Vadnagar: Historical town (Visit to Vadnagar)

VADNAGAR- AN ANCIENT CITY

(Project-based Learning under Viksit Bharat Abhiyan)

In the pursuit of holistic education, the Institute of India Education(IITE) in Gandhinagar organized an enlightening visit to Vadnagar – a town steeped in history. This immersive experience, part of the Project-Based Learning (PBL) initiative under the Viksit Bharat Abhiyan, aimed to provide students with a firsthand exploration of the cultural, historical, and educational facets of this ancient town. This blog offers concise insights into Vadnagar, providing a snapshot of the visited locations and the experiences encountered during the exploration.

Wandering through Vadnagar's streets, time seems non-linear, blending 4500 years of history in pottery, textiles, and tools from ancient agricultural communities. Traces of the 12th century are felt in step embankments and Solanki dynasty torans.

Echoes of Bhavai folk theater resonate in the Government Museum, with chances of street performances. Vadnagar boasts Gujarat's poets like Dayaram, and Narsinh Mehta, novelists like Govardhanram Tripathi, and musicians like Kaumudi Munshi, and hosts the Tana Riri Music Festival in homage to Nagar Brahmin sisters.

Buddhist presence emerges with a 2nd-century AD sandstone Buddha head, black polished ware-shreds with Brahmi inscriptions found in the Monastery at Vadnagar. The monastery, within the fortified area, featured votive stupas and a Swastika-like pattern of cells around a central courtyard.

Vadnagar: An Ancient Kingdom

Vadnagar finds its mention in ancient literature, Jain scriptures, and copper plates, which testify that Vadnagar was a famous city of ancient India. As per mythological scriptures, this city was known as 'Chamatkarpur' in Satya Yuga, 'Anartapur' in Treta Yuga, "Anandapur' in Dvapara Yuga and 'Vruddhanagar' or 'Vadnagar' in Kali Yuga. Apart from these names, Vadnagar was also known as 'Arkasthali', Chaunkanagar', or 'Chunkarpur' as well as 'Skandapur'. However, there is no firm opinion about when exactly this ancient city was established.

Nagarkhanda, a part of Skanda Purana (the largest of all 18 mythological scriptures) mentions Vadnagar as 'Chamatkarpur. As narrated in Nagarkhanda, one day, King Chamatkar was out on a hunting expedition. While aiming a male deer, he accidentally killed the female deer, who cursed him that he would suffer from white leprosy throughout life, Suffering from pain, the King sought advice from some renowned Brahmins, who asked him to take a dip in the magical water of the Shankh Tirth Lake. The king did as told; a miracle happened, and he was free of his curse, looking as radiant as ever. Ecstatic, he offered his kingdom and wealth to these Brahmins, but they refused, and instead asked the King to build a beautiful city for them to reside safely. King Chamatkar built a large city, which became famous as 'Chamatkarpur'. According to historical records, the King donated this city to the Brahmins.

Home to Brahmins, followers of Vedas and Nagars, Vadnagar became a thriving city of knowledge and religious presence, gaining prosperity and earning its fame as the 'Kashi of Gujarat'.

 

Historic Glory of Vadnagar

According to the Puranas, the name 'Anarta' was derived from Anarta, son of Sharyati, grandson of Vaivasvata Manu. As it was an important manufacturing and trading center for various products, Anantapur was made the capital of Anarta Pradesh. It is also said that Vadnagar must have been a popular center for Buddhism, Jainism, Shaivism, and Vaishnava faiths. The glory of the ancient city of Vadnagar echoed across boundaries, attracting not just traders, but students, local and global travelers, and spiritual knowledge-seekers.

Anartapur, established on the banks of the beautiful Sharmishtha Lake, fed by the waters of river Kapila, finds its mention in Mahabharata as well. The Anarta warriors - Satyaki and Kritavarma fought in the Kurukshetra War. Although, Anartapur rose to glory due to the war, as soon as the war ended, the loss reflected on its weakened military strength. As time progressed, Vadnagar was attacked and looted by many local and foreign rulers. With each attack, it stood up stronger, somehow maintaining its historical significance and identity. Vadnagar kept losing its Nagar Brahmins and other residents, who moved out of the city, seeking shelter elsewhere.

Vadnagar, a city of Brahmins, literary scholars, artists, sculptors, and singer-musicians... the land of pilgrimage places such as Hatkeshwar Temple and Sharmistha Lake, along with the fort enclosing the city with six-gates, Kirti Toran, Tana-Riri Memorial as well as marvelous vernacular architecture has made Vadnagar city an amalgamation of art, culture, and history.

Vadnagar Town Planning

Aparajit-Prichchha, a famous book on town planning elaborates on how well a town can be planned keeping in view the natural elements such as air, sunlight, and water. In this book, 'Pashchime tu Jalashaya' which translates to 'there should be a reservoir in the west' has been considered an essential part of town planning. The scientific logic behind this is that if there is a river or a water body to the west of the town, then the air coming from that side gets cooled, which in turn provides a sense of relief to the inhabitants of the town. Vadnagar is found to have been built based on this very scientific principle.

Vadnagar's old town is found inside the walls of a fort with six gates: Kirti, Arjun, Nadiol, Amarthol, Ghaskol, and Pithori. The town was added to the tentative list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites in December 2022.

Arjun bari darwajo (Gate

Write up on the Gate by Kavi Shripal (poet in Darbar in Solanki kal) in Prakrut Language. 

Architectural Beautification during the Solanki Period

In 1152 A.D., Solanki ruler Kumarapal enhanced the fort in a city, constructing six unique gates. King Siddharaj built Lake Sharmistha with intricate stonework, featuring Arjunbari Darwajo gate on its shore. The gates showcased sculptures of various deities.

Kirti Toran in Vadnagar, an ornate archway, symbolized Solanki glory with delicate carvings in red and yellow sandstone. The Solanki dynasty contributed to the creation and renovation of temples, establishing a well-planned market, paved roads, and water structures like wells and step-wells.

Magnificent entrances in Dabhoi and Zinzuwada forts, Rani Ni Vav, Modhera's Sun temple, Rudramaal in Siddhpur, and Jain temples at Palitana, Girnar, Tauranga, Kumbhariyaji, and Mount Abu were credited to the Solanki dynasty, showcasing exquisite craftsmanship.

Must-Visit Gems in Vadnagar: Unveiling the Essential Spots Explored

Theme park- On musical ragas

A captivating theme park dedicated to Indian musical ragas awaits visitors, offering a unique experience. Equipped with specially designed headphones, guests can immerse themselves in the enchanting melodies of the six main ragas. Each raga, thoughtfully recorded for optimal listening pleasure, provides a harmonious journey through the rich tapestry of Indian classical music.

   

   

          

   

Sharmishtha lake

The ancient lake was developed during the Solanki period and continues to be one of the most scenic points in the city of Vadnagar popularly known as Sameda Lake

Sharmishtha Lake is also mentioned in the Puranas. It is believed to have been constructed by one of the most prominent rulers of the Solanki dynasty, Siddharaj Jaisinh Solanki, but it's believed that it was named after the daughter of the Som dynasty king, who undertook penance here. The early settlement was on the bank of river Kapila flowing from the hills of Aravalli. It fed water to a lake, known as Sharmishtha, at the site, and the settlement extended around it. Over some time the settlement grew into a city of considerable size.

Kirti Toran

  

Standing at nearly 40 feet, Vadnagar's Kirti Toran, installed by the Solanki rulers, boasts intricately carved images and has miraculously survived numerous attacks and invasions over the centuries. Toran, in Indian architecture, means an artistic arched gateway. Typically, the torans were built at the temple entrances, and banks of vavs (step-wells), wells, or lakes. Many times, when the temples were attacked and destroyed, and only the Torans survived as remnants, it was recognized as 'Yugaloni Chori'. In the oral tradition, Vadnagar's Toran is known as 'Kuwarbaini Chori'. The architecture of the Kirti Toran is very similar to the architecture of Modhera's Sun temple and Siddhpur's Rudramal (Rudra Mahalaya), which leads us to believe that these were built during the Solanki period. Owing to its intricate carving and exquisite sculptures, the Kirti Toran occupies a place of significance amongst Gujarat's Torans.

Shree Hatkeshwar Mahadev

The most significant of the attractions at Vadnagar is the Hatkeshwar Mahadev Temple, considered the Tamily deity of Nagar Brahmins. As per scholars' views, the garbha-griha (inner sanctum of the temple is adorned with an Antarala trief sponge a Mandap (an octagonal hypostyle hall, and three ornamental lateral porches in cardinal directions. The walls of the entire temple are adorned with exquisite sculptures. Mandovara Pitha (the wall that rises above the Shikhar or vertex), Mandap as well and the walls of the porches are adorned with sculptures of the nine planets, figurines of gods and goddesses, and scenes from the life of Land Krishna and events from Pandavas life. Among the sculptures found at the Hatkeshwar Mahades temple, the sculpture of Matsyavatar Vishnu stands out in terms of sculptural art with its upper half in a human shape and the lower half in the shape of a fish.

Buddhist monastery

In 1992, a Bodhisattva idol dating back to the 2nd-3rd century was unearthed in Vadnagar, with an inscription on the pedestal indicating it was donated by a nun for the Chaitya.

The following major periods of events have been identified through archaeological 'excavation at the site

1. Foundation of the first settlement: pre-Mauryan Period (pre-3rd Century BCE)

2. First fortified settlement: Mauryan & Post-Mauryan (3rd Century BCE-1st BCE)

3. Re-planned town with but brick Fortification: Kshatrapa-Maitraka - Solanki Period (1st Century ACE- 11th Century ACE)

4. Internal modification in town planning: SolankiSultanate-Mughal-Period (12th Century CE-18th Century ACE)

5. Period of present town planning: Maratha to Present (19th Century CE to date)

Historical Background

The Chinese Buddhist Monk Xuanzang or Hiuen Tsiang Visited Vadnagar (ANANDPUR) around 641CE He records, "there are less than 1000 monks of the sammatiya school or little vehicle in 10 monasteries." It suggests that Vadnagar was one of the important centers of Buddhist learning in Western India during that period. He also records Vadnagar as a capital city that has no king. The discovery of the monastery has proved hidden records true.

A Bodhisattva image was found in 1992 from an agricultural field, lying about 1 km southwest of this monastery site. Vadnagar is now an important site in Gujarat for the study of the spread of Buddhism and for understanding the historical and cultural development of the city-state, as literary references and archaeological evidence reveal.

Tana Riri

The Legend of Tana Riri

It is well known that Akbar, the great Mughal Emperor, was a patron of art and culture. Tansen, his chief musician, whom he considered one of the Navratna (nine jewels), was blessed with the gift of the knowledge of various ragas. One day, the emperor insisted he sing raga Deepak. Tansen pleaded stating the dire consequences but Akbar didn't budge.

While his singing lit up the lamps of the palace, it induced an intense burning sensation within Tansen's body. The only remedy for cooling it down was that somebody else truly sang raga Malhar. Tansen roamed around the country and came to know that there was a possibility of someone with knowledge of raga Malhar in Vadnagar.

He reached Vadnagar by nightfall and rested on the banks of Lake Sharmistha. Early in the morning, women started coming to the lake to fetch water. As Tansen was watching them closely, he spotted two women in particular filling their pitchers with water. They were sisters - Tana and Riri. No sooner did Tana fill her pitcher than she emptied it, and she did this several times. When Riri asked Tana, "Sister, how many times are you going to do this?" she replied, "As long as we do not hear the tunes of Malhar". Ultimately, Tana succeeded in filling the pitcher such that the water flowing in it emitted the tune of Malhar.

Tansen approached the sisters seeking help saying he was a Brahmin, and was made to sing raga Deepak on the Emperor's insistence. They took pity on him and sought permission from their elders to sing. As they started singing raga Malhar, black clouds of rain engulfed the sky, and by the time they finished, it was raining heavily. Tansen, completely drenched in the cool water, got rid of his burning sensation magically.

Despite knowing that only Tansen could truly sing raga, Deepak, Tana helped him as he had pretended to be a Brahmin. No sooner than his real identity was revealed, Tansen begged everyone present to forgive him. The people forgave him only on the condition that he wouldn't ever divulge details to anyone about Tana and Riri.

The Story behind Tana Riri Memorial

Upon returning to Delhi, Akbar asked Tansen how he was cured. Tansen was in a dilemma - If he gave away the secret, his promise would be broken, but if he didn't, he would be a victim of Akbar's wrath. Out of fear, he narrated everything that had happened at Vadnagar, praising the sisters' singing as well as their beauty.

Unfortunately, two of Akbar's princes eavesdropped the conversation. They planned on kidnapping the sisters for themselves. They reached Vadnagar by nightfall and picked a spot by Sharmistha Lake to rest.

When dawn broke, women started arriving at the shore to fetch water. As soon as Tana and Riri came, the princes recognized them with no difficulty, as they looked quite distinct from other women.

After filling their pitchers, they took the water-filtering cloth off and shook it in the air for drying. The princes took it as a signal for calling them. They approached the two sisters praising their beauty, but the women present there were shocked at the sight of two unknown men and started shouting for help. In no time, the people of the town rushed and caught the princes, beating them to death in the chaos. They buried them along with their horses on the shore.

On the other hand, over the absence of his sons, a worried Akbar ordered his soldiers to start the search. After some time, the news came that the princes had met with death in Vadnagar. Raging with fury, Akbar sent his army to Vadnagar to punish the people of the town and bring Tana and Riri to Delhi.

The army massacred all the people, burnt the city, and captured Tana and Riri. The soldiers put them in a palanquin and began their march back to Delhi. Tana and Riri were determined to die rather than go to Delhi, so when their palanquin reached the Mahakaleshwar temple, just outside the city gates, they sucked the diamonds they were wearing on their rings and died of the poison.

Their bodies were cremated there itself. Later on, two small temple-like structures were built there as their memorial. Set in a beautiful garden, the Tana-Riri Memorial is the venue for the music festival held annually at Vadnagar in their memo and memory. The city never forgot the sacrifice of Tana-Riri and continues to honor their memory with an annual music festival.

Lateri vav

This ancient stepwell, along with many others in Vadnagar, is getting a facelift and being converted into a tourist spot.

Much like the other water retention structures of the region, this vav too offered the option of walking downstairs to recover water. Along with that, this ancient structure does point to the fact that a farming civilization had its roots deep in the region.

Art Gallery

    

Ancient Structures and Havelis in Vadnagar

  

   

Read more about Vadnagar

Gujarat Tourism- Vadnagar

Vadnagar- An Ancient City

UNESCO- Vadnagar

Thanks for reading

On Translating a Tamil Poem -A.K. Ramanujan

This blog is a response to a task assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. The syllabus of the Department of English, MKBU includes paper no.- 208 Comparative Literature and Translation studies which includes around 9 articles. We (students) are assigned a task of classroom presentation of assigned articles in a pair. In this blog we are supposed to write abstract, key points / arguments and concluding remarks on all two articles of Unit 3 of paper Comparative Literatures and Translation Studies. It also includes the recording of class presentations presented by respective students. Blogger and her partner have made a presentation on the third article, presentation and a video of a particular article is embedded (as per the task).

ARTICLE 1

“Translation and Literary History: An Indian View”

Ganesh Devy

[This article is taken from ‘Postcolonial Translation: Theory and Practice

(Ed. Susan Bassnett and Haish Trivedi)]

ARTICLE 2

On Translating a Tamil Poem

-A.K. Ramanujan

(From collected essays of A.K Ramanujan ed. Vijay Dharwadkar)

The article is divided into three parts and its trajectory moves from the history of Tamil Literature to its attempts of translation, problems of translation and also gives solutions for it.

Part I

Ramanujan begins his article with a question: How does one translate a poem from another time, another culture, another language? Over two thousand Tamil poems of different lengths, by over four hundred poets, arranged in nine anthologies, have survived through politics, wars, poverty, nature and all dangers. The subject of this paper is translation, the transport of poems from classical Tamil to modem English.

The chief difficulty of translation is its impossibility. Frost once even identified poetry as that which is lost in translation. Once we accept that as a premise of this art, we can proceed to practice it, or learn.

Ramanujan questions: How shall we divide up and translate this poem? What are the units of Translation?

He begins with sound. The sound system of Tamil is very different from English.

E.g.: Old Tamil has 6 nasal Consonants while English has 3.

Tamils have long and short vowels while English has diphthongs and glides. Etc

It is impossible to translate the phonology of one language into another even if it is a culturally related language. If we try and even partially succeed in mimicking the sounds we may lose everything else, the syntax, meanings, and the poem itself.

Further he talks about metre, as metre is a second-order organization of the sound system of a language. Tamil metre depends on the presence of long vowels and double consonants, and on closed and open syllables defined by such vowels and consonants.

For instance, in The first word of the above poem, annay, the first syllable is heavy because it is closed (an-), the second is heavy because it has a long vowel (-nay). English has a long tradition of end-rhymes-but Tamil has a long tradition of second syllable consonant-rhymes.

Looking at the Grammar briefly, Tamil has no copula verbs for equational sentences in the present tense, as in English, e.g., 'Tom is a teacher'; no degrees of adjectives as in English, e.g., 'sweet, sweeter, sweetest’;

no articles like 'a, an, the': and So on.

Tamil expresses the semantic equivalents of these grammatical devices by various other means. The lies and ambiguities of one language are not those of another.

No translation can be 'literal,' or 'word for word'. That is where the impossibility lies. The only possible translation is a 'free' one.

Remarkably, Tamil syntax is mostly left- branching. English syntax is, by and large, rightward. Even a date like 'the 19th of June, 1988,' when translated into Tamil, would look like '1988, June, 19.' The Tamil sentence is the mirror image of the English one and will also be true for English Languages. Postpositions instead of prepositions, adjectival clauses before nominal phrases, verbs at the end rather than in the middle of sentences.

What is everyday in one language must be translated by what is everyday in the 'target' language also, and what is eccentric must find equally eccentric equivalents. If Poetry is made out of, among other things, 'the best words in the best order', and the best orders of the two languages are the mirror images of each other, what is a translator to do?

The most obvious parts of language cited frequently for their utter untranslatability are the lexicon and the semantics of words. For lexicon are culture-specific. Terms for fauna, flora, caste distinctions, kinship systems, body parts, even the words that denote numbers, are culturally Loaded. Even when the elements of a system may be similar in two languages, like father. mother, brother, mother-in-law, etc. In kinship, the system of relations and the feelings traditionally encouraged other each relative are culturally sensitive and therefore part of the expressive repertoire of poets and novelists.

Add to this the entire poetic tradition, its rhetoric. the ordering of different[ genres with different Functions in the culture, which by its system of differences, distinguishes this particular poem.

The classical Tamil poetic tradition uses an entire taxonomy. A classification of reality, The five landscapes of the Tamil area, characterized by hills. seashores, agricultural areas, wastelands, and pastoral fields; each with its forms of life, both natural and cultural. trees, animals, tribes, customs. arts and instruments- all these become part of the symbolic code for the poetry. Every landscape, with all its contents, is associated with a mood or phase of love or war. The landscapes provide the signifiers. The five real landscapes of the Tamil country become, through this system, the interior landscapes of Tamil poetry. The five landscapes with all their contents signifying moods, and the themes and motifs of love and war.

Thus a language within a language becomes the second language of Tamil poetry. When one translates, one is translating not only Tamil, its phonology, grammar and semantics, but this entire intertextual web, this intricate yet lucid second language of landscapes which holds together natural forms with cultural ones in a code, a grammar, a rhetoric, and a poetics.

Part II

Ramanujan takes a closer look at the original of Kapilar's poem, Ainkurunuru 203, 'What She Said', and his translation, quoted earlier in this essay. The word annay (in spoken Tamil, ammo), literally 'mother', is a familiar term of address for any woman, here a 'girlfriend'. So he have translated it as 'friend', to make clear that the poem is not addressed to a mother (as some other poems are) but to a girl friend.

Note the long, crucial, left-branching phrase in Tamil: '. . . hisland's / [in- leaf-holes low /animals- having- drunk- / and]- leftover, muddied water’(in a piece-by-piece translation). In his English, it becomes 'the leftover water in his land, low in the water holes / covered with leaves and muddied by animals.' His phrase order in English tries to preserve the order and syntax of : themes, not of single words: (I) his land's waler, followed by (2) leaf– covered waterholes, and (3) muddied by animals.

The poem is a kurinci piece, about the lovers' first union, set in the hillside landscape. My title ('What she said to her girl friend, when she returned from the hills') summarizes the whole context (speaker, listener, occasion) from the old colophon that accompanies the poem. The progression is lost if we do not preserve the order of themes so naturally carried by the left-branching syntax of Tamil. More could be said about it from the point of view of the old commentaries.

The love poems get parodied, subverted and played with in comic poems about poems. In a few Centuries, both the love poems and the war poems provide models and motives for religious poems. God like Krsna the are both lovers and Warriors.

Thus any single poem is part of a set, a family of sets, a landscape, a genre. The intertextuality is concentric on a pattern of membership as well as neighborhoods of likenesses and unlikenesses. Somehow a translator has to translate each poem in ways that suggest these interest, dialogue and network.

Part III

If attempting a translation means attempting an impossibly intricate task, foredoomed to failure. what makes it possible at all'? At least four things-

1.Universals-

If there were no Universals in which languages participate and of which all particular languages were selections and combinations, no language learning, translation, comparative studies or cross-cultural understanding of even the most meager kind would be possible. if such universals did not exist we would have had to invent them

2.Interiorised contexts-

Poems interiorize the entire culture. Indeed we know the culture of the ancient Tamils only through a careful study of these poems. Later colophons and commentaries explore and explicate this knowledge carried by the poems setting them in context using them to make lexicons and charming the fauna and flora of landscape .

3. Systematicity-

Systematicity of such bodies of poetry, the way figures, genres, personae etc., intermesh in a master-code, is a great help in entering this intricate yet world of words. Even if one chooses not to translate all the poems, one chooses poems that cluster together, that illuminate one another so that allusions, contrasts and collective designs are suggested, of their world, re-presenting it. Here intertextuality is not the problem, but the solution .

4. Structural mimicry-

In translating poems the structures of individual poems, the unique figures they make out of all the given codes of their language, rhetoric and poetics, become the points of entry. The poetry and the significance reside in these figures and structures as much as in untranslatable verbal textures. So one attempts a structural mimicry, to translate relations, not items- not single words but phrases, sequences, sentences; not metrical units but rhythms; not morphology but syntactic patterns.

To translate is to 'metaphor', to 'carry across'. Translations are transpositions, re-enactments, interpretations. One can often convey a sense of the original rhythm, but not the language-bound metre: one can mimic levels of diction, but not the actual sound of the original words. Textures are harder to translate than structures, linear order more difficult than syntax, lines more difficult than larger patterns. Poetry is made at all these levels- and so is translation.

The translation must not only represent, but re-present, the original. loyalty. A translator is an 'artist on oath'. Sometimes one may succeed only in re-presenting a poem, not in closely representing it.

With the anecdote of Chinese emperor, Ramanujan say even if the representation in another language is not close enough, but still succeeds in 'carrying' the poem in some sense, we will have two poems instead of one.

Video recording of this article's presentation, presented by my classmates Himanshi Parmar and Nirav Amreliya

Presentation of the article by Himanshi Parmar and Nirav Amreliya

On Translating a Tamil Poem - A. K. Ramanujan.pptx from Nirav Amreliya

To watch the presentation of all the articles CLICK HERE

It is common to find it challenging to read original articles and summarize them. As a result, I have simplified this article through my understanding and with the help of ChatGPT. Simplifying articles is helpful in achieving a better and clearer understanding of the concept, which will make reading the original article easier. The main aim is to help students or readers understand the concept so that they can read the original article with ease. CLICK HERE FOR A LAYMANISED ARTICLE.

I hope this blog is useful.

[words- 1600]

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE IN INDIA: An Overview of its History

This blog is a response to a task assigned by Dr. Dilip Barad Sir. The syllabus of the Department of English, MKBU includes paper no.- 208 Comparative Literature and Translation studies which includes around 9 articles. We (students) are assigned a task of classroom presentation of assigned articles in a pair. In this blog we are supposed to write abstract, key points / arguments and concluding remarks on all three articles of Unit 1 of paper Comparative Literatures and Translation Studies. It also includes the recording of class presentations presented by respective students. Blogger and her partner have made a presentation on the third article, presentation and a video of a particular article is embedded (as per the task).

ARTICLE 1

Why Comparative Indian Literature?

Sisir Kumar Das

ARTICLE 2

Comparative Literature in India

Amiya Dev

ARTICLE 3

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE IN INDIA: 

An Overview of its History

Subha Chakraborty Dasgupta

Myself, Jheel Barad and Dhruvita Dhameliya presented an article by Subha Dasgupta COMPARATIVE LITERATURE IN INDIA: An Overview of its History.

Here is the video recording of the presentation

Here is the presentation presented in above video

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE IN INDIA: overview of its history by Subha Chakraborty Dasgupta from Jheel Barad

To watch presentation of all the articles CLICK HERE

I hope this blog is useful. 

Presentation 10: Paper no.: 110

 VICTORIANISM VS MODERNISM

This is my presentation on paper no.: 110 History of English Literature

VICTORIANISM VS MODERNISM from Jheel Barad

This is my presentation video on paper no.: 110 History of English Literature

Thank you for visiting I hope my this presentation and video recording are useful to you.

Bridge Course: T.S. Eliot's Tradition and Individual Talent

T.S. Eliot's 'Tradition and Individual Talent'

This blog is in response to the bridge course given to us by Dr. Dilip Baradsir. It is about the T.S. Eliot’s ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’, an essay of literary criticism which is considered to be the beginning of new criticism. In this blog I am going to share my understanding about essay tradition and individual talent.

Thomas Steams Eliot:

Thomas Steams Eliot (1888-1965) was a poet, publisher and playwright along with a seminal critic of his time. T.S. Eliot has described his criticism as a “by-product” of his “private poetry-workshop” and as “a prolongation of the thinking that went into the formation of my own verse”. He has been strongly influenced by the school of new criticism .

Tradition and Individual Talent:

In his essay ‘Tradition and Individual Talent’, argues that art must not be understood in vacuum but in context to his previous species of art that is past artistic work. An essay ‘Tradition and Individual Talent was first published in the periodical ‘The Egoist’ in 1919 and later it was published in Eliot’s book of Criticism ‘The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism in 1919/20. This essay is divided into three sections.

The structure of the essay as is as below:

State the difference between the judgment of a work done by the Englishmen and the Frenchmen. He says that the Englishman judges the work based on the novelty of the work and the individuality of the author in the work. If an Englishman examines work critically they will realize that the best part of a book is where a writer mirrors their ancestors/ past writers. That part of the book would be the Immortal part. To judge any book write needs to compare the work with the work of past, comparison is not for derogating the present work but it will help to judge the present work in more better way it will help to understand the facts and to analyze the work done in the contemporary time following the work of the ancestors of the past write a does not mean the mere copy of the past or historical work but it shows that the good the writer has the good historical sense which is necessary for the author.

Concept of Tradition:

How would you like to explain Eliot's concept of Tradition? Do you agree with it?

 What do you understand by Historical Sense? (Use these quotes to explain your understanding)

Tradition means a belief, principle or way of acting which people in a particular society or group have continued to follow for a long time, or all of these beliefs, etc. in a particular society or group.

-Cambridge Dictionary

‘Tradition’ an ‘inherited, established, or customary pattern of thought, action or behavior (as a religious practice or a social custom)’

-Merriam-Webster Dictionary

There is always tension between being traditional and the modern writer. Being modern automatically means good and being traditional automatically means not good or undesirable. Englishmen associate the term tradition with a poet and see it in a derogatory way. They criticize poets for being traditional, it seems like imitations of predecessors and is considered as pointing to negative qualities of a poet. But Eliot says that it is not true, an idea of tradition is very wide, It is not just imitating predecessors. He does not mean slavish repetitions of stylistic and structural features. According to Eliot no words can be charged in isolation if you want a correct judgment about any work then it must be compared with the past work it doesn't mean that the writer should have a bookish knowledge about the history and predecessor writer or they should spoon-feed the history but they should know style and structure of the work from the homer to the till day. so that they can write their work in a better way. Every writer should have a historical sense which is not only important in writing but it is also important in everyday life.

“the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.”

Through this statement he states that authors should develop the sense of pastness of the past and examine the work in relation to the work of past writers/ predecessors. According to Eliot tradition is already an existing monument and individuals can only marginally add a bit or extent a bit. For example if we have a heritage structure we can just add a minaret or a floor. Keeping the overall harmony of the individual structure can make an existing thing beautiful.

"The historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence"

This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional.

Similarly, following tradition in literary work doesn't mean mere imitation of predecessors, it is fitting within the tradition and seeing how he can contribute to the tradition and concept of individual talent. If we read the poetic work of Eliot we need to have knowledge of all the fields like anthropology, French, Shakespeare, religious tradition; we need to have knowledge of all disciplines like mythology, oriental influence, Upanishads etc.

Throughout essay he uses the words like ‘surrendering to the tradition’, ‘sacrificing one’s own self’, We can interpret that all these words are coming in opposition of the writing style of Wordsworth or of all the romantic writers as according to Eliot ‘upholding the self’ is not important but merging with the tradition is important.

Explain: "Some can absorb knowledge, the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare acquired more essential history from Plutarch than most men could from the whole British Museum".

According to the argument done by Eliot, all the writers must be learned scholars and should have the historical sense but here he presents an exceptional case of William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare's biography doesn't say that he has visited the university and one of his prefaces also says that Shakespeare must not be knowing any language other than English so we cannot say that he is a learned person but the literary works produced by him is extraordinary work.

“Some can absorb knowledge, the more tardy must sweat for it. Shakespeare acquired more essential histories from Plutarch than most men could from the whole British Museum”.

He says that some people are so intelligent or talented that they absorb the knowledge of his/her age. Shakespeare acquired so much historical sense about the Roman and Greek histories from the work of Plutarch that today's learned man is not able to get it by reading the whole British museum. The one who is intelligent absorbs the knowledge and others who are ‘Tardy’ have to sweat for gaining the knowledge.

Harold Bloom criticizes and says that ‘this is some kind of anxiety of influence that the current author is feeling the presence of His/ her creative processes/ ancestors looming large upon him/ her.’ Harold Bloom in his book ‘Anxiety of Influence: A theory of Poetry’ says that there is some psychological struggle in the new aspiring authors to overcome the anxiety caused by the influence of their literary antecedents. He says it criticizing Eliot because this essay is stating that the poet should use knowledge of the writers of the past to influence their work.

I personally do agree to the idea of tradition. It is necessary to have historical sense. Edmund Burke is often misquoted as having said, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” George Santayana is credited with the aphorism, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” Winston Churchill wrote, “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Theory of Impersonal Poetry:

Theory of Impersonal Poetry Eliot is comparing the poet and the process of making a poem with a scientific chemical reaction of formation of sulphurous acid in the laboratory. He says that the mind of the poet should be like the catalyst. In the preparation of sulphurous essay Water acidic reaction takes place between water and Sulphur dioxide in the presence of a catalyst Platinum. Once the reaction is done and Sulphurous acid is prepared we find that there is no trace of platinum in sulphurous acid that means that it has taken part in reaction but it has no effect on the production similarly according to the mind of the poet, it should work like a catalyst.it should work in the production of the poem but it should not have effect on the poem that means the personal emotions and personal feelings of the poet should not the present in the poem And this theory is known as the Theory of depersonalization

Explain: " Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality."

"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality."

According to Eliot mind of the poet is like a glass which has infinite emotions and feelings but the proper organization of these emotions and feelings produce an organized poem which is important. So according to Eliot personal emotions don't matter, But composition of the poem and intensity of the poem matters more. Later in the essay he gives an example of John Keats poem ‘Ode to Nightingale’, he says that this poem has many unnecessary personal feelings of the poet which are not related to not nightingale. Here he denounces or criticizes the poem. He also criticizes the definition of the poem given by the Wordsworth ‘Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling: it takes its origins from emotion recollected in tranquility’. Eliot is trying to bring classicism and objectivity in the poetry so when Wordsworth is saying that a poetry is an expression of the personal feelings and emotion Eliot is rejecting this subjectivity and says that poetry is the impersonal and universal. So he says that poetry is not to escape from emotion and to escape from personality and tries to bring out the difference between the personal emotions and the artistic emotions. Because the personal emotions can be raw while the artistic emotions can be refined. According to Eliot the poet's mind is filled with so many experiences the poet should look at the experiences in an artistic way and organize them properly to make a poem and not on it by giving the personal experiences.

Explain: "Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry"

It is supporting to write a poetry with artistic emotion he says the following line

“Honest criticism and sensitive appreciation is directed not upon the poet but upon the poetry”.

Poems should be criticized or should be appreciated based on the poetry not on the poet. That means if a poem is written with personal emotions or feelings then when we are not criticizing a poem we are criticizing the poet, the author but this is not the right way. According to Eliot's definition poem should be written with artistic emotion and the critic also should criticize the poem based on the poetry and should not feel that the poetry is the personal emotions and feelings of the poet so that the poet should not be criticized the criticism is of work.

Conclusion:

Finally Eliot concludes his essay by saying that the poet should depersonalize himself/herself from his poetry and should not ever express his personal feelings in the poetry. According to Eliot tradition is not something that is already living and this is in the historical sense. by saying that it is not the pastness of the past but the present which is important. He disapproves romantic tradition and talks about the recognition of the continuity of literature. For example when a poet of Gujarati or Bengali or any regional language writes a literary work we do find his roots in the classical Sanskrit literature. Similarly the Western writers should have his roots in the European history of literature that is from Homer to the till date he says that the work of art does not exist in isolation but in continuity. he also says that tradition is not something that you passively in inherent or bestowed upon you but something that you have to strive to get it. His idea of tradition is dynamic. And in the last part the emphasis is on the need for concentrating on the close reading of the text that begins the new criticism.

If we see the idea of tradition in the context of Indian tradition we talk about Ram/ Krishna. It is what is the pastness of Ram but how they are still alive, still living in our perception and attitude. That is what makes tradition it is timeless, do not have any past or present and is temporal, is still existing this is an idea of Eliot that it is not that you completely copy, walk on their footprints but the ideologies what they had in their life, inspire us, which are also applicable in our life and we use the idea of their life we keep the continuity of ideologies, positive ideologies is tradition.

This blog is lengthy but I have tried to cover all the points given by Eliot. I hope it is at least helpful to get a basic idea about the essay. Thank you for visiting.

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Presentation 5: paper no.: 105

Change in Historical Period: Age of Chaucer to The Victorian Age

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