The focus of literary studies needs to change; and we, who live in the erstwhile colonies, need to talk about literary studies outside the dominant referential analytical framework: i.e. on how, once-upon-a-time, the discipline of English was part of the “imperial mission of educating and civilizing colonial subjects in the literature and thought of England, a mission that in the long run served to strengthen Western cultural hegemony in enormously complex ways.” (Gauri Viswanathan, Masks of Conquest. Literary Study and British Rule in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press) According to her, “a great deal of strategic maneuvering went into the creation of a blueprint for social control in the guise of a humanistic program of enlightenment”; and the English literary text functioned as a surrogate Englishman in his “highest and most perfect state” becoming a “mask for economic exploitation.”
When we ask the question as to what comprises a literary text, we should be willing to venture into territories that have not been examined before and this would allow us access to a wide variety of primary texts. I would argue that the focus of literary scholars should be on re-reading religious texts and undoing the underlying misogyny. Religion affects all aspects of our lives – and if we want a change to take place in the realm of the public around the world, we need to dismantle/re-write the existing religious texts. If we don’t, then the very safe, glass-haven, spaces of academic institutions can just be blown apart by religious fundamentalism in the very near future.
If we examine the Upanishadic texts, we realize that they are composed out of a series of narratives, which make use of numerous literary techniques.
For example, in the Aiteraya Upanishad, there is a story about creation:
Om! In the beginning this was but the Absolute Self alone. There was nothing else whatsoever that winked. It thought, ‘Let Me create the world.’”
It created these worlds….It thought, ‘These then are the worlds. Let Me create the protectors of the worlds.’ Having gathered up a (lump of the) human form from the water itself, It gave shape to it.
The Upanishadic text moves on and talks about the five senses and the need to nourish and sustain the body, which has been formed out of spirit:
It [The Absolute Self] thought, ‘This, then, are the senses and the deities of the senses. Let Me create food for them. …
This food, that was created, turned back and attempted to run away. It tried to take it up with speech. It did not succeed in taking it up through speech. If It had succeeded in taking it up with the speech, then one would have been contented merely by talking of food.
And the narrative continues in this semi-humorous manner; where The Absolute Self analyses the need for “food” and the process which would have been involved in consuming the food; the analysis has a to-and-fro movement which borders on being self analytical. Humour lies in the whole situation where the Absolute Self examines the nature of “food” that the newly created human body has to consume; “food” tries to run away and “speech” attempts to run after it but fails. The verse concludes in a self-deprecating manner, by saying that this failure was needed because if “speech” had succeeded, then we would have been satisfied by talking about food.
We cannot ignore the fact these texts would have reflected the values system of that time period, and this explains the misogyny that is the dominant rubric within which the text is written. There are verses in the Aiteraya Upanishad which call out the very specific gender roles that are involved in the family structure; women have to be mothers to sons and that is the only role that can be ascribed to them:
She, the nourisher, becomes fit to be nourished [protected]. The wife bears that embryo (before the birth). He (the father) protects the son at the very start, soon after his birth. That he protects the son at the very beginning, just after birth, thereby he protects his own self for the sake of the continuance of these worlds. For thus is the continuance of these world ensured. That is his second birth.
As literary scholars, our focus should be on not only interpreting these texts within a literary framework of analysis, but also dismantling these misogynous renditions of the Upanishadic texts. If religion is seen as embodying revealed knowledge, that is immutable, then we, as literary scholars, need to change that perspective.
The seriousness of this work should not be undermined; religion dictates all aspects of our lives – public, private, institutional and secular. The misogyny in religion (that operates in an a-historical manner) spills over onto our societal value systems that undermines the secularism in our everyday lives.
Texts do not work in isolation; they emerge from and work within social systems. Why should the Upanishadic texts, that were written thousands of years ago, still dictate our social behavior in the present?
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