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Introduction Notes to Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse
Indian Literature c. 1400 B.C. – c. A.D. 500 (143-150)
Part of the reason for our ______in Indian literature is the vastness of Indian tradition. Not only does it span three and a half millennia, but it also includes works written in ______, ______, ______, and ______derived from these. Only a linguistic genius could read all these works in the original. In spite of these difficulties, however, scholars have recognized that these texts are crucial to understanding India’s dominant ______.
I. The Geographical Setting
1. India is more of a ______than a country.
2. Surrounded by ______and the forbidding ______mountains, India has remained ______for long periods of its history. This isolation was broken periodically by ______.
3. India’s geographical ______probably contributed to the assumption of many Indian thinkers that their subcontinent was ______.
II. History
A. Early Settlements
1. Throughout India’s long history, there have been hundreds of ______and some very large ______.
2. The map of India’s ______history is a ______of continually changing boundaries between kingdoms that ______.
3. The ______map of India is much more ______. However, the earliest settlements are still shrouded in mystery.
4. The ______, named for the river that runs through the region – was ______and highly ______. It had a system of ______, which survives but has not yet been ______.
B. The Aryans and the Dravidians
1. The Indus Valley Civilization ______ended around ______- the reasons for its demise are still the subject of scholarly debate.
2. Around this same time, people who called themselves the ______migrated into India from the ______and ______. These people brought with them the hymns of the ______, which expressed their religious ideas.
3. Another cultural group, the ______inhabited ______in ancient times. We do not know much about the earliest history of these ______, ______people, but we do know that they developed a thriving culture sometime during the ______.
C. Hinduism
1. The ______of these cultures – Indus Valley, Aryan, and Dravidian – contributed to India’s ______civilization.
2. Hinduism comes from the ______word ______, meaning ______, or more specifically, the Indus River.
3. The Hindu religion recognizes ______and teaches that the ______can be ______into ______before it achieves ______with a ______.
4. Hindu society was rigidly ______into groups, or ______, each of which has its own special duties.
D. The Great Empires
1. ______, who lived in the third century B.C., was one of the first rulers to ______much of the subcontinent under his control.
2. Centuries later, the great Hindu king ______created and empire even larger than Ashorka’s had been.
3. Still later, around 1200 A.D., the ______established a great empire in north India – these ______rulers were descendents of ______.
4. The entire subcontinent, however, was never ______under any single political administration until the ______succeeded in making India into a ______.
5. For most of its history, India has been a ______with ______.
E. Unchanging Village Life
1. History tends to be concerned with political developments, ______and ______, and Indian history as written by Westerners is full of such detail.
2. The real center of interest and enduring value in India, however, is ______.
III. Cultural Background
A. Mathematics, Technology, and Medicine
1. Some of India’s ______are so much a part of our everyday lives that they have lost their ______as Indian discoveries.
2. Among these are our ______. The numerals that we use come from India; they are called ______because Arab traders brought them from India to Europe.
3. In addition, ancient Indian ______are responsible for the invention of ______and the ______that the discovery made possible.
4. Indians also excelled at ______.
5. ______was another field where Indians distinguished themselves. Ancient Indian physicians were able to:
1.
2.
3.
B. Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture
1. Indian ______and ______were patronized by kings and wealthy merchants.
2. Indian artwork reveals the ______, ______, and ______of ancient India, which is a valuable record for us today
3. Among the most notable achievements of Indian art are the ______, or wall paintings, in caves near the village of ______in Western India. These caves were created by ______during the period from the first century B.C. to the seventh century A.D..
4. The vibrant and colorful paintings on their walls depict ______.
5. The ______caves at Ajanta and elsewhere in western India are also great ______.
C. Religious Thought
1. Indian creativity is especially evident in the ______.
2. The subcontinent was the birthplace of many important faiths: ______, the dominant religion in India; ______, which is now virtually extinct in India but has spread throughout Asia; ______and ______.
3. A revealing fact about Indian religious life is that no Indian language has an exact ______for the English word ______.
4. Religious ______pervade all aspects of thought in Hindu India. The term that best reflects this ______with religious values is ______.
5. This ______term refers to the ______that each person must fulfill in order to maintain ______in the universe.
IV. Language and Literature
A. The Sacredness of Language
1. The ______with religious values in Hindu life explains the lack of clear separation between ______and ______.
2. In fact, language itself - ______- was regarded as sacred.
3. An example of this attitude of is the practice of repeating the word ______during Hindu prayers. The ______of this word is a ______, a means of saying “______” to the universe.
4. If language was considered ______, Sanskrit was viewed as the most ______of all languages.
B. The Importance of Memory
1. Indians placed a great importance on ______, more so perhaps that other ancient cultures did.
2. The traditional way of studying the subject in India was to memorize, ______and ______the ______text, and then to hear the teacher explain it.
3. These incredible feats of memory ______, of course, and they seem utterly ______to us. Yet it was such ______that preserved the hymns unchanged from 1500 B.C. to the present.
4. Texts were also ______in ancient India, but Hindus believed that ______to written medium involved ______.
C. The Evolution of Sanskrit Literature
1. Ancient Indians had no ______like the ______or the ______. Except for poetry and drama, most Sanskrit texts imitated the ______in attempting to convey ______and ______truths.
2. Animal fables use ______language and are ______, but their purpose is to enable people to fulfill their ______.
3. Indian poetry and drama did not come into their own until ______after the Rig Veda was compiled.
D. About the Following Selections
1. Indian works inspired American authors ______and ______, the Indian writer ______, and the Indian leader who pioneered the methods of ______protest, ______.
Religion In India (164-165)
A. A Kaleidoscope of Images
1. List the four images that make up the kaleidoscope of Indian religious practices:
1.
2.
3.
4.
2. As the richness of these images suggests, few places on earth have devoted more ______to ______than India.
3. ______and ______arose in the sixth century B.C. in protest against the beliefs of the Vedas and the complex rituals of ______.
4. Jains – the name of their religion derives from the Sanskrit for “______,” jina – renounced ______and devoted themselves to ______.
B. Nirvana: An Extinguished Flame
1. ______was founded by ______, an Indian prince and a remarkable personality. When he left his palace grounds for the first time and learned about ______and ______for the first time, he was so affected by this experience that he renounced ______forever.
2. The former prince became a ______.
3. After years of ______and ______study, he achieved ______.
4. As its original meaning suggests, nirvana describes a state of being in which the ______has been ______.
5. Gautama was given the name ______, Sanskrit for “______,” in recognition for his achievement.
6. In ______of their master, Buddhists also cultivate the virtues of ______and ______.
7. The ______religion developed in ______India about two thousand years after the origin of Buddhism and Jainism. Like these two religions Sikhism rejected the ______and ______of Hinduism; however, the Sikhs belief in ______set them apart.
8. The Sikhs adopted the customs of ______, ______, and ______.
C. Islam in India
1. ______brought the ______religion to western India in the eight century.
2. Despite the success of Muslim rulers, ______never replaced Hinduism as India’s ______.
3. Under the Mogul emperors, Islamic and Indian traditions mingled to produce a distinctive style of ______and ______. The most famous example of this style is the ______.
D. Rebirth: The Body is an Old Shirt
1. The best-known religious belief to come out of India is the notion that the ______is ______.
2. Whether a soul is reborn in better circumstances depends on a person’s deeds – the totality of these deeds is known as ______.
3. Indian religions tend to view this life as a place of ______and ______.
4. Continual rebirth, therefore, can only result in continual ______. The way to avoid such suffering is to ______from the process of death and rebirth.
E. Dharma: The Path of Duty
1. For Hindus the only means to escape rebirth is to perform one’s duty - ______is the name given to the duties and responsibilities unique to ______.
2. Each member of society, even each animal, has a set of ______duties. The worst thing a person can do is try to perform ______.