Why Comparative Indian Literature? by Sisir Kumar Das

Why Comparative Indian Literature? by Sisir Kumar Das

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  “Why Comparative Indian Literature?” -SisirKumar Das Prepared by Aarti Sarvaiya & Anjali Rathod
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  Department Of English MaharajaKrishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University “Why Comparative Indian Literature?” -Sisir Kumar Das Aarti Sarvaiya Enrollment no. - 4069206420220027 Anjali Rathod Enrollment no. - 4069206420220024 Date: 12 Jan 2024 Sem 4 | Batch 2022-24
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  Abstract Comparative Literature isa historical approach, itself is a world literature, inserting ‘ Indian’ into Comparative Literature.This research investigates the role of Comparative Indian Literature in fostering a deeper understanding of historical and contemporary issues within the Indian subcontinent. Comparative Indian Literature becomes a powerful tool for engaging with complex societal challenges and promoting inclusive narratives that reflect the plurality of Indian experiences. Comparative literature emerged as a new discipline to counteract the notion of the Autonomy of national literatures.
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  Key Arguments ● Canan area of enquiry clearly demarcated by linguistic and political boundaries serve the basic demands of comparative literature? ● Why should a scholar of literature prefer Indian literature to comparative literature, which promises a greater scope and a wider perspective? ● Can we say that comparative literature gives us a framework which we are lacking ?
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  Sisir Kumar Daswas a poet, playwright, children's writer, scholar, linguist, comparatist, translator, chronicler all rolled into one. He had an impeccable Academic career. A pioneer in the Comparative Literature movement in India, Sisir Kumar Das lectured in various countries of Europe including Spain and Greece as well as in Japan and the USA, on invitation. He was the serving President of the Comparative Literature Association of India till his death. Sisir Kumar Das's two volume History of Indian Literature, covering the period from 1800 to 1956, published by Sahitya Akademi in 1991 and 1995 respectively, is considered a pathbreaking work, being the first-ever attempt to write an integrated history of literatures produced in various Indian languages. (Das) Sisir Kumar Das (1936- 2003)
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  Comparative literature cameinto practice in the field of Academia. Comparative literature means world literature. It breaks the idea of national literature. German School : Johann Gottfried Von Herder complied on the influence of poetry on the customs of people (1778), which collected the folk songs from other ethnic groups including German, British, Spanish, French, Italian and Greek was the first anthology of world literature. German people focused on ‘Thematology’. French School : French School did influence study. French school gave so much importance to what happened with the Author and Who influenced. Earlier started as influence study, but later on they modified it named as Reception study. American School of Comparative Literature : Comparative literature has its own connecting with everything around it. American school of comparative literature makes it interdisciplinary. Remark’s focus on the concept of Process and French school focus on Product. Various Schools of Comparative Literature
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  Continue… British School :Matthew Arnold’s Touchstone method is comparative method of criticism. S. S. Prawer was an Irish writer , he put the idea of Placing. India in comparative literature : All indian literatures came closer through the struggle for freedom and the search for a new india is also the search for a national identity in and through literature. ● Tagore’s Vishwa Sahitya in his address in 1907. ● David Damrosch has brought about demands revisiting the concept of world literature after seeing Tagore’s. ● Vishwamanava
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  Western discipline blindseverything where, in India within the nation there are many things which needs to explore. The idea of an Indian literatures as convinced by Sri Aurobindo and others has failed to provide us with a critical framework to study Indian literatures together, except in viewing Indian literatures as expression of a common heritage. Critical Framework: Study of Indian literature is not only about unity, common elements but rather it is a Linguistic Identity & Plurality. Sisir Kumar Das was aware about ignoring Plurality. “Necessary to study Indian Literary relations within a Comparative Framework.” ‘Idea’ of Indian literature and comparative Indian literature have multilingualism and cultural diversity , both are quite significance and intersection between Human & Technology and Technology & Human. Can we say that comparative literature gives us a framework which we are lacking?
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  Historically - WesternDiscourse National - Global Idea of Indian Literatures ● Cultural Diversity ● Multilingualism The idea of an Indian literature, emphasizing the underlying unity of themes and forms and attitudes among the various literatures produced in different Indian languages during the last three thousand years or so. This is partly a manifestation of the Indian intellectual's anxiousness to discover the essential threads of unity in our multilingual and multi religious culture. Why Comparative ‘Indian’ Literature ?
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  Continue… Another group ofscholars is talking of comparative Indian literature, obviously to add a new dimension to our literary studies, and probably to create a framework within which the relations between various Indian literatures can be worked out. The word 'comparative', however, has created some confusion and one wonders whether it is being used to lend some respectability to the study of Indian languages by linking it up with comparative literature, still a Western discipline, or indeed to indicate the proper framework within which Indian literatures can be studied. The term Comparative Indian Literature, like comparative literature, is not self explanatory, and it is necessary not only to define the term Indian literature' but also to defend the necessity of the qualifier. Comparative literature emerged as a new discipline to counteract the notion of the autonomy of national literatures. Its ultimate goal, though it is doubtful whether that can ever be achieved, is to visualize the total literary activities of man as a single universe.(Dev#)
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  Johann Wolfgang vonGoethe, A poet who attempted to bring together the literatures of different civilizations was also the first man in history to speak of Weltliteratur. By Weltliteratur he meant the memorable works in all languages of the world, rather than the assemblage of all literatures. A comparatist is hardly in a position to exercise any aesthetic judgement in choosing the best works in all the languages of the world. His goal too is 'world literature', not in the sense that Goethe or Rabindranath Tagore had used it, but in the sense of all literary traditions. The comparatist knows that comparative literature is a method of investigation, while world literature, as Goethe meant, is a body of valuable literary works.(Dev#) Concept of ‘Weltliteratur’
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  Continue… One can arguethat comparative Western literature is the study of different national literatures, while comparative Indian literature is the study of literatures of one nation, or, according to some, of one national literature written in many languages. Literature deals with the concrete, not with abstractions. It is born of language and yet it goes beyond language; it is nourished by a culture. Its meaning and significance comes out of its relation with that culture. (Dev#) Multilingualism is a fact of Indian society and of Indian literature. ● ‘manipravāla’
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  Argument of AmiyaDev , “ Comparison is right reason for us because , one, we are multilingual,and two, we are Third World”. Prof. Amiya Dev's analysis of westernisation and Indianization as complementary processes is worth recalling here : What I mean is that the 'Indianization' was perhaps more than amere reaction to the 'Westernization' the two were complementary… . So, what we are concerned with here is a literature that,as the contextualists would say, is causally bound to be 'Westernised' and 'Indianized' at the same time. One wouldn't say that there is 'Indianization' in writers like Mu Va or Kalki along with westernisation. It is a more conscious return to one's own past, but not aggressively, but more consciously and also absorbing the new in a creative synthesis. (CHELLAPPAN#) Continue…
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  ● CHELLAPPAN, K.“Comparative Indian Literature : Problems and Perspectives.” Indian Literature, vol. 30, no. 3 (119), 1987, pp. 101–08. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23337930 . Accessed 11 Jan. 2024. ● Das, Sisir Kumar, and Harish Trivedi. “Sisir Kumar Das: A Personal Tribute.” Indian Literature, vol. 47, no. 3 (215), 2003, pp. 141–48. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23341675 . Accessed 11 Jan. 2024. ● Dev, Amiẏa, and Sisir Kumar Das, editors. Comparative Literature: Theory and Practice. Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1989. References
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