Academic literature on the topic 'Sanskrit Short stories'

India, with its plethora of religions and cultures, has been an enigmatic place for foreigners. Hinduism, a way of life more than being a religion (as proclaimed by the Supreme Court of India), has often been misunderstood by outsiders. Sometimes a biased attitude is reflected in the literature produced by these foreigners. A person like Thomas Babington Macaulay, who himself admitted that he had no knowledge of Sanskrit or Arabic, had the foolish courage of saying that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. In this paper we shall analyze the representation of religion in the short stories of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Prof. born in Rajgarh district of Madhya Pradesh. Radhavallabh Tripathi is the outgoing Chancellor of the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan (New Delhi). The works written by him include Adi Kavi Valmiki: (1976), Lokdharmi Tradition of Sanskrit Poetry (1976, 1999), Poetics and Poetry (1987), Lectures on Drama (1992), Drama and World Theatre (1988), Drama Encyclopedia (Chaturshu Khandeshu, 1999), etc., critical and poetic works. The text is important. In the field of literature, his major works are Rotikalahari (poetry), Abhinavasuk Saptati (collection of stories), Prekshanam Saptakam (street plays), Karuna (short novels), Anyachya (novel), Vikramcharitam (narratives). Due to your vast work of excellence, you have been honoured with many famous awards. Your composition 'Vikramcharitam' is a narrative divided into nine chapters, which, though written in mythological style, is a depiction of the political issues of the modern era through its subject matter. And it appears to express social problems.

Throughout reading short stories one realizes how the most fundamental stories of Indian culture also narrate tales of human existence. The Pañcatantra fables written in Sanskrit have also originated in India addressed to children that have stories that have been tailored distinctively to the evident needs of the child. Most of these stories are immersed in the Indian culture in which children grow up. Interestingly, Ruskin Bond as a story writer focuses on the epistemological foundation of the stories while incorporating fiction and personal experiences and, at the same time, with ecological concerns. His stories then become an assortment of experiences and anecdotes to understand the postulate in the story of humanity and the wilderness. This research paper is a study of Bond’s Dust on the Mountains that examines the stories as an expression of the narratives of civilization and wilderness. The aim of this paper is not only to read the book of stories that bridge different interdisciplinary subjects defining and describing wilderness but also to explore how the narrative speaks to readers with a wide range of backgrounds and interests. The study incorporates an ecocritical perspective to examine the metanarrative that frames both author’s and readers’ imagination, perception, and way of life.

Shashi Deshpande, born in 1938 at Dharwad, Karnataka, is the daughter of renowned Kannada dramatist and Sanskrit scholar, Late Adya Rangachar Shriranga. Deshpande, a recipient of the prestigious ‘Sahitya Akademy Award’ for ‘That Long Silence’ is well known for her short stories, children books and novels. Her chief novels include ‘The Dark Holds No Terror’ [1980], ‘The Roots and the Shadows’ [1983], ‘That Long Silence’ [1989], ‘A Matter of Time’ [1996], ‘Small Remedies’ [2000], ‘The Binding Vine’ [2002] etc. In these novels, she has very subtly voiced the agonies, sufferings, hopes, aspirations and frustrations through the protagonists and other characters, who are generally the respresentative of middle class urban educated women.

Abstract Apart from exegetical texts and short edifying stories, Jain monks wrote several literary narratives in Sanskrit, Prakrit, or Apabhraṃśa, between the 8th and 12th centuries. While they aimed at creating works as sophisticated as Hindu kāvyas in their style and plot, they also included technical passages borrowed from various knowledge systems. One of them is the science of physiognomy, which deals with human marks and their interpretation. In the past decade, K. Zysk has studied this knowledge in various Hindu and Buddhist sources and proposed several hypotheses as regards the development of the science of physiognomy in India. Since passages included in the long Jain medieval narratives have not been taken into account so far, this paper aims at exploring to what extent these sources can throw further light on the gradual establishment of this knowledge system and on its channels of transmission in India.

In his own words, Karnard declared that he had borrowed, for Hayavadana one with the head of a horse and body of a man.), heavily from the novel, The Transposed Heads, by Thomas Mann, a German writer who had borrowed the plot from a short story from Kathasaritsagara, a magnum opus written in Sanskrit by Somadeva of 11th century. Both Mann and Karnard have depicted sensuality, metaphysics, entangled identities, the problem of love and individuality, an existential humanistic perspective, a philosophical engagement with human conditions, relevance about human sufferings, desire and liberation, sense of alienation, freedom of choice, sensuousness and sensibility, stark reality, absurdity, scopes and limits of human desires and metaphysical emptiness in their works. Hayavadana follows an age-old Yakshagana, which is a traditional theatre style of Southern Karnataka, India. The stories of Devadatta, Kapila, and Padmini and Sridhman, Nanda and Sita center on the conflict between body and mind or mind and matter. The consequences of the confliction reach its zenith after the transposition at the Goddess Kali temple.

In South Asia, cobras are the animals most dangerous to humans—as humans are to cobras. Paradoxically, one threat to cobras is their worship by feeding them milk, which is harmful to them, but religiously prescribed as an act of love and tenderness towards a deity. Across cultural and religious contexts, the Nāgas, mostly cobra-shaped beings, are prominent among Hindu and Buddhist deities. Are they seen as animals? Doing ethnographic fieldwork on a Himalayan female Nāga Goddess, this question has long accompanied me during my participant observation and interviews, and I have found at least as many possible answers as I have had interview partners. In this article, I trace the ambiguous relationship between humans, serpents and serpent deities through the classical Sanskrit literature, Hindu and Buddhist iconographies and the retelling of myths in modern movies, short stories, and fantasy novels. In these narrations and portrayals, Nāgas are often “real” snakes, i.e., members of the animal kingdom—only bigger, shape-shifting or multi-headed and, curiously, thirsty for milk. The article focuses on those traits of Nāgas which set them apart from animals, and on those traits that characterize them as snakes.

IntroductionIndian Literature with its multiplicity of languages and the plurality of cultures dates back to 3000 years ago, comprising Vedas, Upanishads, Puranas and Epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata. India has a strong literary tradition in various Indian regional languages like Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and so on. Indian writers share oral tradition, indigenous experiences and reflect on the history, culture and society in regional languages as well as in English. The first Indian novel in English is Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Rajmohan’s Wife (1864). Indian Writing in English can be viewed in three phases - Imitative, First and Second poets’ phases. The 20th century marks the matrix of indigenous novels. The novels such as Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable (1935), Anita Nair’s Ladies Coupé (2001), and Khuswant Singh’s Memories of Madness: Stories of 1947 (2002) depict social issues, vices and crises (discrimination, injustice, violence against women) in India. Indian writers, and their contribution to world literature, are popular in India and abroad.Researchers are keen on analysing the works of Indian writers from historical, cultural, social perspectives and on literary theories (Post-Colonialism, Postmodernity, Cultural Studies). The enormity of the cultural diversity in India is reflected in Indian novels, plays, dramas, short stories and poems. This collection of articles attempts to capture the diversity of the Indian land/culture/landscape. It focuses on the history of India, partition, women’s voices, culture and society, and science and technology in Indian narratives, documentaries and movies.Special Issue: An Overview“Whatever has happened, has happened for goodWhatever is happening, is also for goodWhatever will happen, shall also be good.”- The Bhagavad-Gita.In the Mahabharata’s Kurukshetra battlefield, Lord Krishna counsels Arjuna on how everything that happens, regardless of whether it is good or bad, happens for a reason.Indian Literature: Past, Present and Future portrays the glorious/not-so-glorious times in history, the ever-changing crisis/peace of contemporary and hope for an unpredictable future through India’s literary and visual narratives. It focuses on comparison across cultures, technological advancements and diverse perspectives or approaches through the work of art produced in/on India. It projects India’s flora, fauna, historical monuments and rich cultural heritage. It illustrates how certain beliefs and practices come into existence – origin, evolution and present structure from a historical perspective. Indian Literature: Past, Present and Future gives a moment to recall, rectify and raise to make a promising future. This collection attempts to interpret various literary and visual narratives which are relevant at present.The Epics Reinterpreted: Highlighting Feminist Issues While Sustaining Deep Motif, examines the Women characters in the Epics – Ramayana and Mahabharata. It links the present setting to the violence against women described in the Epics Carl Jung’s archetypes are highlighted in a few chosen characters (Sita, Amba, Draupati). On one note, it emphasises the need for women to rise and fight for their rights.Fictive Testimony and Genre Tension: A Study of ‘Functionality’ of Genre in Manto’s Toba Tek Singh, analyses the story as a testimony and Manto as a witness. It discusses the ‘Testimony and Fictive Testimony’ in Literature. It explains how the works are segregated into a particular genre. The authors conclude that the testimony is to be used to understand or identify with the terror.Tangible Heritage and Intangible Memory: (Coping) Precarity in the select Partition writings by Muslim Women, explores the predicament of women during the Partition of India through Mumtaz Shah Nawaz’s The Heart Divided (1990) and Attia Hosain’s Sunlight on a Broken Column (2009). It addresses ‘Feminist Geography’ to escape precarity. It depicts a woman who is cut off from her own ethnic or religious group and tries to conjure up her memories as a means of coping with loneliness and insecurity.Nation Building Media Narratives and its Anti-Ecological Roots: An Eco-Aesthetic Analysis of Khushwant Singh’s Train to Pakistan, analyses the post-Partition trauma in the fictional village, Mano Majra. It illustrates the cultural and spiritual bond between Mano Majrans — the inhabitants of Mano Majra — and nature (the land and river). It demonstrates how the media constructs broad myths about culture, religion, and nation. According to the authors, Mano Majrans place a high value on the environment, whilst the other boundaries are more concerned with nationalism and religion.Pain and Hopelessness among Indian Farmers: An Analysis of Deepa Bhatia’s Nero’s Guests documents the farmers’ suicides in India as a result of debt and decreased crop yield. The travels of Sainath and his encounters with the relatives of missing farmers have been chronicled in the documentary Nero’s Guests. It uses the Three Step Theory developed by David Klonsky and Alexis May and discusses suicide as a significant social issue. The authors conclude that farmers are the foundation of the Indian economy and that without them, India’s economy would collapse. It is therefore everyone’s responsibility—the people and the government—to give farmers hope so that they can overcome suicidal thoughts.The link between animals and children in various cultures is discussed in The New Sociology of Childhood: Animal Representations in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Garden in the Dunes, Amazon’s Oh My Dog, and Netflix’s Mughizh: A Cross-Cultural Analysis. It examines the chosen works from the perspectives of cross-cultural psychology and the New Sociology of Childhood. It emphasises kids as self-sufficient, engaged, and future members of society. It emphasises universal traits that apply to all people, regardless of culture. It acknowledges anthropomorphized cartoons create a bond between kids and animals.Life in Hiding: Censorship Challenges faced by Salman Rushdie and Perumal Murugan, explores the issues sparked by their writings. It draws attention to the aggression and concerns that were forced on them by the particular sect of society. It explains the writers’ experiences with the fatwa, court case, exile, and trauma.Female Body as the ‘Other’: Rituals and Biotechnical Approach using Perumal Murugan’s One Part Woman and Matrubhoomi: A Nation Without Women, questions the society that limits female bodies for procreation and objectification. It talks about how men and women are regarded differently, as well as the cultural ideals that apply to women. It explains infertility, which is attributed to women, as well as people’s ignorance and refusal to seek medical help in favour of adhering to traditional customs and engaging in numerous rituals for procreation.Life and (non) Living: Technological and Human Conglomeration in Android Kunjappan Version 5.25, explores how cyborgs and people will inevitably interact in the Malayalam film Android Kunjappan Version 5.25. It demonstrates the advantages, adaptability, and drawbacks of cyborgs in daily life. It emphasises how the cyborg absorbs cultural and religious notions. The authors argue that cyborgs are an inevitable development in the world and that until the flaws are fixed, humans must approach cyborgs with caution. The Challenges of Using Machine Translation While Translating Polysemous Words, discusses the difficulty of using machine translation to translate polysemous words from French to English (Google Translate). It serves as an example of how the machine chooses the formal or often-used meaning rather than the pragmatic meaning and applies it in every situation. It demonstrates how Machine Translation is unable to understand the pragmatic meaning of Polysemous terms because it is ignorant of the cultures of the source and target languages. It implies that Machine Translation will become extremely beneficial and user-friendly if the flaws are fixed.This collection of articles progresses through the literary and visual narratives of India that range from historical events to contemporary situations. It aims to record the stories that are silenced and untold through writing, film, and other forms of art. India’s artistic output was influenced by factors such as independence, partition, the Kashmir crisis, the Northeast Insurgency, marginalisation, religious disputes, environmental awareness, technical breakthroughs, Bollywood, and the Indian film industry. India now reflects a multitude of cultures and customs as a result of these occurrences. As we examine the Indian narratives produced to date, we can draw the conclusion that India has a vast array of tales to share with the rest of the world.Guest Editorial BoardGuest Editor-in-ChiefDr. Bhuvaneswari R, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai. She has pursued her master’s at the University of Madras, Chennai and doctoral research at HNB Central University, Srinagar. Her research areas of interest are ELT, Children/Young Adult Literature, Canadian writings, Indian literature, and Contemporary Fiction. She is passionate about environmental humanities. She has authored and co-authored articles in National and International Journals.Guest EditorsCynthiya Rose J S, Assistant Professor (Jr.), School of Social Sciences and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai. Her research interests are Children’s Literature, Indian Literature and Graphic Novels.Maria Baptist S, Assistant Professor (Jr.), School of Social Sciences and Languages, Vellore Institute of Technology, Chennai. His research interests include Crime/Detective fiction and Indian Literature.MembersDr. Sufina K, School of Science and Humanities, Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, IndiaDr. Narendiran S, Department of Science and Humanities, St. Joseph’s Institute of Technology, Chennai, India

It is with great pleasure that we present to you Volume 16, Number 1, 2024, of "Voice: Biannual and Bilingual Journal” published by Autar Dei Chaudharain Research Centre (ADCRC) at Mahendra Multiple Campus, Nepalgunj, Banke, Nepal. Our journal continues to uphold its primary aim of facilitating the exchange of expertise among scholars on a global scale, fostering a dynamic platform for intellectual discourse across various disciplines. In this edition, we proudly present a multidisciplinary collection of 13 articles, with eight contributions in English and five in Nepali. This diversity reflects our commitment to linguistic inclusivity and our effort to bridge scholarly communities across different languages.The range of topics covered in this issue underscores the breadth and depth of academic inquiry being pursued by our contributors. Highlights include an in-depth analysis of the socio-economic impacts of policy changes in Nepal during the crucial decade of the 1990s, examining realism and societal dynamics in selected novels of Shashi Deshpande, and a stability evaluation of the Lanedada Twin Tunnel in KTFT, focusing on the structural stability and safety measures of a significant infrastructural project. Additionally, we have an exploration of alcohol use and its socio-economic and health effects in the Tharu community of Raptisonari Rural Municipality. There is also an analysis of historical and literary perspectives on trauma and displacement in Khushwant Singh's "Train to Pakistan." An exploratory study on how economic changes affect consumer behavior in the jewelry market of Nepalgunj adds a practical economic perspective. A comparative study on the reading comprehension abilities of Tharu and non-Tharu students’ sheds light on educational performance influenced by cultural and linguistic factors. Finally, a contemporary assessment of Nepal’s food sovereignty status and related policies offers valuable insights into current agricultural and food security challenges.For our Nepali readers, we offer a detailed exploration of classical Sanskrit poetics and theories of rasa, along with an analysis of the purpose and cultural significance of traditional songs in the Ribdikot area. There is a historical overview and critical examination of trends in Nepali short stories, a comprehensive look at the fifth part of the Vedapurana's gems, and an analysis of the ideologies presented in the novel "Basai."

Kapilkrishna Thakur is long standing Bangla Dalit activist and writer working for more than three decades. His signal books include: Ujantaleer Upokatha (historical novel), Cholechi Chaitrer Utsabee, Shoro Pathor, Kisundar Ondho (poetry), Madhumoti Onek Dur, Onno Ihudi (Stories). He has also written a seminal book on the Motua Movement in Bengal which marks his scholarship in the subject. Matua Andolan o Banglar Anunnoto Samaj is resourceful work on Matua religion and literary productions. Kapilkrishna Thakur is also attached to some important journals and magazines from West Bengal: Dalit Manan, Nikhil Bharat, Bngo Bhumi, Gana Sanskriti, Jamini Katha and Manisha. His literary corpus makes a fervent plea for a complete overhaul of society by questioning all stereotyped notions of caste and class in Bengal.This interview is the fruit of a couple of long sessions in August 2017 in a coffee parlour in South Kolkata, Prince Anwar Shah Road.

India is a highly diverse nation that welcomes individuals from many cultural backgrounds. Moreover, the traditions of Hindu writings and scriptures frequently dominate the country's literature. Indian classical literature is undoubtedly among the world's oldest and most diverse. In addition, the earliest works of this literature involve the transfer of information orally. The origins of Indian literature stretch back to about 1500 and 1200 BCE. In addition, the Sanskrit literature comprises the corpus of literature known as Rig Veda. The researchers employed a qualitative technique to understand the evolution and many forms of classical works from the Renaissance to the present. This paper addresses the Indian Regional Literature comes from many different languages and literary styles. It includes novels, poetry, short stories, plays, and folktales, among other things. Each area of India with its own language and literary style adds to this genre, making it a treasure trove of literary gems that show how diverse India's society is.