73 – Reading Life Narratives in Modern Sanskrit Literature
Elisa Freschi and Philipp Maas (Adaptive Reuse: Aspects of Creativity in South Asian Cultural History, 2017) emphasise that the relationship between innovation and the perpetuation of earlier forms is a specific aspect of creativity in South Asian literatures. The same can be observed in the case of contemporary Sanskrit production. Some authors still draw on traditional sources and genres explored by their predecessors, while others introduce new forms and themes into the creative practice of writing in Sanskrit.
The tradition of life-writing never developed fully in earlier Sanskrit literature with ākhyāyikā and few other genres showing some traits.
Contemporary authors, not bound by any literary convention or protocol between the author and the celebrated recipient, are free to express their own opinions and views. Among such works are Radhavallabh Tripathi’s diary, Kshama Rao’s biography of her father and Satyavrat Shastri’s autobiography. An unusual form to narrate a life story has been adopted by the contemporary writer Asha Gurjar, who composed a play describing her father’s life. V. Raghavan in three one-act plays presented the scenes from the imagined lives of three Sanskrit poetesses using the verses ascribed to them by the tradition. Thus, he approached closely the biographical prabandhas of the second millennium but changed the form to a theatrical one.
As Philippe Lejeune has stated, “The object of an autobiographical text is the truth of the past, and its contract implies both the possibility and the legitimacy of verification.” (On Diary, 2009, p. 215) The same concerns biography. Obviously, surveying these works is surveying culture and history
The genre of life-writing is an innovative form in modern Sanskrit. This novelty and the scarcity of contributions on modern Sanskrit literature emphasise the need of such avenue of research to be conducted by scholars.