Dr. G. Devi

English 220

Al  Qur’ran Study Notes

Two Semitic tribes inhabited the Arabian Peninsula; the nomadic Arab people, known as the Bedouins, and the settled farmers and traders, also Arab, known as the Hejazis. The tribes elected a leader (Sheikh) and practiced a form of animistic religion with no clearly articulated concept of life beyond death. The tribes practiced tribal rituals and lived by a code of bravery, family loyalty, revenge, pride and honor. The pre-Islamic Arab life is richly documented in the qasida, the chief prosodic form that flourished in the Arabian Peninsula between 4 CE –7 CE. A notable anthology is the Muallaqat, a collection of long odes written about the Bedouin life preserved through a tribe of poem reciters known as Rawis who memorized these poems and recited them for public occasions and enjoyed a rare status in the Arab society. These bards were regarded as gifted with supernatural powers and held in high esteem by common people who counted on them to document their lives and deeds for posterity. The qasida is a long lyric poem with varying meters and with a single end rhyme and with a strict structure. The qasida recalled the war and love exploits of Bedouin warriors. Al-Khansa, another 6 CE Arabic poet wrote highly evocative elegies for her fallen brothers who were warriors of the Sulaym tribe.

Al Qur’ran: In the 7^th century a new religion called Islam with its roots in the other Abrahamic faiths Judaism and Christianity transformed life in the Arabian Peninsula. Islam was revealed to Prophet Mohammad a middle-aged merchant from Mecca who was in a cave praying at which time the archangel Gabriel appeared to him and commanded him to recite the teachings of the Supreme God Allah. Prophet Mohammad’s revelations were first transmitted orally and then collected by his followers into the written text called Al Qur’ran. In the Arabic tradition it is customary to put the definite article “al” (the) before the noun Qur’ran or The Recitation.  Qur’ran comes from the Arabic root q-r, which means “to read” and Al Qur’ran means “ the recitation.” Muslims recite the Qur’ran daily for their prayers. With Islam and its teachings embodied in Al Qur’ran, Prophet Mohammad transformed the Arab people from a polytheistic society to a monotheistic one believing in One God, Allah. Allah is derived from the Arabic al –ilah, which means “one deity.” We can see the cognates in the Hebrew elaha and Biblical Aramaic alaha, both meaning “deity.” The word Islam is derived from the Arabic root s-l-m, which means “to submit” or “to surrender” and Islam means “submission.”  Meccans were resistant to the Prophet’s message about Islam and in 622 AD the Prophet and his followers fled Mecca to Medina following an attempt to assassinate him. This flight is known as Hijra (sometimes spelled Hejira in English) and marks the commencement of the Islamic calendar. During the Prophet’s exile in Medina, Islam became an organized faith and by the 10 CE Islam had spread across much of the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and Europe—Al Andalus or Spain being its western-most boundary—by a combination of merchants and traders and military conquests. In fact, the great Islamic dynasties of the Ottomans and the Mughals were the only real challenges to European colonial powers since the 16^th century.

Al Qur’ran was revealed to the Prophet in verses known as aya of varying length and number. These verses are collected in chapters called Sura often arranged with the longer Suras preceding the shorter ones. The Suras revealed to the Prophet at Mecca are known as Meccan Suras; these short Suras are arranged towards the end of the Qur’ran. The Medinan Suras are longer Suras and typically these are arranged towards the beginning of the Qur’ran. While Al Qur’ran has been translated into all major languages in the world Muslims recite the Qur’ran only in Arabic.

Textual Annotations

The Exordium (Al Fatihah): Meccan Sura. What are the attributes of Allah? Is any specific religion attributed to Allah? The opening verse bismillahi-r-rahmani r-rahim is a required phrase in all Muslim texts. r-h-m is an Arabic root for “compassion” and for the “womb.” Listen to the recitation of Al Fatihah here.

Sura 4: Women (Suratu an –Nisa): Medinan Sura.  Rights, Obligations, Duties and aspects pertaining to women, men, children and orphans under Islamic law (Shariah).

What are the rules pertaining to orphans? What are the Rights of women? What are the Duties of women? What are the Rights of men? What are the Duties of Men? What features characterize the contract of marriage (nikah)? What is the status of polygamy in Islam? What is the pattern of Inheritance? What sexual practices are forbidden under Islamic law? Under Islamic law what is the status of wrong-doing, punishment and forgiveness? You will notice that Islam does not believe in original sin; wrong-doing is often referred to as “evil-doing” which will be forgiven by God, whose first and foremost attribute is as the Compassionate and the Merciful. But there are conditions to God’s forgiveness; what are these conditions?

The Five Pillars of Islam: A practicing Muslim is enjoined to perform five duties:

Shahadah or profession of faith in One God

Salat or offering of prayers five times a day

Zakat or giving of alms to the needy

Sawm or fasting during the month of Ramadan

Hajj or pilgrimage to the holy site of Mecca

Sura 12: Joseph (Yusuf): Meccan Sura. Often called the most beautiful of Suras; the only full-length narrative of a story with characters in the Qur’ran, Yusuf’s sura tells the Biblical story of Joseph in markedly different ways. The Qur’ranic narrative is a powerful and stunning allegory about spiritual enlightenment and not a historical account of the Hebrews in Egypt. How is the allegory structured in the Qur’ranic sura? Pay particular attention to the structure of the narrative: where is Yusuf’s first dream positioned? What differences do you notice between Yusuf, Jacob (who is nameless in the Qur’ranic Sura) and Yusuf’s brothers? What is the connection between Yusuf’s first dream to himself (line #4) and the other dreams he interprets for others? Notice how the entire narrative is an allegorical fulfillment of Yusuf’s dream: “Father, I dreamt of eleven stars and the sun and the moon. I saw them prostrate themselves before me.” Now look at #100: “This, said Joseph to his father, “is the meaning of my old vision: my Lord has fulfilled it.” Pay particular attention to images of light, darkness, blindness, vision, revelation. Sura 12 is one of the most beautiful allegorical texts in any language.

Sura 19: Mary. Meccan Sura. As the youngest of the Abrahamic religions, Qur’ranic narratives about Biblical characters force us to read both the Hebrew and Christian Bibles in a different way. While both the Christian and Hebrew Bibles have a clear sense of a definite people, the Jews in the case of the Hebrew text and the Christians in the case of the New Testament, and a clear sense of place, the Qur’ranic retellings of the Biblical narratives do not have this pre-defined sense of audience or place. The Qur’ranic narratives have a singleness of spiritual message that seems independent of people, place or time. While Biblical stories were compiled over historical time by many hands, the Qur’ran belongs to the tradition of instantaneous revelation, and as such it has a transcendent approach to human history; divine authority trumps over historical verification.

Observe how the Biblical prophets are presented in the Qur’ran. What do you notice about their presence and purpose in the Qur’ran?

What similarities and differences do you notice between the story of Mary as told in Islam and Christianity? What is Jesus’s status?

Dr. G. Devi

English 220

Ovid – The Metamorphoses (7 CE)

Ovid was born the year after Julius Caesar’s assassination (43 BCE) and lived during the prosperous period of pre-Christian Roman empire writing about the racy lives of the Roman elite, seduction manuals (for both men and women), but also unforgettable retellings of Greco-Roman myths. Ovid’s seduction manuals were very popular with his Roman readership but towards the middle of his life he was banished from Rome to the little town of Tomi in modern Romania; we don’t know the exact reason why Ovid was banished but the generally agreed upon belief is that Ovid ran afoul of Augustus Caesar with some salacious comments about his daughter. Augustus Caesar was trying to bring back the old Roman standards of morality and was very possibly offended at Ovid’s portrayal of the great nation as a place of promiscuity and amusement. Ovid’s seduction manuals and his retellings of Greco-Roman myths have both been read in modern times as veiled political texts. Ovid never returned to Rome from his exile and his greatest work Metamorphoses was written during his exile and remained unfinished at the time of his death in 17 CE.

The Metamorphoses is a miniature epic written in dactylic hexameter, the meter of heroic poetry used in such epics as The Iliad, Odyssey, and the Aeneid. In fifteen books, Ovid narrates the stories of Greek and Roman gods and the mortals who had the fortune or misfortune to run into them, plus evolving stories of the Caesars. While ancient Roman poetry had plenty of room for salacious details of the lives of mortals and immortals, The Metamorphoses is unique in its distinctly violent portrayal of the said gods and goddesses. The poems speak of the transformations (metamorphosis means “change of form”) between different species of creation, mostly gods and humans to flowers, animals, trees, hills, mountains etc. These are stories of instabilities and as such they challenge, question and debunk standards of moral order imposed on a society from top down. The stories employ many points of views – we hear gods and goddesses speaking, humans speaking and conventionally inarticulate species speaking.  For all their violence these stories are also enduringly witty and powerful in their ability to provoke a range of emotions from surprise, shock, pathos, terror and revulsion.

Most of these stories embody the seemingly self-evident truth of Ovid’s observation in Book 2:

Majestic power and erotic love

Do not get on together very well,

Nor do they linger long in the same place. (Book 2, Jove and Europa)

Myths are serious stories that people tell themselves about what they need to know about their origins, their gods, their social structure, their natural environment etc. Ovid artfully retells the traditional Roman stories about secular, erotic love. Love and Power, Ovid shows us again and again through his retellings of the Greek and Roman myths, cannot be present at the same place at the same time. Where one is present, the other is not. It is an exclusion principle that almost all cultures and all religions seem to know but chooses to ignore. (Another exclusion principle applies to Knowledge and Wealth; where one is present, the other is not. This is another archetypal myth.) Almost all the stories in the Metamorphoses show perversions of love occasioned by abuse and misuse of power. Gods and goddesses do this; mortals do this as well.

Book 2 Jove and Europa: Classic story of abduction of a young woman by a powerful man; here Jove (Greek Jupiter) King of Gods changes into a bull and frolics with the cattle of King Agenor of Phoenicia so he can get close to Europa, the king’s daughter. How does Ovid tell this story? How would you characterize Ovid’s diction and point of view? How is Jove portrayed? How is Europa portrayed?

Book 10 Pygmalion: Pygmalion who hated women falls in love with a statue that he has created. Observe the frank description of Pygmalion’s sexual arousal while touching the statue; what is Ovid telling us about male power and female passivity? Venus, the goddess of love, grants life to the statue so that Pygmalion can actually marry the statue. How do you read the seduction of the statue by Pygmalion: what does it mean to say that a statue came to life under Pygmalion’s hands? How does Ovid present male and female roles in this story?

Cinyras and Myrrha: Observe how Ovid evolves the story. The offspring from Pygmalion’s marriage with the statue begets Cinyras whose story is an archetypal story about the taboo of incest. Myrrha conceives a misplaced passion for Cinyras, her own father. Study how Ovid tells the story of their copulation; how does he communicate the unnaturalness of this union?  What is the mood evoked by this incident?

Observe also how transformations are used as origin stories. The story of the unfortunate Myrrha is also the story of the origin of Myrrh, one of the fragrant oils used in various sacraments.

Venus and Adonis: The troubled lineage continues with the story of Adonis, son of Myrrha and her father, Cinyras. How does Ovid present Venus, the goddess of love? How about Adonis’s characterization? What do you notice about the relationship between Venus and Adonis?

Another origin story about red anemone flowers from the blood of the dead Adonis.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the Greek/ Roman myths have been a rich source material for artists and writers across cultures through centuries. Here is a frightening poem by the great poet W. B. Yeats – Leda and the Swan – about Jupiter’s rape of Leda. Jupiter visits her in the form of a swan. You will see the historical scope of the myth—myths create historical continuity for a people—in the reference to “the broken wall, the burning roof and tower and Agamemnon dead.” The reference is to the birth of Helen, the child of this union, who is the direct cause of the war between Greece and Troy recounted in Homer’s Iliad.

A sudden blow: the great wings beating still

Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed

By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,

He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.

How can those terrified vague fingers push

The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?

And how can body, laid in that white rush,

But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?

A shudder in the loins engenders there

The broken wall, the burning roof and tower

And Agamemnon dead.

Being so caught up,

So mastered by the brute blood of the air,

Did she put on his knowledge with his power

Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?

The death of a language story here. Very sad story. A whole world view lost forever, isn’t it?

Dr. G. Devi

English 220

Bhagavad Gita (I BCE)

Bhagavad Gita is a compilation of Hindu metaphysical thought and to that extent it contains the Hindu view of the world and life in general. Though Bhagavad Gita is often read as a stand-alone book (think Gideon’s Bible—there is a version of Bhagavad Gita in the same size and shape) it is part of a larger composition. It belongs to Book 6 of the Mahabharata, which is the longest epic poem in the world with its 100, 000 verses and 1.8 or so million words. Mahabharata was composed somewhere along the Indo-Gangetic plain between 10 BCE and 8 BCE in the Indian subcontinent and written in one of the oldest languages in the world, the Indo-European language called Sanskrit.  The poem itself credits a mythic sage Vyaasa as the author of the Mahabharata, but in all probability, the poem was collated and compiled over time and altered during its redaction by various editors and compilers. Like its younger cousin The Iliad, Mahabharata recounts a great war of succession fought in the Indo-Gangetic plain around 10 BCE – the Kurukshetra war – between cousins Pandavas and Kauravas who both claim the throne at Hastinapura. By rights the throne should go to the elder Pandava prince Yudhishtira, but his cousin Duryodhana tricks him in a game of dice, which causes him to lose the kingdom. Yudhishtira and his brothers – Bheema, Arjuna, Nakula and Sahadeva go into exile for twelve years and on their return the war starts when the Kauravas refuse to cede the kingdom to the Pandavas. The Kauravas keep the kingdom through deceitful and duplicitous means. This is a violation of dharma and the war is fought to correct this dharma gone awry. Within the frame story of this war epic lies almost all facets of immanent and transcendent life that had preoccupied Indian thought and philosophy: for instance, what is our purpose in life? Does life have a purpose? Is life lived in the body? Is there a mind? Is there a soul? What is the relation between these things? How did life originate? Where are we going from here?  What are the causes of suffering? Why do we desire things?  How do we escape the endless cycle of birth and death and rebirth? What happens to the body after death? What happens to your mind after you die? What happens to your soul? Etc etc. Mahabharata is divided into eighteen books and has been translated into almost all the major languages in the world. Indians read the Mahabharata as Itihaasa, whose closest English translation is a genre that combines both history and myth.  It narrates both the historical account of India along with imaginative analogues to them.

Bhagavad Gita, which means The Song of the Lord (Bhagavad – possessive case of Bhagavan (God) and Gita—song) is also in eighteen chapters within Book 6, Bhishma’s Book. It starts in media res; the setting is the great battle field of Kurukshetra the evening before the battle. Arjuna the Pandava warrior visits the battle field along with his friend, relative (and it turns out God) Krishna where he spirals down into a complete dejection and breakdown over the fact that he will have to kill his own cousins, uncles, other family members in the battle soon to begin. Arjuna poses the following questions to Krishna. These questions are the cornerstone of Hindu metaphysics and philosophy:

1. How can I kill my cousins when I know that killing is wrong (adharma)? How can I escape the results of my actions (karma)?
2. According to the law of Karma, I will reap the consequences of my actions and one consequence is the possibility of being born again and again and again. I will never attain moksha (liberation). If I stay on this course of action how can I attain moksha ?
3. How can I ensure that what I am doing is correct (dharma)?
4. Finally, why should I take your advice, Krishna?

These questions, when generalized, address the core concepts of a form of Hinduism known as Vedanta. Here is an annotation of your textual reading:

Chapter 1 – Arjuna’s Dejection – Arjuna Vishada Yoga — Arjuna tells Krishna that he cannot kill his own cousins. He says that he would rather die than kill his cousins.

Chapter 2 – Krishna’s teaching about the nature of Being. (Being is a western ontological term; you will notice that in our English translation what we paraphrase to mean Being in Sanskrit is simply “it” or “this.” Being is termless in Sanskrit.  It is “that this  is.”)  Being is neither born nor dead. It cannot be killed any more than it can be created.  Pay particular attention to #17, #18, #19, #20, #28.

Krishna teaches Arjuna about Dharma (duty). The duty of a Kshatriya (warrior) is to fight in a war. You must focus on your action for the sake of doing action. You must only act and not think of the fruits of action. This philosophy is known as Nishkama Karma. Pay particular attention to #47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53.

Krishna speaks to Arjuna about Maya (delusion) (#52) – Maya in Hindu philosophy refers to the world we perceive around us; Hindu metaphysics regards this world as unreal; the path towards moksha (liberation) requires you to witness this world and let it go; it is the imaginative play of God, but not God. This process of cutting through Maya to reach moksha is a via negativa – you can only define God or Supreme Consciousness as “it is not this,” “it is not this either,” “it is not this” “it is not this” – you get the idea. Remember the movie Matrix with Keanu Reeves? That movie is a good exemplum of what Hindu metaphysics means by Maya. Maya is the world we perceive through our senses. We can only see what our senses allow us to see.  In the movie, the “matrix” is the Maya, Morpheus (played by the great actor Lawrence Fishburne) is sort of like Krishna and Neo (Keanu Reeves) is in Arjuna’s position. Morpheus teaches Neo how to get out of the matrix. But we can be aware of this limitation and witness this limited perception. Our true consciousness is a witness consciousness. Maya was originally a Buddhist concept.

Krishna speaks to Arjuna  about the nature of a Jnana yogi (#55-#58)– a yogi who practices the discipline of knowledge and attains moksha through such means. Contrasted with Karma yogi who attains through right action.

Chapter 3-6 – Krishna teaches Arjuna about karma (action); how to act and yet be detached from the outcome. #5, 6, 7, 8. This is a foundational concept in Hinduism.  Krishna also teaches Arjuna about the major obstacles on the path to moksha: anger, desire, willful intent (#37-#43). The antidote? Discipline (samyamanam) (##15-20).

Chapter 6 – Krishna tells Arjuna that all creation is God, Krishna himself.  This is a deliberate move in the Bhagavad Gita; here the student Arjuna needs proof that what the teacher Krishna is saying is credible and true. From this point on, you will find that the Gita increasingly becomes a monotheistic text (#29-32).

Chapter 11 – In this chapter Krishna shows Arjuna his cosmic form (viswa roopam). Arjuna sees that Krishna is all universe/creation/multiverses themselves. Also here you will notice a switch in the narrative point of view – now it is Sanjaya telling Dhritarashtra (the patriarch of the Kauravas) what Arjuna saw. This third party endorsement of Krishna’s grandeur and omnipotence is the apotheosis of the Bhagavad Gita as a monotheistic text. Read this chapter carefully. Arjuna feels liberated and frightened at one and the same time; he realizes that the Supreme God himself has come to act as his charioteer and that it is his karma to fight this war to restore dharma.

Side note: The witnessing of Krishna’s cosmic form in all its power by Arjuna is a scene that has been retold in many many forms in many texts. One of its most ironic uses was by the great physicist Robert Oppenheimer who was also an Indic scholar and who said upon seeing his first test plutonium bombs explode in the New Mexico desert Krishna’s statement from Bhagavad Gita –“ I am become Death.” One month later US dropped the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bombs Oppenheimer helped build.  There is a famous book about the building of the American atomic bomb entitled Brighter than a Thousand Suns. It is a quotation from the Bhagavad Gita from this chapter: Arjuna describes the grandeur of Krishna’s cosmic form thus: “If a thousand suns were to light up the sky all at once that radiance would equal the radiance of my Lord” (#12).  Apparently our bombs were brighter than those thousand suns.

I was talking to my nephew Shambhu the other day. It is a great year–Shambhu is five and is in first grade.  Turns out he doesn’t like school at all. I speak in our mother tongue, Malayalam, with Appu, my sister-in-law Asha, my niece Luma, but Shambhu is an American and he speaks in English with me. Hello Shambhu, how are you? I asked. Fine, he said. What is seven plus seven? I asked him. Fourteen, he said. Bye, he said and gave the phone to Asha. He is shy and doesn’t like to talk at all. He doesn’t know that I love him very much and plan to steal him away for myself. I say this to Appu and Asha all the time–I am taking Shambhu–he is my son, born not of my flesh (well Appu and I share the same flesh and blood), but of my heart–and Asha says, okay chechi (elder sister) take him–and Shambhu runs and hides behind Asha or he will try to jump up on me and trip me. Just a sweet sweet boy. When you were born, Shambhu, your mother had a difficult labor; your father and I stayed with your mother the whole time on either side; she was in labor with you for a long long time and your father was just beside himself with worry. I didn’t know who to console more–your mother or your father. So we were all very very very happy when you came out and I was the first person to hold you and later at home to bathe you, you darling boy! But he doesn’t like school. Does not like to study. Luma is the genius of the family. We have to tell her to stop studying. Enough, go out and do something else. Watch T.V, for god’s sake.

Anyway Shambhu is learning math this year. It has been a struggle but he has learned addition and subtraction. He calls subtraction attraction. He can add and subtract (attract) with fives now. He doesn’t think there will be any math left to study after he has mastered addition with nine.  He thinks that adding with ones and twos is for babies. These days he will walk up to you and ask you, “Ask me what seven plus seven is.” Okay, Shambhu, what is seven plus seven? Fourteen, he says. Ask me what five plus five is, he says. What is five plus five? Ten, he shouts. Okay, we are on a roll here. So Shambhu what is six plus six? Shambhu looks at you blankly. What is eight plus eight? I don’t want to play this game; Shambhu runs away.  You can only ask him seven plus seven and five plus five. He knows that really well.

Do you know, Shambhu, your father was just like you, I told him. When Appu was a little boy, he never liked to study. We never saw him do homework or study, even for exams. Mother and I had other ways of telling if there was an exam in the offing. If Appu started taking apart his bicycle and putting it together it was usually a clear sign that there was an exam the next day. (When he started at the engineering college the bicycle turned into a motor cycle. The repair before the exams continued as usual. It was a whole evening affair.) If there was an exam the next day, the previous evening Appu repaired anything that needed to be repaired around the house. He repaired electrical appliances whether they needed to be repaired or not. We had a beautiful Murphy radio and Appu opened it and put it back together at least once every month. The intriguing thing was that every time he opened it and put it back together he would end up with lots of nuts and bolts and screws and nails and such that came from the radio–these are extra, he would say. What do you mean, extra, we would ask? Doesn’t the radio need them? No, he would say. They are extra. Unnecessary parts. All through high school and engineering college, I drew Appu’s record books–these big folio books that accompanied the labs they did. I can’t draw to save my life but Appu wouldn’t draw either and I was afraid–we were all afraid–that they would fail him for non-compliance with course work–so  I would sit there looking at strange carpentry and foundry machines and the cross section of their engines and draw them. It was painful, but I got them done. ( You owe me one, brother. I was reminded of this when Luma told me that she was doing Shambhu’s “project” for him; apparently in first grade they have to do a “project.” They have to make some sort of poster board thing with hundred things on it. Luma is doing it for him because he refuses to do it. Just like I did for Appu!)  When he did study for an exam, Appu had a habit of tearing off all the pages he had studied. I am done, he would say. Well, don’t you need them to refer back, we would ask. No, he would say. I am done. The text books became thinner and thinner as the year wore on. Actually Appu didn’t need to study; he got all the help he needed from the goddess at the Althara Temple. He would bike by in the morning and make a wager with the goddess: dear mother, please make sure that both Part I and Part II exams are easy. I will put 50 paise for each part if you make both parts easy; you will get a whole rupee if you make both parts easy, okay?  But Appu didn’t study math for nothing. One year Part I exam was hard; Part II was easy. Appu came home and told us that he gave the goddess only 50 paise that year. Wager with a god? we asked. Yes, why not? The deal was both parts needed to be easy; not just one part. 50 paise is good enough, Appu said. Shambhu, your father had a fine sense of humor! He used to have us in splits every evening when he came back from school; he used to be an excellent mimic and would act out the strange things his teachers did in school. I have to tell you those stories another day though.

Dr. G. Devi

English 220

Analects of Confucius (5BCE)

The analects of Confucius (from Gk “analekta” or selected things, selected sayings) is a compilation of philosophical axioms attributed to the ancient Chinese scholar Confucius (the “Master” in the analects) who originated the secular social philosophy known as Confucianism. Much like Plato collected the sayings of his teacher Socrates, the analects were collected and compiled by the followers of Confucius over a period of time. Of the twenty books attributed to Confucius, the first fifteen are believed to be more authentic than the last five.  The analects seem disconnected and random on first reading; the common denominator running through the twenty books is the personality of Confucius himself; other characters come and go, and the sayings themselves don’t seem to have a continuity to them the way they are sequenced in the books. However, upon closer reading, we can see that the analects repeatedly come back to four core principles critical to Chinese culture, thought and worldview. These four principles are: Li (Importance of Rites and Rituals/Tradition), Junzi (the concept of a Gentleman, virtuous man, benevolent man), Ren (axioms about ruling, authority and authoritative conduct), and Yi ( the Right and the Moral). Each of the analects may be read as Confucius’s commentary on one of these four principles, or a combination of one or more of these principles. Together these four principles help you live the Way or Tao (sometimes spelled Dao). You will notice that Confucius does not speak of God, supernatural entities, magic, spiritual life etc – there is nothing abstract in Confucius’s Tao – it is a humanistic, practice-oriented Tao and the way to the Tao is through living a certain kind of life observing Li, Junzi, Ren and Yi.

You will notice that the analects are set in a pedagogic context with often Confucius asking a question, students answering them, or Confucius answering it himself. At other times, Confucius will comment “in place” through direct observation of a particular phenomenon. Very few of these analects are in any way abstruse; occasionally you will find Confucius using figurative language, but that is by and large the exception rather than the rule. Here is a figurative analect: “Only when the cold season comes is the point brought home that the pine and the cypress are the last to lose their leaves.” (Book 9, #28)

Confucianism evolved to become associated with the Chinese imperial culture and over time, especially after the Communist revolution, Confucianism became equated with an anti-evolutionary and socially prohibitive authoritarianism. There is much that is authoritative in Confucianism but all social philosophies, by definition, regulate human conduct in their own ways.

Here are a few analects where you can clearly read Confucius’s commentary on the four principles. For each of these analects (and the many more in the text) ask yourself

Which of the cardinal principles is evoked in this analect? How is it defined and described? What values does Confucius endorse through this analect?

Book 2, #26

Yen Yuan and Chi-lu were in attendance. The Master said, “I suggest you each tell me what it is you have set your hearts on.”

Tzu-lu said, “I should like to share my carriage and horses, clothes and furs with my friends, and to have no regrets even if they become worn.”

Yen Yuan said, “I should like never to boast of my own goodness and never to impose onerous tasks on others.”

Tzu-lu said, “I should like to hear what you have set your heart on.”

The Master said, “To bring peace to the old, to have trust in my friends, and to cherish the young.”

Book 6, #20

The Master said, “To be fond of something is better than merely to know it, and to find joy in it is better than merely to be fond of it.”

Book 12, #7

Tzu-kung asked about government. The Master said, “Give them enough food, give them enough arms, and the common people will have trust in you.”

Tzu-kung said, “If one had to give up one of these three, which should one give up first?”

“Give up arms.”

Tzu-kung said, “If one had to give up one of the remaining two, which should one give up first?”

“Give up food. Death has always been with us since the beginning of time but when there is no trust, the common people will have nothing to stand on.”

Book 14, #43

Yuan Jang sat waiting with his legs spread wide. The Master said, “To be neither modest nor deferential when young, to have passed on nothing worthwhile when grown up, and to refuse to die when old, that is what I call a pest.” So saying, the Master tapped him on the shin with his stick.

A good obituary here.

I always teach Zinn’s essay “Stories Hollywood Never Tells” in my Composition classes–the essay is about the type of movies we would like to see but don’t get made. Zinn writes lucidly and students eventually understand him. I will mourn his passing with a personal sorrow; a great intellect and a kind and courageous man.  Rest in peace, Howard Zinn.

“With the indiscriminate nature of modern military technology (no such thing as a “smart bomb,” it turns out) all wars are wars against civilians, and are therefore inherently immoral. This is true even when a war is considered “just,” because it is fought against a tyrant, against an aggressor, to correct a stolen boundary.”
–Zinn on War

Dr. G. Devi

English 220

Song of Songs Study Notes

Note on Allegory: Here is what we discussed about allegories in class. A text is allegorical when it means “this” but it also means “that.” There are two simultaneous levels of meaning in one text. The meaning is usually independent of who reads it; it is hard to miss an allegory. When you find that your main character’s name is Christian and his friend’s name is Hope and they live in a place called the Valley of Death and they have to ride on a train called Faith — well, the allegory is present whether we see it or not. Allegories always point to the social function of literature: it used to be that one of  the “functions” of imaginative writing was to supplement the revealed word of God or theological constructs; these functions change from culture to culture. Different historical periods give rise to different social functions. Song of Songs, Dante’s Divine Comedy, John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress etc all fall under imaginative writing acting as analogues to theological points. The two levels are the Narrative level (the secular love story in the Songs) and the Conceptual level (theological concepts about God and followers; morals; religious edicts). Allegorical reading involves a practice of reading where we can move between the narrative level and the conceptual levels simultaneously by paying particular, close attention to the dual and multiple signification of the language used. The allegorical method is a continuous method; both stories are complete stories. You can see the allegorical method in those old animal fables you all have read–the tortoise and the geese are not just tortoise and the geese but they also stand for particular character types, particular moral positions, particular behaviors. Anything that has a conceptual level in addition to a narrative level tends towards allegory.

Song of Songs (the phrase indicates the superlative degree–as in King of Kings– the Highest Song) is a direct test of allegorical reading, if only because conventional religious scholarship forcefully insist on this most erotic of poems to denote God’s covenant with the people of Israel in the Jewish faith, and likewise Christ’s covenant with Christians in Christianity. While several phrases from this loveliest of poems have become the staple of secular love (“I am my beloved’s, and he is mine”; “his banner over me is love”; “I am the Rose of Sharon;” “I am the Lily of the Valley”; “Your love is better than wine”; “The voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land”; “Come my beloved let us go out into the vineyards” “Your lips are a thread of scarlet”; – so on and so forth – perhaps there is no other lyric poem with greater influence in both the western and eastern traditions than the Songs; images from the Songs have been reworked again and again by countless poets from the Jewish mystics of the Kabbalah, the great Christian mystic poet St. John of the Cross (Spiritual Canticle, Dark Night of the soul), to secular poets such as Shakespeare (The Phoenix and the Turtle – the turtle is a reference to the turtle dove, a small bird of the dove family that is the harbringer of Spring– and not the amphibian turtle—Turtle doves are supposed to be mated with the mythical bird Phoenix and is a symbol of eternal love), and even a modern writer such as John Steinbeck—the beautiful Rose of Sharon or “Rosasharn” in The Grapes of Wrath)—translators and commentators often allegorize the sensual and sexual content of the poem into a mystic union between a “people” and its deity—eros into agape. In many western traditions of both Judaism and Christianity, sexual love is equated with Original Sin, which caused the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. (There is a joke in Texas –“ Sex is very bad and a sin, but you should save it for someone you really love.” There you have the simple definition of a high theological point. These Texans!) Song of Songs runs directly counter to such established traditions of sexuality and religious edicts by describing in vivid detail the supremacy of physical love, love as an end in itself, and not for anything else.  Just think of the number of times the forbidden fruit “apple” and apple orchards are mentioned as landscape and witness to consummated love in the Songs! The whole poem is an invitation to love in a garden. The spiritual allegory is often artificially arrived at in our conscious readings.

Date of the Songs: The alternate title for the Song is the Song of Solomon, the Hebrew king who ruled Israel in 10 BCE, but as in many books of the Bible attributed to various authors, there is no clear evidence that King Solomon wrote the Songs. Biblical scholars date the text as having been compiled sometime between 5BCE-3BCE based on internal textual evidence. The Song is also known as Canticles or by its Hebrew name Shir ha-Shirim. In many Jewish traditions the Songs is read as a wedding song; in the Ashkenazi tradition it is read for Sabbath; in the Sephardic tradition it is recited every Friday night. Excerpts from the Song are read as hymns in the Christian tradition.

Structure of the Songs: Keep these questions in mind as you study the poem:

• Who are the speakers? How many speakers are there? How can you differentiate them? What textual clues signal the transition between speakers?
• The entire poem bursts forth in vivid images. (An image, you will remember, is a combined sensual/sensory and intellectual instant. It must appeal to one of our five senses but it should also evoke a strong cognitive response in us. Thus “starry sky” is not an image; “stars in the pools of her eyes” is an image.) Study the imagery (the chain of images used in a poem) in the Songs. What do they tell you about the speakers, the themes and the general ethos of the people who produced this poem?
• The poem abounds in repetition of certain key passages. Most repetitions are identical. Some have slight variations. Some are inverted. Study the instances of the repetitions. What is their cumulative effect on our reading of the poem?
• How is love conceptualized in the poem? What are the different stages of love portrayed in the poem? How is courtship portrayed? How is consummation portrayed?
• There is great emphasis placed on the virginity and chastity of the woman in the poem. Are there other instances of particular feminine cultural features in the poem? What values are associated with men? What values are associated with women?
• The man and the woman in the poem address each other as “my sister, my bride,” “my brother, my lover.” There are several references to the woman and the man wishing that they could take their beloved to the womb of their mothers. These are not instances of incestuous intent. The allegorical explanation is that we are all sisters and brothers from the one Holy Father; God as father and we as his children. There is an older tradition, an epistemological and ethical tradition, wherein lovers in the depth of their intimacy regard each other as brother and sister because it exemplifies one of the purest human relations possible. The great modern German poet Rilke has this to say about man, woman and love: “The great renewal of the world will perhaps consist in this, that man and maid, freed of all false feelings and reluctances, will seek each other not as opposites, but as brother and sister, as neighbors, and will come together as human beings.” There is a beautiful song by our own modern bard Bob Dylan– “Oh Sister”–in his album Desire which says exactly the same thing. The Songs share in this tradition, perhaps even originated it. There is historical and textual evidence that lovers regarding their beloved as “sister” or “brother” was a Pan-Eastern phenomenon.

No more pooches for dinner. God bless you all dear Chinese people!

“These few days I have been thinking again: suppose that old man were not an executioner in disguise, but a real doctor; he would be none the less an eater of human flesh. In that book on herbs, written by his predecessor Li Shih-chen, it is clearly stated that men’s flesh can he boiled and eaten; so can he still say that he does not eat men?

As for my elder brother, I have also good reason to suspect him. When he was teaching me, he said with his own lips, “People exchange their sons to eat.” And once in discussing a bad man, he said that not only did he deserve to be killed, he should “have his flesh eaten and his hide slept on. . . .” I was still young then, and my heart beat faster for some time, he was not at all surprised by the story that our tenant from Wolf Cub Village told us the other day about eating a man’s heart and liver, but kept nodding his head. He is evidently just as cruel as before. Since it is possible to “exchange sons to eat,” then anything can be exchanged, anyone can be eaten. In the past I simply listened to his explanations, and let it go at that; now I know that when he explained it to me, not only was there human fat at the corner of his lips, but his whole heart was set on eating men.”

–Lu Xun, Diary of a Mad Man (April 1918)

English 220

Dr. G. Devi

Ancient Egyptian Love Poetry

Fragments recovered from excavations in Deir el-Medina; collections in the Chester Beatty papyri and the University of Michigan collection; circa 1300-1100 BCE.

An useful way to read love poetry from any culture and any century is to approach them as records and perceptions of relationships between men and women, or in the case of homoerotic poetry, between men and men or women and women. Little is known about the context of ancient Egyptian poetry; did poets write them? Did ordinary people write them? We don’t know for sure. But they reflect a wide gamut of emotions related to love and the modern translations render them a relevance and immediacy that is quite contemporary.

Keep these questions in mind as you work through these poems:

1. Who are the speakers? Are they mostly men? Mostly women? Does this frequency tell us anything useful about which gender was favored in representing romantic love in the ancient Egyptian society?
2. How do women speak about their beloved? What aspects of the beloved are drawn for discussion?
3. How do men speak about their beloved? What aspects of the beloved are drawn for discussion?
4. Love poems can be romantic or erotic. Where do these poems fall?
5. What can we infer about the social roles of men and women as depicted in these poems? Did men and women mix easily? Were there boundaries?
6. What do the similes, images and metaphors tell us about how men and women regarded each other?
7. Listen to the playfulness in some of these poems (“Love, how I’d love to slip down to the pond,” “I think I’ll go home and lie very still”) — what poetic conceits create this tone?