ENGLISH

The Modernity of Sanskrit

By Simona Sawhney

Book information

Publisher
University of Minnesota Pres
Year
2009
ISBN
0816649952, 9780816649952, 0816649960, 9780816649969
LCC
PK2903 .S375 2008
Google Books ID
kRFaPQAACAAJ
Open Library ID
OL16945735M
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
3 MB (3277312 bytes)
Pages
228\228
Topic
Linguistics Foreign
Scanned
yes
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07
Языки и языкознание;Санскрит;Тексты

Description

Sanskrit texts have usually been discussed either within the frames of anthropology and religious studies or with a veneration that has substituted for analysis. Going beyond such approaches, Simona Sawhney argues that only a literary approach that resists the closure of interpretation can reveal the fragility, ambivalence, and tension that mark the canonical texts. Today we witness, Sawhney contends, the near-total appropriation of Sanskrit literature by Hindu nationalism. The Modernity of Sanskrit challenges this appropriation by exploring the complex work of Rabindranath Tagore, M. K. Gandhi, and Mohan Rakesh. Sawhney proposes that Indian nationalist writings about classic Sanskrit became a charged site for postcolonial reflections on politics and art in India. Sawhney claims that although new readings of Sanskrit literature played a decisive role in the intellectual conception of modernity in India, the space for such readings has steadily shrunk in contemporary times, leading to a stark diminishment of both the political and the literary lives of the texts.

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