Dear Herman,
A forthcoming article gives some of the history of the transformation of an oral corpus of
Kannada bhakti poetry into a printed corpus, initiated by missionaries in the 19th century.
Would that be relevant to your work? I give details and abstract below.
Dermot Killingley
"Dasa Sahitya: Some Notes on Early Publications" by Shashikantha Koudur.
Religions of
South Asia 10.3
Abstract: D
āsa S
āhitya is a literary genre in Kannada, first seen in the late fifteenth
century. Making its mark both in literature and in Indian classical music, Dā
sa
Sāhitya attracted the attention of missionaries and other colonial functionaries,
and was one of the first genres to be edited and published in Kannada in the
mid-nineteenth century. Very soon, native editors and publishers started working
on the genre. Usually classified under bhakti literature in the literary
historiography of Kannada literature, Dā
sa Sā
hitya was published by individuals of
varying interests. This essay makes a survey of some of the early publications of
the genre, and notes varying concerns and interests with which they were
produced. We refrain from classifying these works as either ‘colonial’ or
‘nationalist’, while noting that the genre and the associated works were
inextricably linked to the Brahmin community from the days of the early
publications, even as this community projected it as part of ‘Kannada’ culture. We
also note evidence of cultural opposition to the change from manuscript to print.
On 7 Nov 2017 at 14:49, Herman Tull via INDOLOGY wrote:
I've been following this discussion with great interest, not the least because I am just now writing a short piece on
the effect of the Bible on literacy in India. Of course, the introduction of the printing press into India (to ensure
distribution of Indian language bibles) is one obvious route into this. But, are there specific discussions of how the
protestant-educated Hindus may have seen the missionary emphasis on literary culture (meaning the Bible) as
leading to a "new" valuation of the Indian "textual" tradition (by this I refer to both oral and written text), favoring the
literary (in the sense of a "written" text)? I have collected some bits and pieces about this (especially Blackburn's
work and Oddie's), but if there are specific studies available, I would appreciate hearing about them.
Herman Tull
Lafayette College
Another significant aspect she might want to focus on is "textualism" by which I mean:
to conclude about the reality outside the texts, purely on the basis of words in the texts.
In other words apart from the connections /interface / comparison / study of relative
significance - between oral and written texts, a similar focus on connections /interface /
comparison / study of relative significance - between texts and the reality of life, rituals,
and other facts also needs to be taken up.
In the margin of this thread, or as a very special case, following this article just
issued in the Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/strings-attached/article19982142.ece
attention can be drawn to the traditional shadow-puppetry performed in several
Bhagavati temples of Palakkad, Malappuram and Thrissur Distr. of Kerala, called
Tōlpāvakūttu. See, with a focus on the relationship between oral and literary
traditions, the work of Stuart Blackburn, Inside the Drama-House: R
āma Stories
and Shadow Puppets in South India, Berkeley: University of California Press,
1996 - e-version here:
http://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft5q2nb449;brand=ucpress
(cf. also Gopal Venu, Tolpava Koothu: Shadow Puppets in Kerala, New Delhi:
Sangeet Natak Akademi, 1990; Laurent Aubert, Les Feux de la Déesse: Rituels
villageois du Kerala (Inde du Sud), Lausanne: Payot, 2004, pp. 107-121). Here
attached the picture no. 2 in the article, showing the manuscripts (in Malayalam
script for the one readable) attached to the oral performances (on the basis of the
Kampan Rm stanzas, with written and free amplifications, the former called
āṭalpāṭṭu , mixing Tamil, Malayalam and Sanskrit), preserved (?...) by the
puppeteers.
Dear List members,
I am not sure if it is relevant to the topic at hand, but in the introductions of,
for instance, the Harṣacarita, Raghuvaṃśa and the Sanskrit plays the
respective authors of the texts play with the idea of live performances of
royal panegyric, vaṃśas and dramas (see my "On Beginnings:
Introductions and Prefaces in Kāvya", in: Bronner-Shulman-Tubb,
Innovations and Turningpoints, Oxford-Delhi 2014, pp. 86-108).
Herman
Herman Tieken
Stationsweg 58
2515 BP Den Haag
The Netherlands
00 31 (0)70 2208127
The periodical "Oral Tradition" might have relevant papers:
See Issues
-
Transmissions and Transitions in Indian Oral Traditions
List of several articles by searching s.v. "India"
Best wishes,
Christophe Vielle
It is Lauri Honko, the Finnish Folklorist who uses the word
"textualization" in the sense of bringing an oral text into a
written form:
One could also add:
Wilke, Annette, and Oliver. Moebus. Sound and
Communication: An Aesthetic Cultural History of
Sanskrit Hinduism. Vol. v. 41. Religion and Society,.
Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011.
Brown, C. Mackenzie. "Purāṇa as Scripture: From Sound
to Image of the Holy Word in the Hindu
Tradition."History of Religions 26, no. 1 (August 1,
1986): 68-86.
https://doi.org/10.2307/1062388.
Hess, Linda. Bodies of Song: Kabir Oral Traditions and
Performative Worlds in North India. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press, 2015.
Lutgendorf, Philip. The Life of a Text: Performing the
Rāmcaritmānas of Tulsidas. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1991.
A short but thoughtful overview of some of the
difficulties of characterizing the relationship between
written texts and oral culture has been given by Orsini and
Schofield inTellings... And then of course Pollock
compares the relationship between 'literacy' and writing in
S. Asia and Europe in Language of the Gods.
And, at the risk of self-promotion, I discuss these issues in
the context of early modern North India in my
dissertation, which is available through Columbia U's
website.
All best,
Tyler
Dear Indology mind-hive,
I have an undergraduate student who is interested in writing a
paper on questions of oral and literary traditions. I would like to
solicit your opinions on potential sources for her. Please see
her message below for a more detailed delineation of her
questioning.
Many thanks in advance!
Mark
Professor McLaughlin,
I read through a little more of the Pollock book last night to get
a better feel for some questions. I think generally this is what
I'm thinking:
What is the difference and relationship between the oral and
literary tradition? How has that relationship evolved with the
emergence of written texts, vernacularization, and the
subsequent privileging of textual sources by the colonial West
and the Academy? Who is excluded and/or included by the
privileging of one kind of knowledge over the other? For
scholars, what kind of nuanced understanding of literacy
should be sought or acknowledged given that "to be literate"
can mean different things in different cultures?
Let me know if this sounds like what I was talking about the
other day!
Best,
Emma
--
Mark McLaughlin
Visiting Assistant Professor of South Asian
Religions
Department of Religious Studies
College of William and Mary
Williamsburg, VA
--
Nagaraj Paturi
Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra
BoS, Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth, Veliyanad, Kerala
Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies
FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of Liberal Education,
(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )
-------------------
Louvain-la-Neuve
-------------------
Louvain-la-Neuve
_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
indology-owner@list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing committee)
http://listinfo.indology.info
(where you can change your list options or
unsubscribe)
--
Nagaraj Paturi
Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
BoS, MIT School of Vedic Sciences, Pune, Maharashtra
BoS, Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth, Veliyanad, Kerala
Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies
FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of Liberal Education,
(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )
_______________________________________________
INDOLOGY mailing list
INDOLOGY@list.indology.info
indology-owner@list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing committee)
http://listinfo.indology.info
(where you can change your list options or unsubscribe)
--
Dermot Killingley
9, Rectory Drive,
Gosforth,
Newcastle upon Tyne NE3 1XT
Phone (0191) 285 8053