the various regional languages: From the 12th century, Sanskrit lost more and more of its importance as a literary language. New languages ​​emerged from Sanskrit or the Central Indian Prakrit languages ​​in northern India. In the north of India the languages Bengali , Gujarati , Hindi , Kashmiri , Marathi , Oriya , Punjabi , which became the language of Sikhism , and Sindhi , all developed their own literary traditions.

Monument to Narsinh Mehta in Vadodara

Narsinh Mehta is considered to be the founder of Gujarati literature in the 15th century , whose price songs were only passed down orally in the original language.

In the south of India, in addition to Tamil, the languages Kannada , Telugu and Malayalam developed , for which the first literary works were written around the 9th century. The large collection of Malayalam poems, Ramacharitham , was created around 1200. Later, dance theater and drama developed, with Sanskrit influences leading to the development of Manipravalam , which was cultivated by the educated .

Mirabai

The influence of the mystical bhakti movement increasingly gave rise to religious poems of Hinduism in the regional languages ​​or translations of older Sanskrit scriptures, which were thus accessible to larger circles of the Indian people. The bhakti scriptures were devoted to devotional worship of God. Outstanding representatives of this new literature include Kabir in Hindi and Chandidasa in Bengali . The poet Mirabai (1498 – ca. 1546) wrote her love, price and lamentation songs in Rajasthani , but was influenced by the Bhakti poets in Hindi. Her songs have been handed down in several regional languages.

The influence of Islam on Indian art, architecture and literature begins in the Indian Middle Ages. The Persian elite of that time brought Persian to India as a literary language. In this context, the Urdu poetry developed, which merged Islamic-Persian and Indian elements. Urdu literature flourished particularly in the Mughal empires of the north, where it was promoted by the court and the nobility. An important Urdu poet was Amir Khusrav , a poet of the Delhi Sultanate. The ghosts of the poet Mirza Ghalib are also known .

19th century

Bengali literature

In the 19th century the western influence on Indian literature increased. Missionary William Carey founded the first newspaper to appear in the local language of the English crown colony of Bengal . Since the 1850s, Bengal, with the capital Calcutta, has developed into one of the most important industrial centers in India and played a leading role in Indian politics and culture. This gave Bengali literature an upswing. Its best-known representative beyond India is the Bengali writer Rabindranath Thakur (anglicized spelling: Tangore), who received the Nobel Prize in 1913. Among other things, Thakur wrote poetry in Bengali and dramas. The poet himself translated part of his work into English. Swarnakumari Devi , an older sister of Thakur, wrote novels in Bengali in the 1870s and promoted the development of a modern vocabulary. The older brother of the two, Dwijendranath Thakur , translated classical Sanskrit texts into Bengali and wrote poetry.

Madhusudan bun

As founder of the "Bengal Renaissance" applies Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824-1873), one in present-day Bangladesh -born author of epics, poetry, plays in European style with nude and scene classification and creator of the Bengali sonnet and led the blank verse in Bengali poetry a. Kaliprasanna Singha (approx. 1841–1870) was a sponsor of the Bengali theater from an early age. He also translated the Mahabharata into Bengali.

Malayalam literature

Under the influence of missionaries, especially the grammar and Bible translation of the German Hermann Gundert , Malayalam also became the modern literary language. In Venmani Achhan Nambudiripad's work , western elements merged with Sanskrit traditions. Vengayil Kunhiraman Nayanar is considered a modern prose writer and the author of the first short stories, and Appu Nedungadi was the first novelist .

Hindi literature

Hindi literature originated mainly in Rajputana (modern day Rajasthan ) and Avadh (part of modern day Uttar Pradesh ). Here Suryamal Misran (1815–1868) contributed to the development of modern Hindu nationalism with his glorification of the Hindu heroes and supported the uprising of 1857.

English-language literature

Under the influence of the British, there was also an English-language literature by Indian authors . The first authors in the early 19th century were inspired by the spirit of European romanticism. Representatives of this reformist movement included the Brahmin Ram Mohan Roy , who was influenced by Christianity and Indian Islam , who wrote not only enlightened texts critical of religion but also in Bengali and Persian, and Henry Louis Vivian Derozio (1809–1831), who had Portuguese and Bengali ancestors. Krupabai Satthianadhan was one of the first Indian women to write English-language novels with a reformist perspective in women's education.

Since the late 19th century, English, originally only a colonial language in British India , established itself as an important literary language in India. For one, British journalists and writers based in India began writing English-language articles, essays, short stories, and serialized novels for Indian audiences. Popular texts were later published in the British homeland as well. This Anglo-Indian literature , which is located somewhere between the exotic and everyday colonial life, includes Rudyard Kipling's novels such as Kim (1901) and Edward Morgan Foster 's `` A Passage to India '' (1924). With the withdrawal of the British colonial power from India, this literature ran out.

20th century

In regional languages

Amrita Pritam (1948); Author: Amarjit Chandan Collection

Many Indian literatures experienced a renaissance at the end of the 19th century, such as the literature in Kannada , which also drew from Western influences and introduced new genres such as the novel and the short story, and the literature in Tamil and Punjabi . Other authors turned to traditional forms and strove for their renaissance. Such endeavors were often combined with a commitment to nationalist movements, as in the case of Vallathol Narayana Menon (1878–1958), who wrote in Malayalam and who revived traditional dance in Kerala .

Important authors were the important poet Amrita Pritam (1919-2005) who wrote in Panjabi, the novelist Premchand (1880-1936, in Hindi) and the poets Subramanya Bharati (1882-1921, in Tamil) and Muhammad Iqbal (1870-1931, in Urdu). Vishram Bedekar , Shantaram Athavale, and Kiran Nagarkar were writers and screenwriters who wrote in Marathi. Nagarkar, who describes life in Moloch Mumbai , later switched to English.

Mahasweta Devi (2000)

One of the outstanding modernist authors who wrote in Gujarati was Suresh Joshi (1921–1986), who published his first poem at the age of eight. He is considered to be the founder of modern prose and experimental poetry in Gujarati in the 1960s and also emerged as an essayist , literary critic and translator. Even Anil R. Joshi (born 1940) poetry and essays written in Gujarati. He especially cultivated the traditional form of Ghazel poetry . Vijaydan Detha (1926–2013) wrote popular short stories in Rajasthani ; they have all been translated into Hindi.

Suresh Joshi at the age of 45

Thinakkal Padmanabhan (* 1931) writes in Malayalam, the language of southern Drake. He declined to accept several literary prizes, including a. because the form of the short story is insufficiently promoted by the awardees.

As a literary language , Assamese had a difficult time compared to Bengali. Among the authors who write in the Assamese language were the singers and poets Kamalakanta Bhattacharya and Bishnu Prasad Rabha (1909–1969). Mahasweta Devi dealt with the situation of disadvantaged people in post-colonial West Bengal ; she wrote short stories and journalistically researched novels from an almost ethnographic perspective in the Bengali language with dialect coloring.

A Kannada-speaking author has won the Jnanpith Award , the most important Indian literary prize, seven times , most recently the screenwriter and director Girish Karnad (1998) and UR Ananthamurthy (1994).

In English

With the Indian national movement and the independence of India, socially critical or current issues gained importance in the 20th century: the life of the poor and untouchable (in the novels of Mulk Raj Anand of the 1930s) or the everyday reality of the Indian middle class (in the work of Anita Desai who, as the daughter of a German mother, has a European view of the Indian family structures and later compares them with American families). Her novels (such as Clear Light of Day , 1980) reflect autobiographical experiences as well as the historical aftermath of the partition of India in 1947. Her books have been nominated for the Booker Prize three times.

With increasing mobility in the second half of the 20th century, more and more authors can be found who commute between India and Western cultures. Especially from this group of authors, many names have now achieved international fame and are counted among world literature, such as B. Salman Rushdie . Vikram Seth wrote the monumental epic A suitable boy (Eng. A good part, 1995). Arundhati Roy became internationally known for her novel The God of Little Things , for which she received the Man Booker Prize in 1997 .

Contemporary literature

Contemporary Indian literature not only encompasses all of the major written languages ​​in the country, but also covers a wide range of subjects. However, many English-speaking authors live abroad and, in addition to foreign readers, often only reach a small Indian elite, while the undemanding entertainment literature is mostly published in the regional languages.

In regional languages

The journalist Nirupama Dutt publishes poetry and prose mainly in Pandjabi. The modern Urdu authors include Rahman Abbas (* 1972), the novels and short stories u. a. on the individual consequences of the ongoing conflict between Hindus and Muslims, and the poet Munawwar Rana (* 1952), who often uses Hindi words instead of Arabic and Persian terms in order to make his poems easier to read for people who do not speak Urdu.

In English

Neel Mukherjee (2018)

Contemporary Indian literature vacillates between following the conservative religious-political-aesthetic turn and revolting against the encrusted social structures. Critical contemporary Indian authors who write in English and whose works have also been translated into German are the globalization critic Arundhati Roy , Rohinton Mistry , who now lives in Canada, and the social anthropologist, non-fiction and novelist Amitav Ghosh , who lives in the USA . Neel Mukherjee's socially critical and pessimistic novel The Lives of Others (German: Life in one breath ) deals with political extremism. Mukherjee's book and other works have received several awards; the author now lives in London. The terrorist threat is also a topic in the novel “In the company of small bombs” (2017) by Karan Mahajan (* 1984), who lives in New York. Preti Taneja's family saga That we are young (2017; Eng : “We who we are young”, 2019) questions the patriarchal power structure and uses motifs from King Lear . Also Kavita Daswani treated subjects from personal experience of arranged marriage and emigration ( "Love happens or marriage to Indian", dt of 2007.); she lives in the USA.

Indian book market, book fairs and literary prizes

The contemporary book market in India developed rapidly. According to estimates, there were 16,000 publishers in India in 2006 with around 70,000 new publications per year, almost half of which were in English and the rest in Indian regional languages. A large turnover is made especially with school books.

The international publishing group Penguin Random House mainly represents the English-language literature of India, which also dominates within the country. Literature in regional languages ​​is still - often wrongly - considered provincial; one reason why there are few translations in western languages. English-language literature also dominates because of the cultural arrogance of the elites; it is often written for the world market or for people of Indian origin living from Canada to New Zealand and hardly leaves out a cliché. Many overseas writers have become deeply estranged from the realities of India. However, some authors such as Rushdie pursue a hybridization ("chutneyization") of the English language and style.

Two of the world's largest book fairs are held annually in India, the Kolkata Book Fair in Calcutta and the New Delhi World Book Fair in New Delhi . The Frankfurt Book Fair has already invited India as a guest country twice: in 1986 and 2006.

Founded in 1954, the Sahitya Akademi Award , once an important literary prize for authors who write in the official regional languages ​​or English, has been awarded by around 40 previous winners since 1973, including a. returned by Rahman Abbas, Munawwar Rana and Anil R. Joshi. This took place partly for religious reasons or because of disputes over copyrights, but since 2015 mainly in protest against the intolerant Hindu chauvinism of the Narendra Modi government and because of the murder of the author and scholar MM Kalburgi in 2015.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Kämchen: India's Literature Academy: There are so many mother tongues . In: FAZ.NET . February 17, 2009, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed February 28, 2018]).
  2. ↑ Hanns W. Eppelsheimer: Handbuch der Weltliteratur . 3. Edition. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1960, p. 20-21 .
  3. ↑ Erwin Laaths: History of world literature . German Book Association, Stuttgart / Hamburg 1953, DNB  1100888187 , p. 172 .
  4. ↑ Sisi Kumar Das: Indian Literature - A Historical Review . In: Martin Kämchen (ed.): Indian literature of the present . edition text + kritik, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-88377-846-X , p. 29 .
  5. ↑ Hanns W. Eppelsheimer: Handbuch der Weltliteratur . 3. Edition. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1960, p. 22-23 .
  6. ↑ a b Hanns W. Eppelsheimer: Handbuch der Weltliteratur . 3. Edition. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1960, p. 23 .
  7. ↑ Sisi Kumar Das: Indian Literature - A Historical Review . In: Martin Kämchen (ed.): Indian literature of the present . edition text + kritik, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-88377-846-X , p. 36 .
  8. ↑ Hanns W. Eppelsheimer: Handbuch der Weltliteratur . 3. Edition. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1960, p. 24-26 .
  9. ↑ a b Hanns W. Eppelsheimer: Handbuch der Weltliteratur . 3. Edition. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1960, p. 26 .
  10. ↑ Erwin Laaths: History of world literature . German Book Association, Stuttgart / Hamburg 1953, p. 181-183 .
  11. ↑ Hanns W. Eppelsheimer: Handbuch der Weltliteratur . 3. Edition. Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1960, p. 30-32 .
  12. ↑ Erwin Laaths: History of world literature . German Book Association, Stuttgart / Hamburg 1953, p. 184-185 .
  13. ↑ Sisi Kumar Das: Indian Literature - A Historical Review . In: Martin Kämchen (ed.): Indian literature of the present . edition text + kritik, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-88377-846-X , p. 37-38 .
  14. ↑ Sisi Kumar Das: Indian Literature - A Historical Review . In: Martin Kämchen (ed.): Indian literature of the present . edition text + kritik, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-88377-846-X , p. 39-40 .
  15. ^ Romila Thapar, Percival Spear: India: From the beginnings to colonialism . Magnus Verlag, Essen 1975, p. 427-429 .
  16. ↑ Sisi Kumar Das: Indian Literature - A Historical Review . In: Martin Kämchen (ed.): Indian literature of the present . edition text + kritik, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-88377-846-X , p. 46-47 .
  17. ^ Romila Thapar, Percival Spear: India: From the beginnings to colonialism . Magnus Verlag, Essen 1975, p. 429 .
  18. ↑ Erwin Laaths: History of world literature . German Book Association, Stuttgart / Hamburg 1953, p. 186 .
  19. ^ Gerhard Stiltz: The Anglo-Indian Short Story: History of a Colonial Literature. Berlin 2017.
  20. ^ Gerhard Stiltz: The Anglophone Literature in India . In: Rüdiger Ahrens, Wolf-Dietrich Bald, Werner Hüllen (ed.): Handbook of English as a Foreign Language . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-503-03067-0 , p. 473 .
  21. ↑ Sisi Kumar Das: Indian Literature - A Historical Review . In: Martin Kämchen (ed.): Indian literature of the present . edition text + kritik, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-88377-846-X , p. 56 .
  22. ^ Gerhard Stilz: The Anglophone Literature in India . In: Rüdiger Ahrens, Wolf-Dietrich Bald, Werner Hüllen (ed.): Handbook of English as a Foreign Language . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-503-03067-0 , p. 473-475 .
  23. ^ Martin Kämchen: Indian literature of the present . edition text + kritik, Munich 2006, ISBN 3-88377-846-X .
  24. ↑ Martin Kämchen: The Indian book market: In the colorful chaos of the mind . In: FAZ.NET . September 28, 2006, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed February 28, 2018]).
  25. ^ Iliya Trojanov: Between Bombay and Berlin. In: Faz.net, September 24, 2006.