Indian Literature Quiz

• The presentation introduces the exploration of Indian literature, designed for the fourth quarter.

Sanskrit Literature

• India had already produced a considerable body of literature by 300 B.C.
• These writings were in several Indian languages derived from the common ancestral language of Sanskrit.
• Much of India's literature is often called Sanskrit Literature.
• The word "Sanskrit" means "cultivated" or "perfected".

Vedas

• The earliest known literature from India is a collection of traditions handed down orally.
• These traditions are known as the Vedas.
• The Vedas include hymns addressed to numerous Indian gods and stories about these gods.
• The Vedas are a large collection of ancient religious texts originating in India.
• They are believed to have been composed between 1500 BCE and 500 BCE.
• The Vedas are some of the oldest sacred texts of Hinduism, and are considered the oldest scriptures of Hinduism.
• The word "Veda" is derived from the Sanskrit root "VID."

The Four Vedas

• Rigveda: The oldest of the Vedas, consisting of hymns to various deities, divided into ten books (Mandalas), and has 1,028 hymns (suktas) in an ancient form of Sanskrit, addressed to deities like Agni (fire god) and Indra (king of gods).
• Samaveda: Primarily a collection of melodies (saman) sung during Vedic rituals; closely related to the Rigveda, containing many of its verses, but arranged differently for chanting during rituals.
• Yajurveda: Consists of prose mantras and verses used by priests during rituals (yajnas); divided into two branches: Shukla (White) and Krishna (Black) Yajurveda, where the former is mainly verse and the latter mixes prose and verse.
• Atharvaveda: A collection of spells, incantations, and charms; it differs as it includes material dealing with magic, healing, and domestic rituals, and is believed to be written later.

Indian Literature

• Hindu literature reveals the inner and outer life and extends from a remote past to the present.
• India was the center of an ancient civilization that spread east and south, affecting language and culture in Europe and Asia.
• India founded colonies in ancient Persia, Greece, Rome, Spain, England, and France, countries belonging to the Indo-European race that once spoke the same language in Central Asia.
• Languages spoken in Indo-European countries are different forms of the original language.
• This origin is especially evident in family-related words like father and daughter; "daughter" comes the Sanskrit word "duhitr", which signifies to draw..
• The civilization of the Indians is older than that of the ancient Greeks and Romans.
• Indians had a highly developed civilization, evident by masterpieces in the arts.
• Indian philosophy and religion greatly influenced the East and West.
• Indians were teaching the brotherhood of all peoples and the fatherhood of God long before Christ.
• The literature is rich in spiritual and imaginative values, and Indian culture has a scientific basis, and distinctive qualities..
• India contribution include trigonometry, the first grammar books, the first study of phonetics, and the game of chess.

Characteristics of Indian Literature

• Piety, a deeply religious spirit, serves as the base.
• Indians believed that knowledge of God and a strong belief in Hinduism is necessary to save humankind and the Vedas serve as the basis.
• Indian literary masterpieces are written as epics that relate to the historical epics of India.
• The Ramayana and the Mahabharata are the most important.
• The Mahabharata is the longest in world literature.
• The Indians believe in reincarnation.
• Indians believe the soul of a person returns to the earth in the body of another person, an animal, or even a plant.
• Indians also believe in showing kindness to others including animals.
• Indians also abstain from destroying plants because a reincarnated dead relative might be a plant.
• Indians believed to be reincarnated into human beings or even animals.
• The Ramayana refers to the reincarnation of the creator god, Vishnu, in the person of Rama, who is the hero of the epic.
• The Mahabharata deals with another reincarnation of Vishnu as Krishna.
• These reincarnations of Vishnu are called avatars.
• Vishnu has ten avatars.
• Nine have already happened, and the tenth is yet to come.

Mahabharata

• The Mahabharata is considered the greatest epic of India.
• It tells the story of a civil war that might have occurred in the early years of the Aryan occupation of India
• The Mahabharata is the product of many countries and many hands.
• The Mahabharata tells of two rival bands of brothers.
• One descendents of a common grandfather, King Pandu.
• When King Pandu died, he left his five sons in care of his brother.
• The regent had many sons who coveted the kingdom.
• This period gave rise to conflict.

Ramayana

• The Ramayana recounts the adventures of Rama and his wife Sita.
• Legend says Sita was born of a furrow, the child of Mother Earth.
• Indian women regard Sita as a perfect symbol of wifely devotion and self-sacrifice.

Indian Drama

• The origins of theater are lost in antiquity.
• Indian drama reached its peak in the second century BC.
• Bhasa and Kalidasa are the two great Indian dramatists, and Kalidasa is called the Indian Shakespeare.
• Indian drama is characterized by poetry and idyllic beauty.
• Indian drama concentrates on love, always has a happy ending and no violent emotions.
• The characters are good, but any wrong is caused by weakness.

Bhasa

• Bhāsa, born in the 3rd century AD, India, is the earliest known Sanskrit dramatist with found plays.
• An Indian scholar found and published the texts of 13 of Bhāsa's previously known dramas in 1912.
• Svapnavāsavadattā (“The Dream of Vāsavadattā”) is his best work, depicting a king losing and regaining his kingdom from a usurper.
• Most of his dramas have adaptations on heroism and romantic love with influence from India's two great epics, the Rāmāyaņa and the Mahābhārata.
• Bhāsa deviated from accepted dramaturgy by portraying battle scenes and killings onstage.
• The 5th-century dramatist Kālidāsa imitated and improved some of Bhāsa's motifs.

Kalidasa

• Kalidasa is one of the greatest writer of plays
• He wrote Shakuntala.
• Kalidasa is called the brightest of the "nine gems of genius because of his writing style.
• His play Shakuntala contains long passages of beautiful prose and poetry.

Shakuntala

• The story tells of a king hunting who meets Shakuntala.
• The King falls in love with her.
• The King marries her but leaves due to official business.
• The King leaves a ring with her.
• Shakuntala has a son.
• Shakuntala and her son go to the king's court.
• The king, however, has lost his memory because of an evil magician.
• He repudiates Shakuntala because she cannot produce the ring because she lost it.
• Gods take pity on the wife and son, and take them to heaven.
• A fisher at one point has the ring, which he takes to the king.
• The king recovers his memory and repents.
• The gods sympathize with him and take him to the heavenly region.
• The king is united with his forgiving wife and son in the heavenly region.
• Then it is revealed the king's memory loss happened because of a curse from an evil spirit.

Panchatantra

• The Panchatantra (Five headings) is a collection of ancient stories.
• Said to contain the first fables ever written.
• Stories of animals who behave like human beings.
• The purpose is to drive home a truth or a lesson.
• The Panchatantra has important collections of short stories in the world.
• These collections are translated from language, to language.
• Stories from the Panchatantra are in a "frame" with stories that lead to one another.

Rabindranath Tagore

• Rabindranath Tagore was an Indian poet and dramatist.
• He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 and was knighted by the British government in 1915.
• Tagore came an Indian noble family.
• He received his education under private tutors and then went to England to study law.
• He visited Europe and Japan and the United States, giving lectures and readings of the poems, written in English.

Bible Integration

• Colossians 1:16 (NIV): "For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him.