SANSKRIT LITERATURE 1

Introduction to the shape, genres and goals of classical Sanskrit literature. The teaching provides a first access to texts of a fundamental importance with respect to the study of South Asia.

Historical and hermeneutical ability to explore Sanskrit intellectual products. Attending this course the student obtain the coordinates for the study of the main works of the intellectual traditions of South Asia.

None, open to different background.

Presentation of the practices and theories underlying the literary production in the Sanskrit language, with analysis of textual sample.

S. Pollock (a cura di), Literary Cultures in History. Reconstructions from South Asia, University of California Press, Berkeley 2003.
N. Gummer (a cura di), The Language of the Sūtras. Essays in Honor of Luis Gómez, Mangalam Press, Berkeley 2021.
E. Melandri, I generi letterari e la loro origine, Quodlibet, Macerata 2014.

Y. Bronner, L. McCrea, First Words, Last Words. New Theories for Reading Old Texts in Sixteenth-Century India, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2021.
D. Raveh, Sūtras, Stories and Yoga Philosophy. Narrative and Transfiguration, Routledge, London 2016.
R.F. Nance, Speaking for Buddhas. Scriptural Commentary in Indian Buddhism, Columbia University Press, New York 2012.
McC. Taylor, What Enables Canonical Literature to Function as “True”? The Case of the Hindu Purāṇas, in International Journal of Hindu Studies, 12(2008), n. 3, pp. 309-328.

Final oral exam, conducted after the study of a selected bibliography assigned by the course teacher.

Lectures, collective readings.

Italian

oral