In this session, we will look at two very different examples of same-sex love in Hindi literature. The first example consists of two rekhtī verses by the Urdu poet Sadat Yar Khan ‘Rangin’ (1756-1835). Rekhtī (the feminine form of rekhta) refers to poetry composed in the voice of women and that often depicts same-sex love among females– although the extant examples of such poetry were all composed by men. The second example comes from the well-known Rajasthani writer Vijaydan Detha (1926-2013); his short story Doharī Zindagī (A Double Life) is a fable that raises questions about the very nature of sex and gender. Read more →

In this session, we will take a look at two very different examples of writing about आधुनिक प्रेम, i.e. ‘modern love’. The first is a collection of ‘micro-fiction’ (very short stories, each only a few sentences long) by the prominent Hindi television journalist Ravish Kumar, इश्क़ में शहर होना  (To Be a City in Love). The second is a poem by a famous Urdu poet of Pakistan, Fahmida Riaz, called लाओ, हाथ अपना लोओ ज़रा (Bring, Please Bring Your Hand). Read more →

In this session, we will be reading two ghazals by Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan ‘Ghalib’, thought by many to be the best poet of Urdu that ever lived. We will spend some time familiarizing ourselves with the formal conventions of the genre, as well as with the conventions of love and romance as they appear in the world of Persianate poetry, including Urdu.  Read more →

In this session, we will look at the phenomenon of love in the hymns of three saints associated with the bhakti devotional movement: Mirabai (16th century?), Kabir (15th-16th century?), and Surdas (16th century).  Of note will be how they adapt tropes of romantic love with which we have become familiar in the course to articulating a notion of the soul’s relationship with the Divine.  Read more →

The Sufi and court poet Malik Muhammad ‘Jayasi’ composed the Padmāvat in 1540 in the milieu of the Afghan Sher Shah Suri’s north Indian sultanate. He drew on the tradition of the prem-akhyān or epic romance in northeastern Hindi that began with Maulana Daud’s Candāyan in 1379. Read more →

In this session, we will look at forms of love in the lyrics of prominent Sufi poets of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, concentrating on the works of Amir Khusrau (1253-1325) and Abdul Quddus Gangohi (1456-1537). Read more →

Text:

बिहारीदास : सतसई (चुने हुए दोहे), जगन्नाथ ‘रत्नाकर’ के संस्कारण (१९२५ ई.) से

In this session, we will explore the different interactions, situations, and rasas elicited by the nāyikā, nāyak, sakhīs, sakhās, sautans, and the other characters of early Hindi romantic poetry in the context of the seventeenth-century court poet Biharidas’s compact dohās.

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Text:

केशवदास : रसिकप्रिया, १.२२-२३.

In this session we will look at examples of love poetry by the poet Keshavdas that cast Krishna and Radha in the roles of nāyak and nāyikā.

We will also dip our toes into the pool of paleography, meaning in this case the reading of pre-colonial manuscripts. Our case study will be an illustrated copy of the Rasikapriyā of Keshavdas copied circa 1610 (Acc.#18.85.5b), and held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Read more →

Texts:

भिखारीदास : रस-सारांश, १.८-१५

केशवदास : रसिकप्रिया, १.२१-२३

What are the parts of the aesthetic theory or rasa (रस)? In this session we will explore be introduced to the essential parts of this theory, and discuss how they work, in the context of Bhikharidas’s Ras-Sārāś. We will also begin reading through examples used to illustrate aspects of this theory from Keshavdas’s Rasikapriyā (1591). Read more →

In this session, we will read about and discuss the concept of love as it was imagined in early Hindi literature. As discussed earlier in the course, śṛṅgār (शृंगार) or erotic love carried specific meanings and involved specific conventions in the world of early Hindi poetry. Not just any situation could be romantic; the characters, setting, situation, dialogue, and details had to follow particular rules in order to bring about the desired effect (and affect) in the listener or reader. Read more →