Lectures on Literature

This course will focus on the history of Hinduism as it encompasses the religious experience of its holy men and women. Very often, besides being "saints" in the Hindu sense, they were gifted philosophers and/or poets. After the historical and methodological introduction, subsequent lectures will illustrate the contributions of these thinkers and creative writers to the history of Hindu literature. Finally, from the nineteenth century onward modern history-of-religions and literary-critical approaches will be more emphasized to help our understanding of saintly phenomena which are very much alive in contemporary Hinduism.

Professor Vasudha Narayanan (University of Florida, USA and Tamal Krishna Visiting Fellow, President of the American Academy of Religion [2001])

Poetry by women can be traced back in South Asia to the 6th century BCE, when Buddhist nuns recorded their joy at finding freedom from the drudgery of everyday life and at achieving not merely social but spiritual liberation in religion. Centuries later, from the 9th century onward, a more durable and powerful tradition of poetry appeared in songs by the women poets of devotional Hinduism, which afforded space to people on the margin, such as, women, lower castes and outcastes, and sparked a cultural awakening that retains its vitality even today. Women, powerless and silent in many domains of community life, found strength in their sense of the divine and their own voice in poetry and songs. Against this historical background this lecture will introduce the poetry of Antal, a 9th century Vaisnava a poet, of Akka Mahadevi of the Virasaiva sect from the 12th century, of Lalla, a 14 century Saiva poet, and songs by the 16th century Vaisnava princess Mirabai. Understanding the intensity of their approaches to the idea of the divine will aid us in appreciating how these works have affected the people of India and continued as a living tradition of women's spiritual quest.

This seminar will address Rabindranath Tagore's contribution to dance performance and the evolution of the Bengali dance-drama genre in Bengal in the early 20th century in relation to the religious, cultural and political milieu of that time. Dr Purkayastha has pursued research on dance and currently teaches on the Dance Programme, School of Arts, Roehampton University, London.

When we think of Rabindranath Tagore in relation to the Krishna-Caitanya religio-literary tradition of Bengal, his youthful Bhanusimher Padaboli immediately come to mind, as they should as the most explicit treatments of a Vaishnava theme in all of his immense literary corpus. But we may also ask what other indications there may be of resonances and dissonances vis-à-vis the Vaishnava tradition elsewhere in his prose and poetry, especially as he grew older. This lecture first reviews his family’s Vaishnava affinities, especially among the women, and the countervailing critical attitudes and policies of the Brahmo Samaj of which he was for some time secretary. It then attempts to assess in what ways and to what degree underlying characteristics of Bengali Vaishnava piety and aesthetics may be reflected or rejected, implicitly if not explicitly in the works of the mature Rabindranath.