Indian Narratology

This book is an attempt to provide a bird’s-eye view of the efforts made by Indians in the past, to arrive at various strategies in the art of narration. Without going into elaborate details about each of these strategies, it tries to highlight the awareness with which Indian storytellers have established very clear demarcations within the highly variegated panorama of the art and science of the Indian narrative, which has often been ignored or neglected by comparative literature experts, both inside India and outside. It identifies ten major models of narration, with occasional comments on their possible impact on the Western narrators. These models are: the Vedic, the Puranic, the Itihasa, the Srnkhla, the Anyapadesha, the Mahakavya, the Dravidian, the Folk-tribal, and the Mishra. The introductory chapter outlines the theory and practice of the narrative in India, while the concluding chapter discusses the relation between narrative and narratology. The Appendix briefly outlines the Asian narrative tradition.