Pre-modern Indian literary culture was polyglot, not unilingual
Evidence
Culture and literature, in other words, are not necessarily coterminous with linguistic formation and state boundary, especially in historical epochs preceding the emergence of the bourgeois nation-state and, in countries like India, even after the emergence of such a state; the rise of print capitalism is a variable but by no means an invariable determinant. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 487 (
#expands, via linked claim)
In the routine manifestations of this latter version, the unity of the object called ‘Indian Literature’ appears to be an effect of geography and the nation-state. At its best, though, this second version does make a great deal of sense, in so far as only by assembling the documents and literary histories of the different languages and literatures of India would it be possible actually to examine and historicize their overlaps, if we are to see at all whether or not they do add up to a unified history, however diverse in its constituent units. In other words, it is only by passing through the comparatist method that a knowledge of the unity can be obtained. The empirical value of such work, therefore, is enormous. What is often lacking, however, is the sense that a shift from Marathi or Bengali or Urdu to ‘Indian’ is both aggregative and qualitative, and that the shift from quantity to quality, from mass to composition, requires altogether different kinds of conceptual apparatuses and theoretical principles of narrativization. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 512 (
#qualifies, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Literature and culture are not coterminous with language and state boundaries — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 487; Indian literature’s unity is an effect of geography and the nation-state — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 512
Related
- Indian literature’s unity is an effect of geography and the nation-state (similarity 0.93)
- Literature and culture are not coterminous with language and state boundaries (similarity 0.91)
- European-style national-literature categories distort India’s actual interlingual literary relations (similarity 0.88)
- Enumerative national literature categories derive their unity from geography, not composition (similarity 0.87)
- Aggregating discrete literatures into ‘Indian’ is a qualitative, not additive shift (similarity 0.87)
- Culture need not align with language and state boundaries (similarity 0.86)
- A grounded Indian literary history must trace material dialectics of unity and difference (similarity 0.85)
- India’s only unified literary intelligentsia works in English, not Indian languages (similarity 0.85)
- Indian literary historiography fails through idealist and Brahminical premises (similarity 0.84)
- India lacks institutions to systematize its multilingual literary knowledges (similarity 0.83)
- Indian print literatures were assembled by culturally beleaguered petty-bourgeois str (similarity 0.82)
- English, not any Indian language, forms India’s only unified national literary intelligentsia. (similarity 0.81)
- A materialist dialectical history of Indian literature has barely begun (similarity 0.81)
- English literature has shaped the very categories of modern Indian thought (similarity 0.81)
- A national literature exceeds the sum of its regional literatures (similarity 0.81)
Broader Connections
- Literature and culture are not coterminous with language and state boundaries
#expands(0.85) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 487 - Indian literature’s unity is an effect of geography and the nation-state
#qualifies(0.72) — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 512