Canonizing Sanskrit religious classics obscures the social grounds of Indian literature
Evidence
The more traditional one, which has endured for a remarkably long rime, privileges the classical texts and then follows them up with some eclectic selection of a few medieval and modern texts, bestowing upon rhem a vast canonicity, with little regard to the possible relationship berween the canonized text and the larger, obscured networks of literary producrions and their social groundings; what often seems to hold this canon together is a preference for religion and metaphysics, so that it is said w exude, transhistorically, some essential lndianness in the form of an abiding spiritual ethos. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1134
Categorization
- XREF: Relates to the reader’s research: constructing an ‘essential Indianness’ as a spiritual ethos is a discourse-driven essentialization of the kind Ahmad critiques — one premised on a fixed transhistorical identity rather than material literary networks. — connects to: Vedic Sanskrit stigmatized indigenous peoples via physical and ethnic labels; Orientalist Sanskrit bias excluded Tamil literature from the Indian canon — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 505; A grounded Indian literary history must trace material dialectics of unity and difference — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 1164 (+8 more)
- QUESTION: Is the canon-builders’ ‘spiritual ethos’ a case of genuine belief or strategic-essentialist construction? Ahmad seems to impute genuine privileging, not ironic stance — worth tracing how he distinguishes it.
Broader Connections
- Orientalist Sanskrit bias excluded Tamil literature from the Indian canon
#exemplifies(0.88) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 505 - Indian literary historiography fails through idealist and Brahminical premises
#corroborates(0.87) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1089 - Tamil Sangam literature was excluded from the Indian canon for its secularity
#exemplifies(0.85) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1134 - A grounded Indian literary history must trace material dialectics of unity and difference
#corroborates(0.80) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1164 - A materialist dialectical history of Indian literature has barely begun
#corroborates(0.80) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 515 - Vedic Sanskrit stigmatized indigenous peoples via physical and ethnic labels
#expands(0.78) - Vedic texts coined stigmatising terms for indigenous non-Aryan populations
#expands(0.78) - Attributing every social characteristic to religious texts erases contextual factors
#corroborates(0.78) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 123 - South Indian literary languages remain understudied compared to contemporaneous Sanskrit literature
#exemplifies(0.76) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 491 - Colonial periodization privileged one textual canon per religious period
#expands(0.75) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 1165