A while back I offered an alternative take to Tanner Greer’s Islamicate Canon. I plan to continue with an alternate version of the three other canons, starting in this post with the Indic Canon.
An Experiment with ChatGPT
I’ve been sitting on this post for a while now, mostly because I was uneasy with my list. I had read a fair amount about the history of Indian literature to produce a first draft of the list, but I wasn’t entirely satisfied with it. Last week, I went back to the drawing board to tackle the problem with the help of ChatGPT. I used it both to generate new information and as an adversarial cooperation tool.
I must say I was surprised at how accurate it was when answering questions about classical Indian literature. As a strategy, I never asked it anything head-on, preferring to give it a list of criteria that an answer would need to satisfy1, and tell it to ask me questions it felt were necessary to best answer my query. My conversation with it lasted quite a while and produced around 60 to 70 pages of text, and not once, was it prone to hallucination. All the authors or text it mentioned existed. There was only one case, at the end of the conversation, where it made a mistake attributing a text to the wrong author. I have the impression that the longer the conversation went on, the longer it took it to answer, and the less accurate its answers were.
I’m less surprised at its performance in adversarial cooperation, but the results were so convincing I will use it more in this manner. When trying to construct the list, the biggest risk was following my preferences instead of following the criteria I had established, or even missing contradictory information. So as a general rule, whenever I wanted to include a name on the list, I would ask chatGPT to tell me why it would be a bad idea, and who could be included instead.
As a learning tool and as a critical thinking tool, it has now become central to my daily life.
A few caveats before we begin
Despite the help of ChatGPT constructing the Indian literary was harder than I had imagined. Indian history spans centuries and its literary history covers many languages and traditions. In order to put the list together I had to make compromises and try to achieve a certain balance, yet I’m somewhat not entirely satisfied with the result for mostly four reasons.
I gave a big place to Indian classical literature in Sanskrit. Maybe too big a place. It could be that this is a consequence of my desire to keep muslim authors in the Islamicate Canon. But between the 13th century and the 19th century, the non-muslim literary production of India isn’t that impressive. For instance, the Bakhti movement produced some of the finest poets in Indian history, but from a world literature perspective, it’s a bit “more of the same”. I hope that when I get to the end of this insane reading challenge I might have a better understanding of whether or not I was justified in thinking that. But for now, this is where I’m at. Suffice it to say for now, that I might modify the list as I go along.
South India’s place on my list seems a bit small. Multiple arguments with chatGPT seem to confirm that this is the right call, but who knows, it’s only an LLM and I’m certainly not an Indian literature specialist.
The list is mostly religion, poetry, and philosophy, and sometimes even all three at once. This seems to be what India is all about. As with the Islamicate Canon, I added a lot of poetry to Greer’s initial list. Is it because it is a dominant form in Indian (and Islam) literary tradition? Or is it because I’m mostly ignorant about other forms of literary production? Maybe prose did not flourish in India at the time? I don’t have a satisfying answer to that question for now. I pushed chatGPT a lot on this, but all the works it could refer me to seemed of lesser import than the ones I had already put on the list.
In his initial list, Greer had left 4 spots for authors and works beyond the Indian Medieval Period to offer a broader perspective on the Indian mind that wasn’t limited to moksha, to release and religious devotion. I looked as much as I could, but I came back empty-handed. Between the 13th and the 19th century, non-muslim Indian literature is all about religious devotion and not much else. That is why I decided to give these 4 spots to earlier authors. I will gladly be shown wrong on this, as my aesthetical preferences have made me uneasy with the fact that only 3 authors represent six centuries worth of literary production. Symmetry is not respected, something's off.
With these caveats out of the way, I will first give you my version of the Indian Canon, and then move on to justify why I chose these names and not others.
Niespika’s Indian Canon
The Upanishads (Various authors, between 800 BCE and 500 BCE)
The Ramayana (Attributed to Valmiki, dates vary from 5th century BCE to 4th century CE)
The Mahabharata (Attributed to Vyasa, around 400 BCE with later additions)
Vishnu Sharma (Panchatantra, Around 3rd century BCE)
Gautama Buddha (Dhammapada + Lotus Sutra, 4th-3rd century BCE)
Ashvaghosha (1st-2nd century CE)
Ilango Adigal (Estimated between 1st and 3rd century CE)
Manusmriti (Between 2nd century BCE and 3rd century CE)
Kautilya (Estimated 2nd-3rd century CE)
Patanjali (2nd century BCE to 4th century CE)
Thiruvalluvar (Dates vary, around 1st century BCE to 5th century CE)
Vatsyayana (The Kamasutra, around the 2nd century CE)
Nagarjuna (Approximately 2nd century CE)
Kalidasa (4th-5th century CE)
Dignaga (Approximately 5th-6th century)
Banabhatta (7th century)
Adi Shankara (Early 8th century)
Jayanta Bhatta (9th century)
Shantideva (8th century)
Bhagavata Purana (9th-10th century)
Ramanuja (12th century)
Jayadeva (12th century)
Kabir (15th century)
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay (19th century)
Rabindranath Tagore (20th century)
Obvious and non-obvious choices
To construct this list, the first thing I did was start from Greer’s list to see if there was anything that needed to be kept. Even if one just has a cursory knowledge of India, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana are obvious choices. The Upanishads, the Buddha, and Kalidasa are not far behind. I decided to leave Greer’s list aside and look for anything missing from his list. The most obvious books missing were the Kamasutra, and the Panchatantra, India’s equivalent of the Arabian Nights, a precursor to the Kalila wa Dimna, and partial inspiration for Lafontaine’s fable.
In finding all the non-obvious choices, chatGPT was a great help. At the end of our discussion, it had generated around 70 names or works, most of whom were suggested in the course of adversarial discussion to check if those on the list could be replaced by anyone else. Some of the names I had already encountered in putting together the first version of my list, some I didn’t know about.
Religion/Philosophy: Bhagavata Purana, the Rg Veda, Patanjali, Ashvaghosha, Nagarjuna, Dignaga, Adi Shankara, Jayanta Bhatta, Shantideva, the Nyaya Sutra, Ramanuja, Gangesha, Jaimini, the Brahma Sutra, the Ashtavakra Gita, Vasubandhu, Atisa, Dharmakirti, Somadeva Suri, Annamacharya, Vidyaranya, Guru Nanak, Yoga-Vasistha, Siddhanta Shikhamani
Poetry/Play: Bhasa, Vishakhadatta, Bilhana, Chithalai Chathanar, Mirabai, Tulsidas, Surdas, Rahim, Lalded, Vidyapati, Namdev, Bhanudatta, Bhavabhuti, Harsha, Jayadeva, Ilango Adigal, Kabir, Rabindranath Tagore, Malik Muhammad Jayasi, Shudraka, Amaru, Bhartrihari, Bihari, Keshavdev, Chandidas, Magha, Bharavi, Rajasekhara, the Alvar Saints, the Nayanars, Tirumantiram, Eknath, Tukaram
Prose/Essay/Non-fiction: Kalhana, Sarojini Naidu, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Sri Aurobindo, Jyotirao Phule, Manusmriti, Kautilya, Thiruvalluvar, Banabhatta, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Dandin, Kamandaki, Abhinavagupta, Subandhu, the Hitopadesha
Indian Philosophy and Religious Thought
Instead of trying to reenact the conversation that led me to choose the 25 names on the list, I will go through my list thematically to justify my choices.
Religious thought is almost indistinguishable from Indian thought at large. It’s found everywhere, it may then feel rather arbitrary to discuss religious writers as a separate category. However, when discussing the Puranas and the Vedas, I don’t think there is any other way. These two sets of texts are central to Indian thoughts. However, not all of them deserve a spot on the list. There are eighteen Puranas and four Vedas, but everyone agrees that the Bhagavata Purana and the Rg Veda are the most important of them. The former deserves a spot on the list for its influence, the latter doesn’t because it comes too far away from us in time to become as unreadable and obscure.
In philosophy, there are 6 orthodox schools of thinking. Nyaya, Vaisesika, Yoga, Samkhya, Mimamsa, Vedanta, each has a founding text. On top of that, there are two heterodox schools, the Buddhists and the Jains (+ another rarely mentioned, the Charvaka, that I will put aside as it has had a very weak influence on Indian thought). Not all of them deserve a spot on the list. Some even deserve more than one spot.
These 6 schools (I’ll talk more about the heterodox later) come in pairs. Nyaya+Vaisesika, Yoga+Samkhya, Vedanta+Mimamsa. The second school of the pair is considered less important than the first. Vaisesika is pure metaphysics, as is Samkhya. I tend to agree with Greer that systems of pure metaphysics should not really have a place in the Canon. Mimamsa, is a system of hermeneutics, a way of interpreting the Vedas. Again, not really relevant in a literary canon. Interestingly, these three systems haven’t had many proponents after the founding texts were written. Of course, some people wrote commentaries on them, but no one tried to improve or offer original considerations based on them. This is not really the case for the Nyaya and the Vedanta.
Gautama’s Nyaya Sutra was improved upon by Gangesha in the 14th century and to a lesser extent by Jayanta Bhatta (9th century). Badarayan’s Vedanta Sutra was improved upon by Gaudapada (7th century) Adi Shankara (8th century) and Ramanuja (11th-12th century). I don’t know of any major improvement on Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. But it stayed relevant throughout Indian history. These six philosophers all seem to deserve a spot on the list. The others mentioned by chatGPT never felt as important as them.
In the case of Buddhism, Nagarjuna and Santideva, are fairly known. But some of the books I consulted have convinced me that Dignaga, who’s fairly unknown in the West, has had an immense influence on Indian philosophy. There were other important Buddhist philosophers, Vasubandhu for example, but his star pales in comparison with these three.
What about political philosophy? I’ve encountered 4 texts often quoted as offering a specific Indian take on political philosophy: Kautilya’s Arthashastra, the Manusmriti, Abu I Fazl’ Akbarnama, and Barani’s Fatwa-i Jahandari. Being written by Muslim writers in a dialogue with other Muslim thinkers, these last two can’t be in the Indic canon. The only other example of actual political philosophy I came across was Kamandaki’s Nitisara (recently translated by the Murty Library as The Essence of Politics), I tried to argue its case against chatGPT, and it could have had a place on a 30 spots list, but not on a 25 ones.
Was there anything else? A lot of poetry gives advice on ethics or on politics, but nothing that looks like political philosophy. chatGPT was not really helpful and apart from Manu and Kautilya, the texts given by Olivelle in his anthology on Dharma, are of minor importance.
As a first draft, I ended with 12 names for philosophy: the Bhagavata Purana, Kautilya, Manusmriti, Nagarjuna, Shantideva, Dignaga, Gangesha, Jayanta Bhatta, Gaudapada, Adi Shankara, Ramanuja and Patanjali.
Drama and Poetry
There are a lot of important Indian dramatists, Kalidasa being the most famous one. Bhavabutti, Shudraka, Bhasa, Harsha, Vishakhadatta, and Kshemendra were other names that often came back. I already wrote to explain why the texts we have for Bhasa are problematic. The other five even though worthwhile additions all seemed of lesser importance when compared with suggestions in other domains.
Concerning poetry, it’s important to distinguish between three things. Classical Sanskrit poetry, Tamil poetry, and post-Sanskrit poetry.
Most of Tamil poetry from the classical age had been lost for a really long time and never had any real influence. For this reason, it’s hard to include any of the Sangham anthologies. However, there are two texts that I found to be consistently quoted as great examples of Tamil poetry, Tiruvalluvar’s Kural and Ilango Adigal’s Silappatikaram. These two need to be considered on the list because they represent two different sides of Tamil poetry. The Silappatikaram is an epic poem, and the Kural is a didactic poem on virtue, wealth, and love. None of the other Tamil poets come close to the influence these two have had.
Classical Sanskrit poetry has many great authors we should consider on the list, Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda is an obvious choice, but Bhartrihari would also be a great addition, especially when considering his contribution to philosophy as well (although nobody is quite certain the authors of the poetry anthology Satakatraya and of the Trikandi, a work on the philosophy of language, are one and the same). Ashvagosha also certainly deserves a spot on the list for his life of Buddha. I’ve also considered Amaru, Bilhana, Bhanudatta, Magha, Bharavi, and Rajasekhara. But they all seem less important when trying to achieve balance on the list.
During the medieval period, most of the poets I came across were either Muslim (Khusrow, Mir Taqi Mir, Ghalib) or were part of the Bhakti movement. Surdas is probably the most well-regarded of them, but Kabir, Tulsidas, Mirabai, and Lalleshwari Rahim, and Namdev, are the names that kept coming back. Of all these, Surdas, Kabir, Mirabai, and Tulsidas are the most important and have to be considered.
There are other important poets worth considering who were not associated with the Bhakti movement, but with the Mughal court: Malik Muhammad Jayasi, Keshavdas, and Bihari Lal. None of them fit the bill. Jayasi is Muslim, and the other two’s contribution to Indian literature and thought is dwarfed by that of the others.
One last addition that does fit with my previous categories is Vidyapati. He’s a poet and polymath who wrote on so many topics and has had such a profound influence on India, that he’s sometimes been compared to Dante or Chaucer.
As a first draft for Poetry and Drama, I ended up with 11 names: Kalidasa, Ashvagosha, Tiruvalluvar, Ilango Adigal, Jayadeva, Bhartrihari, Surdas, Kabir, Mirabai, Tulsidas and Vidyapati.
Prose
In the classical period, Banabhatta is probably the most famous, having written one of the first biographies (the Harshakarita) and what some consider the first novel, the Kadambari. Dandin seems to come close in terms of accomplishment. Abhinavagupta, the most important figure in Tantrism could also be a worthy addition, but he is just too obscure and too metaphysical. Kalhana who wrote a history of Kashmir is just too minor. The Hitopadesha is just more of the same when compared to the Panchatantra.
Other prose writers come from the modern period, most notably Premchand, Tagore, and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. These last two seem to be worthy of consideration as Tagore won the Nobel prize and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was known as the Emperor of Literature. Gandhi was an interesting suggestion from Greer, however, I don’t see him as a writer but as a political activist who also wrote.
All this adds 4 names to the list: Banabhatta, Dandin, Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
Narrowing down the list
To recap, this first draft leaves me with 32 names worthy of consideration:
Seven obvious choices: The Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Upanishads, the Buddha Kalidasa, the Kamasutra, and the Panchatantra
Twelve names for philosophy or religious thought: the Bhagavata Purana, Kautilya, Manusmriti, Nagarjuna, Shantideva, Dignaga, Gangesha, Jayanta Bhatta, Gaudapada, Adi Shankara, Ramanuja and Patanjali
Ten names for Drama and Poetry: Ashvagosha, Tiruvalluvar, Ilango Adigal, Jayadeva, Bhartrihari, Surdas, Kabir, Mirabai, Tulsidas and Vidyapati
Four names for Prose: Banabhatta, Dandin, Tagore and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
Let’s start with what seem obvious choices. The first seven names can’t be discussed, they have to be on the list. So do the Bhagavata Purana, Kautilya, Manusmriti, Nagarjuna, Adi Shankara, Patanjali, Ashvagosha, and Jayadeva. That’s already 15 names for which there is no possible debate.
The modernist spot has to go to Tagore. Most of what we know about Tagore in the West comes from his Gitanjali because it won him the Nobel prize. This is an amazing work of art, but it can be misleading, mostly because the translation is not really good. Despite what is claimed, Tagore wasn’t the only one doing the translating, he got a lot of help from Yeats. I’ve read another translation of the Gitanjali, and it’s a completely different text. The Gitanjali also hides a lot. Tagore was a great novelist and an important political thinker.
Putting Tagore on the last spot doesn’t mean I must leave Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay off the list. His title of Emperor of Literature is enough for him to deserve a spot. I now have 17 names.
I now turn to the philosophers. The two Buddhist philosophers left also deserve a spot. Santideva has had a huge influence in Tibet, and his work is still widely read, both in the East and the West. I don’t think it’s possible to leave Dignaga out of the list. Peter Adamson, to whom I regularly defer, says of him, in his Classical Indian Philosophy, that “he is a philosophical genius of the highest order, who should make it onto even the most selective list of greatest philosophers in history”.
With only 6 spots left on my list, I have to cut some of the philosophers from the orthodox schools, and that should be fairly easy to do. Gangesa’s Jewel of Thought on the Nature of Things may be an amazing synthesis and original contribution to philosophy, but it’s just too specialized to deserve a spot. Especially when considering that some of the ideas from the Nyaya Sutra school can be found in the work of Jayanta Bhatta. Bhatta’s contribution to philosophy may not be of the same importance as Gangesha, but his play Much Ado About Religion is a jewel of World Literature.
In the case of the Vedanta, I follow the same logic. Adi Shankara’s reworking, synthesis, and improvement of the original Vedanta Sutra has been infinitely more influential than that of Gaudapada. Ramanuja is only second to Shankara when it comes to influence in the Vedanta Sutra school of philosophy, and as such he does deserve a spot on the list. This brings us to 21 spots.
The case of Tamil poetry is not so easy to settle. The Kural has been translated more often than Ilango Adigal’s Silappatikaram, and it is more highly regarded both in India and in the rest of the world. But they represent two different traditions in Tamil Poetry and offer a nice counterbalance to a mostly Sanskrit list.
I still have 2 more spots and so many poets to consider in addition to Bhanabatta and Dandin. As I already have devoted a lot of space to works from Classical India, I feel Bhartṛhari shouldn’t be on the list. The Bakthi movement has been so important that I could easily attribute it the last 2 spots, but at least one of these has to go to a prose writer. My intuition is that Bhanabatta is a better choice than Dandin because his biography of Harsha adds breadth to the list.
Having to attribute just one spot to the Bakthi poets was hard. Tulsidas, Kabir, Mirabai, and Surdas are all incredibly important and highly regarded poets. I don’t see how Tulsidas can make the cut. His major work and reason for fame is a Hindi rendering of the Ramayana. This makes him an important Indian literary figure, but his place in a World canon seems to me to rest on shakier ground. Kabir on the other hand has to be on the list. He is a syncretic figure drawing both from Islam and Hinduism, and he is widely read outside of India. This would leave out Mirabai and Surdas. I’m comfortable with that choice even though Surdas has a greater literary reputation than Kabir. I’ve read enough of Sur’s poetry, and have concluded his poetry despite its literary merit is less profound than Kabir’s. As for Mirabai, there’s just too much uncertainty about what she wrote.
I now have a complete list, yet I still haven’t considered the case of Vidyapati. What to do with him? I’ve asked chatGPT about that, and it has suggested that if he were to be added to the list, Jayanta Bhatta should be dropped. The desire for more symmetry in me feels that more space should be attributed to the latter period of Indian history. Vidyapati also seems to have more literary merit than Bhatta. But I simply lack the knowledge to be certain of what to do. So I’ve decided to keep Bhatta for now. However if anyone can give me more information to make a better informed choice, I’ll be happy to modify my list.
Here is the list of criteria I used to create my Indian Literary Canon :
1) the work or the author has to have been highly influential (other authors are referencing that work or author in their own, and people still revere that work or author today)
2) It has to be highly representative of a certain ethos or a standpoint on human nature
3) It has to be considered of immense beauty.
4) An author can only be represented once on the list
5) The list has to cover the whole of Indian history, from the Bronze Age until the 20th Century
6) Only one author can come from the 20th Century
7) It has to encompass the whole of literature, so Plays, novels, poetry, short stories, religious texts, philosophy, history, political science, essays, etc.
8) We should prefer symbolic representation of an ethos or a literary movement and depth of insights instead of breadth of representation