Abstract
Colonialism ruptures mnemocultures through new modes of knowledge production and representation. These new modes displace the embodied and performative practices of recitation and privilege archival accumulation of documented pasts. This chapter shows how a 17th century Telugu poet, Vemana, was turned into an archival object and projected as an underclass rebel. How this colonial legacy continues to dominate readings of Vemana is analyzed in this chapter.
In the sphere of ideas, there is hardly yet any realization that we can think effectively only when we think in terms of the indigenous ideas that pulsate in the life and mind of the masses. We condemn the caste system of our country, but we ignore the fact that we who have received Western education constitute a caste more exclusive and intolerant than any of the traditional castes.
Bhattacharya (1984, p. 393)
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
Abbe Dubois was a French missionary who spent several years in India in the early decades of the 18th century. What is claimed to be his work, Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies (Dubois 1906/2001), has subsequently been proved to be a plagiarized work from another French missionary. Brown himself was aware of the dubious nature of Dubois’ work. Cf. Schmitthenner (2001, footnote 46, 47, p. 82).
- 2.
This structure of hierarchy with antagonistic categories in European accounts of India finds its basis in post-Renaissance Christian religious conflicts, argues S.N. Balagangadhara. While European search for religion in India emerges from Europe’s theologically derived cultural formation, its accounts of “caste system” gets mapped out as a conflict between Catholics (read Brahmins) and Protestants (read the “lower-castes”). Instead of quarrelling about the veracity of such descriptions, Balagangadhara argues, an unravelling of the nature of these accounts gives us possibilities of understanding the culture and its internalized presuppositions which drive it to provide such explanatory accounts about other cultures (which do not build explanatory narratives about the world or reality). Emerging from a systemic and normative cultural background, European accounts aimed at systematizing caste (“caste system”, like Hinduism, is a product of Europe, argues Balagangadhara). Such European descriptions (turning the other into frames of the same) generated a “colonial consciousness” from which postcolonial intellectuals are yet to free themselves, contends Balagangadhara. One symptomatic instance of this consciousness is the continued stigmatization of caste as oppressive evil (Balagangadhara 2012).
- 3.
Schmitthenner’s own opinion about Vemana, however, simply continues the account projected by Dubois and Brown. Schmitthenner’s statement that Vemana had been an intellectual spokesperson for “‘un-clean’ non-Brahmins … and had consequently been in his opposition to Brahminical religion and authority”, is a declaration which shows neither any engagement with Vemana’s work nor with what is preposterously maintained in Indological and South Asian studies as “Brahminical Religion”. Schmitthenner simply carries on the received wisdom. Schmitthenner (2001, p. 75).
- 4.
All translations from this Telugu work are mine.
- 5.
Mata should not to be confused with religion. Before the spread of colonial consciousness it invariably referred to a reflective-ritual position, such as Shankaramata, Madhvamata, Kapaalikamata etc.
- 6.
As can be seen, by Rallapalli’s time the national-cultural term Hindu, a term without historical or reflective depth and without any provenance in Sanskrit traditions, gets internalized. He never turns to inquire what is Hindu about advaita or even Vemana. Colonial consciousness as a reactive formation already takes root here.
- 7.
In the light of our earlier discussions about the literary and literary inquiries, this conception clearly shows the epistemic rupture. Rallapalli’s conception is already touched by the (British) Romantic ideas of poetry.
- 8.
Given that this chapter aims at a risking mnemotextual response, any available anthology (not a “critical edition”) can be used to cite Vemana’s verses. Among the various anthologies used here, the one from which verses are cited largely is Vemana Padya Ratnakaramu (Vemana 1976/2005, p. 669).
- 9.
Although this observation is made available in a marginal footnote of Rallapalli’s work, in his main text he freely indulges in this citational or grafting activity. But, instead of thematizing the larger implications of these allusive, elliptical citational features of Vemana’s compositions, Rallapalli offers a functional justification of his activity. It is only for convenience’s sake that he has done the cutting and pasting of poetic lines, says Rallapalli (1928/1945, p. 44): “kavuna atlu anukulamu koraku marchabadinadi”.
- 10.
In his anxiety to fix their contextual provenance, Gopi tries to pursue the ideological binary between the pandit and the peasant and in the process fails to listen to the larger epistemic questioning that Vemana’s verses initiate.
- 11.
Among various compositions that reiterate the work and limits of the indriyas and the composition of the body in the Sanskrit reflective traditions, cf. Samkhyakarika by Isvarakrishna (1996).
- 12.
I have also used C.P. Brown’s collection for citing poems (Brown 1839/1992, p. 8).
- 13.
The term jnana seems to be the Sanskrit cognate of the English “knowledge”—though none of the major dictionaries extends their etymological sources of this word beyond the usual Middle or Old English origins (cnawan). But this Old English term can, perhaps, be traced back on its Indo-European chain to the Greek gno, as in gignoskein, and to the Sanskrit jna.
- 14.
Incidentally, there is no need to emphasize the fact and principle of freedom that Vemana appeals to here—as in the case of other experiential terms (such as jnana , para , guna, etc.); they emerge entirely in the idiom of the epistemic learning of Sanskrit reflective traditions, which Vemana invokes and disseminates in his verses.
- 15.
Here, the obvious reference is to Derrida’s reading of Abrahamic religions in his essay “Faith and Knowledge” (Derrida 1996).
References
Balagangadhara, S.N. 2012. Reconceptualizing India Studies (Delhi: Oxford University Press).
Bangore, 1839/1992. Foreword. In C.P. Brown, Vemana Padyalu, edited by Bangore (Tirupati: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam).
Bhattacharya, K.C. 1984. Swaraj in Ideas, Indian Philosophical Quarterly, XI(4).
Brown, C.P. (ed.) 1839/1992. Vemana Padyalu (Vemana’s Poems) edited by Bangore (Tirupati: Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanamulu).
Chandogya Upanishad. 1997. Translated by Pandita Gopadeva (Kuchipudi: Arya Samajmu).
Derrida, J. 1996. ‘Faith and Knowledge’: The Two Sources of ‘Religion’ at the Limits of Reason Alone, translated by S. Weber. In J. Derrida & G. Vattimo (Ed.), Religion (Stanford: Stanford University Press).
Dubois, A. 1906/2001. Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies (Delhi: Asian Educational Services).
Farmer, S. Henderson, J. & Witzel, M. 2000. Neurobiology, Layered Texts and Correlative Cosmologies: A Cross Cultural Framework for Premodern History, Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, No. 72.
Gelders, R. 2009. Genealogy of Colonial Discourse: Hindu Traditions and the Limits European Representations, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 51(3).
Gelders, R. 2009–2010. Ascetics and Crafty Priests: Orientalism and the European Representations of India, PhD thesis submitted at Ghent University.
Gopi, N. 1980/2005. Praja Kavi Vemana: Siddhanta Granthamu (Vemana the Peoples’ Poet: A Theoretical Treatise) (Hyderabad: Vishalandhra Publishing House).
Isvarakrishna. 1996. Samkhyakarika. Sanskrit-Telugu bilingual edition translated with commentary by Sri R. Koteswarasarma (Hyderabad: Arsha Vijnana Trust).
Mehta, J.L. 1985. Beyond Believing and Knowing. In his India and the West: The Problem of Understanding (Chico, California: Scholars Press).
Rallapalli, A. S. 1928/1945. Vemana (Waltare: Andhra Vishwakala Parishat).
Rao, K. V. 1963/1988. C.P. Brown (Hyderabad: AP Sahitya Akademi).
Schmitthenner, P.L. 2001. Telugu Resurgence: C.P. Brown and Cultural Consolidation in Nineteenth-Century South India (Delhi: Manohar).
Vemana. 1976/2005. Vemana Padya Ratnakaramu. With a commentary by B. Venkataramanayya (Madras: Balasaraswati Book Depot).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer India
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rao, D.V. (2014). Listening to the Textlooms of Vemana: Memory, History and the Archives of Betrayal. In: Cultures of Memory in South Asia. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 6. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1698-8_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-1698-8_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New Delhi
Print ISBN: 978-81-322-1697-1
Online ISBN: 978-81-322-1698-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)