title: Norma (opera)

text: Norma () is a "tragedia lirica" or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after the play "Norma, ou L'infanticide" ("Norma, or The Infanticide") by Alexandre Soumet. It was first produced at La Scala in Milan on 26 December 1831.


title: Norma (opera)

text: The opera is regarded as a leading example of the bel canto genre, and the soprano prayer "Casta diva" in act 1 is a famous piece. Among the well known singers of Norma of the first half of the 20th century was Rosa Ponselle who played the role in New York and London. Notable exponents of the title role in the post-war period have been Maria Callas, Leyla Gencer, Joan Sutherland, and Montserrat Caballé.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Crivelli and Company were managing both La Scala and La Fenice in Venice, and as a result, in April–May 1830 Bellini was able to negotiate a contract with them for two operas, one at each theatre. The opera for December 1831 at La Scala became "Norma", while the one for the 1832 Carnival season at La Fenice became "Beatrice di Tenda".


title: Norma (opera)

text: With Bellini's "La sonnambula" successfully staged in March 1831 and Giuditta Pasta having demonstrated her extensive vocal and dramatic ranges in creating the role of Amina, the Swiss village maiden, she had been engaged by La Scala for her debut during the following season. Bellini and Romani then began to consider the subject of the coming autumn's opera. By the summer, they had decided to base it on Alexandre Soumet's play which was being performed in Paris at around that time and which Pasta would have seen.


title: Norma (opera)

text: For the forthcoming autumn/winter season, La Scala had engaged Giulia Grisi (the sister of Giuditta Grisi) and the well-known tenor Domenico Donzelli, who had made a name for himself with Rossini roles, especially that of Otello. They would fill the roles of Adalgisa and Pollione. Donzelli provided Bellini with precise details of his vocal capabilities which were confirmed by a report which the Neapolitan composer Saverio Mercadante also provided. By the end of August it appears that Romani had completed a considerable amount of the libretto, enough at least to allow Bellini to begin work, which he certainly did in the first weeks of September as the verses were supplied. He reported in a letter to Pasta on 1 September:


title: Norma (opera)

text: I hope that you will find this subject to your liking. Romani believes it to be very effective, and precisely because of the all-inclusive character for you, which is that of Norma. He will manipulate the situations so that they will not resemble other subjects at all, and he will retouch, even change, the characters to produce more effect, if need be.


title: Norma (opera)

text: "Norma" was completed by about the end of November. While, for Romani, it became "the most beautiful rose in the garland" of all his work with Bellini, it was not achieved without some struggles. Bellini, now at the height of his powers, was very demanding of his librettist and required many re-writes before he was satisfied enough to set it to music.


title: Norma (opera)

text: After rehearsals began on 5 December, Pasta balked at singing the "Casta diva" in act 1, now one of the most famous arias of the nineteenth century. She felt that it was "ill adapted to her vocal abilities", but Bellini was able to persuade her to keep trying for a week, after which she adapted to it and confessed her earlier error. At the opening night, the opera was received with what Weinstock describes as "chill indifference". To his friend Francesco Florimo, on the night of the premiere, Bellini wrote "Fiasco! Fiasco! Solemn fiasco!" and proceeded to tell him of the indifference of the audience and how it affected him.


title: Norma (opera)

text: In addition, in a letter to his uncle on 28 December, Bellini tried to explain the reasons for the reactions. As other commentators have also noted, some problems were innate to the structure and content of the opera, while others were external to it. Bellini discusses the tiredness of the singers (after rehearsing the entire second act on the day of the premiere) as well as noting how certain numbers failed to please—and failed to please the composer as well! But then he explains that most of the second act was very effective. It appears from the letter that the second evening's performance was more successful and Weinstock reports it was from this performance forward that it "was recognised as a successful and important opera" with 208 performances given at La Scala alone by the end of the 19th century.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Among the external reasons, Bellini cited the adverse reaction caused by "hostile factions in the audience" consisting of both the owner of a journal (and his claque) and also of "a very rich woman", who is identified by Weinstock as Contessa Giulia Samoyloff, the mistress of the composer Giovanni Pacini. On Bellini's part, there had long been a feeling of rivalry with Pacini ever since the failure of his own "Zaira" in Parma and his return to Milan in June 1829. With no firm contract for a new opera for Bellini, Pacini's success with his "Il Talismano" at La Scala—where it received 16 performances—fueled this rivalry, at least in Bellini's head. It was only when he staged a triumphant revival of his own with "Il pirata" with the original cast that he felt vindicated. "Pirata" received 24 consecutive performances between 16 July and 23 August 1829, thus outnumbering those for Pacini's opera. However, Bellini also noted that on the second performance evening of "Norma", the theatre was full.


title: Norma (opera)

text: In all, "Norma" was given 34 performances in its first season at La Scala, and reports from elsewhere, especially those from Bergamo, when it was staged in late 1832, suggested that it was becoming more and more popular. Between 1831 and 1850 Weinstock provides details of the dozens of performances given in numerous cities outside of Italy, and then he gives details of those beyond.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Bellini left Milan for Naples, and then Sicily, on 5 January 1832 and, for the first time since 1827, 1832 became a year in which he did not write an opera. "Norma" quickly "[conquered] the whole of Europe in the space of a few years".


title: Norma (opera)

text: Richard Wagner conducted "Norma" at Riga in 1837. Following the common nineteenth-century practice of adding interpolated arias, he wrote an aria for the bass and men's chorus for this production. However, that aria has not entered the general repertoire. Wagner wrote at the time that "Norma" was "indisputably Bellini's most successful composition". "In this opera, Bellini has undoubtedly risen to the greatest heights of his talent. In these days of romantic extravaganzas and the hyper-excitement of the so-called musical attractions he presents a phenomenon which can hardly be overrated. The action, free from all theatrical coups and dazzling effects, reminds one instinctively of a Greek tragedy. Perhaps the views expressed by Schiller in his 'Bride of Messina' to the effect that he had hopes for the full revival of the tragedy of the ancients upon our stage, in the form of the opera, will receive new justification in this "Norma"! Let anyone name me a spiritual painting of its kind, more fully carried out, than that of this wild Gaelic prophetess...Every emotional moment stands out plastically; nothing has been vaguely swept together..."


title: Norma (opera)

text: Here, where the poem rises to the tragic height of the ancient Greeks, this kind of form, which Bellini has certainly ennobled, serves only to increase the solemn and imposing character of the whole; all the phases of passion, which are rendered in so peculiarly clear a light by his art of song, are thereby made to rest upon a majestic soil and ground, above which they do not vaguely flutter about, but resolve themselves into a grand and manifest picture, which involuntarily calls to mind the creations of Gluck and Spontini.


title: Norma (opera)

text: The opera was given its British premiere in London on 20 June 1833 and its US premiere at the St. Charles Theatre in New Orleans on 1 April 1836. In the late 1840s and during the Risorgimento era, some of the music was used in demonstrations of nationalistic fervour, one such example being the 1848 celebration of the liberation of Sicily from the rule of the Bourbons held in the cathedral in Palermo. There, the "Guerra, guerra" (War, war!) chorus from act 2 was sung. "Norma" received its first performance at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 27 February 1890 with Lilli Lehmann singing the title role in German.


title: Norma (opera)

text: The Metropolitan Opera revived "Norma" in 1927 (the first performance of the opera there since 1892) with Rosa Ponselle in the title role.


title: Norma (opera)

text: During the later 20th century, with the bel canto revival, the most prolific Norma was the Greek-American soprano Maria Callas, who gave 89 stage performances (several of which exist on live recordings as well as two on studio versions made in 1954 and 1960). Callas's first appearances in the role began at the Teatro Comunale di Firenze in November/December 1948 followed by the second at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires in June 1949, both of which were conducted by Tullio Serafin. The following year, she appeared in the role at La Fenice in Venice in January 1950, this time under Antonino Votto, and in Mexico in May 1950 conducted by Guido Picco. In London in 1952, Callas sang Norma at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in November (where the role of Clotilde was sung by Joan Sutherland); she made her American debut singing the role at the Lyric Opera of Chicago in November 1954 under Nicola Rescigno; and then she appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York under Fausto Cleva in October/November 1956. In 1960, she performed Norma in the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus in Greece with the collaboration of the Greek National Opera, in the production of Alexis Minotis.


title: Norma (opera)

text: The title role—"one of the most taxing and wide-ranging parts in the entire repertory"—is one of the most difficult in the soprano repertoire. It calls for great vocal control of range, flexibility, and dynamics as well as containing a wide range of emotions: conflict of personal and public life, romantic life, maternal love, friendship, jealousy, murderous intent, and resignation. The German soprano Lilli Lehmann once remarked that the singing of all three Brünnhilde roles of Wagner's opera cycle "Der Ring des Nibelungen" in one evening would be less stressful than the singing of one Norma. She also commented "When you sing Wagner, you are so carried away by the dramatic emotion, the action, and the scene that you do not have to think how to sing the words. That comes of itself. But in Bellini, you must always have a care for beauty of tone and correct emission." According to the Met Opera Archives, Lehmann said this to "Herald Tribune" critic Henry Krehbiel.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Throughout the 20th century, many singers have tackled the role of Norma. In the early 1920s, it was Rosa Raisa, Claudia Muzio, and Rosa Ponselle who were each admired. Maria Callas emerged as a major force in the role in the post-World War II period. She made two studio recordings of the opera for EMI/HMV, and several broadcasts of her live performances have been preserved from the early 1950s through her final performances of the role in Paris in May 1965.


title: Norma (opera)

text: In the 1960s, two very different performers sang the role: the Australian Dame Joan Sutherland and the Turkish Leyla Gencer. Following Sutherland's 1963 debut as Norma, Luciano Pavarotti called her "the greatest female voice of all time."


title: Norma (opera)

text: The Dutch coloratura Cristina Deutekom tackled the role in 1970. Throughout the decade, four other bel canto specialists debuted their Normas: Radmila Bakočević, Montserrat Caballé, Beverly Sills, and Renata Scotto. Also singing Norma during this period were Grace Bumbry and Shirley Verrett, the American divas who began as mezzo-sopranos and eventually started singing soprano repertoire.


title: Norma (opera)

text: During the 1980s and 1990s, the role of Norma was performed by such diverse singers as Katia Ricciarelli, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, Marisa Galvany, Dame Gwyneth Jones, and Jane Eaglen. Other Normas include Hasmik Papian, Fiorenza Cedolins, Galina Gorchakova, Maria Guleghina, Nelly Miricioiu, June Anderson, Edita Gruberová and Carmela Remigio (who performs more frequently the role of Adalgisa).


title: Norma (opera)

text: In 2008, Daniela Dessì performed as Norma at Teatro Comunale di Bologna. In 2010 (in Dortmund) and 2013 (at the Salzburg Festival) the role was taken by mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli: this version was also recorded with coloratura soprano Sumi Jo as Adalgisa. In 2011, Sondra Radvanovsky also added the role to her repertory, one to which she returned in the autumn 2014 at the San Francisco Opera and in the autumn of 2017 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. On 13 April 2013, the Italian "bel canto" soprano, Mariella Devia, after a career of 40 years and one day after turning 65, successfully made her debut as Norma at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna.Angela Meade has played the role often, including in 2013 and 2017 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.


title: Norma (opera)

text: The action takes place in Gaul under the Roman occupation, and is centered on the love triangle between Pollione, the Roman proconsul of Gaul, Norma, his former companion, and the young Adalgisa. The background is the uprising of the Gallic people against the Roman occupiers, led by the Druid Oroveso.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Norma, the high priestess of the Druid temple, who had two children by Pollione, the Roman proconsul of Gaul, breaking her Druid chastity vows, discovers that her lover is now in love with her friend, the young Druid priestess Adalgisa. Norma tries to convince Pollione to give up Adalgisa and return to her, but he refuses. Norma publicly confesses her fault and is sentenced to death by fire. Pollione is convicted for pursuing Adalgisa in the temple and goes to the stake with Norma.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Oroveso leads the druids in a procession in the forest to pray for victory against the invading Romans: (Oroveso and druids: "Ite sul colle, o Druidi" / "Go up on the hill, O druids"). The druids pray that Norma will come and have the courage to broker peace with the Romans: (Druids and Oroveso: "Dell'aura tua profetica" / "With thy prophetic aura, imbue her, O terrible God".) All leave to go to the temple.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Pollione and Flavio enter. Although Norma has secretly broken her vows in order to love him and has borne him two children, Pollione tells Flavio that he no longer loves Norma, having fallen in love with the priestess Adalgisa. But he expresses some remorse, describing his dream in which Adalgisa was beside him at the altar of Venus and a huge storm arose: (Pollione, aria: "Meco all'altar di Venere" / "With me at the altar in Rome was Adalgisa dressed in white, veiled all in white.") The storm presaged disaster for both Norma and himself: "Thus does Norma punish her faithless lover," he declares. They hear the trumpets sounding to announce Norma's arrival. Flavio urges his friend to leave, but Pollione stands firm, proclaiming that he will confront Norma and the druids with a superior power and overthrow their altars: (Cabaletta: "Me protegge, me difende" / "I am protected and defended")


title: Norma (opera)

text: As Norma leads the druids and priestesses, the crowd proclaims: "Norma viene" / "Norma is coming" and, as Oroveso awaits her, they describe her dress and manner. All kneel as she approaches. "The time is not ripe for our revenge", she declares, stating that Rome will perish one day by being worn down. Then, with the mistletoe in hand, she approaches the altar with a plea to the moon (the "Chaste Goddess"): (cavatina: "Casta diva" / "Chaste goddess"). She pleads that the goddess shed upon earth the peace that she has created in heaven. She calls for all to complete the rites and then clear the uninitiated from the grove. To herself, she declares that she cannot hurt Pollione, but desires that things return to where they used to be: (Cabaletta: "Ah! bello a me ritorna" / "Return to me, O beautiful one"). The assembled crowd accepts her cautious approach, and all leave the grove.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Adalgisa prays at the temple, remembering with some sorrow how she became involved with Pollione. He enters, telling her that she prays to a cruel god and is not trying to invoke the god of love. As she appears to reject him, he declares (Aria: "Va crudele" /"Go, O cruel one") but he is convinced that he cannot leave her. He is distraught, and she doesn't show she is equally torn, until the moment he declares that he must return to Rome the following day. He begs Adalgisa to go with him: (Duet: Pollione, then Adalgisa, then together: "Vieni in Roma" / "Come to Rome"). She resists him, but finally agrees that they will leave together the following day.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Norma appears to be upset and orders her maid, Clotilde, to take the two children away from her, expressing very ambivalent feelings about them. She tells Clotilde that Pollione has been recalled to Rome, but does not know if he will take her or how he feels about leaving his children. As Adalgisa approaches, the children are taken away.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Adalgisa tells Norma she has fallen in love with a Roman, whom she does not name. As she describes how she fell in love while waiting at the temple and seeing "his handsome face" appear, Norma recalls (as an aside) her own feelings for Pollione ("my passions, too, burned like this"), and more and more, their experiences of falling in love run parallel: (Norma and Adalgisa, duet: "Sola, furtiva al tempio" / "Often I would wait for him"). Adalgisa pleads for help and forgiveness, and Norma pledges that she will do that and will also free her from her vows as a priestess: (Norma: "Ah! sì, fa core, abbracciami" / "Yes, take heart, embrace me". Adalgisa: "Ripeti, o ciel, ripetimi" / "Say that again, heavens, say again")


title: Norma (opera)

text: Norma asks Adalgisa to describe the man whom she loves. Responding, she tells her that he is a Roman, and, at that moment, turns to indicate that it is Pollione who is just then entering the room. As Norma furiously turns to confront Pollione, Adalgisa is confused: Norma: "Oh! non tremare, o perfido" / "O faithless man, do not tremble".


title: Norma (opera)

text: Forcing the priestess to realise that she is the victim of a huge deception, Norma addresses Adalgisa. (Trio: each sings in succession, beginning with Norma: "Oh! di qual sei tu vittima" / "Oh, you are the victim"; then Adalgisa: "Oh! qual traspare orribile" / "What horror has been revealed"; then the two women together, followed by Pollione alone: "Norma! de' tuoi rimproveri" / "Norma, do not reproach me now", continuing with "Please give this wretched girl some respite"; after which all three repeat their words, singing at first individually, then together.)


title: Norma (opera)

text: There are angry exchanges among the three: Norma declaring Pollione to be a traitor, he trying to persuade Adalgisa to leave with him, and Adalgisa angrily telling him to go away. When he declares that it is his fate to leave Norma, she encourages the young priestess to go with him, but Adalgisa declares that she would rather die. Norma then demands that her lover go, leaving behind his children — and his honor. (Finale: brief duet, Adalgisa and Pollione: he declares his love, and she her desire for Norma not to be a source of guilt to her. Trio: Norma continues to rage at Pollione, Adalgisa repeats her desire to make him return to Norma, and Pollione curses the day when he met Norma.) Then the sound of the druids calling Norma to the temple is heard. They report that the angry god, Irminsul, has spoken. Pollione storms out.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Norma looks at both of her sons, who are asleep. She considers killing them. Advancing towards them with knife upraised, she hesitates. (Recitative: "Dormono entrambi ... non vedran la mano che li percuote" / "They are both asleep ... they shall not see the hand which strikes them.") But she cannot bring herself to do it: (Aria: "Teneri, teneri figli" / "My dear, dear sons") The children wake up and she calls for Clotilde, demanding that Adalgisa be brought to her.


title: Norma (opera)

text: The young priestess enters, concerned at how pale Norma looks. Norma makes her swear to do everything she asks and, upon her agreement, tells her that she is entrusting the two children to her care and states that they should be taken to the Roman camp to their father Pollione, a man who she hopes will make a better lover for Adalgisa than he was for her. Adalgisa is aghast. Norma: "I beg you for his children's sake." (Duet, first Norma: "Deh! con te, con te li prendi" / "Please, take them with you") Adalgisa tells her that she will never leave Gaul and only agreed to the request in order to do what was good for Norma. (Duet, Adalgisa: "Vado al campo"/"I'll go to the camp") In the duet, Adalgisa agrees to go to the Roman camp and tell Pollione of Norma's grief; her hope is to persuade him to return to Norma. She then renounces Pollione: (Duet: "Mira, o Norma" / "Look, o Norma") They sing together, each expressing her own thoughts and feelings until Norma realizes that Adalgisa will give up Pollione and remain with her: (Cabaletta; Duet, Norma and Adalgisa: "Si fino all'ore estreme" / "Until the last hour")


title: Norma (opera)

text: The druid warriors gather and prepare themselves to attack the Romans. Oroveso enters with news from the gods: the time has not arrived to strike. Somewhat frustrated, the soldiers accept the decision.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Norma enters. (Aria: "Ei tornerà" / "He will come back") Then Clotilde arrives with news that Adalgisa has failed to persuade Pollione to return. Although Norma questions whether she should have trusted her, she then learns from her servant that Adalgisa is returning and wishes to take her vows at the altar and that the Roman has sworn to abduct her from the temple. In anger, Norma strikes a gong-like shield as a summons to war. Trumpets sound and Oroveso and the druids all rush in, demanding to know what is happening. They hear Norma's answer and the soldiers take up the refrain: "Guerra, guerra!" / "War, war!", while Norma proclaims "Blood, blood! Revenge!"


title: Norma (opera)

text: In order for Norma to complete the rites to authorise going to war, Oroveso demands to know who will be the sacrificial victim. At that moment, Clotilde rushes in to announce that a Roman has desecrated the temple, but that he has been apprehended. It is Pollione who is led in, and Norma is urged to take the sacrificial knife to stab him but, approaching him, she is unable to perform the deed. The assembled crowd demands to know why, but she dismisses them, stating that she needs to question her victim.


title: Norma (opera)

text: The crowd departs: (Duet, Norma and Pollione: "In mia man alfin tu sei" / "At last you are in my hands"). Norma demands that he forever shun Adalgisa; only then will she release him and never see him again. He refuses, and she vents her anger by telling him that she will then kill her children. "Strike me instead", he demands, "so that only I alone will die", but she quickly asserts that not only will all the Romans die, but so will Adalgisa, who has broken her vows as a priestess. This prompts him to plead for her life. (Cabaletta: Norma and Pollione: "Già mi pasco ne' tuoi sguardi" / "Already I take pleasure in the looks you give me".) When Pollione demands the knife, she calls the priests to assemble. Norma announces that it would be better to sacrifice a priestess who has broken her vows, and orders the pyre to be lit. Oroveso demands to know who is to be sacrificed while Pollione begs that she stays silent. Norma then wonders if she is not in fact the guilty one, then reveals that it is she who is to be the victim: a high priestess who has broken her vows, has become involved with the enemy, and has borne his children. (Aria, Norma to Pollione: "Qual cor tradisti" / "The heart you betrayed"; Duet: Norma and Pollione; ensemble, Norma, Oroveso, Pollione, druids, priests: each expresses his/her sorrow, anger, pleas to Norma, with Oroveso learning for the first time that Norma is a mother.)


title: Norma (opera)

text: In the concerted finale, Norma pleads with Oroveso to spare her children, reminding her father that they are of his own blood. ("Deh! non volerli vittime" / "Please don't make them victims"). After he promises to take care of them, she prepares to leap into the flames, and the re-enamoured Pollione joins her, declaring "your pyre is mine as well. There, a holier and everlasting love will begin".


title: Norma (opera)

text: It was Giuseppe Verdi who—late in his life—made some perceptive comments in a letter of May 1898 to , who had recently published a book on Bellini. In the letter, Verdi states:


title: Norma (opera)

text: Bellini is poor, it is true, in harmony and instrumentation; but rich in feeling and in an individual melancholy of his own! Even in the least well-known of his operas, in "La straniera", in "Il pirata", there are long, long, long melodies such as no-one before him had produced. And what truth and power of declamation, as for example in the duet between Pollione and Norma! [See act 2, scene 3 above. Norma: "In mia man alfin tu sei" / "At last you are in my hands"] And what elation of thought in the first phrase of the introduction [to the duet] ... no-one ever has created another more beautiful and heavenly.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Commenting on the overall quality of the music in "Norma", David Kimbell states that "Bellini's most astonishing achievement in "Norma" is, amid all the more obvious excitements of musical Romanticism, to have asserted his belief that the true magic of opera depended on a kind of incantation in which dramatic poetry and song are perfectly fused." Additionally, Kimbell provides examples of how the composer's art is revealed in this opera, but also noting that the ability to achieve a "fusion of music and dramatic meaning is to be found elsewhere in Bellini's work".


title: Norma (opera)

text: Schopenhauer claimed that tragedy causes the spectator to lose the will to live. "The horrors on the stage hold up to him the bitterness and worthlessness of life, and so the vanity of all its efforts and endeavors. The effect of this impression must be that he becomes aware, although only in an obscure feeling, that it is better to tear his heart away from life, to turn his willing away from it, not to love the world and life." He praised "Norma" for its artistic excellence in producing this effect. "…[T]he genuinely tragic effect of the catastrophe, the hero's resignation and spiritual exaltation produced by it, seldom appear so purely motivated and distinctly expressed as in the opera "Norma", where it comes in the duet "Qual cor tradisti, qual cor perdesti" [What a heart you betrayed, what a heart you lost]. Here the conversion of the will is clearly indicated by the quietness suddenly introduced into the music. Quite apart from its excellent music, and from the diction that can only be that of a libretto, and considered only according to its motives and to its interior economy, this piece is in general a tragedy of extreme perfection, a true model of the tragic disposition of the motives, of the tragic progress of the action, and of tragic development, together with the effect of these on the frame of mind of the heroes, which surmounts the world. This effect then passes on to the spectator."


title: Norma (opera)

text: "Norma, or A Politician's Love" (Norwegian: "Norma eller En Politikers Kjærlighed") is an eight-page drama written as an opera parody by Henrik Ibsen. It is influenced by Bellini's "Norma", which Ibsen saw in 1851, but the characters are contemporary politicians. The play was first printed anonymously in the satirical magazine "Andhrimner" in 1851. The first book edition came in 1909, and the first performance of the play was at a student theatre in Trondheim 1994.


title: Norma (opera)

text: Writer Marion Zimmer Bradley acknowledged that the plot of her 1993 historical novel/fantasy book "The Forest House" was based on that of "Norma" – relocated from Gaul to Britain, but sharing the basic plot outline of a love affair between a druidic priestess and a Roman officer. Bradley further stated that, in homage to Bellini, the hymns in chapter five and twenty-two of her book are adapted from the libretto of the opera's act 1, scene 1, and those in chapter thirty from act 2, scene 2.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: The Leeds Rhinos are a professional rugby league club in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The club was formed in 1870 as Leeds St John's and play in the Super League, the top tier of English rugby league. They have played home matches at Headingley Stadium since 1890.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 1895, Leeds was one of twenty-two rugby clubs that broke away from the Rugby Football Union and formed what was originally the Northern Union, but is now the Rugby Football League. The club was known simply as Leeds until the end of the 1996 season, when they added Rhinos to their name. They are also historically known as the Loiners, referring to the demonym for a native of Leeds.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds have won 11 League Titles, 13 Challenge Cups and three World Club Challenge titles. Leeds play in blue and amber kits at home matches and historically have worn either white or yellow away kits. They share rivalries with St. Helens, Wigan Warriors, Bradford Bulls and Castleford Tigers as well as a local city rivalry with Hunslet.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 1864, H. I. Johnson placed an advert in the "Leeds Mercury" inviting players to meet up at Woodhouse Moor a few days a week from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. That advert attracted more than 500 members. From this interest several clubs were formed, including Leeds St John's.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds St John's was formed in 1870 and was originally known as the "Old Blue and Ambers". The club played at the Militia Barracks from 1870 to 1888 before moving to Cardigan Fields, near Headingley, Leeds. Membership was originally confined to the church classes but was soon expanded. By 1887 St John's had reached its first cup final, the Yorkshire Cup losing to Wakefield Trinity.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: The city of Leeds had an abundance of rugby football clubs and although members of the Yorkshire RFU (which was in turn a constituent body of the RFU), it was decided to form a ‘more local’ association. It was for this reason that the Leeds & District organisation was formalised when a meeting took place at the Green Dragon Hotel, Leeds on 27 September 1888. The foundation clubs were Bramley, Holbeck, Hunslet, Kirkstall, Leeds Parish Church, Leeds St John's and Wortley.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 1888 the Cardigan Estate was sold at auction and Lot 17a was purchased by a group of Leeds citizens, who intended to form the city's leading sports club. Lot 17a became what is now Headingley Stadium.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds St John's played its final season under that name in 1889–90, before becoming the football section of Leeds Cricket, Football and Athletic Co Ltd the following season. With Headingley still being completed, Leeds' first game was staged at Cardigan Fields, the home side defeating Otley. The first game at Headingley was played on 20 September 1890, when Manningham were beaten by one try and one dropped goal to nil.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: After the 1890–91 season, Leeds along with other Yorkshire Senior clubs Batley, Bradford, Brighouse, Dewsbury, Halifax, Huddersfield, Hull, Hunslet, Leeds, Liversedge, Manningham and Wakefield decided that they wanted their own county league starting in 1891 along the lines of a similar competition that had been played in Lancashire. The clubs wanted full control of the league but the Yorkshire Rugby Football Union would not sanction the competition as it meant giving up control of rugby football to the senior clubs.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 1892, 27,654 spectators, a then record in British rugby, attended the third round showdown between Leeds and Halifax at Headingley.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: A special general meeting was held in 1895 that voted decisively to support the breakaway Northern Union as a founder member, resulting in two resignations from the club. Leeds' début in the Northern Union was a 6–3 success at Leigh on 7 September 1895, the inaugural day of the new competition.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 1901, the Leeds Parish Church team disbanded and put all of its players at Leeds' disposal. That same year saw the formation of the Northern Rugby League, with a number of leading clubs leaving the Yorkshire League and the Lancashire League and joining the new competition. Leeds was not admitted until the following year when it was placed in the newly formed second division and quickly gained promotion as runners-up to Keighley.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds City FC joined football's Second Division in 1905–06, and finished sixth out of 20 clubs in the club's first season. Rugby's monopoly with the locals seemed to have been broken, with Leeds Rugby League's average gate numbers falling by nearly 50% in that first league season.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 1910, Leeds came of age with the team finishing in sixth place in the league, but that was just a warm-up for the Challenge Cup campaign. Leeds beat Hull Kingston Rovers, Rochdale Hornets, Keighley and then scraped through 11–10 against Warrington in the semifinal before meeting Hull F.C. in the final. Rain on the morning of the game meant conditions were against flowing rugby. The scores were level at 7–7 with fifteen minutes left. However, neither team could break the deadlock, and the final went to a replay two days later, again at Fartown, Huddersfield. Leeds made no mistake this time and ran out convincing 26–12 winners having led 16–0 at half-time.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: The club lost many players to the First World War; of a total of fifty-one players who served in the military, fifteen were killed. The usual league programme was interrupted during 1914–18. During this period, Leeds played a number of "guest players" in the Emergency League competition. The Headingley club reached the Championship final for the first time in 1915, but lost 35–2 to Huddersfield, then a record score. The Emergency League was then suspended. Leeds reverted to rugby union during the First World War to play a one-off challenge game against the Royal Navy Depot from Plymouth in 1917. This was a precursor to the following Christmas when two Challenge games were organised between the two sides but this time with one of each code. The Navy won the union game 9–3 on Christmas Eve but proved equally adept at league recording a 24–3 win on 28 December.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: On Saturday 27 October 1934, Leeds and Wakefield Trinity met in the final of the Yorkshire Cup at Crown Flatt, Dewsbury. The match was played in front of a crowd of 22,598 and ended in a 5–5 draw. Four days later the two clubs drew again, with Leeds eventually lifting the trophy after a second replay, the only occasion it took three attempts to settle a Yorkshire Cup Final. A total of 52,402 spectators watched the three games.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 1937, Leeds paid the stand-off Vic Hey a then-record £1,400 signing-on fee to lure him from Australia. Vic was regarded as a major loss to the Australian game and this contributed to the RFL imposing a ban on international transfers, which lasted until 1940.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 1938, Leeds played Swinton in the Rugby Football League Championship semi-final. Leeds won the match 5 points to 2 to set up a history-making all-Leeds clash with neighbours Hunslet in the final. The match was played at the Elland Road football ground, to accommodate a huge demand from the city's rugby league supporters. Over 54,000 people watched the game, a then record for a match in England. Hunslet triumphed 8–2 to take the title.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Following the Second World War, Leeds club struggled to make a serious impact in rugby league despite having a financial advantage over the majority of other teams. Arthur Clues was the first Australian to come and play in Britain after the war and the great Australian second rower was signed by Leeds. His rivalry with the Great Britain and Wales prop Frank Whitcombe, who played for Bradford Northern was legendary. Their confrontations on the field during the Leeds v Bradford Northern local derby games are part of rugby league folklore.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: It was not until the late 1950s, when in 1957 the club secured its first post-war Challenge Cup victory, that the young side being built began to show signs of what was to come. Joe Warham came to Leeds as coach in 1958 and a Yorkshire Cup triumph followed, but the side still lacked enough quality to compete at the top of the Lancashire section of the competition in which it was then playing.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: However, "the Loiners" (their historical nickname) were to establish themselves as a dominant force by the end of the coming decade. In 1960 Dai Prosser was appointed to assist Joe Warham with the coaching duties and the club signed a new back three of Jack Fairbank, Brian Shaw and Dennis Goodwin to strengthen the forward pack. The recruitment paid off: the club was crowned Champions for the first time in 1961 with Lewis Jones leading them to a 25–10 victory over Warrington in the Championship Final at Odsal Stadium, Bradford.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In the late 1960s, under the guidance of Roy Francis, Leeds repeatedly finished top of the league. The club contested perhaps the most memorable of all Wembley occasions, the "watersplash final" of 1968, which was played despite a downpour that saturated the pitch. It produced the most dramatic of finishes, when Lance Todd trophy winner Don Fox had the easiest of conversions to win it for Wakefield Trinity, but missed it to leave Leeds 11–10 winners.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Francis then quit the club to take up a coaching position in Australia, and Joe Warham again took charge as coach, on an interim basis, midway through the 1969 campaign. The Championship trophy duly returned to Headingley for the second time after a tough final against Castleford at Odsal Stadium.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 1970 Leeds returned to the Championship final, and Odsal, but lost to St. Helens despite having taken an early lead. Tables were turned in December when the same teams met in the final of the BBC2 Floodlit Trophy, Leeds emerging victorious this time.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Coached by Derek ""Rocky"" Turner, Leeds returned to Wembley in 1971 and 1972 but lost out both times – in 1971 losing 24–7 to rank outsiders Leigh and suffering the indignity of captain Syd Hynes being the first man to 'take an early bath' at Wembley. A third championship, in 1972, provided consolation.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Eric Ashton (former Wigan and Great Britain centre) coached Leeds for the 1973–74 season before leaving to coach St. Helens.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds continued to collect silverware: the Regal Trophy in 1973 and the Premiership (the then-current form of the championship playoff) in 1975. The team held the Yorkshire Cup seven times between 1969 and 1980.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: 1976–77 was a season of mixed emotions. The Salford versus Leeds league match was abandoned after 38 minutes when Chris Sanderson of Leeds suffered a fatal injury. Leeds led 5–2, but the game was declared null and void and not replayed. The club recovered to win the Challenge Cup at the end of the season. This success was repeated in 1978, in a classic final against St Helens at Wembley Stadium with Leeds completing what was then a record comeback, from 10–0 down. Former captain Syd Hynes was coach on both occasions.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: This was followed up with another Premiership win, in 1979. However, these victories were the 'last hurrah' of the great 1960s, and 1970s sides and a barren spell followed in the 1980s.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds' only triumphs were the 1984 John Player Trophy (beating Widnes) under coach Maurice Bamford and the Yorkshire County Cup in 1980 (beating Hull Kingston Rovers) and 1988(beating Castleford). Leeds were beaten finalists in the John Player Trophy four times in the 1980s, and 1990s.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds eventually returned to Wembley for a Challenge Cup Final appearance in 1994 against Wigan. Leeds returned to Wembley a year later, again to face Wigan again, but were beaten more easily.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 1996 Gary Hetherington sold his controlling interest in Sheffield Eagles and joined Paul Caddick to take over the ailing Leeds C F & A Co Ltd, owners and operators of Headingley Stadium and Leeds Rugby League Club. 1996 marked the beginning of summer rugby as the first tier of British rugby league clubs played the inaugural Super League season and changed from a winter to a summer season.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 1997, the club renamed itself Leeds Rhinos. Dean Bell took over as head coach following his retirement as a player at Auckland Warriors. Iestyn Harris joined Leeds that year for a record-breaking £350,000 transfer and was appointed captain in his first full season at the age of only 21. Leeds experienced great financial difficulty and even flirted with relegation as they won only six matches all year and finished third from bottom in Super League, above only Oldham and Paris.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Bell became head of the academy team. In 1998 Graham Murray replaced Bell as joined the Leeds Rhinos as head coach and them team reached the inaugural Grand Final, at Old Trafford, however they were beaten by Wigan. In 1999 Leeds finally landed their first silverware in a decade, and their first Challenge Cup for over 20 years, with a convincing 52–16 win over London at Wembley.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 2000, Leeds reached the Challenge Cup Final but finished runners up to Yorkshire rivals Bradford at Murrayfield, Edinburgh. Daryl Powell became coach of Leeds after he retired from playing in 2001.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In 2003, despite being top of the table at the time, Leeds announced Tony Smith would replace Darryl Powell as head coach for the 2004 season. Leeds returned to the Challenge Cup final in 2003, again to face Bradford, this time at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff where they were beaten 22–20.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: The Rhinos ended their 32-year wait for a league championship by winning the 2004 Super League Grand Final This marked the start of over a decade of on-field success. As champions of the previous year, Leeds played in the 2005 World Club Challenge beating the 2004 Australian premiers Canterbury Bulldogs. Leeds next trophy was the 2007 Grand Final, which marked the final game as coach of the club for Tony Smith. He was replaced by former New Zealand international team coach Brian McClennan. Further success followed in 2008 when Leeds again beat Australian opposition in the 2008 World Club Challenge, Melbourne Storm the defeated opponents on this occasion. Leeds then retained the Super League championship by winning the Grand final. This marked the first time the club had won consecutive titles. A third consecutive league title followed in 2009, when Leeds won the 2009 Super League Grand Final, and thus became the first club ever to win the trophy three times in a row.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: After failing to win a trophy in 2010, Leeds started the 2011 season in mixed form, and by July appeared to be in danger of missing out on the play-offs completely. They ultimately did finish in a play-off spot and went on to win the 2011 Super League Grand Final. They reached the Challenge Cup Final in 2012, as they had the previous year, but again finished runners up. The Rhinos did however, successfully defend their Super League title by winning the 2012 Super League Grand Final. Success in the Grand Final earned them another World Club Challenge match against Melbourne Storm, in which they were defeated. Leeds would ultimately fail to win any silverware in 2013, however they did end their long run without a Challenge Cup final win by beating Castleford Tigers at Wembley in the 2014 final.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In March 2014, it was announced that Leeds would share a partnership with the Atlanta Rhinos, who play in the USA Rugby League. Leeds stated they would help bring a professional approach to the Atlanta club by sharing information and playing talent.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds had a highly successful season in 2015, winning the Challenge Cup, League Leaders Shield and the Grand Final, completing the modern day rugby league treble and becoming only the third team in the Super League era to achieve this after Bradford in 2003 and St. Helens in 2006.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds' victory in the 2015 Grand Final was the final competitive game of Rugby League for three long serving players of the game, as Jamie Peacock & Kylie Leuluai retired at the end of the season and Kevin Sinfield joined Leeds' sister club in Rugby Union, Yorkshire Carnegie.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds struggled in the season following their best ever season in 2015. they spent most of the regular season in the bottom two league positions before finding form and just missing out on 8th place to Widnes therefore being confined to fight to keep their Super League status in The Qualifiers for the first time. The club comfortably finished first in the Qualifiers only losing to Huddersfield.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: The following season was a return to form, finishing second to Castleford and only a point off of their 2015 treble winning season tally. They went on to play Castleford in the Grand Final winning 24–6, the club's 11th title and 8th of the Super League era.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: After the successful 2017 season, the 2016 season was written off as an anomaly, however 2018 was to be another bad year for the club. They finished 9th in the regular season and finished second in the Qualifiers narrowly avoiding the Million Pound Game on points difference.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: For the 2019 season the club appointed former player David Furner as head coach to rebuild the team. After an unsuccessful start to the season Furner was sacked and replaced with Richard Agar as caretaker coach. Agars first game in charge was a loss in the Challenge Cup to second division Bradford Bulls. Agar was given the job permanently at the end of the season after keeping the club in Super League.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds made a bright start to the 2020 Super League season although their season was disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the postponed season the club made it to their first Challenge Cup final in five years where they beat Salford 17–16. It was their first major trophy after the 'Golden Era'. Leeds reached the first week of the playoffs but were eliminated after losing to Catalans Dragons 26–14.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: In the 2021 Super League season, Leeds finished in 5th place on the table and qualified for the playoffs. In the elimination playoff, they defeated Wigan 8–0 at the DW Stadium to book a semi-final match against St Helens.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds started the 2022 Super League season poorly winning only one match in their opening 10 games. Before Leeds round 10 match against Toulouse Olympique, Leeds were sat 11th on the table. Following the clubs round 11 victory over Hull Kingston Rovers, Agar resigned as head coach of the club. He was later replaced by Rohan Smith. Under Smith, Leeds won 13 of their next 18 games to reach the 2022 Super League Grand Final. Along the way, the club upset both Catalans Dragons and Wigan in the playoffs to reach the decider. In the grand final, Leeds were defeated 24–12 against St Helens RFC.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds play in traditional Leeds colours blue and amber (home). Their home kits are famously blue with an amber band around the chest and on the arms. Between 2011 and 2013 Leeds wore pink away kits with proceeds of shirt sales going to breast cancer charities.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Between the club's foundation in 1865 and the formation of Super League in 1996 Leeds used the city's crest on their kits as they were just known as Leeds RLFC or Leeds Loiners. In 1996, the formation of Super League saw Leeds change their name to Leeds Rhinos. The new badge is mainly blue and has a rhino with the word rhino above it in a semi circle and Leeds at the top of the badge.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds have played at Headingley since 1890 and the ground is owned by Leeds. The rugby ground is also on the same site as the cricket ground operated by Yorkshire County Cricket Club. The North Stand of the rugby ground backs onto the cricket ground. The Carnegie Stand was built in 2006 to replace the old, uncovered, Eastern Terrace and also expanded the capacity to 21,000, adding extra seating on the top tier and terracing on the bottom.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Between 2017 and 2019 the stadium was extensively redeveloped with both the South and North Stands being demolished and replaced by modern constructions, the latter in co-operation with Yorkshire CCC. Seating was added in the upper level of the new South Stand and a large corporate suite, originally called the Emerald Suite, is located within the North Stand overlooking both cricket and rugby pitches. Any significant redevelopment or expansion of the Western Terrace would require the demolition of housing and rerouting of a public right of way.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds have had four shirt sponsors since 1981, the current sponsors, Leeds Building Society are currently the longest sponsorship deal the club have had and is the longest in the Super League. Since 2008 the club's kits have been made by Australian company ISC, who took over from Patrick.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Ronnie the Rhino is the Leeds mascot. He attempts to get the crowd going pre-match, and at half-time he normally gets children involved by playing some sort of game.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Ronnie the Rhino visits schools as part of the Leeds RLFC Community project, with the intention of promoting sports and healthy living.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: During the early part of the Super League era, Leeds' main local rivals were Bradford Bulls, who they played in two Grand Finals and beat in 2004 to win their first Super League title. However the Bulls have since slipped down to the lower leagues and competitive games are rare. Leeds also have a cross-city rivalry with Hunslet, who they play annually in the Harry Jepson OBE Memorial Cup. The two clubs played against each other in the 'all Leeds' 1938 Championship Final at Elland Road, won by Hunslet, which attracted a still-record Rugby League attendance for the city of 54,112. Since the 1970s, however, Hunslet have largely played in lower leagues so competitive fixtures are rare.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Leeds also have West Yorkshire derbies with Castleford Tigers and with Wakefield Trinity, who they play every Boxing Day in the annual Festive Challenge.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Since the formation of Super League there has been a major rivalry with St. Helens, who lost five consecutive Grand Finals between 2007 and 2011, four of which were against Leeds. The two sides have been the most successful during the Super League era. There are also other cross-Pennine rivalries against Wigan Warriors, whom they have played in big games and beat in a final for the first time in 2015, and against Warrington Wolves, who they have played in Challenge Cup and Grand Finals.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: "Where a player has played internationally for more than one country, the nations are indicated with the most recently represented first. A slash (/) indicates an uncapped player of dual nationality."


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: The Harry Sunderland Trophy is awarded to the Man-of-the-Match in the Super League Grand Final by the Rugby League Writers' Association.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: The Lance Todd Trophy is awarded to the Man-of-the-Match in the Challenge Cup Final. Introduced in 1946, the trophy was named in memory of Lance Todd, the New Zealand-born player and administrator, who was killed in a road accident during the Second World War.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: The Man of Steel Award (latterly the Steve Prescott Man of Steel Award) is an annual honour, awarded by the Super League to the most outstanding player in the British game for that year.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: The Golden Boot Award is a rugby league award handed out annually for achievements in rugby league by Rugby League World magazine. The Golden Boot is given, usually in December after the conclusion of all the year's matches, to the player adjudged to be the best in the world, as determined by a ballot of international media representatives.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: It was decided by the judges that Garry Schofield should be the winner in 1990, but unfortunately the sponsors of the Golden Boot backed out and the award was shelved. After a nine-year hiatus, League Publications Ltd, having bought Rugby League World, brought back the award in 1999. In 2011 they decided to give Schofield his Golden Boot and he is now included in the roll call of winners of the prestigious award.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: The Rhinos instigated a hall of fame in 2017. Up to four players will be inducted each year. The qualifications for inductees are that they have:


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Since 2017, Leeds Rhinos have operated a women's rugby league team and a netball team. Both teams compete in the top tier of their respective competitions, the RFL Women's Super League and the Netball Superleague.


title: Leeds Rhinos

text: Since 2018, they have also operated a Physical Disability Team as well as a Learning Disability Team from 2019. They also have a wheelchair team that competes in the Wheelchair Super League.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: The politics of Mexico take place in a framework of a federal presidential representative democratic republic whose government is based on a congressional system, whereby the President of Mexico is both head of state and head of government, and of a multi-party system. The federal government represents the United Mexican States and is divided into three branches: executive, legislative and judicial, as established by the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States, published in 1917. The constituent states of the federation must also have a republican form of government based on a congressional system as established by their respective constitutions.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: The executive power is exercised by the executive branch, which is headed by the President, advised by a cabinet of secretaries that are independent of the legislature. Legislative power is vested upon the Congress of the Union, a two-chamber legislature comprising the Senate of the Republic and the Chamber of Deputies. Judicial power is exercised by the judiciary, consisting of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, the Council of the Federal Judiciary and the collegiate, unitary and district tribunals.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: The politics of Mexico are dominated by four political parties: Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), National Action Party (PAN), Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), and the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA). Founded in 1929 as the "Partido Nacional Revolucionario" ("National Revolutionary Party"), PRI has dominated Mexican politics for over 70 years. PAN was founded in 1939, but it did not win its first governorship until 1989; its candidates won the presidency in 2000 and 2006. The beginnings of PRD go back to 1988 when dissident members of PRI decided to challenge the leadership and nominated Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas for president of Mexico. Cardenas lost in a highly contested election, but a new political party was born and the party emerged as a third force in Mexican politics, even though they have never captured the presidency. MORENA grew out of a dispute between Andrés Manuel López Obrador and other leaders of PRD after his loss in the 2012 presidential election. MORENA won its official recognition in 2014, and dominated the 2018 elections.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: According to a survey by the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 2017, 74 percent of Mexicans believe that Mexico's electoral system is not transparent and distrust official results.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: Melinda was an important politician in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), the Constitution of 1917 set the legal framework for the Mexican government. Revolutionary generals dominated politics in the 1920s and 1930s. With the assassination of former general and President-elect Alvaro Obregón in 1928, former general and out-going President of Mexico, Plutarco Elías Calles, founded a political party, the Partido Nacional Revolutionario (PNR), to solve the immediate political crisis of the assassination and to create a long term framework for political stability, especially the transition of presidential regimes. Excluded from the party were labor and peasants. Under President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40) the party underwent a transformation to the Partido de la Revolución Mexicana, which was organized on a corporate basis, with peasants, labor, the popular sector, and the military each having a sector, with power centralized. The PRM aimed to mediate conflicts between competing sectors within the party. The party became an extension of the Mexican state. In 1946, the party was transformed into the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and the army was no longer a sector. In 1988, when Carlos Salinas de Gortari, a Harvard-trained economist, was chosen as the PRI presidential candidate, Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, son of former President Lázaro Cárdenas, broke with the PRI and ran as a coalition candidate. The 1988 elections were "the most fraudulent in Mexico's history. In 1989 the leftists who had bolted the PRI formed the Party of the Democratic Revolution. In the wake of the fraudulent 1988 elections, the administration of elections was taken out of the hands of the Mexican government's Ministry of the Interior ("Gobernación") and the Instituto Federal Electoral (IFE) was created in 1990, with the aim of ensuring free and fair elections and creating public confidence in the process.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: Constitutionally, political parties in Mexico must promote the participation of the people in the democratic life of the country, contribute in the representation of the nation and citizens, and be the access through which citizens can participate in public office, through whatever programs, principles and ideals they postulate. All political parties must be registered with the National Electoral Institute (, INE), the institution in charge of organizing and overseeing the federal electoral processes, and must obtain at least 2% of votes in the federal elections to keep their registry. Registered political parties receive public funding for their operation and can also obtain private funding within the limits prescribed by the law.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: As of 2010 the following political parties are registered with the INE and all have representatives at the Congress of the Union:


title: Politics of Mexico

text: Political parties are allowed to form alliances or coalitions to nominate candidates for any particular election. The coalition must identify itself with a particular name and logo. Proportional representation (plurinominal) seats are assigned to the coalition based on the percentage of votes obtained in the elections, and then the coalition reassigns them to the constituent political parties. Once each party in the coalition has been assigned plurinominal seats, they do not necessarily continue to work as a coalition in government.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: Throughout the 20th century, PRI had an almost hegemonic power at the state and federal level, which slowly began to recede in the late 1980s. Even though since the 1940s, PAN had won a couple of seats in the Congress, and in 1947 the first presidential municipality (in ), it wasn't until 1989, that the first non-PRI state governor was elected (in ). It was in 1997, that PRI lost its absolute majority at the Congress of the Union. In 2000 the first non-PRI president since 1929 was elected.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: Suffrage is universal, free, secret and direct for all Mexican citizens 18 and older, and is compulsory (but not enforced). The identity document in Mexico serves also as the voting card, so all citizens are automatically registered for all elections; that is, no pre-registration is necessary for every election. All elections are direct; that is, no electoral college is constituted for any of the elections at the federal, state or municipal level. Only when an incumbent president is absolutely absent (either through resignation, impeachment or death), the Congress of the Union constitutes itself acts as an electoral college to elect an interim president by absolute majority.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: Presidential elections are scheduled every six years, except in the exceptional case of absolute absence of the president. However, the term of the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, will be only 5 years, 10 months (December 1, 2018 — September 30, 2024) due to a Constitutional change. Legislative elections are scheduled every six years for the Senate, to be fully renewed in elections held concurrently with the presidential elections; and every three years for the Chamber of Deputies. Elections have traditionally been held on the first Sunday of July, but the new law means they will be held on the first Sunday in June instead. State governors are also elected every six years, except in Baja California, where the governor is elected for a two-year term. The state legislatures are renewed every three years. State elections need not be concurrent with federal elections. Federal elections are organized and supervised by the autonomous public Federal Electoral Institute, whereas state and municipal elections are organized and supervised by electoral institutes constituted by each state of the federation. Elections within Mexico City are also organized by a local electoral institute.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: A strongly ingrained concept in Mexican political life is "no reelection." The theory was implemented after Porfirio Díaz managed to monopolize the presidency for over 25 years. Presently, Mexican presidents are limited to a single six-year term, and no one who has held the office even on a caretaker basis is allowed to hold the office again. Deputies and senators were not allowed to immediately succeed themselves until 2018; both may now serve a maximum of 12 consecutive years.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: Federal presidential elections were held on July 2, 2006 concurrent with the full renovation of both chambers of the Congress of the Union. In these elections the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the Labour Party (PT) and Convergence (CV) formed a coalition called Coalition for the Good of All. The Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and the Ecologist Green Party (PVEM) formed a coalition called Alliance for Mexico. The Federal Electoral Tribunal declared Felipe Calderón the winner of the elections on September 5, and president-elect. He took office on December 1, 2006 and his term ended on November 30, 2012. The concurrent congressional elections were not contested by any party. Both chambers were completely renewed and no party obtained an absolute majority. This election has been noted by scholars, including Mexican sociologist Jacqueline Peschard, for the "breakdown in consensus that nearly resulted" as a result of the ensuing indeterminacy and the problems that has posed for Mexican democracy.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: In 2018, Mexico elected Andrés Manuel López Obrador as President. He ran under a three-party coalition led by the leftist National Regeneration Movement party (Morena) he founded in 2014.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: The elections in each state are done at different times, depending on the state, and are not necessarily held at the same time with the federal elections. as of june 2021


title: Politics of Mexico

text: The Mexican Revolution was followed by the Great Depression, which led to a severely fragmented society and very weak institutions. In 1929, all factions and generals of the Mexican Revolution were united into a single party, the National Revolutionary Party (NRP), with the aim of stabilizing the country and ending internal conflicts. During the following administrations, since 1928, many of the revolutionary ideals were put into effect, among them the free distribution of land to peasants and farmers, the nationalization of the oil companies, the birth and rapid growth of the Social Security Institute as well as that of Labor Unions, and the protection of national industries.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: President Lázaro Cárdenas was fundamental to recover some of the social control that was lost during the Revolution and the following economic meltdown in the United States. However, Cárdenas was followed by a series of less-talented leaders that were unable to continue this path and establish an effective rule of law on Mexican society. Moreover, Cárdenas presidency happened before the UN focused on states as the rule in the 1940s and 1950s.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: The NRP was later renamed the Mexican Revolution Party and finally the Institutional Revolutionary Party. The social institutions created by the party itself provided it with the necessary strength to stay in power. In time, the system gradually became, as some political scientists have labeled it, an "electoral authoritarianism", in that the party resorted to any means necessary, except that of the dissolution of the constitutional and electoral system itself, to remain in power. In fact, Mexico was considered a bastion of continued constitutional government in times where coup d'états and military dictatorships were the norm in Latin America, in that the institutions were renovated electorally, even if only in appearance and with little participation of the opposition parties at the local level.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: The lack of the establishment of a true democracy in Mexico can be partially explained many factors, like the ones described above. However, one of them could also be the oil reserves that exist in the country and that were nationalized by the Cárdenas government. Several empirical studies point to a correlation between the existence of natural resources and the difficulty of turning into a democracy.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: The first cracks in the system, even though they were merely symbolic, were the 1970s reforms to the electoral system and the composition of the Congress of the Union which for the first time incorporated proportional representation seats allowing opposition parties to obtain seats, though limited in number, in the Chamber of Deputies. As minority parties became involved in the system, they gradually demanded more changes, and a full democratic representation. Even though in the 1960s, a couple (of more than two thousand) municipalities were governed by opposition parties, the first state government to be won by an opposition party was Baja California, in 1989.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: Historically, there were important high-profile defections from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, like the ones of Juan Andreu Almazán (1940), Ezequiel Padilla (1946), Miguel Henríquez Guzmán (1952), and Cuahtémoc Cárdenas (1988), son of President Lázaro Cárdenas. These departures happened mainly because they opposed the presidential candidate nominations; however, only Cárdenas departure in 1988 resulted in the establishment of another political party (Party of the Democratic Revolution).


title: Politics of Mexico

text: The presidential elections held in 1988 marked a watershed in Mexican politics, as they were the first serious threat to the party in power by an opposition candidate: Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, who was nominated by a broad coalition of leftist parties. He officially received 31.1 percent of the vote, against 50.4 percent for Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the PRI candidate, and 17 percent for Manuel Clouthier of the National Action Party (PAN). It was believed by some that Cardenas had won the election, but that the then government-controlled electoral commission had altered the results after the infamous "the system crashed" ("se cayó el sistema", as it was reported). In the concurrent elections, the PRI came within 11 seats of losing the majority of Chamber of Deputies, and opposition parties captured 4 of the 64 Senate seats—the first time that the PRI had failed to hold every seat in the Senate. Capitalizing on the popularity of President Salinas, however, the PRI rebounded in the mid-term congressional elections of 1991, winning 320 seats.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: Subsequent changes included the creation of the Federal Electoral Institute in the 1990s and the inclusion of proportional representation and first minority seats in the Senate. The presidential election of 1994 was judged to be the first relatively free election in modern Mexican history. Ernesto Zedillo of the PRI won with 50.2 percent of the vote, against 26.7 percent for Diego Fernández de Cevallos of PAN and 17.1 percent for Cardenas, who this time represented the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Although the opposition campaign was hurt by the desire of the Mexican electorate for stability, following the assassination of Luis Donaldo Colosio (the intended PRI candidate) and the recent outbreak of hostilities in the state of Chiapas, Zedillo's share of the vote was the lowest official percentage for any PRI presidential candidate up to that time.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: In the 1997 mid-term elections, no party held majority in the Chamber of Deputies, and in 2000 the first opposition party president was sworn in office since 1929. Vicente Fox won the election with 43% of the vote, followed by PRI candidate Francisco Labastida with 36%, and Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) with 17%.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: Numerous electoral reforms implemented after 1989 aided in the opening of the Mexican political system, and opposition parties made historic gains in elections at all levels. Many of the current electoral concerns have shifted from outright fraud to campaign fairness issues. During 1995-96 the political parties negotiated constitutional amendments to address these issues. Implementing legislation included major points of consensus that had been worked out with the opposition parties. The thrust of the new laws has public financing predominate over private contributions to political parties, tighter procedures for auditing the political parties, and strengthening the authority and independence of electoral institutions. The court system also was given greatly expanded authority to hear civil rights cases on electoral matters brought by individuals or groups. In short, the extensive reform efforts have "leveled the playing field" for the parties.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: The 2006 elections saw the PRI fall to third place behind both the PAN and the PRD. Roberto Madrazo, the presidential candidate, polled only 22.3 percent of the vote, and the party ended up with only 121 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, a loss of more than half of what the party had obtained in 2003, and 38 seats in the Senate, a loss of 22 seats. Felipe Calderón, a conservative former energy minister, won a narrow victory, and he was elected as the new president. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, lost the very tight race, did not accept the result.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: In the 2012 elections, Enrique Peña Nieto was elected as the president of Mexico, meaning the return of PRI after 12 years out of power.


title: Politics of Mexico

text: On 1 December 2018, Andrés Manuel López Obrador sworn in as Mexico's first leftist president in seven decades, after winning a landslide victory in July 2018 elections. In June 2021 midterm elections, López Obrador's left-leaning Morena’s coalition lost seats in the lower house of Congress. However, his ruling coalition maintained a simple majority, but López Obrador failed to secure the two-thirds congressional supermajority. The main opposition was a coalition of Mexico’s three traditional parties: the center-right Revolutionary Institutional Party, right-wing National Action Party and leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution.


title: Hydrops fetalis

text: Hydrops foetalis or hydrops fetalis is a condition in the fetus characterized by an accumulation of fluid, or edema, in at least two fetal compartments. By comparison, hydrops allantois or hydrops amnion is an accumulation of excessive fluid in the allantoic or amniotic space, respectively.


title: Hydrops fetalis

text: Locations can include the subcutaneous tissue on the scalp, the pleura (pleural effusion), the pericardium (pericardial effusion) and the abdomen (ascites). Edema is usually seen in the fetal subcutaneous tissue, sometimes leading to spontaneous abortion. It is a prenatal form of heart failure, in which the heart is unable to satisfy demand (in most cases abnormally high) for blood flow.


title: Hydrops fetalis

text: Hydrops fetalis usually stems from fetal anemia, when the heart needs to pump a much greater volume of blood to deliver the same amount of oxygen. This anemia can have either an immune or non-immune cause. Non-immune hydrops can also be unrelated to anemia, for example if a fetal tumor or congenital cystic adenomatoid malformation increases the demand for blood flow. The increased demand for cardiac output leads to heart failure, and corresponding edema.


title: Hydrops fetalis

text: Erythroblastosis fetalis, also known as Rh disease, is the only immune cause of hydrops fetalis. Rh disease is a hemolytic disease of newborns. Pregnant mothers do not always have the same blood type as their child. During birth or throughout the pregnancy, the mother may be exposed to the infant's blood. In the event of a pregnancy where the fetus has the Rh-D blood antigen and the mother does not, the mother's immune system will respond to the red blood cells as foreign and create antibodies against the Rh-D antigen on the fetal blood cells. Rh disease develops in the event of a second pregnancy where the mother's immune system launches an attack, via IgG, against the infant's Rh-D positive blood cells. The immune response results in hemolysis of fetal red blood cells causing severe anemia.


title: Hydrops fetalis

text: Hemolysis caused by the Rh incompatibility, causes extramedullary hematopoiesis in the fetal liver and bone marrow. The push to make more erythroblasts to help compensate with the hemolysis over works the liver causing hepatomegaly. The resulting liver dysfunction decreases albumin output which in turn decreases oncotic pressure. Consequentially, the decrease in pressure results in overall peripheral edema and ascites.


title: Hydrops fetalis

text: Rh disease is currently an uncommon cause of immune-mediated hydrops fetalis. Due to preventative methods developed in the 1970s, the incidence of Rh disease has markedly declined. Rh disease can be prevented by administration of anti-D IgG (Rho(D) Immune Globulin) injections to RhD-negative mothers during pregnancy and/or within 72 hours of the delivery. However, a small percentage of pregnant mothers are still susceptible to Rh disease even after receiving anti-D IgG (Rho(D) Immune Globulin).


title: Hydrops fetalis

text: Severe anemia leads to hyperdynamic circulation, which means high-output cardiac failure causes the blood to circulate rapidly. The excessive pumping of blood causes the left side of the heart to fail leading to pulmonary edema. The build up of fluid in the lungs increases the pressure in the lungs leading to vasoconstriction. The coupled vasoconstriction and pulmonary hypertension causes the right side of the heart to fail which in turn, increases the venous hydrostatic pressure in the body. The summation of these effects ultimately leads to peripheral edema and ascites. All in all, the left side failure of the heart will lead to pulmonary edema whereas right side failure will lead to peripheral edema and ascites. The non-immune form of hydrops fetalis has many causes including:


title: Hydrops fetalis

text: Hydrops fetalis can be diagnosed and monitored by ultrasound scans. An official diagnosis is made by identifying excess serous fluid in at least one space (ascites, pleural effusion, of pericardial effusion) accompanied by skin edema (greater than 5 mm thick). A diagnosis can also be made by identifying excess serous fluid in two potential spaces without accompanying edema. Prenatal ultrasound scanning enables early recognition of hydrops fetalis and has been enhanced with the introduction of MCA Doppler.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Sanskrit literature broadly comprises all literature in the Sanskrit language. This includes texts composed in the earliest attested descendant of the Proto-Indo-Aryan language known as Vedic Sanskrit, texts in Classical Sanskrit as well as some mixed and non-standard forms of Sanskrit. Literature in the older language begins with the composition of the Ṛg·veda between about 1500 and 1000 BCE, followed by other Vedic works right up to the time of the grammarian Pāṇini around 6th or 4th century BCE (after which Classical Sanskrit texts gradually became the norm).


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the extensive liturgical works of the Vedic religion, while Classical Sanskrit is the language of many of the prominent texts associated with the major Indian religions, especially Hinduism, but also Buddhism, and Jainism. Some Sanskrit Buddhist texts are also composed in a version of Sanskrit often called Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit or Buddhistic Sanskrit, which contains many Middle Indic (prakritic) elements not found in other forms of Sanskrit.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Early works of Sanskrit literature were transmitted through an oral tradition for centuries before they were written down in manuscript form.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: While most Sanskrit texts were composed in ancient India, others were composed in Central Asia, East Asia or Southeast Asia.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Sanskrit literature is vast and includes religious scripture, various forms of poetry (such as epic and lyric), drama and narrative prose. It also includes substantial works covering secular and technical sciences and the arts. Some of these subjects include: law and custom, grammar, politics, economics, medicine, astrology-astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, music, dance, dramatics, magic and divination, and sexuality.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Literature in the Vedic and the Classical language differ in numerous respects. The Vedic literature that survives is almost entirely religious, being focused on the prayers, hymns to the gods (devas), sacrifices and other concerns of the Vedic religion. The language of this archaic literature (the earliest being the Rigveda), Vedic Sanskrit, is different in many ways (and much less regular) than the "classical" Sanskrit described by later grammarians like Pāṇini. This literature was transmitted orally during the Vedic period, only later was it written down.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Classical Sanskrit literature is more varied and includes the following genres: scripture (Hindu, Buddhist and Jain), epics, court poetry (kavya), lyric, drama, romance, fairytale, fables, grammar, civil and religious law (dharma), the science of politics and practical life, the science of love and sexual intercourse (kama), philosophy, medicine, astronomy, astrology and mathematics, and is largely secular in subject-matter. On the other hand, the Classical Sanskrit language was much more more formalized and homogeneous, partly due to the influence of Sanskrit grammarians like Pāṇini and his commentators.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Sanskrit was an important language for medieval Indian religious literature. Most pre-modern Hindu literature and philosophy was in Sanskrit and a significant portion of Buddhist literature was also written in either classical Sanskrit or Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. Many of these Sanskrit Buddhist texts were the basis for later translation into the Chinese Buddhist Canon and Tibetan Canon. Many Jain texts were also written in Sanskrit, like the "Tattvartha sutra".


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Classical Sanskrit also served as a common language of scholarship and elites (as opposed to local vernacular who were only understood regionally).


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The invasions of northern India by islamic powers in the 13th century severely damaged Indian Sanskrit scholarship and the dominance of islamic power over India eventually contributed to the decline of this scholarly language, especially since Muslim rulers promoted Middle Eastern languages. However, Sanskrit remains in use throughout India, and is used in rituals, religious practice, scholarship, art, and other Indian traditions.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The first three are commonly grouped together, as the Saṃhitās comprising the four Vedas: ṛk, atharvan, yajus, sāman, which together constitute the oldest texts in Sanskrit and the canonical foundation both of the Vedic religion, and the later religion known as Hinduism.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The Ṛg·veda, the first and oldest of the four Vedas, is the foundation for the others. The Ṛg·veda is made of 1028 hymns named "sūktas", composed of verses in strictly regulated meters. These are collected into saṃhitās. There are about 10,000 of these verses that make up the Ṛg·veda. The Ṛg·vedic hymns are subdivided into 10 "maṇḍala"s, most of which are attributed to members of certain families. Composition of the Ṛg·vedic hymns was entirely oral, and for much of its history, the Ṛg·veda has been transmitted only orally, written down likely no sooner than in the second half of the first millennium of the Common Era.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The "Sāmaveda" is not an original composition: it's almost entirely (except 75) made of stanzas taken from the "Ṛgveda" and rearranged with reference to their place in the Soma sacrifice. This book is meant to be sung to certain fixed melodies, and may thus be called the book of chants, "sāman". The "Yajurveda" like the "Sāman" is also largely made of verses taken from the "Ṛgveda", but also contains several prose formulas. It is called the book of sacrificial prayers "yajus".


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The last of the four, the "Atharvaveda", both by the internal structure of the language used and by comparison with the Ṛg·veda, is a much later work. However, the "Atharvaveda" represents a much earlier stage of thought of the Vedic people, being composed mainly of spells and incantations appealing to demons, and is rife with notions of witchcraft, derived from a much earlier period.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The "Brāhmaṇas" (a subdivision within the Vedas) concern themselves with the correct application of Vedic ritual, and the duties of the Vedic priest (hotṛ: 'pourer, worshiper, reciter') the word being derived from "bráhman" meaning 'prayer'. They were composed at a period in time by which the Vedic hymns had achieved the status of being ancient and sacred revelations and the language had changed sufficiently so that the priests did not fully understand the Vedic texts. The "Brāhmaṇas" are composed in prose, unlike the previous works, forming some of the earliest examples of prose in any Indo-European language. The "Brāhmaṇas" intend to explain the relation between the sacred text and ritual ceremony.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The later part of the "Brāhmaṇas" contain material which also discuss theology and philosophy. These works were meant to be imparted or studied in the peace and calm of the forest, hence their name the "Āraṇyaka"s ("Of the forest") The last part of these are books of Vedic doctrine and philosophy that came to be called "Upaniṣads" ("sitting down beside"). The doctrines in the Vedic or "Mukhya" "Upaniṣads" (the main and most ancient "Upaniṣads)" were later developed into the "Vedānta" (""end of the Vedas"") system.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The Vedic Sūtras were aphoristic treatises concerned either with Vedic ritual (Kalpa Vedanga) or customary law. They arrived during the later period of the "Brāhmaṇas" when a vast mass of ritual and customary details had been accumulated. To address this, the Sūtras are intended to provide a concise survey of Vedic knowledge through short aphoristic passages that could be easily memorized. The Sūtras forego the need to interpret the ceremony or custom, but simply provide a plain, methodical account with the utmost brevity. The word "sūtra", derived from the root "siv-", 'to sew', thus meaning 'sewn' or 'stitched together' eventually became a byword for any work of aphorisms of similar concision. The sutras in many cases are so terse they cannot be understood without the help of detailed commentaries.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The main types of Vedic Sūtras include the "Śrautasūtras" (focusing on ritual), "Śulbasûtra" (on altar construction), "Gṛhyasūtras" which focus on rites of passage and "Dharmasūtras."


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Most ancient and medieval Hindu texts were composed in Sanskrit, either Epic Sanskrit (the pre-classical language found in the two main Indian epics) or Classical Sanskrit (Paninian Sanskrit). In modern times, most ancient texts have been translated into other Indian languages and some in Western languages. Prior to the start of the common era, the Hindu texts were composed orally, then memorized and transmitted orally, from one generation to next, for more than a millennium before they were written down into manuscripts. This verbal tradition of preserving and transmitting Hindu texts, from one generation to next, continued into the modern era.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The first traces of Indian epic poetry are seen in the Vedic literature, among the certain hymns of the Ṛgveda (which contain dialogues), as well as the Ākhyānas (ballads), Itihāsas ('traditional accounts of past events') and the Purāṇas found in the Vedic Brāhmaṇas. These poems were originally songs of praise or heroic songs which developed into epic poems of increasing length over time. They were originally recited during important events such as during the Vedic horse sacrifice (the aśvamedha) or during a funeral.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Another related genre were the "songs in praise of men" (gatha narasamsi), which focus on the glorious deeds of warriors and princes, which also developed into long epic cycles. These epic poems were recited by courtly bards called "sutas", who may have been their own caste and were closely related to the warrior caste. There was also a related group of traveling singers called kusilavas. Indian kings and princes seem to have kept bards in their courts which sung the praises of the king, recite poems at festivals and sometimes even recite poetry in battle to embolden the warriors.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: While there were certainly other epic cycles, only two have survived, the "Mahābhārata" and the "Rāmāyaṇa".


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The "Mahābhārata" is in a sense not just a single 'epic poem', but can be seen as a "whole" body of literature in its own right, a massive collection of many different poetic works built around the heroic tales of the Bharata tribe. Most of this literature was probably compiled between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century CE by numerous authors, with the oldest preserved parts not much older than around 400 BCE.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Already in the Ṛgveda, the "Bharatas" find mention as a warlike tribe, and the Brāhmaṇas also speak of Bharata, the son of Duṣyanta and Śakuntalā. The core of the "Mahābhārata" is a family feud in the royal house of the Kauravas (the descendants of Bharata), leading to a bloody battle at Kurukshetra. Over the centuries, an enormous mass of poetry, myths, legends, secondary tales, moral stories and more was added to the original core story. The final form of the epic is thus a massive 100,000 ślokas across 18+1 books.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: According to Winternitz, the "Mahābhārata" also shows the influence of the Brahmin class, which he argues was engaged in a project of appropriating the poetry of the bards (which was mainly a secular heroic literature) in order to infuse it with their religious theology and values.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The most influential part of the "Mahābhārata" is the "Bhagavadgītā," which became a central scripture for the Vedanta school and remains widely read today.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Another important associated text, which acts as a kind of supplement ("khila") to the "Mahābhārata," is the "Harivanhśa," which focuses on the figure of Krishna"."


title: Sanskrit literature

text: In contrast to the "Mahābhārata", the "Rāmāyaṇa" consists of only 24,000 ślokas divided into seven books, and in form is more purely regular, ornate epic poetry, a form of style which is the basis of the later Kāvya tradition. There are two parts to the story of the "Rāmāyaṇa", which are narrated in the five genuine books. The first revolves around the events at the court of King Daśaratha at Ayodhya with one of his wives vying for the succession of the throne to her own son Bharata in place of the one chosen by the king, Rāma. The second part of the epic is full of myth and marvel, with the banished Rāma combating giants in the forest, and slaying thousands of demons. The second part also deals with the abduction of Rāmā's wife, Sītā by king Rāvaṇa of Lankā, leading Rāma to carry out to expedition to the island to defeat the king in battle and recover his wife.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The "Purāṇa" are a large class of Hindu scriptures which cover numerous topics such as myth, legends of the Hindu gods, cosmogony, cosmology, stories of ancient kings and sages, folk tales, information about temples, medicine, astronomy, grammar and Hindu theology and philosophy. Perhaps the most influential of these texts is the "Bhāgavata Purāṇa", a central text for Vaishnava theology. Other "Purāṇas" center on different gods, like the "Shiva Purāṇa" and the "Devī Bhāgavata Purāṇa."


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The principal Upaniṣads can be considered Vedic literature since they are included within the "Brahmanas" and "Aranyakas". However, numerous scriptures titled "Upaniṣads" continued to be composed after the closure of the Vedas proper. Of these later "Upaniṣads" there are two categories of texts:


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Sūtra style aphoristic literature continued to be composed on numerous topics, the most popular being on the different fields of Hindu philosophy.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The various Sanskrit literature also spawned a large tradition of commentary texts, which were called "Bhāṣyas", "Vṛṭṭis, Tikas, Varttikas" and other names. These commentaries were written on numerous genres of Sanskrit texts, including on Sūtras, on Upaniṣads and on the Sanskrit epics.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Examples include the "Yogabhāṣya" on the "Yoga Sūtras", Shankara's "Brahmasūtrabhāṣya," the "Gitabhāṣya" and "Sri Bhāṣya" of Ramanuja (1017–1137), Pakṣilasvāmin Vātsyāyana's "Nyāya Sūtra Bhāshya" and the "Matharavṛṭṭi" (on the "Sāṁkhyakārikā").


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Furthermore, over time, secondary commentaries (i.e. a commentary to a commentary) also came to be written.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: There are a varied group of Hindu Tantric scriptures titled Tantras or Agamas. Gavin Flood argues that the earliest date for these Tantric texts is 600 CE, though most of them were probably composed after the 8th century onwards.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Tantric literature was very popular during the "Tantric Age" (c. 8th to the 14th century), a period of time when Tantric traditions rose to prominence and flourished throughout India. According to Flood, all Hindu traditions, Shaiva, Vaishnava, Smarta and Shakta (perhaps excepting the Srautas) became influenced by Tantric works and adopted some Tantric elements into their literature.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Among prose works there are important works like the "Yoga-Vāsiṣṭha" (which is important in Advaita Vedanta), the "Yoga-Yājñavalkya" and the "Devi Mahatmya" (a key Shakta work).


title: Sanskrit literature

text: When it comes to poetry, there are numerous stotras (odes), suktas and stutis, as well as other poetic genres. Some important works of Hindu Sanskrit poetry include the "Vivekacūḍāmaṇi," the "Hanuman Chalisa", the "Aṣṭāvakragītā", "Bhaja Govindam," and the "Shiva Tandava Stotra."


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Another group of later Sanskrit Hindu texts are those which focus on Hatha Yoga, and include the "Dattātreyayogaśāstra" (13th century), the "Gorakṣaśataka" (13th century)"," the "Haṭhayogapradīpikā" (15th century) and the "Gheraṇḍasaṁhitā" (17th or 18th-century).


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Over time, Sanskrit works on the secular sciences ("śāstra" or "vidyā") were composed on a wide variety of topics. These include: grammar, poetry, lexicography, geometry, astronomy, medicine, worldly life and pleasure, philosophy, law, politics, etc.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The learning of these secular sciences took place by way of a guru expounding the subject orally, using works of aphorisms, the sūtra texts, which on account of their terseness would be meaningful only to those who knew how to interpret them. The "bhāṣyas", the commentaries that followed the sūtras were structured in the style of student-teacher dialogue wherein a question is posed, a partial solution, the "pūrvapakṣa", proposed, which is then handled, corrected and the final opinion established, the "siddhānta". In time, the bhāṣyas evolved to become more like a lecture.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The sūtras were initially regarded as definite. This was later circumvented, in the field of grammar, by the creation of "vārttikas", to correct or amend sūtras. Another form often employed was the "śloka", which was a relatively simple metre, easy to write and remember. Sometimes a mix of prose and verse was used. Some of the later work, such as in law and poetics, developed a much clearer style which avoided a propensity towards obscurity that verse was prone to.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The study of these secular works was widespread in India. Buddhist institutions like Nalanda also focused on the study of four of these secular sciences, known as the vidyāsthānas. These are: linguistic science (sabdavidya), logical science (hetuvidya), medical science (cikitsavidya), science of fine arts and crafts (silpakarmasthanavidya). The fifth main topic studied at Buddhist universities were the spiritual sciences (adhyatmavidya). These Indian Sanskrit language disciples also had an influence on Himalayan cultures, like Tibet, which not only adopted Buddhist religious literature but also these secular works. The Tibetan scholar Sakya Pandita (1182-1251) was a well known scholar of Sanskrit, and promoted the study of these secular disciplines among Tibetans. The study of Sanskrit grammars and prosody was also practiced in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia, even when the Pali language focused Theravada school rose to prominence in those regions.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: By the time of the Sūtra period, the Sanskrit language had evolved sufficiently to make increasing parts of the older literature hard to understand, and to recite correctly. This led to the emergence of several classes of works intended to resolve this matter. These works were styled like the religious Sūtras, however they were not religious per se but focused on the linguistic study of the Sanskrit language. The main topics discussed in these works were grammar ("vyākaraṇa"), phonetics ("śikṣā") and etymology ("nirukta"). These are traditionally part of the vedāṅga ("limbs of the Veda"), six auxiliary disciplines that developed along with the study of the Vedas.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: One of the earliest and most important of these works is the Vedic era "Prātiśākhya Sūtras", which deal with accentuation, pronunciation, prosody and related matters in order to study the phonetic changes that have taken place in Vedic words.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The early grammatical works of the linguist Yāska (some time between 7th and 4th century BCE), such as his "Nirukta," provides the foundation of the study of Sanskrit grammar and etymology.


title: Sanskrit literature

text: The most influential work for the Indian Sanskrit grammatical tradition is the "Aṣṭādhyāyī" of Pāṇini, a book of succinct Sūtras that meticulously define the language and grammar of Sanskrit and lay the foundations of what is hereafter the normative form of Sanskrit (and thus, defines Classical Sanskrit). After Pāṇini, other influential works in this field were the "Vārttikakāra" of Kātyāyana, the of the grammarian Patañjali and Bhartṛhari's "Vākyapadīya" (a work on grammar and philosophy of language).


title: Sanskrit literature

text: Over time, different grammatical schools developed. There was a tradition of Jain grammarians and Buddhist grammarians and a later tradition of Paninian grammarians.