India in Translation through Hindi Literature

Imre Bangha locates the source of what would later become the literary idioms associated with the Hindi heartland—Brajbhasha, Avadhi, Khari Boli, and so on—in Maru-Gurjar, an idiom originating not in the Gangetic plain but in western India, particularly the lands of modern Gujarat and western Rajasthan. Bangha argues that it was this literary language, originally cultivated by Jains beginning in the late twelfth century, that eventually spread to the lands known as madhyadeś, where in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries it developed into the forms that we now associate with Brajbhasha and Avadhi. Bangha also reveals that the linguistic and literary evidence for this connection has been apparent for some time, but modern Hindi literary historiography, taking nationalism as its organizing principle and embracing a strict sense of religion as one of the significant boundaries of literary culture, has been largely unable to see it.

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Bharati, Dharamvir (1926–1997)

Routledge Encyclopedia of Modernism ◽

10.4324/9781135000356-rem1540-1 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Rakesh Pandey

Keyword(s):

Social Life ◽

North India ◽

Colonial Era ◽

Literary Traditions ◽

Central Node ◽

Literary Reputation ◽

Hindi Literature ◽

The University ◽

The City

Dharamvir Bharati was one of the most versatile literary figures of modern Hindi Literature in independent India. Born on 25 December, 1926 in a Kayastha family in Allahabad in North India, Bharati grew up witnessing one of the most creative phases in the field of politics, education and literature during late colonial era of which the city was a central node. Bharati majored in Hindi literature at the University of Allahabad (gaining an MA in 1946 and a Ph.D in 1954) and devoted himself to researching mediaeval literary traditions of the Siddhas, a Buddhist Vajrayan sect. He later joined the same university as a lecturer before moving to Bombay in 1960 as the editor of the Hindi weekly Dharmayug, a position which he held until 1987. Bharati’s wider literary reputation rings the name of the play Andha Yug (1954), based on the episodes of the Mahabharata, and two novels, Gunahon Ka Devata (1949) and Suraj Ka Satwan Ghoda (1952), capturing the themes of his city’s social life. Later Bharati earned a unique reputation as a writer-editor who nurtured a new style of journalistic writing in Hindi.

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Peter Gaeffke: Hindi literature in the twentieth century. (A History of Indian Literature, Vol. VIII, Part 1, Fasc. 5.) 118 pp. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1978. DM 68.

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies ◽

10.1017/s0041977x0010477x ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 44 (1) ◽

pp. 186-186

Author(s):

Rupert Snell

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Indian Literature ◽

History Of ◽

Hindi Literature

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Towards the Visual

Politeja ◽

10.12797/politeja.16.2019.59.10 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 16 (2(59)) ◽

pp. 149-160

Author(s):

Kamila Junik-Łuniewska

Keyword(s):

Visual Arts ◽

Visual Art ◽

Graphic Novels ◽

Literary Work ◽

Hindi Literature ◽

Sequential Images

This paper examines the new forms and genres of storytelling in India with an emphasis on the visual aspect of the literary narration. It begins with a remark on the literary and performing tradition of India, where stories were told with an accompaniment of visuals: single or sequential images, scroll paintings, acting etc. With time, storytellers and poets started including modern-day, contemporary themes and problems into their narratives, which not only brought changes in the repertoire of stories, but also, quite naturally, caused development in terms of genres and ways of expression. The present study is based on graphic novels by Sarnath Banerjee and Vishwajyoti Ghosh, with reference to contemporary Hindi literature and some examples from visual art. The author seeks to answer the following questions: 1) what is the “new language” of a literary work in relation to the visual, 2) how – and by which means – does the literature reflect the reality of the new generations, 3) how is a story narrated through images. In conclusion, some observations are made on mutual influences between literature and audio-visual arts.

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