[INDOLOGY] Satirical criticism in Sanskrit literature and philosophy?

[Nicola Pozza]

Dear Prof. Houber, dear members of the list,

regarding Hindi, there is of course one book that cannot be avoided: 
/Rāg-darbārī/ (1968) by Shrilal Shukla. It narrates in a very hilarious 
and iconoclastic way the life of villagers (but also of a young naïve 
scholar) and proposes a first-hand critique of postcolonial Indian 
society (Shukla knew from the inside this world and the panchayati 
system, as he worked for many years for the IAS).
The novel has been translated (or sometimes rather adapted) into English 
by Gillian Wright.
A good paper on it is:

Anjaria, Ulka, « Satire, Literary Realism and the Indian State : /Six 
Acres and a Third/ and /Raag Darbari/ », /Economic and Political 
Weekly/, 41 (46), 2006 : 4795-4800 (http://www.jstor.org/stable/4418923).


Best wishes,

Nicola

Le 09.01.15 11:31, Eli Franco a écrit :
>
> I am just writing a note on bhautopaakhyaana (appears also as 
> bhautaakhyaana). These are short anecdotes about dumb and dumber used 
> by philosophers to illustrate the stupidity of their opponents. The 
> structure is invariably the same: One fool asks a stupid question or 
> makes a stupid statement, and another fool, who claims to correct or 
> instruct him, makes an even more stupid statement.
> I have found very few of those; two in the Pramanavarttikabhashya (one 
> of which is repeated by Shanti Suri), one in Jnanasrimitra's work, and 
> one in Udayana's Aatmatattvaviveka. If anyone knows of more, I will be 
> grateful for any references.
>
> As for satires in Hindi, I have found Taj Mahal ka Tender, translated 
> by Oranskaya and her students, very funny. It places the building of 
> the Taj Mahal in modern India and of course the actual work never 
> begins (the money is embezzled, used for bribes, unnecessary 
> administration and so on).
>
>
> Zitat von Christophe Vielle <christophe.vielle at uclouvain.be>:
>
>> On satire in the Indian vernacular languages, there is also this 
>> recent volume (reference from Indologica):
>>
>> http://indologica.de/drupal/?q=node/2214
>> Horstmann, Monika [u.a.] [Hrsg.]:
Indian Satire in the Period of 
>> First Modernity / ed. by Monika Horstmann and Heidi Pauwels. - 
>> Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 2012. - X, 242 S. : Ill. - (Khoj ; 9)

>>
>> (...)
>>
>> 
Satire reveals fault lines and incongruities between ideal and 
>> practice. Satirical discourse may be independent or invade and parody 
>> literary genres. It unmasks, ridicules and thereby deconstructs evil 
>> and hypocrisy to reconstruct honesty and reason, and at its farthest 
>> end may amount to moral utopia. The volume brings together essays on 
>> satire in the Indian vernaculars and in painting, mainly from the 
>> period of first modernity (ca. mid-fifteenth to mid-eighteenth 
>> century). These are framed by a contribution on the more ancient 
>> Tamil Jain satire and two essays on colonial satire. The volume 
>> edited by Monika Horstmann and Heidi Pauwels brings together essays 
>> on satire in the Indian vernaculars and in painting, mainly from the 
>> period of first modernity (ca. mid-fifteenth to mid-eighteenth 
>> century). These are framed by a contribution on the more ancient 
>> Tamil Jain satire and two essays on colonial satire. Among the 
>> contributing researchers are Purshottam Agrawal, France Bhattacharya, 
>> Ludwig Habighorst, Hans Harder, Monika Horstmann, Hephzibah Israel, 
>> Rohini Mokashi-Punekar, Anne E. Monius, Christina Oesterheld, and 
>> Heidi Pauwels. [Verlagsinformation]
>>
>> Inhalt
>>
>> Notes on Contributors. vii
>>
>> Transcription and Style. ix
>>
>> Monika Horstmann and Heidi Pauwels:
>>
>> Introduction. 1
>>
>> Anne E. Monius:
>>
>> Jain Satire and Religious Identity in Tamil-Speaking Literary 
>> Culture. 11
>>
>> Purushottam Agrawal:
>>
>> Who Was the European Kabīr? 29
>>
>> Heidi Pauwels:
>>
>> Whose Satire? Gorakhnāth Confronts Krishna in Kanhāvat. 35
>>
>> France Bhattacharya:
>>
>> Satire in Pre-Colonial Bengali Literature: Śiva, an Object of 
>> Revilement and Praise. 65
>>
>> Rohini Mokashi-Punekar:
>>
>> The Bhāruds of Eknāth: Performance, Humour and Satire. 79
>>
>> Monika Horstmann:
>>
>> Approaching Sant Satire. 97
>>
>> Ludwig V. Habighorst:
>>
>> Caricature and Satire in Indian Miniature Painting: From the 
>> Collection of Ludwig V. Habighorst. 119
>>
>> Christina Oesterheld:
>>
>> Satirizing the Late Mughals: The Works of Mīr Jaʻfar ʻZaṭallī’. 135
>>
>> Hephzibah Israel:
>>
>> Lowering the Gods: Satire and Popular Literary Forms in the 
>> Nineteenth- Century Tamil Context. 153
>>
>> Hans Harder:
>>
>> Towards a Concept of Colonial Satire in South Asian Literatures. 167
>>
>> Index. 187
>
>

-- 
UNIL
Dr Nicola Pozza
Maître d'enseignement et de recherche (hindi, études indiennes)
Faculté des Lettres
Section de langues et civilisations slaves et de l'Asie du Sud (SLAS)
Anthropole, 4077
CH-1015 Lausanne
SUISSE

Ph.: +41 (0)21 692 30 10
Fax: +41 (0)21 692 30 45
http://www.unil.ch/slas



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