Wisconsin College of the Air; Books of civilization; 17; Introduction to Indian Literature

We have been examining the books of Greece and Rome as they reveal the classical inheritance of Europe and America transplanted Europe and their literary forms their ideas their interests aesthetic intellectual and moral do not seem foreign to us. Now for the next few weeks we are going to be turning to the Orient to look at the important books first in the culture of India. And then in China with the choice limited to two or three of these books represent a cultural tradition that may be set beside those of the west parallel in time or in some cases even earlier and revealing the basic values for living. That have continued to affect later generations down to the present. The heritage is one both of literature and art and I wish we

had the opportunity to lay the two beside each other to look back at Rome and Greece with their art traditions and the same thing true with India and China. But of course we can only be concerned with the literature. It would be interesting if we had time to canvas your minds for your impressions of India. When I say India what does it mean to you. What's the first thing that comes into your mind. What are your impressions. And I think we might discover that they are varied. If you were interested in the political situation of course we would be noticing specially her effort to keep neutral. We would know the problems that were involved when narrow resigns. If and when he does and we know he will be 70 on the 14th of November perhaps we would think of the economic conditions and think of the poverty there. Perhaps it would be the more

exotic and strange elements that would come first to our mind due for a time. Lay aside these fragments stretch your minds a bit to add many new words to your vocabulary. Different forms of literature. Different types of characters. And as you read try to understand what is satisfying and valuable to them in what they think. And sometimes when we meet something different we take a negative approach. We disagree with it. It doesn't fit in with our pattern of thinking. But with understanding should come tolerance and perhaps a new interest and a new pleasure as we add this whole area of the Indian background. If you're meeting it for the first time if you're meeting this material for the first time I think you'll be astonished at their long literary and philosophical traditions.

Some of this has seeped into the West and much of it in his basic ideas will not be foreign but universal. There is a great range of it and I want to be able to suggest a small part of it. The literature that we are meeting is that which still belongs to Hindu India today. The population of India is somewhere around 400 million with approximately three fourths of that number. Hindu the other large number of course being the Muslims and the smaller groups being Christian Buddhist Sikhs and Parsis. Now this look at your was composed in the centuries between fifteen hundred B.C. and 600 A.D. It is in the classical Sanskrit language comparable to the classical Latin in the Western world but perhaps even

more literary. More confined to writing but as Latin it did affect the many dialects that grew up and though there are a great number of dialects in India today they can understand the sense with what is heard because the root words are there. There has been much translation of it and much adaptation of this material in the later ages. It's great books have not been forgotten for long periods and then revived. But they have continued down to the present day to be one of the strongest unifying elements in Hindu India. Our interest will be in three with references to others. The most important book that we are going to study. We are going to study the whole text is that of the hog about Gaeta.

B H A G A V A D behind a but which means the lowered and Gaeta which means some will find that word a number of times will be reading the Gitanjali a handful of songs by tag or the Tommies song and this is the Lord's song. Their philosophical and devotional book. Then there are the epics. I should like very much to be able to ask all of you to read the Ramayana. But it is difficult to get it is out in the everyman's edition and also included in some of the other books. Then there is another epic The man hub Hertha which means the great Bharata R Mohan is the same as Magnus over in Latin the great Bharata. And you will be reading an episode from the civvy pre episode. These two ethics are comparable to the two

works of Homer giving exciting stories from early India revealing exemplary characters and patterns for living according to the Indian scheme of values and with the same kind of setting of scene and background as we have found in the works in the West. The other work that we are reading is the ship could to laugh. Shakuntala which is a drum and I don't worry about the spelling sometimes this s h a K UN T A L A As I have it here then sometimes is C with a Sabella under it see a K double oh in L.A. but it's merely an effort to approximate the sound. She couldn't adopt but Cali doesn't use a drama. Interesting as an artistic revelation. India. And for contrast and comparison with Greek drama. Any discussion of literature seems to need some

background. And I want to sketch very hastily a few elements that may be helpful. In fact what I want to do today is to introduce you all to India as a background of the literature for we are turning at our next meeting to a study of the philosophy and the bug about Gaeta. I'm going to talk for just a moment about the country about the early beginnings of literature and the social and religious system which emerged eventually push we speak of as Hinduism. For many centuries of her existence India was isolated which allowed for the development of an independent culture. In spite of the invasions and the movements of people that went on for a long period of time her geography I think gives us a key here

geographically India is like a sub continent in the shape of a kite with the smaller diamond to the top and the larger one the longer one to the south and the length north and south of that kite is about the same as this with something around 1500 miles. The upper triangle has four it's two sides. The snow clad Himalaya Mountains the maleo which means the abode of winter. And at the base of the triangle there are level plains. Which are drained by the three great river systems the Indus in the West Indus and India. Those names are closely associated and the Ganges and the Brahmaputra in the east here are the fertile valleys where the early civilizations began and yet away from the rivers there is much desert and sand.

India. I should tell you is 75 percent rural with a density of population three times that of the United States which means that much of the land isn't inhabited. And then we have this concentration in the in certain parts of it the passes in northwest India are those through which many of the invasions Kiem the Khyber Pass you've all heard of and the two great invasions the arean invasion at the beginning that we will come in contact with and the Moslem later came through the Khyber Pass. The lower triangle juts down into the Indian Ocean. And it's divided from the north by the a high roll of hills called the VIN Di hills. And below that on either coast there are high mountain ranges and then the platform land of the Deccan and farther south. There is the hot steamy jungle country the long coastline for

centuries provided a defense against any kind of large scale invasion and eventually it was the 15th century A.D. before we had these large scale invasion invasions first the Portuguese then the Dutch the French and the English who found the land rich in commercial possibilities. The climate has a marked effect upon the people. Boyd of course is very far south tropical country down into the into the Indian Ocean. And that climate is controlled by the monsoon rains and those wind borne clouds heavy with musher as they sweep up from the Indian Ocean and one commentator says it's the hottest the wettest the driest the coldest spots in the world can be found in India. Usually we think of three seasons rather than four. March April and May are very hot

intensely hot then that is followed by the rains in June July and August and it rains and rains and rains and then there is the aftermath of malaria and then from about October to February. There is a cool season. I want to give you something of this feel of the Brierty of India. And the effect of the heat by reading you a passage at the beginning of a Mohawk preacher's book called Indian gods and Keane's. When you relax for a moment I'm always afraid to tell my morning class to relax lest they go to sleep. But this passage is rather long but I think it gives you something of the feel of the country to imagine India. Forget traffic and shark noise and stick out a living.

India away from the cities is a land of silence and slowness and spreading spaces. The sky is a compelling presence. You Norma slappers live with a man killing son of focus never to be ignored which forces life to its terms. Below that sky teeming India has stretches of empty brown earth seeming bare of humanity and till at a trifle people spring up like prairie dogs from nowhere writing over endless dusty lands of northern India. One tries to analize the charm of the country which is potent and never to be lost. A still twilight turns the horizon to a slow ample gold and mystifies the fields by day the sun lives in the colors that women and men know how to wear. It clarifies the silks of flame apricots turquoise lemon and lavender in a group of karate strolling to their tryst under a banyan tree. It brings in the smouldering reds and

oranges of women and poor with their triangular swishing skirts and their clashing silver anklets and enriches the dusky wines in great purples tucked between the legs of the women of the Deccan. The farther south the hotter the land and the sky the more powerful the colors grow until at Traven core in the very self they fused to fight again. Perhaps the visual charm of India comes from grace of movement low caste women in the fields and their wisps of red Suckley bending all of emotion to the ground or women who walk like slow passing phrases carrying on their heads. Loads of copper jars or trays of dung cakes as proudly as dancers. Perhaps it is all the slow rhythm of the highroads boarded by dusting trees or by Banyan that drip fringes of parallel roots to the ground making a green

twilight of shade. The passer by may include a fullish camel intensified an artlessness by a rider who sits side saddle over the hump and carelessly smokes a hookah. That is the water pipe. Endless humpbacked books with drivers squatted upon their wooden yokes and carts with solid wheels or a water buffalo horns akimbo ambling motherly in from the rice field a maharajas elephant hung with silver bells disputes the right of way in a rush to state with a peacock or with a velvet hung bullock carts hiding and probably stifling high caste ladies endless and enduring variety of beauty or income growth or terror fascinates the guy. A man wearing a brocaded coat but no trousers. Who rides a bloke

with horns painted green a washerman striding a calf with fat bundles of laundry all over its back. A Kashmiri Brahman meditating beside a pool full of sacred flapping fishes crocodiles that are watchdogs for a crumbling palace bazaars with their angling merchants monkeys leaping from the station removes scurvy starving dogs. Rebekah holds the red stain of spat out beetle man's thin brown legs. Baby's uncovered heads wobbling in the sun. The marble masks. The God covered temples the tranced worshippers the land is as dramatic and varied as the people Himalayan peaks in the North Pole the perpetual saw that snow line above 17000 feet and grow lush jungles on their lower lower slopes. A northern desert glares like a copper mirror the tangled and Dyan heels cut the north of

the triangle of India from the south from the scenary plateau of the Deccan and the steamy palm groves of the southern coast whose eyelets and harbors sparkle like spilled sacks of jewels. Heat lies over India as a definite a medium as water to live in creating a different race that must adapt itself to it. Opening powers deepening passions bringing stimulation lassitude weariness sky space color slow motion and bewildering variety and the ever present sense of centuries emanating from the soil. And what can India offer us so far as her history is concerned. There was no history written in the you wrote no history. There was nothing you set down until the Muslims came in.

India wasn't interested in history. She was interested in a view of life. And the philosophy and the literature are the record of it. These take the place of history. It makes no difference when these events took place it makes no difference when these legends grew up. It's how the people acted and what their relationship was to their world that was important. We have a few glimpses from the outside of India. The writers who accompanied Alexander the Great in the third century give us the third century BCE give us some glimpses of India. And in the force and the sixth century A.D. two Chinese pilgrims came down looking for Buddhist menu scripts and they wrote autobiographies. So again we get these very little glimpses into the history

but the past of course is everywhere on the landscape. And the archaeologists today are making studies of the cities that have been excavated. They have discovered a civilization back to thirty five hundred B.C. which existed between thirty five hundred and twenty seven fifty in northwest India. And those two towns of Mohandas barrow and Harappa have given us a very interesting glimpse into a very early period of India. Her long slow growth I think is also seen in the many dialects for today. There are eight major languages in India with the literatures of their own. And many hundreds of dialects I find that quite a difference in what is reported. Anything from a hundred and forty seven to two hundred and twenty different dialects in India today. The literature begins

with the arean invaders. Those invaders who came in from the north west now who are they. Well they're closely related to those who came from the north into Greece. You remember the Kenyans who had come down from the north probably either around the Danube or just a little east of there. And how they mingled with the civilization that had come up from Crete. This same group of people moved in many different directions they moved over toward western Europe. They moved up toward the Scandinavian peninsula and then they moved over toward India. So this is a white race. This is the original inhabitants these are the original inhabitants of the country perhaps about where the Ukraine is today. And there has been a great deal of study in showing their early association. They worked it out along two lines

one that of their religion because of the likeness of the religion is always a nature worship. In all of these countries at the beginning we have a nature worship. They have also worked it out on the basis of language and they have done a great deal to point out the relationships between the languages of the Western world and sense Krit. I can only illustrate just one or two but for example our English word brother in Latin is profiteer incense grip is brought to bear. You can actually hear the same sound as the word for father English father Latin pop hear Sanskrit to PR P I T A R and the linguists of course have done a great deal to to bring the association out. That was obviously there among these early peoples. They came into India around fifteen hundred b c

some say as early as 2000 and they were of white race and they were tall extremely Verrall and active. And they knew the arts of spinning and weaving and agriculture. In fact the word Arion comes from a root word which means to plough all so back in their early history. The ploughing of the soil. Agriculture was. It was a noble occupation. So it's interesting too to see this association back to the early period. As I say they knew the arts of spinning and weaving and agriculture they brought with them goats and cattle and horses and the cow was their calling. It became their measure of exchange and later of course it became a symbol of life giving nourishment. And the cow is still considered sacred in India. They were a

warlike people. And they proceeded to strike at the cities and the farms of the people there in northwest India. Sometimes these are spoken of as a driveby and sometimes as the dissy yos. But the new video is a term that we more frequently use. This was a very highly civilized group even though the Ariens looking down upon them with great scorn. They had built cities cities of brick. They had worked in iron copper in silver and gold they had developed an extensive commerce in ivory and Peikoff. They had well-built homes with bathrooms drainage systems worked out and this not just for the king and for the priest but for everyone in the community. Their religion was well developed it centered around the prevailing fertility cult and it was a highly matriarchal society. But the Ariens as I say looked down upon them and when they speak of than they talk about them as a dark skinned race and they were flat

nosed and they were none so much drinking. Now Soma of course was one of the intoxicating drinks which the Ariens thoroughly enjoy and you will discover in your reading that they had two vices and one of them was Soma drinking and the other one was gambling. In one of the main one of the epic the Mahabharata who dished here gambles away everything he has he gets so involved in the game the Ariens conquered and became the Masters. Perhaps in more than one wave of invasion where they move from the north west out over the fertile plains they are in the north and they're at vast has been compared to that of the Americans as they moved west against the Indians or the Europeans as they moved over against the civilizations in Mexico.

This tendency always for the coming conquerors to feel that they are much superior and not to recognize the civilization that they find there. But the most important thing was that they came into India with songs on their lives and continued to create songs songs that were full of optimism and gayety and a feeling for the closeness of nature. There is a great body of songs that we have as an inheritance from this period and they are called the they does the this the Vedas. And there are four great collections of poems which have been considered sacred. They are the oldest extent literary and religious monuments of the Indo European family of languages.

This is a rather important thing I think we've been reading about Greece we've been reading about Rome turning back to the early literature. This is much earlier and much earlier in representing this combination of the Indo area and the Indian Plus the Ariens who moved in. This is our first record of literature. They were fixed in their present form somewhere between fifteen hundred and a thousand b c they are always fluid in India. Very difficult to establish them. The most important collection of the Vedas is known as the Rig Veda which means the verses of wisdom comprising around a thousand poems a thousand and twenty eight poems and these are mostly nature him addressing the sky and the dawn and the night as gods seeking their protection and their help their aid.

And some of them are incantations to bring rain and good health and fine sons and wealth. Everything of their lies seems to be bound up with their feeling about these forces in the universe and they feel the need for sacrifice in some way to come in contact with these forces and for ritual and for songs which they can dedicate to them. There is no pessimism in these early poems as to the destiny of the world or to the OR of the material life itself. The religion is a naturalistic policy ism. In other words it's like the early Greek religion. A policy is to religion many gods who originally expressed forces in nature. However in the Indian they are seldom

completely anthropomorphic as they are in the Greek. In other words they don't think of them in human form. At times you have some feeling of the human form being there but primarily you don't have that. That development as we do in Greece now the pantheon of gods is a much larger one. There are a great many more gods in India and at the beginning there were 33 but now there are millions of them. But in this early period there where they were divided into three groups the gods of the sky. All those forces that represent of the sky and instead of one sun god you have many sun gods and you're reading one of the poems Soria as you are a Y A which is a poem dedicated to the sun. And you can see how important the sun was of course to their life. And then there are others that belong to the gods of the sky who show us the

dawn goddess and rock the night goddess. And these there are beautiful poems dedicated to them. Then there are the gods of air. One of these you will perhaps become acquainted with. And this is Indra. Indra who is the rain god and who later became the