INDIA AS A LITERARY AREA
 
Kikkeri Narayan
CIIL, Mysore

     Ever since Emeneau established the concept of India as a linguistic area not much has been done in this perspective in socio-linguistics. The concept of India as a linguistic area should have been extended to the study of Indian culture and literature. There are few studies done in the area of looking at Indian literature irrespective of the literatures being produced by mostly the Indo-Aryan languages and Dravidian languages. Colonial and post colonial studies and the Nationalistic movements have tried to look for Indian literature from different perspectives. In the process, they have seen literatures of this country from their own perspectives, I will discuss these ideas of Indian literature after defining the concept of " India as a Literary Area" by homologically extending the concept of " India as a Linguistic Area".

      " India as a Linguistic Area" as defined by Emeneau in more than ten essays can be summed up as following,

      •  Basic requisite to call an area linguistic area lies in which languages belonging to more than one family show traits in common which do not belong to the other members of (atleast) one of the families have to be recognised for a very long time. Emeneau (1956) recognised this characterestic features applied this to Indian situation where four languages families have co-existed for long. His interest in this matter began as soon as he undertook to add knowledge of Dravidian languages to his previous study of Sanskrit and Indo-European.

      To establish India as a linguistic Area was to establish the typological features as Pan-Indic and at the same time not extra Indic. He first establishes linguistic boundaries so that there is an approximation to a 'bunch of Isoglasses'. The second part of the language of origin of the feature in question is its direction of diffusion throughout the languages of linguistic area pertinent questions of phonological, syntactic, morphological and semantic development.

      Emeneau excluded lexical diffusion which is not central to the investigation of linguistic areas based on the idea that lexical items are found to diffuse between any two languages whether or not they are parts of linguistic area.

      The other condition is that a language of language that belong to a family (F1) whose languages outside the area do not have the feature, the feature is question not being reconstructable as belonging to the protolanguage of that family. If the feature is found in language of a second family (F2) in the area and is to be considered a part of the reconstructable proto language of that family F2, the assumption can be made that there has been diffusion from the family F2 into the language or languages of family F1 within the area. In Indian context F1 is Indo-Aryan and F2 is frequently Dravidian, mainly the other concept in the Indian context that the features in question should only be Pan-India and at the same time not extra-Indic.

      The above conditions were laid down by Emeneau to look into " India as a Linguistic Area". This later investigations based on historical analyses suggested that Indo-Aryan, including Sanskrit, had borrowed a complex trait and numerous items from Dravidian, then developed new items independently.

      Emeneau also showed the characteristic of early Sanskrit, however, conservative it might have been was in contact with Dravidian in its social milieu and thus might have caused bilingualism. Though nothing much is known of the Indian social and political structure into which the Sanskrit speaking invaders made their way.

       Emeneau has raised an important question about the nature of prilingualism between Aryan and Dravidian and has opined that Dravidianization of Sanskrit in some of its structural features must lead to the partial conclusion that a sufficient proportion of certain generations of Sanskrit speakers learned their Sanskrit from person whose original Dravidian linguistic traits were translated into Indo-Aryan.

       The above point certainly throw some light on the question of hegemony. What kind of hegemony it was? Whether the Aryans were, to start with, subordinate to Dravidian language speakers. Did Aryan invasion really took place due to war or was is that Aryans came and just occupied the geographical space that was available to them. hegemony, according to Gramci consists of "an order in which one concept of reality is diffused throughout society, in all its institutional and private manifestations, it inflicts on morality, customs, religious and political principles". But certainly it is interesting to probe into its details.

      It is time now to look into other disciplines briefly such as anthropology, archaeology and history to check what Emeneau has postulated through his linguistic traits.

      Iravati Karve (1953, 1965) in her article 'kinship organization in India". Looked to vocabularies of kin terms for insights into kinship organization northern, southern eastern-coordinate with the culture areas of the three major language families, Indo-Aryan (Sanskrit) Dravidian and Astro-Asiatic), she also posited a central zone intermediate between the northern and southern types and combining features of both. For Iravati Karve, the unity of India is found in the existence throughout the subcontinent of two important Institutions, the joint family and the Hindu caste system Thomas Trautmann, the historical convergence that has taken place between the Dravidian and the Indo-Aryan kinship system is the outcome of the political and ideological domination of the north over the south.

      The "liminal zones", I would like to call, like Kannada-Telugu language (Dravidian) and Marathi (Indo-Aryan) meeting zone has been the point of Karve's discussion is based on the linguistic factor and marriage system.

      Romila Thapar, in her book History and Beyond (2000) has given us the idea of pre-historic, and historical period of India with a different perspective. Approving the Emeneau's point of "India as a linguistic Area" has re-viewed the history from that perspective. She has ascertained that the spread of Sanskrit, certainly in the Ganges valley, approved to have occurred through a process of diffusion and less through conquest. She questions the western theory of Oriental Despotism. She does not vouch to see the span of Indian History as a street of empire with an occasional change of dynasty.

      Romila Thapar's theory has encompassed the multidimensionality of the spread of language, literature, religion over the Dravidian and visa versa. She does not see the structural influences based on monolithic perspective of religious political and socio-cultural aspects. She heralds the idea of Emeneau's concept of assimilation aspects. That the focus of Aryan worship was the sacrificial ritual. Brahminism, which almost came closest to having a subcontinental identity largely through its ritual functions and the use of the common language, Sanskrit. Shakta cult though that can be traced back to Harappan culture which was antithetical to Brahmin's ritual later got assimilated. The mentality of worshipping the goddess was initial alien to upper caste religion which was Dravidian trait. In the process of acculturation between 'high culture' and 'low-culture' of local cults. Most of the time the scholars believed that it is reciprocal in Indian context. Viththala of Pandarapur, Jagannatha at Puri are few examples where the reversal also can take place. Various forms of 'Shakti', mother goddess cult, which is Dravidian in nature penetrated to the Aryan pantheon, in various forms.

      Most of the times scholars, trace this influence they take this kind of traits as sanskritic in opposition to Tamil. But, they don't recognise the transition zone which has always worked as the mediating point between these two, but one has to see the transition as a process.

       Local cults associated with new social groups lead to the emergence of more popular puranic religion vedic deities were subordinated and ousted. Vishnu and Shiva came to the forefront. Thus the puranic religion was in accumulative and accommodating process.

      The mutual condemnation and claiming ones superiority over the other speaks their rivalry between vedic and Agamic and Tantric traditions, Agamic initiation (diksha) is substituted for vedic upanayana ceremony.

      Apart from puranic influence and confluence in the Dravidian land, it was 'agama' tradition which was in vogue which is sometimes considered as an offshoot of vedic tradition. Agama is also known as tantric tradition. These two are divergent and mutually conflicting traditions but later got assimilated into Brahminical tradition. Agama-tantra tradition gave up its extreme nature and esoteric worship and adopted attractive and pacifies methods in the process of worship. This worship became very popular form of worship both at home and temple. Fine arts like music and dance as a part of temple ritual in Dravidian region.

      The Shiva Siddhanta School of Tamil Nadu and The Virashaiva School of Karnataka are the two living traditions of two kinds of worship. The agamic texts published in Tamilnadu are related to the temple (parartha puja) and the texts published in Karnataka are related to the worship at home (atmaartha puja). The origin of this agamic elements is traced back to Harappa culture by Archaeologists like John based on the temple architecture of Maharashtra and Karnataka. Agama becomes the common mans form of worship. This is still followed by Male madeshwara cult of Karnataka.

      Indian nationalistic literature is a category that appears to be hurriedly categorised. The diverse kinds of aspirations are homogenised under the unitary insignia of "nationalism". Till today it is not possible for any literary scholar to talk confidently on Indian literature; because there is no one literature, but there are only Indian literatures. National literature is more than the sum of its regional parts. There is an uneven development in period and region literatures. There are gaps in the history chronology. Culture and literature are not necessarily coterminous with linguistic formation and state boundary. The other problem is determined by the narrativization of literary history.

     Karnataka is a meeting zone of Aryan and Dravidian language and culture.Historic age started in Karnataka around 4 th -3 rd century B.C. Mauryas who were ruling north their power in south-India can be gauged from the location of Ashoka's inscriptions in the south, which are not found beyond Mysore (Karnataka) Ashoka introduced Brahmi script to these people". (Romila Thapar : History of India).

      There are more that 10 rock eddicts of Ashoka which are written in Brahmi script and the language is not sanskrit, but prakrit. language that came into contact with Karnataka. The kingdom of this region is called 'isila' which means 'fort' which is certainly not of a Sanskrit origin. Sanskrit got established here during the rule of Kadambas; Mayuravarma replaced prakrit, until then the language of the rulers was prakrit Banavasi.

      It was after the decline of Ashikan empire, Shatavahanas belonging to present day karnataka. Andhra became the rulers of Banavasi in Karnataka. They patronised both Buddhism and Hinduism and made prakrit as their language of administration. during the region of Nanda-Maurya, Kannada got established as a separate language from Proto-Dravidian. This was due to the influence of Buddhism and Jainism. Both the religious came to this part of the country almost simultaneously. There are 14 Ashokan Inscription so far excavated. It is interesting to note that the prakrit language used in the inscriptions. There is an absence of v, i, ii, ai and are absence of s, s these two phonemes are replaced by s alone. Aspirated phonemes are de-aspirated, word initial 'h' gets dropped. Visarga is absent devoicing of voiced sounds like b>p, split of clusters: bhakti --> pakuti - interestingly 'dwivachana' is absent, which was a charactistic of prakrit <-- Sanskrit. Grammatical change due to the influence of Kannada/Dravidian influence. The other influence being shift of dative case markers for locative. This can be found even in the modern Kannada. These examples provide ample evidence of Bilingualism.

      After the disintegration of Mauryan empire, Shatavahanas int he 1 st century B.C. established themselves on rulers from Andhra-Karnataka. The Shatavahanas are also called Andhra Dynasty. But they moved to West part of the Deccan - present day Banavasi of Karnataka. They continued Prakrit as a language of administration. There is an interesting episode in Somadeva's Gatasaptapadi about the use of Sanskrit language.

      King Hala of 1-2 century A.D. of Shatavahana dynasty has used few Kannada words like potta, puppa, tiir, pettu in his book called gathasaptasati.

      These examples show that there was a language in contact situation and Bilingualism. This can be illustrated with an example from the text.

      In the story the monarch Satavahana is first shown in a highly erotic context, sporting joyfully with his consorts in a pond. One of his queens, exhausted by the game, begs the king to stop splashing her, crying, 'Lord, do not pelt me with water!' ( modakaih deva paritadayamam ). The king, however, utterly ignorant of the rules of sandhi, ma and dakaih respectively, mistakenly understands the queen gets sweets ( modakaih ). When the obliging monarch sends for some of these delicacies, the queen mocks him for his ignorance:

      Your majesty, what occasion is there for sweets here in the middle of the water? What I said to you was, 'Please don't splash me with water. Why, you don't even know the sandhi required between the words ma and udaka ! You don't know the first thing about grammar! How did you come to be such an idiot?'

Problems of considering India as a Literary Area:

      Major problem to reconstruct the concept of India as a literary area lies in the availability of literary texts in translations; Though attempts have been made by different agencies still one cannot get a comprehensive view of literatures in regional languages; that too from the Indian language into other directly without the mediation of English. It is difficult to find multilingual scholars who are wellversed in many languages of this country, because Indian literature presumes the knowledge of many languages.

      The other problem of undertaking literature in different languages is the knowledge of that text production inspite of knowing their origin either as Sanskritic or Dravidian in nature. Because in the past, before print media came to this country, the literary forms were meant basically for recitation. So, unless we know how the texts were performed we certainly miss the many ways of rendering the text, and how and where they were rendered, who rendered them for whom; the socio-political regions contexts are also missing. We are not yet sure of textual production and then social context.

       For orientalists and sometime the nationalists (Schlegel to Maurice, or Arobindo) for them Indian literature meant only classical Sanskrit literature predominantly vedic, Sanskritic, redigious and metaphysical text of North India. Because of Indo-Aryan philological construct. Other literatures in Tamil or Kannada or other languages were never considered inspite of their availability at that time.

•  Theoretical positions and knowledge system of literature.

•  Uneven development of history of literature in different languages.

•  Availability of literatures in translation directly from one Indian languages to the other.

•  Non availability of research in one linguistic community to another.

•  Non-availability of Information about how the text was produced and disseminated.

•  Problem of recognition of a text as literary or not. (Kannada, vacanas were never recognised as literary piece until the second part of 20 th century).

•  Emergence of a literary genre - mutual influences and differences.

•  Multilingualism of writers - turning into monolingualism.

•  Problem of translation from one Indian language to the other without the mediation of English

•  Genres and forms of composition that one lost in translations most of the time.

•  Why different styles develop during different socio-political scene

•  Textual editing -

•  "Indian" here is super imposed on various diverse texts drawn Indian literature appears to be an effect of geography and the nation state.

•  Researching and editing manuscripts started only in the beginning of 20 th century.

•  Influence of colonial education system which gave rise to different forms of writing in regional languages.

•  Development of literary trends during colonial and post-colonial periods in regional languages.

•  Subaltern writings and Dalit writings.

      The humiliation of the king is so complete that even his courtiers laugh at his discomfiture.

      There are various ways of thinking in the Indian context to accommodate and evaluate "India as a literary area". Few scholars feel that Sanskrit literary theory can be extended to modern literary production of various other modern Bhasha literature. On the other hand the later development in various other Indian languages feel that it can hold at the same time present western theories are also posing several problems. Dalit literature and Feminist literature, literature of the oppressed have felt that there is a need to look into the production of literature from different theoretical perspective, because all these theories put together may not help in understanding and evaluating the literature. On the other hand if we look into the Bhasha traditions or Paramparas (as called by Devy) suggests Marga and Desi i.e. regional and subcultures are sanskritization and westernization are Aham and Puram dichotomies suggested by Ramanujan can hold the literary process during the production of the texts.

       Recent theories of colonialism, post-colonialism and nationalism so far do not go beyond 150 years of literary production in this country and thus it cannot hold 2000 or more years of literary condition of this country. Again these concepts work as overarching homogenizing process of understanding Indian literatures.

       The other problem is the uneven development of literary history and the non-availability of history of literature in an even way (literary criticism and literary history in Indian have been insensitive tot he conclusions that can be drawn for comparative perspective of bhasha literature, Devy, 1994).

       The other problem is the emergence of the literature of the oppressed, dalits and women writers.

      Dalit literature at least which is prominent in Marathi and Kannada are demanding the new esthetic theory to a merge. At least in Kannada there are 2 schools of dalit literature, one which rejects the history, the other one trying to build history through literature based on oral and performative traditions. The first one feels there is no history of dalits in this country, because the silenced throughout. That is why probably Marathi's dalit literature now heavily depends upon Autobiographies.

      Literary production in each language has its own socio-political and religious bearing upon them. Unless they are properly contextualized and connected to the literary production it is difficult to assess them.

      Acceptability of a text by the culture as a literary text or not poses another problem for example, Soofi literature produced during 14 th and 15 th century, ofcourse, which has given birth to Dakhni Urdu language and literature is case. Vachana literature in Kannada had to wait for 800 years in Karnataka to be called a piece of literature.

      Feminist literature that developing in this country is another genre of literature which is raising its voice needs a careful consideration. Feminists are trying to re-write their history by evoking not only the present but also the past of this country through mythology, religious practice and the classical texts to understand the dynamics of gender. These enquiries are going on rigorously to based on sexualities, ideologies and class paradigms by going deep in hermeneutic way.

REFERENCES

•  Alf Hiltebeitel & Kathleen M. Erndl (2002), Is The Goddess a Feminist?, OUP, New Delhi.

•  Aijaz Ahmad (1994), In Theory, OUP, New Delhi.

•  Briget & Raymong Allchin (1982), The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan University of Cambridge, Cambridge.

•  Devy G.N. (1995), After Amnesia, Orient Longmen Ltd., Hyderabad.

•  Emeneau B. Murray (1980), Language and Linguistic Area, Stanford University Press, California.

•  Jasodhara Bagchi (1995), Indian Women, Sangam Books (India) Limited, Hyderabad.

•  Julia Leslie & Mary McGee (2000), Invented Identities, OUP, New Delhi.

•  Kurtakoti K.D. (1995), Kannada Sahitya Sangati, Kannada University, Hampi.

•  Meena Kelkar & Deepti Gangavane (2003), Feminism in Search of an Identity, Rawat Publications, Jaipur and New Delhi.

•  Romila Thapar (2000), History and Beyond, OUP, New Delhi.