300 BC India has already produce literature written in Sanskrit (common

ancestral language)
Vedas

earliest known literature

- collection of traditions handed down by mouth

- contain hymns addressed to Indian gods and stories about gods
Indian literature called Sanskrit literature

- fully developed 3000 years ago

- rich in spiritual and imaginative values
Hindu literature - reveals inner and outer life of remarkable people
Sanskrit cultivated or perfected
India center of ancient civilization

- affected language and culture of many countries in Europe and Asia

daughter

comes from Sanskrit word duhtir = to draw milk

Indians have civilization older than Greeks and Romans

Indian philosophy and religion

influenced by East and West

- were already teaching brotherhood of people and fatherhood of God

before Christ live
- preserves memory of time when daughter was little milkmaid
Indian culture had scientific bent

- gave world trigonometry, first grammar books, first study of phonetics

(study of speech sounds) and chess

Characteristics of Indian Literature

1. based on piety = deeply religious spirit
- believed that a knowledge of God and a strong belief in Hinduism is
necessary to save mankind
- the Vedas = earliest poems and are the Bible of the Indians

2. Indian literary masterpieces (written in the form of epics) correspond to

great epochs in the history of India
- The Ramayana and the Mahabharata = are the most important epics of
India; the latter is the longest found in the world literature
- believe in reincarnation = soul of a person after death returns to the earth
in the body of another person, animal or even a plant
- believe in kindness to other people and to animals
- abstain from destroying plants because in that plant might be reincarnated
ones dead relative
Ramayana - reincarnation of the creator god Vishnu in the person of Rama,
who is a hero of the epic Mahabharata - deals with another reincarnation of
Vishnu in the person of Krishna
Avatars or descending from god - reincarnations of Vishnu
- Vishnu is supposed to have ten avatars
- Nine avatars have already taken place, and the tenth is yet to come
- When this last avatar takes place, Vishnu will descend from heaven to
destroy the present world and restore peace and purity
Mahabharata - considered the greatest epic of India
- tells the story of a civil war that might have taken place in the early
years of the Aryan occupation of India
- a long poem, almost as long as the combined epics of all Europe.
- tells of two rival bands of brothers, descendants of a common
grandfather King Panda
- when he died, he left his five sons in the care of his brother who was to
be regent while his sons were still minors. The regent himself had
many sons, and they coveted the kingdom for themselves. The result
was a period of intrigues and battles which resulted in the exile of the
five brothers.
Ramayana - recounts the adventures of Rama and his wife Sita
Sita - was born of a furrow, the child of Mother Earth
- is regarded by the woman of India as perfect symbol of wifely devotion
and self-sacrifice for the beloved.

Origin of the theater in India - is lost in antiquity

2nd century B.C.- Indian drama reached a high stage of development
Bhasa and Kalidasa - two great Indian dramatists who is called the Indian
Shakespeare
Indian drama - characterized by poetry and idyllic beauty
- concentrates on love as the background of the story
- it has a happy ending always; and there are no violent emotion
- characters are good men and women, and if any wrong is committed,
it is because of the tricks of magicians and evil spirits.
Bhasa - striking thing about the Indian drama
- 13 plays are attributed to him
Kalidasa - greatest writer of plays and the author of Shakuntala
-

called the brightest of the nine gems of genius

Shakuntala - written in long passages of beautiful prose and poetry

- story of a king who goes hunting in the woods and meets a beautiful
maiden named Shakuntala with whom he falls in love
1. he marries her but has to leave her son because of pressing official
business.
2. he leaves a ring with her as a sign of their marriage.
3. Shakuntala has a son; she and her son go to the kings court.
4. the king however, has lost his memory because of the work of an evil
magician.
5. he repudiates his wife and his son because she cannot produce the
ring, having lost it in the forest.
6. the gods, taking pity on the mother and the son, take them to heaven.
7. a fisherman has found the ring, which he takes to the king.
8. king recovers his memory and repents what he has done.
9. gods sympathize with him because of his sufferings and take him to
the heavenly regions.
10.
last act shows the king united with his forgiving wife and son,
now mainly, little boy.
11.
it is revealed that the kings loss of memory happened because
of a curse laid on him by an evil spirit
Panchatantra - rich collection of brief stories of ancient times

- contain the first fables ever written

- contains some of the most important collections of short stories in the
world
- stories from the Panchatantra are arranged in a frame as in the
Arabian Night
- one story leads to another like the links in a chain.
Fables - are stories of animals who behave like human beings
- purpose: is to drive home a truth or a lesson
Rabindranath Tagore - was a great Indian poet and dramatist
-

was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913

was knighted by the British government in 1915
received his education under private tutors
went to England to study law
gives lectures and readings of poems written in English then translated
to Bengali