INTRODUCTION

India, in its long and attested intellectual tradition, has contributed to different domains of knowledge. In the process of doing so, the Indian thinkers have sounded caveats against insulation of knowledge systems and traditions. Sushruta, for instance, in Sushruta Samhita, a text pertaining to the science of life, not merely medicine, stated, Ek shastram adhiyano na vidhya shashtra nishchayam. (Do not arrive at any conclusion by studying just one discipline.) (Sushruta Samhita, Sutra Sthan, Prabhashniya Adhyaya, Chapter IV, Shloka 7) Bhartrihari, a grammarian and philosopher king of Ujjayini, in the Vakyapadiya 2.484, emphasized the importance of knowing one's own as well as the alien traditions: ‘The intellect acquires critical acumen by familiarity with different traditions. How much does one really understand by merely following one's own reasoning only?’ Statements such as the preceding ones supporting the diversity and multiplicity of systems and traditions and the necessity to accept and understand it abound in all major Indian texts and traditions. The statement may, thus, be read: What does s/he know who does not know his/her tradition, and what does s/he know who knows only his/her own tradition?

With its rich history of co-existence marked by inclusiveness and tolerance, India emerges as one of the most suitable sites for comparative study of literature in general and poetics in particular. The other side of this argument is that with a large number of lived belief systems and speculative thoughts, India has lived its diversities for so long and naturally, they have become part of its psychic and cultural systems, which has resulted in its not seriously considering the creation of a methodology for Comparative Studies.

India, with its innumerable plurisignificant spaces, multicultural practices and ever-shifting linguality, has the potential to be the most vibrant hub of Comparative Literature in our times. For the same reason, this volume devotes a special section highlighting some areas that could immensely contribute to the maturation of Comparative Literature in the country such as studies in poetics drawing from the rich Indian aesthetic traditions, Dalit Studies and Indian Writing in English. As M. Sridhar and Alladi Uma who write on Dalit Studies say, there is a pressing need to problematise the term ‘Comparative Literature’ in the Indian context. This demands urgent academic attention because, as Avadhesh Kumar Singh observes, the Indian literary culture has a unique convergence of many indigenous critical linguistic traditions such as Sanskrit, Tamil and modern Indian languages, apart from the Western critical traditions, i.e. Greek, Roman, English, French, German and Russian, that have joined it at various points in history. This section thus attempts to explore the possibilities of a comparative study of the different poetic traditions in India to see their mutual illumination and ‘to consider the existing state of Indian poetics and explore the possibilities of a comparative study of poetics without oversighting the issues pertaining to practice and pedagogy’. It also stresses the need for Comparative Literature in India to move beyond its primary emphasis on literature to explore areas such as Dalit Studies and Oral Literatures/Cultures.

INTRODUCTION

All round the world the term ‘comparative’ is yielding place to ‘cultural’. This shift from the generic neutrality of Comparative Studies with its emphasis on commonalities and similarities to the politicality of Cultural Studies is a shift that can be linked to the rise in popularity of critical theories and to more radical notions regarding ‘text’, ‘textuality’ and ‘literature’. Also many young scholars work on the presumption that literature is ‘somehow elitist and politically suspect of being part of a complicity with power, representing conservative values of a repressive tradition…’ (Longxi in Saussy 231). Thus, it has become imperative that one addresses the newer perspectives and possibilities within Literary Studies in the process of strengthening the discipline of Comparative Literature.

The Vision and Function of Comparative Literature

On 28 August 1992, when the Centre for Comparative Literature in University of Kerala was inaugurated by the late Kamala (Surayya) Das, Dr Jancy James, the founding director of the centre delivered a lecture titled ‘Comparative Literature as Academic Discipline’. She said: