Why
Comparative Indian Literature – Sisir Kumar Das
Remak
defines Comparative Literature as
“the
study of literature beyond the confines of one particular country,
and the study of relationship between literatures on the one hand and
other areas of knowledge and belief such as the arts (e.g.painting,
sculpture, architecture and music )the arts( e.g. politics economics
sociology) he sciences religion etc. On the other”.
Greatness
of Comparative Literature lies in its inerdisciplinary appraoch.
This interdisciplinary field provides us infinite scope to study
literature across national boarders, time periods , languages,
genres and it crosses boundaries between literature and other art
forms.
Comparative
Literature works in the history of national as well as international
conditions. It employs more or less prominently the comparaive method
logial and historical, it presupposes and results in, a concept of
literaure as a solidarity, and it seeks o formulate and subsantiate a
theory of lierary deveolpment whether by evolution or permutation, in
movements, types and themes(Gayley 71).
Sisir
Kumar Das- Biography
A
poet,playwright,writer,scholar,linguist,comparatist translator- Sisir
Kumar Das was a multifaceted genius He had an impeccable academic
career.He obtained two doctoral degree from Culcutta University and
London University.His teaching career extended to 38 years. He is a
pioneer in Comparative Literature movement in India.His two volume
book 'History of Indian Literature covering the period from 1800 to
1956 was published by Sahitya Akademi.He
is consisdered as the Doyen of Indian literary historiographers.He
always recommended for comparative literature.
Sisir
Kumar Das has recognised the necessity of Comparative Literature and
he says
“I
have been trying to say this (that compartmentalised literary
Education” should be immediately done away with) for a long
time.Whether study of literature or reading of literature, call it
whatever, would remain incomplete if not approached comparatively.”
Text-
“Why Comparative Indian Literature?”
1
The
very idea of Indian Comparative Literature was built on unity of
themes forms and attitude among the various literatures produced in
different Indian languages during the last 3000 years or so.
According to Sisir Kumar Das this was just a manifestation of anxiety
to discover essential threads of unity in multilingual multireligious
culture. Comparative Indian Literature is still a child which cannot
stand on its own feet.
What
is Indian Literature?
Indian
Literature is not the sum total of literatures written in Indian
Languages.
2.
“Indian Literature must be taken as a complex of literary
relations and any study of Indian Literature must reflect that it is
not only about unity but also about diversity. We must find out the
relation between comparative literature and Comparative Indian
Literature”(Das, Why Indian CL 95)
Comparative
Literature
1.It
emerged as a new discipline to counteract the notion of the autonomy
of national literatures.
2.Its
aim was to “visualize the total literary activities of man as a
single universe”.
3.The
minimum of comparative study is to start with atleast two
literatures.But to its maximum it views literature produced on all
languages and in all countries as an indivisible whole.
4.The
main dilemma of the comparatist, then is to reconcile his idea of
literature as a single universe of verbal expression with his ability
to study it in its totality.
5.So
a comparatist make compromises and to delimit his are of
investigation according to his ability. This is why every comparatist
is anxious to make serious distiction between Comparative Literature
and World Literature.
3.
Goethe
in his Weltlilterature says
“
The
epoch of world literature is at hand and everyone must strive to
hasten its approach”.We assume that by Weltliterature he meant the
memorable works in all languages of the world, rather than assemblage
of all literatures.The same notion worked in the case of Indian
Comparative Literature.
4
Comparatists
are concerned mainly with the relationships, the resemblances and
differences between national literatures with their convergence and
divergence.For doing that one has to work within a rigorous framework
to avoid subjective predilection and present preferences.He should
come out of narrow geographical and language barriers to arrive at a
certain general understanding of literary activities of man and to
helpto create a universal poetics.While Comparative Literature is a
method of investigation, World literature is a body of valuable
literary work.
Comparative
literature differs from the study of single literatures not in
method but in matter, attitude and perspective.It can go on extending
its area of operation.Its ultimate limit is the literature of the
whole world.Its strength and weakness lie in its cosmopolitanism.
5Das
harshly critisises Western Comparative Literature. The western
comparatist restricted their study within western literature, though
the contact between western and eastern literature started very early
in the history.Francois Jost admits that “Western criticism ...is
still reluctant to integrate into the corpus of literature the
literatures of the so called exotic continents for no reason however
other than ignorance of exotic civilization and languages.”This is
because of prejudice against 'exotic civilizations. It disdains the
efforts of of hundred of scholars and translators who worked in
Arabic Persian and Sanskrit.Das point out that Euro centrism is not
the cause of such degradation The comparatist were prompted more by
pragmatism than by prejudice against oriental literatures.Here Horst
Rudiger's remark is notable ” The academic justification for
excluding oriental literatures from comparative literature in the
West comes from the necessity to avoid all historical parallells
based solely on speculation”
Das
says that “So neither language nor political boundary nor culture
can be the sole criterion”.(Das, Why Indian CL 99)
6Comparative
literature has to be both Intralinguistic and interlinguistic.
Intralinguistic
–(within a single language) Between English and American Literature
Interlinguistic-
(study of various aspecs of linguistic communication between people
who cannot make themselves understood by means of their different
first languages)
A
study of Bengali and Hindi cannot be dismissed from Comparative
literature because they form part of national literatures.
The
binary dimensions of Comparative literature will be determined at
times in terms of nationality, culture and other times in terms of
linguistic history.
7
Das insist that Comparative literature must have a 'terra firma'
that is solid foundation.Though it is made of a language, it goes
beyond it.It opens another world when it comes in contact with
culture.Any attempt towards a literary cosmopolitanism neglecting
literature is bound to turn into dialetantism.Soour comparative study
should be comparative indian literature because literature is not
merely a body of impersonal knowledge.
8
Then a question arises will it be parochialism? Sisir Kumar Das
himself gives he answer that In the Indian context it cannot be.
There are many reasons for that.Multilingualism is one of them.Our
literary activity is a multi lingual literary activity.( New literary
style manipravalam and new language Urdu originated).Writers used two
languages and some of them switched from, Urdu to Hindi from oriya to
Bengali and so on)
The
significant part is interaction between India and other civilization,
Greece, China, Persia and so on.Any student of Indian Literature is
obliged to go beyond his own literature his relation to a literature
belonging to a different civilization. Comparative literature
justifies the need for literary study, and provides the comparative
study of literaature with a new range and vision.It is difficult to
study Konkani without reference to Portuguese.
Amiya
Dev emphasise 'Comparison is right reason for us because we are
multilingual and two because we are “Third World”.We dont have to
imitate the westerners.Tools of Western comparison are hardly
adequate to deal with our literary situation.Tools like Imitation
reception and survival- they need serious modification.(influence- It
is not confined to two authors or texts but entire literature upon
each other.
Third
world situation has imposed certain psychological restriction.We
learned to venerate the language and literature of colonial masters
and are happy to be influenced by them.We imitated themWe have to
remove psychological restrictions.Only then we can also respond to
the literature of other parts of the world without inhabition or
prejudice.
Indian
Literature is essentially comparative in its nature.There is Indian
literature, just as we speak of Indian Philosophy, inspite of the
fact that there are diverse schools, from diverse parts of the
country and which came into being at different periods.
“History
of Indian literature is the history of evolution of Indian
consciousness and also an Indian way of perceiving and presenting
reality”.(Chellappan 103)
To
an extent myths became common code of the entire country and the
different literatures.
“They
seem to constitute the metaliterature of the Indian people- the
archetypes of the collective uncoscious or the deeper level of the
Indian psyche as a whole”.(Chellappan 103)
The
archetypes of Rama Sita Panchali etc. Are an example for this.
The
vedic age was followed by the Bhakti cult in most of the
Indianlanguages and in modern phase by the patriotic literature with
more explicitly national, secular and social consciousness.
There is a parallel between Bhakti literature and patriotic
literature. All Indian literatures came closer through the struggle
for freedom, and search for New India is also a search for national
identity in and through literature(Works of Bankim Chandra
Chatterjee, Tagore Subrahmanya Bharati etc)Ancient literature is
defined in relation to Sanskrit and Modern Indian Literature to
English.Indian myths were reconsidered and secular notion was
included.Character Karna stands for anguish of man of India and
Ahalya and Sita etc. portray the agony of new women in India.
Evolution
of Indian Comparative Literature
In
ancient India Sanskrit and ancient Tamil languages belonging to two
different families came into contact.The scholars of Sanskrit however
sudied it along with Prakrit literature.In classical Sanskrit plays
prakrit have been used in the dialogues of different characters. The
ancient Indian writers could use more than one language within one
text.
In
medieval period various literatures came into close contact,
especially those spoken in neighbouring areas. Most of the literature
shared a common Sanskrit heritage and Arabic Persian influences
weerre expected from them.The comparatist tried to build a framework
within which similarities can be studied and appreciated.There were
links between text written in different languages and having common
theme or ideological backdrop. Contact between literatures resulted
in the growth of new genre, themes and style.Manipravalam is an
example of such a newly emerged style.Persian literature influenced
Sindhi Punjabi and Bengali.The interaction between Persian and
Khariboli created new language Urdu.In 19th
century the discovery of Sanskrit by the European scholars lead the
way the growth of Comparative linguistic comparative religion and
mythology.The excitement of finding out similarities between Sanskrit
and European language like Greek and Latin prompted orientalist to
think of certain universals. When Westerns came into close contact
with eastern literatures they either dismissed oriental literatures
as necessarily inferior or pleaded for a different set of canons for
their evaluation. The question of 'pure literature' raised in India
in mid nineteenth century.Indian writers tore off the illusion of the
exclusiveness of national literature.
“The
most significant outcome of the critical temper was the abolition of
all nationalistic considerations in literary evaluation”(Das, CL -
A Historical Perspective 24)
Tagore
was the first person who took initiative for a comparative study of
literature as an academic discipline. In His lecture named 'Visva
sahitya' he mentions world literature but he used the term
comparative literature as an equivalent of 'Visva sahitya'.
Das
quotes Tagore in his essay 'Comparative Literature in India: A
Historical Perspective'
“We
must strive to see the work of each other as a whole, that whole as a
part of man's universal spirit in its manifestations through worl
literature”.
Comparative
literature as an academic discipline was not established in Europe or
America. Eminent personalities criticised the discipline and called
it a a 'bogus' term.The first department of Comparative Literature
came into existence in 1956 at Jadevpur University.
Sir
Ashatish Mukherjee, proposed the assemblage of all literatures and
his idea of national literature went beyond individual languages and
literature. Linguistic chauvinism and academic complacency caused
establishment of separate departments.
Aurabindo's
series of articles entitled with 'Indian
literature'
was the first attempt by Indian scholars to consider Indian
literature as the expression of Indian mind.
Several
scholars like V K Gokak, Suniti Kumar Chatterji, Nagendra as well as
newly founded Sahitya Akademi tried to present the view of the
indivisibility of Indian literature and the basis of a common
heritage, analysable in terms of themes, movements and ideas of all
indian languages. Indian literature is essentially comparative in its
nature.
“Comparative
Literature is not an excercise of discovering abstract universalities
of literature.It must deal with literature in their concretedness and
hence the sudy of Indian literature together is but a part of
comparative literary studies as an academic discipline”(Das 29)
Indian
Comparative Literatue
Scholars
of literature often argue for a unity of Indian literature or for the
diversity of literatures in India.Amiya
Dev despises this binary appoach and proposed a 'dialectical view of
literary interaction'. A kind of resistance emerged to the unity
thesis points out that 'Indian literature will be later equated with
one of the major literatures of India. So this unity in may encroach
upon the 'individualities of the diverse literature'. So we sould say
that 'Indian literature is one because it is written in many
languages'.
E
V Ramakrishnan in his notable essay “Is There an Indian Way of
Thinking about Comparative literature' gives us few insights on the
very term 'Indian'.He mentions 'social imaginaries' which manifest in
literature.He explains how the 'Indian' is being imagined in
countless ways across boundaries of cultures and nations rather than
in terms of nation or nation state.Indian is a 'way' and we have to
rewrite our literary histories.
There
is no need of deliberate demarcation of certain literature. “We
need to conceive of literary text in broader terms include cultural
production from different templates of time and space. Non canonical
work sometimes represent the culture better than a canonical work.
“When
Comparative Literature functions as a mode of apprehending the
transaction between the literary, cultural adn the political in all
its multivalent ways it would bring about a paradigm shift in
practice”.( E V Ramakrishnan 7).
Modernity
was interpreted in terms of 'privileged European hegemony and as a
result 'Indian literature' emerged as a monolithic category. The
works belong to oppositional tradition has been forgotten. So the
'Indian way' ultimately calls for an introspection of the category
'Indian Literature'.
Comparative
Literature in India – Possibilities and Issues
Anand
B Patil suggests collaboration of Cultural Studies and Comparative
Literature (Comparative cultural Studies)to facilitate
interdisciplinary studies in a better way. He indicates that this
framework might disturb the place of privileged literature in the
Hindu cultual hierarchy.
“It
is a challenge for a comparatist in a more static and orthodox
society to “Pluralize the study of culture without
hierarchisation”( Patil 192)
Important
thing is we dont have a good up to date introduction to discipline
and is cultural turn.According to Mark J Smith cultural meanings are
tacitly involved in the process of knowledge construction.
Comparative
Literature is the study of “other” literatures and cultures.
Claim of inclusion is one of the most neglected issue in Comparative
Literature. Patil says that The West can study east but the arguement
that post colonial base of power disqualifies an occidental to study
the oriental, or a non dalit to study he Dalit become a tool to harm
if implemented.
Patil
suggests methodology for Comparative Indian Literature
Methodology
as: Intra disciplinary(within humanities) multi disciplinary(
employing any other discipline) and pluri disciplinary ( by team
work- participants from several disciplines).Comparative Literature
not only investigate marginalisation of certain literature but also
marginalisation of humanities as a whole.
Another
issue is negligence of minority literature.The voices of ethnic,
tribal and minority writers were often remain unheard and
unrecorded. In India there are 74 tribal languages.From bilingual
multi lingual situation the concept of multiculturaism was emerged.
Henry Remak says
“Nowhere
the world is the present evolution of CL as dynamic and constructive
as India”
Tribal
literature consist body of literature, consist of myths and
philosophies, the literature found in oral tradition of story
telling, discourses songs on the various occasion of life carrying.So
the corpus of tribal literature is a remarkably diversified body of
oral narratives.
A
part of Munda song of the santali
tribe from Orissa shows us the identity crisis of marginalised.
Dreaming
of you in bed
I
woke and took he road
Stumbling
on the stone
I
remembered my caste, my gotra
and
stood transfixed
Still
only a few literatures(tribal literatures) are brought into the
mainstream.
Mathew
Arnold says “Everywhere there is connection everywhere there is
illustration, no single event, no single literature is adequately
comprehended except in relation to other events, to other
literature,” and Indian Comparative Literature works on the basis
of this dictum.That is why Das reminds us that “Our journey is not
from comparative literature to comparative Indian literature, but
from comparative Indian literature to comparative literature. (Das
98)
Comparative
Literature carries principle of egalitarianism and it fights against
the monopoly of Western literature . It brought focus on
marginalised works and oral literatures. It is not about turning
Kalidasa an Indian Shakespeare or Shakespeare an Indian Kalidasa but
placing all literatures side by side.
Bibliography
Chellappan
K . “Comparative Indian Literature : Problems and Perspectives”
Sahitya Akademi. 30.3. 101-108 (1987),Web. 15-10-2015
<http://www.jstor.org>
Das
Sisir Kumar, Comparative Literature in India: A Historical
Perspective Journal of the Comparative Literature Association of
India1.1 (2011): 18- 29. Web. 15 October 2015
Dasgupta
Subha Chakraborty. “Planetarity and Changing Perspectives of
Comparative Literature in India.” Perspectives on Comparative
Literature and Culture in the Age of Globalization. Ed. Saugata
Bhaduri. Amar Basu. Delhi: Anthem Press India. 2010.Print.
Gayley
Charles Mills. From What is Comparative Literature (1903).Princeton
Sourcebook of Comparative Literature.New Jersey:Princeton University
Press.2003.Print.
Mohan
Chandra “Cultures of the Margin in Multilingual Societies: A
Comparative Perspective. Studies in Comparative Literature: theory,
Culture and Space. Ed. Jancy James et.al. New Delhi: Creative Books.
2004.Print.
Patil
B Anand. “The New Indian Comparative Lierature and Cultural
Studies.” .Studies in Comparative Literature: Theory, Culture and
Space. Ed. Jancy James et.al. New Delhi: Creative Books. 2004.Print.
Posnett
Hutchenson Macaulay. “The Comparative Method and Literature (1886).
Princeton
Sourcebook of Comparative Literature.New Jersey:Princeton University
Press.2003.Print.
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