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LIT 2 WEEK 10 Assignment

Rodel C. Ebreo

Answers:

1. Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian


subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter.
The Republic of India has 22 officially recognized languages.

All dates about the ancient Indian literature are not only
uncertain, but are contested. European scholars from the 18th
century onwards estimated dates of various texts based on
methods that Indian scholars consider arbitrary. The earliest
works of Indian literature were orally transmitted. Sanskrit
literature begins with the oral literature of the Rig Veda a
collection of sacred hymns dating to the period 1500–1200 BCE.
The Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata appeared
towards the end of the first millennium BCE. Classical Sanskrit
literature developed rapidly during the first few centuries of the
first millennium BCE, as did the Tamil Sangam literature, and
the Pāli Canon. In the medieval period, literature in Kannada
and Telugu appeared in the 9th and 11th centuries respectively.
Later, literature in Marathi, Bengali, various dialects of Hindi,
Persian and Urdu began to appear as well. Early in the 20th
century, Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore became India's first
Nobel laureate. In contemporary Indian literature, there are two
major literary awards; these are the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
and the Jnanpith Award. Eight Jnanpith Awards each have been
awarded in Hindi and Kannada, followed by five in Bengali and
Malayalam, four in Oriya, three in Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu and
Urdu, two each in Assamese and Tamil, and one in Sanskrit.

2. The most famous works of the Indian literature can be traced in


the vernacular languages of the northern Indian cults of Krishna
and of Rama. Also included are the 12th-century poems by
Jaydev, called the 'Gitagovinda' and religious love poems written
in Maithili (eastern Hindi of Bihar).

Literature was also produced in the form of Bhakti (a


personal devotion to a god) addressed to Rama (an avatar of
Vishnu), most notably in the Avadhi (eastern Hindi) works of
Tulsi Das; his 'Ramcharitmanas'. The early gurus or founders of
the Sikh religion, especially Guru Nanak Dev and Guru Arjun
Dev, also composed bhakti hymns to their concepts of deity. In
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the 16th century, the Rajasthani princess and poet Mira Bai
addressed her bhakti lyric verse to Krishna, as did the Gujarati
poet Narsimh Mehta.

The Indian literary tradition is the oldest in the world. It is


primarily one of verse and essentially oral. The earliest works
were composed to be sung or recited, and were so transmitted
for many generations before being written down.

3. Gandhi was a prolific writer. One of Gandhi's earliest


publications, Hind Swaraj, published in Gujarati in 1909, is
recognised as the intellectual blueprint of India's independence
movement. For decades he edited several newspapers including
Harijan in Gujarati, in Hindi and in the English language; Indian
Opinion while in South Africa and, Young India, in English, and
Navajivan, a Gujarati monthly, on his return to India. Later,
Navajivan was also published in Hindi. In addition, he wrote
letters almost every day to individuals and newspapers.[203]

Gandhi also wrote several books including his autobiography,


The Story of My Experiments with Truth of which he bought the
entire first edition to make sure it was reprinted. His other
autobiographies included: Satyagraha in South Africa about his
struggle there, Hind Swaraj or Indian Home Rule, a political
pamphlet, and a paraphrase in Gujarati of John Ruskin's Unto
This Last. This last essay can be considered his programme on
economics. He also wrote extensively on vegetarianism, diet and
health, religion, social reforms, etc. Gandhi usually wrote in
Gujarati, though he also revised the Hindi and English
translations of his books.

Gandhi's complete works were published by the Indian


government under the name The Collected Works of Mahatma
Gandhi in the 1960s. The writings comprise about 50,000 pages
published in about a hundred volumes. In 2000, a revised
edition of the complete works sparked a controversy, as it
contained a large number of errors and omissions. The Indian
government later withdrew the revised edition.

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