Religion and Literature -Sunday Reading Task

Welcome,

Here is my blog regarding the task given by Dr. Dilip Barad sir as the part of sunday reading.

Human life is always revolved around God. There is a general belief that God who is generator, operator and destroyer of life. But now in Modern era when Science is it's peak people started raise questions against it. And there are so many people who try to satisfy people by their arguments.

The Greek philosopher Democritus argued that….

" Belief in God or deities arose when humans observed natural phenomena like lightning."

So the birth of God is not evolutionary, but a human society who created a God to overcome their fears and satisfy themselves that we are safe because some power structure is working over us and it always save us from all hurdles. So this is how different invisible God and deities existing on the earth with human beings.

But..but...Science comes out as reaction against religion. When Religion  started avoid question and not giving satisfactory answer to human question  than there is birth of Science. 

And Literature is the mixture of both religion and Science. From beginning literature portrayed God, Myth and superior at it all extent and also raise questions against it. Now, Northrop frye in his Archetypal criticism, he tried to find the skeleton and said that It is only myth which is immitated by an Artist.

Let's try to analyse how literary artist or critic look religion with different point of view with reference to Prarthana Banerjee article to read it please Click here and Dr. Shri Raam Lagoo believed in this context _ as cited by Raj Goswami  See image….

Shree Raam Lagoo's Perspective

According to him now we should give retirement to God. Because…

"God is merely an 'Imagination' of Poet."

As above mentioned that creation of God is not natural but Artificial because God is an invention of Human being and all Human inventions are as usual artificial, what is evolutionary is nature and Human being accordance to Charles Darvine's Evolutionary Theory.

In the beginning of Human existence there may be requirement of God because Science is not invented. People are not highly intellectual and to escape from their fear of natural phenomena and struggle God is the only way to please their mind But now, People are more Rational and we also not find any proof for the God's existence from five thousands year than why we are stuck on the same subject like religion and god, it is fully immature behaviour and we may be came in the category of Superstitious person.

One another strong argument given by Dr. Raam Lagoo is that…

" જયારે તમે ઈશ્વર માં માનો છો… અને આંખો બંધ કરીને સ્વીકારો છો… ત્યારે તમારા અને જાનવરમાં કોઈ તફાવત રહેતો નથી."

Religion blocked our mind it made control over all our imagination and thinking. It stops to questioning, stops our philosophy, stops human mind and take steps back from Human Development. Religion is the only stopper for Human world. Because religion create descrimination between people and because of that People are always fighting with one another.

Prathama Bannerji's Views

"India was a land of dharma but Europeans reduced it to Hinduism, Islam. And we accepted it."

She argued that India is the land of "Dharma" and the word Dharma means our Duty. It is a human duty to do their work honestly without showing any laziness.

It is the error in our understanding that we considered Dharma as Religion.

All our problems started with this single word Religion, which bind different states and people to limited to only their community and birth of war and fighting between it. How the Word Dharma change with the passing of time which actual meaning is only to do karma. 

Northrop Frye's Archetypal Criticism

Now have a look on what Northrop Frye wants to say is that…

"Literary Critic always deal with Divine  as Human Artifact."

Northrop Frye in his essay Archetypal criticism searching for skeleton to everything. So for this he found Myth is at the center. There is story-telling by people about some beings with super powers but every knowledge is an organized body, so when we do criticism God is nothing but simply Human being like us. Literary critic look God whether it come in Paradise lost or in Bie or if we connect it with Indian literature than in Ramayana or Mahabharata or anything God is character of that particular text with some good as well as bad qualities and writer direct or in an indirect way try to raise questions against even the justice of God. Like in Paradise Lost Eve raise question against the perfection of "Maker Wise" and other questions like..

• Why Adam and Eve are punished rather than Satan?
• Why Eve is more punished than Adam?

In literature myth is the prime source. While we are doing criticism we can look for symbolic mening used in that particular myth. It is not the glorification of God but is is the only narration of God character anditerary artist look God as only the part of narration.

So in this way we can conclude that Now in the world of technology and rationality, there is no need of Religion, God, Super power, deity. It is merely imagination of people, we have no proof for the existence of God, then why we have blind faith on it. Like Literary Critic all should try considered God as the normal character of literature and myth. We can conclude with Northrop Frye's following quotation….

Citation

• Burkert, Walter (1985). Greek Religion (11th ed.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-36281-9. Retrieved 28 June 2017.
• Photocurtesy from Wikipedia