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One of Rabindranath Tagore's renowned poems
in the Nobel laureaute's own handwriting. It reads:
saWhere
the mind is without fear
and the head is held high;
saWhere
knowledge is free;
saWhere
the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
saWhere
words come out from the depth of truth;
saWhere
tireless striving stretches its arms
towards perfection;
saWhere
the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
saWhere
the mind is lead forward by thee
into ever widening thought and action
saInto
that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake |
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- Abhijnana
Sakuntala - A poetic play by Kalidasa, the greatest
of classical Sanskrit poets (Probably between 2nd and 4th century
AD); considered his masterpiece.
Adi Granth - Literally
'The First Book', the sacred book of the sokhs; compiled by Guru
Arjan Dev, the fourth successorof Guru Nanak, the founder of
Sikhism (probaly 1614 AD).
'Agyey' - S. H.
Vatsyayan, a pioneer of modernism in Hindi; poet, fiction writer,
critic and journalist; author of 'Sekhar: Ek Jivani' (novel),
'Kitni Navon Mein Kitni Bar (poems), 'Trishanka' (essays), etc.;
edited the 'Saptak' series, a landmark in modern Hindi poetry.
Anand Coomarswamy - (1877-1947);
eminent Sri Lankan scholar and translator; author of 'Dance od
Shiva', 'Transformation of Nature in Art', 'Medieval Sinhalese
Art', 'History of Indian and Indonesian Art', 'A New Approach
to the Vedas', 'Time and Eternity', etc.
Anandmath - see
Bankimchandra Chatterjee
Anubhavamrut - (Amritanubhava);
a philosophical treatiseby Jnanadeva, Marathi saint-poet (1275-1296);
compoed in 1292.
Bankimchandra
Chatterjee - (1838-1894); a great pioneer of
Bengali novel; author of 'Durgesh Nandini', 'Kapalkundala', Mrinalini',
'Indira', 'Kamalakanta', etc.; 'Anandmath'
(1844), a novel based on the sanyasi rebellion of North Bengal
(1773) is considered his masterpiece.
Basavanna - (1131-1167);
Kannada saint-poet and social revolutionary; devotee of Shiva;
a major poet of the holy 'vacana' tradition.
Bhakti - A
major radical spiritual movement in Indian literature (7th to
18th centuries AD) that denounced man-made distinctions of caste,
class and gender, upheld the equality of all beings, rebelled
against rituals and evil customs and all forms of earthly power;
bhakti (devotion) poets wrote in their own languages instead
of the traditional Sansrit and thus contributed to the development
of modern Indian languages while evolving a new politics of its
own; the movement started in south India and moved over to other
parts of the country.
Bhasa - Celebrated
Sanskrit dramatist; believed to have lived in the close of the
times before Christ or the beginning of the Christian era; author
of thirteen plays including 'Karnabharam', 'Urubhangam' and 'Svapnavasavadattam'.
Bibhutibhusan Bandyopadhyay - (1894-1950);
Bengali novelist; author of 'Pather Panchali', 'Aparajita' (later
Satyajit Ray, India's avant garde film maker based his widely
acclaimed trilogy 'Pather Panchali' on these two novels) and
'Aranyaka'.
Bilhana - 11th
century Sanskrit poet; author of 'Vikramankadwacarita'
Chaitanya Bhagavat - The
first Bengali biography of Sri Krishna Chaitanya, Bengali saint-poet
(1486-1532)by Brindaban Das; composed in verse in mid-16th century.
Chaitanya Charithamrita - Biography
of Sri Krishna Chaitanya by Krishnadas Kaviraj (1527-1607).
Dalit
Literature - 'Dalit' literally meaning 'the
oppressed' is now used widely to mean the most backward sections
of the society who were considered 'untouchable' by the upper
castes; while the Dalits have their traditional literature, the
term 'Dalit literature' applies chefly to the contemporary writing
done by educated Dalits; a great corpus of such writing that
reflects Dalit life, history, anger, celebration of identity
and aspirations is now available, especially in Marathi, Gujarati,
Punjabi, Hindi, Telugu and Tamil, besides anthologies of translations
in English; Dalit literature also implies a new subversive politics
alongwith a new perception of life and society, just like 'Black
literature'.
Ghalib - (Mirza
Asadullah Khan Ghalib, 1797-1896); a major Urdu-Persian poet
and prose writer; works collected in two 'divans' or anthologies
of Persian and Urdu respectively.
Jnandev - see Anubhavamrut
Kalhana - 12th
century Sanskrit author of 'Rajatarangini', a monumental history
of Kashmir.
Kalidasa - The
greatest Sanskrit poet-dramatist; author of epics 'Raghuvamsa'
and 'Kumarasambhava', poems 'Meghaduta' and 'Ritusamhara' and
plays 'Vikramorvasiya', 'Malavikagnimitra' and 'Abhijnana
Sakuntala'.
Kamban - Great
9th century Tamil poet; author of 'Ramavataram',commonly known
as 'Kambaramayanam', besides poems in Tamil.
Kumarasambhava - see Kalidasa
Lal
Ded - (Lalleswari); 14th century Kashmiri Saiva
saint-poetess; well known for her mystic poems or 'vakhs' (literally
'speech').
Manik
Bandyopadhyay - (1908-1956); eminent Bengali
fiction writer, author of 'Putulnacher Itikatha' and 'Padmanadir
Majhi'.
Maulana Azad - (Maulana
Abul Kalam Azad 1888-1958); Urdu journalist, freedom fighter;
author of 'India Wins Freedom'; was Minister of Education in
the India Govt. headed by Jwaharlal Nehru.
Meghaduta - see
Kalidasa
Muktibodh - (Gajanan
Madhav Muktibodh, 1917-1969); a pioneer of modern Hindi poetry
and fiction author of 'Chand ka Munh Teda Hai' and 'Bhuri Bhuri
Khak Dhul Muktibodh Granthavali' (complete works) published in
5 volumes.
Premchand - (Dhanpatrai
Srivastava,1880-1936); eminent Hindi-Urdu fiction writer ; a
pioneer of the Progressive Movement in Indian literature; author
of novels like 'Godan', 'Sevasadan', 'Nirmala', 'Rangbhoom',
'Premashram', etc.
Rabindranath Tagore - (1861-1941);
great Bengali writer; a true renaissance figurein modern Indian
literature; poet, fiction writer, playwright, translator, educationist,
painter, music composer, essayist, etc.; Nobel laureate; author
of 'Gitanjali'; (poems), 'Muktidhara' (play), 'Gora' novel).
Rajatarangini - see
Kalhana
S. Radhakrishnan - (1888-1975);
philosopher, educationist, statesman, the second President of
the Indian Republic; author of an 'Idealist View of Life', 'Indian
Philosophy', 'The Hindu View of Life' and 'Eastern Religions
and Western Thought'.
Sahitya - The Sanskrit
word for literature; implies the unity of the word and meaning
as also of the reader and the writer.
Subramania Bharati - also
known as Bharatiyar; (1882-1921); the most important Tamil poet,
fiction writer and journalist of modern times; a champion of
freedom and equality; author of 'Kannan Pattu', 'Panchali Sapatham',
'Kuyil Pattu', etc.
Tukaram - eminent
Marathi saint-poet of the 17th cerntury; famous for his 'abhang'
poems; alongwith Jnandev, Namdev and Eknath, he contributed to
the depth and spread of the 'varkari' movement, a successor of
the Bhaki movement.
Tulasidas - eminent
Hindi saint-poet; (probabli 1532-1623); author of 'Ramcharitmanas',
'Vinaya Patrika', 'Gitavali', 'Kavitavali', etc.
Vidyapati - 14th
15th century poet from Mithila; wrote in Maithili, Hindi, Bengali
and Sanskrit; famous for his exquisite songs on Radha and Krishna
that are devotional and erotic at the same time.
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