Course Code: SCC2LA102

Title : Pre-Modern Literary Cultures of India.

Type of Course: MA Literary Arts Core

Cohort for which it is compulsory: - MA Literary Arts

Cohort for which it is elective: None

No of Credits: 4

Semester and Year Offered: Monsoon Semester Every Year

Course Coordinator and Team: Moushumi Kandali

Email of course coordinator: moushumi@aud.ac.in

Pre-requisites: None

Aim: The course seeks to understand how the Role and Agency of the Author
functions in the field/ works of literature. Focussing on certain texts and literary
movements from the pre modern literary cultures of India the course will introduce
the students to the rich and diverse multilingualism / multiculturalism within the
complex literary landscape of India. It will serve the double objectives of knowing
ones own legacy of literary traditions/ cultures and also critically understanding the
agency of an author within the intricate relation between the individual and
collective domain.

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

This is a both theoretical and practice oriented course with multiple creative writing exercises
based on the models derived from pre- modern literary traditions and cultures of India.

Module 1.
Introduction of the concepts of literary culture and the paradigmatic shift from
literary arts to literary culture . Discussions about problems and prospects of writing
the literary history in the context of India. Deliberation about the questions of Orality
and Textuality with specific focus on the oral / folk/ tribal traditions of India.
Discussion about the agency of an author at within the parameters of oraltity and
textuality.
Folklores, oral tribal poems, oral song texts from various literary cultures of
India .

Module 2.
Introduction to various strands of pre-modern literary cultures of India from different
language traditions and cultural locations to explore and problematise the questions
about the formulations of the Indian literature within its vast diverse complex of
 multi-lingual literary-space. Highlight the multilingualism and plurality of the Indian
literary landscape through historical understanding of the interconnectedness of
literary movements and developments, and the continuity(s) and discontinuity(s)
through certain significant entry points given below :

The Kavya Tradition : Gatha, Pada, Natya.

The Epic : Multiple manifestations of Ramayana.
The Pali texts of Therigaths and Thera gathas.
Indo-Persian tradition of Sufi and Ghazals.
The Bhakti Movement : Multiple manifestations of Bhakti literary traditions.

Module 3.

Recapitulation of the literary history of India from oral / folk / tribal literary culture to the
modern/ contemporary literary manifestations. Critical discussion about certain strands as
site for continuity from pre modern to modern with some specific examples.

Assessment Details with weights:

1. Class Participation: 30% (attendance 10%; responses 10%; asking questions

10%)
2. Module 1 Creative Writing Exercise: 20% (due 4th Sep; grades issued 10th Sep)
3. Module 2 Creative Writing Exercise: 20% (due 25th Sep; grades issued 3rd Oct)
4. Module 3 Creative Writing Exercise: 20% (due 23rd Oct; grades issued 30th Oct)
5. Final Term Paper: 10% (due Dec 5; part of final grade computation)

Reading List:

Selections from the following

1. G N Devy , Painted Worlds : An anthology of Tribal literature , Penguin Books

India, 2002.

2. A.K. Ramanujan, Folk Tales from India: A Selection of Oral Tales from Twenty-Two
Languages. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993 . Sheldon Pollock. The
Language of the Gods in the World of Men. Ranikhet: Permanent Black, 2007.

3. Sheldon Pollock. Ramayana and the Political Imagination in India. Journal of Asian
Studies 52.2:261-297.

4. The Therigathas : Selection from Women Writings in India, Ed by Susie Tharu & K
Lalita. Oxford University Press, 1993.
5. Milind Wakankar, Kabir in the Indo-Islamic Millennium. Original MS of Wakankar,
Subalternity and Religion. London: Routledge, 2010

6. Aditya Behl, The Magic Doe: Desire and Narrative in a Hindavi Sufi Romance, circa
1503, in Indias Islamic Traditions. Ed. Richard Eaton. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2003

7. Vinay Dharwadkar. Kabir: the Weavers Songs. New Delhi: Penguin, 2003.

8. John Stratton Hawley, Three Bhakti Voices: Mirabai, Surdas, and Kabir in Their
Time and Ours. Delhi: OUP, 2005.

9. Karen Pechilis Prentiss, The Embodiment of Bhakti. New York: OUP, 1999.

10. Nabaneeta Deb Sen. A Womans Retelling of the Rama Text. Narrative Strategies
Employed in Chandrabatis Ramayan, In Amiya Dev. Ed. Narrative , A Seminar.
Sahitya Akademi. New Delhi. 1994.

11. Indira Goswami. Ramayana from Ganga to Brahmaputra. B.R. Publishers. New
Delhi, 1996

12. Malashri Lal . In Search of Sita: Revisiting Mythology. Penguin, 2009

13. S N Dasgupta. A History of Sanskrit Literature , The Classical Period. Vol 1,

University of Calcutta, 1947.