WORLD LITERATURE
Report on
“INDIAN POETRY AFTER ISLAM”
GROUP MEMBERS:
ABDULLAH MASOOD (17197)
EHTESHAM ASLAM (16888)
M. URAIB RAZA (17282)
NOMAIR USMAN (17309)
M. AHRAR SIDDIQUI (17191)
FACILITATOR:
MA’AM FLORENCE THOMAS
INTRODUCTION
8th Century: Mutual engagement of Islam and Hinduism in south Asia began as a
clash of civilizations
Political, Economic, Social and Ideological Conflicts
Religious are contraries because Islam is based on the Book and Hinduism is
not
Literature, art and modern popular culture converged in India is Rare in
world History
BHAKTI MOVEMENT (1100-1600)
The movement started with the Saiva Nayanars and the Vaisnava Alvars, who
lived between 5th and 9th century AD. The Bhakti Movement introduced by Adi
Shankar Acharya.
Bhakti or devotional literatures that had risen up in waves from the medieval
period onward to challenge the Sanskritic tradition, question religious beliefs,
reform social attitudes, and reshape literary expression all over India (Devy42–43).
Composed by cobblers, weavers, cowherds, shepherds, untouchables, and women
(among others).
Bhakti poetry drew on the oral traditions of folksong andepigram to articulate an
incandescent iconoclastic vision of spiritual liberation.
Important strands of Bhakti
Literature emerged in self-conscious oppositionto Sanskrit literature. For example,
unlike the Sanskrit religious texts, which are described as sruti and smrti (what is
heard and what is remembered), the Kannada Virasaiva.
Bhakti poets of south India called their compositions vacanas(what is said). A.K.
Ramanujan has pointed out that Vacana, as an active mode, stands in opposition to
both sruti and smrti.
What is not heard, but whatis said; not remembered or received, but uttered here
and now. To the saints, religion is not a spectator sport, a reception or
consumption; it is an experience of now, a way of being. This distinctions
expressed in the language of the vacanas, in the forms the vacanas take. Though
medieval Kannada was rich in native Dravidian meters, and in borrowed Sanskritic
forms, no metrical line orstanza is used in the vacanas. The vacana is thus a
rejection of premeditated art.
Vacana involves both a sayer or speaker and a listener, with each supplying half of
what is said (V. Narayanaravku, qtd. in Hart 165). Dialogic participation between
speaker and listener, writer and reader, is therefore an important component ofthe
praxis of bhakti.
The bhakti lyric is thus, at the most fundamental level, an invitation to the listener
to share the speaker’s experience. Unlike the disembodied visionary in Vedic
poetry, the speaker of the bhakti lyric is an embodied figure shackled by the social
categories of caste, class, and gender. Indeed, the paradigmatic speaker/devotee of
bhakti is feminine and speaks in a feminized voice.
For example, Mahadeviakka, a twelfth-century south Indian Virasaiva poet who
composed her vacanas in the local “substandard” or “vulgar” dialect of Kannada,
repeatedly complains of the restrictions placed on women both by the stifling
demands of parents, husbands, and in-laws and by the fierce opposition from
pundits and priests. In many of her lyrics the speaker finally breaks free of worldly
restrictions by means of shocking images of fornication, adultery, and prostitution.
Reflecting the late medieval emphasis on bodily or carnal knowledge,
Mahadeviakka uses an unabashedly erotic language with many explicit
descriptions of sexual union. The conventional structure of love —longing,
separation, and union between devotee and divine —set forth in Sanskrit poetics
becomes, in effect, nothing more than a flimsy veil for a more subversive message
about social transgression and spiritual transformation (Krishnaswamy “Subversive
Spirituality”). Moreover, although the structure of the bhakti lyrics replicates the
gendered hierarchy of patriarchal society —the divine is always masculine and the
quint essential Bhakta or devotee is imagined in feminine or feminized terms.
BASAVANNA (1106–1167 C. E.)
It nevertheless inverts that hierarchy on the psycho-spiritual and literary levels
where even male bhakti poets must assume or take on femininity in order to
experience the divine. Thus Basavanna (1106–1167 C. E.), one of the greatest
(male) Virasaiva poets, often speaks in the voice of a woman and uses feminine
alienation in patriarchal society as a metaphor for the saint’s sense of spiritual
abandonment in the material world: “I went to fornicate / but all I got was
counterfeit / I went behind a ruined wall, but scorpions stung me.” The speaker
then points out that, instead of coming to her aid, “The watchman who heard my
screams / just peeled off my clothes.” and when she goes home in shame, her
husband, instead of comforting her, “raised weals on my back.” The final blow is
dealt by the king, the ultimate embodiment of worldly masculine authority: “All
the rest, O lord of the meeting rivers,” the speaker laments in the concluding line,
“the king took for his fines” (Speaking of Siva). The female speaker in a bhakti
poem, however, is not always so vulnerable, helpless, or conventionally
subservient even in her appeal to or longing for the male deity-lover. In the padam,
another south Indian genre of bhakti poetry, the female-devotee is typically a bold
and independent courtesan, who on occasion even with holds her favors from the
god-customer if insufficiently compensated. Thus, in a padam Composed by the
male.
A recurring contrast in his poems and ideas is of Sthavara and Jangama, that is, of
"what is static, standing" and "what is moving, seeking" respectively. Temples,
ancient books represented the former, while work and discussion represented the
latter.
The rich
will make temples for Shiva,
What shall I,
a poor man do?
My legs are pillars,
the body the shrine,
the head a cupola of gold.
Listen, O lord Kudalasangama,
things standing shall fall,
but the moving ever shall stay.
KABIR (1398–1448)
Kabir Das (IAST: Kabīr) was a 15th-century Indian mystic poet and saint, whose
writings influenced Hinduism's Bhakti movement and his verses are found in
Sikhism's scripture Guru Granth Sahib. His early life was in a Muslim family, but
he was strongly influenced by his teacher, the Hindu bhakti leader Ramananda.
Kabir was born in the Indian city of Varanasi but spent most of his life in the city
of Faridabad near Delhi.
Kabir is known for being critical of both Hinduism and Islam, stating followers of
both were misguided by the Vedas and Quran, and questioning their meaningless
rites of initiation such as the sacred thread and circumcision respectively. During
his lifetime, he was threatened by both Hindus and Muslims for his views. When
he died, both Hindus and Muslims he had inspired claimed him as theirs.
Kabir suggested that True God is with the person who is on the path of
righteousness, considering all creatures on earth as his own self, and who is
passively detached from the affairs of the world. To know God, suggested Kabir,
meditate with the mantra Rāma, Rāma.Kabir's legacy survives and continues
through the Kabir panth ("Path of Kabir"), a religious community that recognises
him as its founder and is one of the Sant Mat sects. Its members are known
as Kabir panthis
HIS WORK:
Kabir's poems were in vernacular Hindi, borrowing from various dialects
including Awadhi, Braj. They cover various aspects of life and call for a loving
devotion for God. Kabir composed his verses with simple Hindi words. Most of his
work were concerned with devotion, mysticism and discipline.
Where spring, the lord of seasons reigneth, there the unstruck music sounds
of itself,
There the streams of light flow in all directions, few are the men who can
cross to that shore!
There, where millions of Krishnas stand with hands folded,
Where millions of Vishnus bow their heads, where millions of Brahmas are
reading the Vedas,
Where millions of Shivas are lost in contemplation, where millions
of Indras dwell in the sky,
Where the demi-gods and the munis are unnumbered, where millions
of Saraswatis, goddess of music play the vina,
There is my Lord self-revealed, and the scent of sandal and flowers dwells in
those deeps.
— Kabir, II.57, Translated by Rabindranath Tagore
Kabir and his followers named his verbally composed poems of wisdom as "bāņīs"
(utterances). These include songs and couplets, called variously dohe, śalokā
(Sanskrit: ślokā), or sākhī (Sanskrit: sākşī). The latter term means "witness",
implying the poems to be evidence of the Truth.
MIRABAI(1498–1546/1547)
Mira bai was a 16th-century Hindu mystic poet and devotee of Krishna. She is a
celebrated Bhakti saint, particularly in the North Indian Hindu tradition.
Mira was born into a Rajput royal family of Kudki district of Pali, Rajasthan, India.
She is mentioned in Bhaktamal, confirming that she was widely known and a
cherished figure in the Bhakti movement culture by about 1600 CE. Most legends
about Meera mention her fearless disregard for social and family conventions, her
devotion to Lord Krishna, her treating Krishna as her husband, and she being
persecuted by her in-laws for her religious devotion. She has been the subject of
numerous folk tales and hagiographic legends, which are inconsistent or widely
different in details. Millions of devotional poems in passionate praise of
Lord Krishna are attributed to Meera in the Indian tradition, but just a few hundred
are believed to be authentic by scholars, and the earliest written records suggest
that except for two poems, most were written down only in the 18th century. Many
poems attributed to Meera were likely composed later by others who admired
Meera. These poems are commonly known as bhajans, and are popular across
India. Hindu temples, such as in Chittorgarh fort, are dedicated to Mira Bai's
memory. Legends about Meera's life, of contested authenticity, have been the
subject of movies, comic strips and other popular literature in modern times.
POETRY
A number of compositions by Meera Bai continue to be sung today in India,
mostly as devotional songs (bhajans) though nearly all of them have a
philosophical connotation. One of her most popular compositions remains "Paayo
ji maine Ram Ratan dhan paayo", "I have been given the richness of Lord Ram's
blessing"). Meera's poems are lyrical padas (metric verses) in Rajasthani language.
While thousands of verses are attributed to her, scholars are divided in their
opinion as to how many of them were actually penned by Meera herself. There are
no surviving manuscripts of her poetry from her time, and the earliest records with
two poems credited to her are from early 18th-century, more than 150 years after
she died.
My Dark One has gone to an alien land.
He has left me behind, he's never returned, he's never sent me a single word.
So I've stripped off my ornaments, jewels and adornments, cut my hair from
my head.
And put on holy garments, all on his account, seeking him in all four
directions.
Mira: unless she meets the Dark One, her Lord, she doesn't even want to live.
— Mira Bai, Translated by John Stratton Hawley
TUKARAM (1598-1649)
The year of birth and death of sant Tukaram has been a subject of research and
dispute among 20th-century scholars.He was either born in the year 1598 or 1608
in a village named Dehu, near Pune in Maharashtra, India.
Sant Tukaram was born to Kanakar and Bolhoba more and scholars consider his
family to belong to the Kunbi caste. Tukaram's family owned a retailing and
money-lending business as well as were engaged in agriculture and trade. His
parents were devotees of Vithoba, an avatar of Hindu deity Vishnu (Vaishnavas).
Both his parents died when Tukaram was a teenager.
Sant Tukaram's first wife was Rakhama Bai, and they had a son named Santu,
However, both his son and wife starved to death in the famine of 1630–1632, The
deaths and wide spread poverty had a profound effect on Tukaram, who became
contemplative, meditating on the hills of Sahyadri range (Western Ghats) and later
wrote he "had discussions with my own self", Tukaram married again, and his
second wife was AvalaiJija Bai. He spent most of his later years in devotional
worship, community kirtans (group prayers with singing) and
composing Abhanga poetry.
POETRY
When salt is dissolved in water, what is it that remains distinct?
I have thus become one in joy with thee [Vithoba, God] and have lost myself
in thee.
When fire and camphor are brought together, is there any black remnant
left?
Tuka says, thou and I are one light.
— Tukaram Gatha, 2482, Translated by RG Bhandarkar[27]
However, scholars also note that other Abhangas attributed to Tukaram criticize
monism, and favor dualistic Vedanta philosophy of the Indian philosophers
Madhvacharya and Ramanuja. In Abhanga 1471, according to Bhandarkar's
translation, Tukaram says, "When monism is expounded without faith and love, the
expounder as well as the hearer are troubled and afflicted. He who calls himself
Brahma and goes on in his usual way, should not be spoken to and is a buffoon.
The shameless one who speaks heresy in opposition to the Vedas is an object of
scorn among holy men."
The controversy about Tukaram's true philosophical positions has been
complicated by questions of authenticity of poems attributed to him, discovery of
manuscripts with vastly different number of his Abhang poems, and that Tukaram
did not write the poems himself, they were written down much later, by others
from memory
Tukaram denounced mechanical rites, rituals, sacrifices, vows and instead
encouraged direct form of bhakti (devotion).
SOCIAL VALUES AND IMPACT
The Bhakti movement was a devotional transformation of medieval Hindu society,
where in Vedic rituals or alternatively ascetic monk-like lifestyle for moksha gave
way to individualistic loving relationship with a personally defined god. Salvation
which was previously considered attainable only by men of Brahmin, Kshatriya
and Vaishya castes, became available to everyone. Most scholars state that Bhakti
movement provided women and members of the Shudra and untouchable
communities an inclusive path to spiritual salvation. Some scholars disagree that
the Bhakti movement was premised on such social inequalities.
Poet-saints grew in popularity, and literature on devotional songs in regional
languages became profuse. These poet-saints championed a wide range of
philosophical positions within their society, ranging from theistic dualism of
Dvaita to absolute monism of Advaita Vedanta. Kabir, a poet-saint for example,
wrote in Upanishadic style, the state of knowing truth:
There's no creation or creator there,
no gross or fine, no wind or fire,
no sun, moon, earth or water,
no radiant form, no time there,
no word, no flesh, no faith,
no cause and effect, nor any thought of the Veda,
no Hari or Brahma, no Shiva or Shakti,
no pilgrimage and no rituals,
no mother, father or guru there...
— Kabir, Shabda 43, Translated by K Schomer and WH McLeod
The early 15th-century Bhakti poet-santPipa stated,
Within the body is the god, within the body the temple,
within the body all the Jangamas
within the body the incense, the lamps and the food-offerings,
within the body the puja-leaves.
After searching so many lands,
I found the nine treasures within my body,
Now there will be no further going and coming,
I swear by Rama.
The impact of the Bhakti movement in India was similar to that of the Protestant
Reformation of Christianity in Europe. It evoked shared religiosity, direct
emotional and intellection of the divine, and the pursuit of spiritual ideas without
the overhead of institutional superstructures. Practices emerged bringing new
forms of spiritual leadership and social cohesion among the medieval Hindus, such
as community singing, chanting together of deity names, festivals, Pilgrimages,
rituals relating to Saivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism. Many of these regional
practices have survived into the modern era.
