Essays on Telugu and South Indian literature and culture by distinguished Telugu scholar Narayana Rao.
Velcheru Narayana Rao’s contribution to understanding Indian cultural history, literary production, and intellectual life-specifically from the vantage of the Andhra region-has few parallels. He is one of the very rare scholars to be able to reflect magisterially on the precolonial and colonial periods. He moves easily between Sanskrit and the vernacular traditions, and between the worlds of orality and script. This is because of his mastery of the ‘classical’ Telugu tradition. As Sanjay Subrahmanyam puts it in his Introduction, ‘To command nearly a thousand years of a literary tradition is no small feat, but more important still is VNR’s ability constantly to offer fresh readings and provocative frameworks for interpretation.’
The essays and reflections in Text and Tradition in South India bring together the diverse and foundational contributions made by Narayana Rao to the rewriting of India’s cultural and literary history. The book is for anyone interested in the history of Indian ideas, the social and cultural history of South India, and the massive intellectual traditions of the subcontinent.
Зміст
Sources of Publication
Preface and Acknowledgments
Sanjay Subrahmanyam: VNR—Some Introductory Remarks
1. Multiple Literary Cultures in Telugu: Court, Temple, and Public
2. Notes on Political Thought in Medieval and Early Modern South India
3. Purāṇa as Brahminic Ideology
4. Coconut and Honey: Sanskrit and Telugu in Medieval Andhra
5. Multiple Lives of a Text: The Sumati Śatakamu in Colonial Andhra
6. When Does Sīta Cease to be Sīta: Notes Toward a Cultural Grammar of Indian Narratives
7. A Rāmāyaṇa of Their Own: Women’s Oral Tradition in Telugu
8. The Politics of Telugu Ramayanas: Colonialism, Print Culture, and Literary Movements
9. Epics and Ideologies: Six Telugu Folk Epics
10. Texture and Authority: Telugu Riddles and Enigmas
11. Buddhism in Modern Andhra: Literary Representations from Telugu
12. The Indigenous Modernity of Gurajada Apparao and Fakir Mohan Senapati
13. Purāṇa
14. A Day in the Life of a Housewife: ‘Sita Locked Out’
15. Urmila Sleeps: A Ramayana Song that Women in Andhra Sing
Про автора
Sanjay Subrahmanyam is Distinguished Professor and Irving and Jean Stone Chair in the Department of History at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of several books, including The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India, 1500–1650.