Indian literature

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent u
ntil 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22
officially recognized languages.
All dates about the ancient Indian literature are not only uncertain, but are co
ntested. European scholars from the 18th century onwards estimated dates of vari
ous texts based on methods that Indian scholars consider arbitrary. The earliest
works of Indian literature were orally transmitted. Sanskrit literature begins
with the oral literature of the Rig Veda a collection of sacred hymns dating to
the period 15001200 BCE. The Sanskrit epics Ramayana andMahabharata appeared towa
rds the end of the first millennium BCE. Classical Sanskrit literature developed
rapidly during the first few centuries of the first millennium BCE,[1] as did t
he Tamil Sangam literature, and the Pli Canon. In the medieval period, literature
in Kannada and Telugu appeared in the 9th and 11th centuries respectively.[2] L
ater, literature in Marathi, Odia, Bengali, various dialects of Hindi, Persian a
nd Urdu began to appear as well. Early in the 20th century, Bengali poet Rabindr
anath Tagore became India's first Nobel laureate. In contemporary Indian literat
ure, there are two major literary awards; these are the Sahitya Akademi Fellowsh
ip and the Jnanpith Award. Eight Jnanpith Awards each have been awarded in Hindi
and Kannada, followed by five in Bengali and Malayalam, four in Odia, three in
Gujarati, Marathi, Telugu and Urdu,[3][4] two each in Assamese and Tamil, and on
e in Sanskrit.
GLOSSARY
Indian Subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent or the subcontinent is a southern region of Asia, mostly
situated on the Indian Plate and projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean fr
om the Himalayas. Definitions of the extent of the Indian subcontinent differ bu
t it usually includes the core lands of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh; Nepal,
Bhutan, and Sri Lanka, and the Maldives are often included as well. The region i
s also called by a number of other names including South Asia, a name that is in
creasingly popular.
Republic of India
India, officially the Republic of India (Bhrat Gaarjya), is a country in South Asia
. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country wi
th over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. India
is a federal constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system consi
sting of 29 states and 7 union territories. A pluralistic, multilingual, and mul
ti-ethnic society, the country is also home to a diversity of wildlife in a vari
ety of protected habitats. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian
Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land
borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; a
nd Myanmar (Burma) and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in
the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nic
obar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilization and a region of historic trade rou

tes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial
and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four major religionsHinduism,
Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhismoriginated here, whereas Zoroastrianism and the Abr
ahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the first millen
nium CE and also shaped the region's diverse culture. Gradually brought under th
e administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century a
nd administered directly by the United Kingdom after the Indian Rebellion of 185
7, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence
led by Mahatma Gandhi that was marked by non-violent resistance. Upon the promul
gation of its constitution, India became a republic on 26 January 1950.
Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the fastest
-growing major economies and is considered a newly industrialized country. The I
ndian economy is the world's seventh-largest by nominal GDP and third-largest by
purchasing power parity (PPP). It has the third-largest standing army in the wo
rld and ranks ninth in military expenditure among nations, while being recognize
d as a nuclear weapons state and regional power. However, it continues to face t
he challenges of widespread poverty, corruption, malnutrition and inadequate pub
lic health.
Languages of India
There are several languages in India belonging to different language families, t
he major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by 75% of Indians, the Dravi
dian languages spoken by 20% of Indians and other languages by rest of Indians.
Other languages spoken in India belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, a few
other minor language families and isolates.:283 More than three millennia of la
nguage contact has led to significant mutual influence among the four predominan
t language families in mainland India and South Asia.
The Constitution of India does not give any language the status of national lang
uage. The official language of the Union Government of the Republic of India is
Hindi in the Devanagari script. The Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution l
ists 22 languages, which have been referred to as scheduled languages and given
recognition, status and official encouragement. In addition, the Government of I
ndia has awarded the distinction of classical language to Tamil, Sanskrit, Kanna
da, Telugu, Malayalam and Odia.
According to Census of India of 2001, India has 122 major languages and 1599 oth
er languages. However, figures from other sources vary, primarily due to differe
nces in definition of the terms "language" and "dialect". The 2001 Census record
ed 30 languages which were spoken by more than a million native speakers and 122
which were spoken by more than 10,000 people.[8] Two contact languages have pla
yed an important role in the history of India: Persian and English. Persian was
the court language during the Mughal period in India. It reigned as an administr
ative language for several centuries until the era of British colonisation. Up t
ill now, English is an important language in India. It is used in higher educati
on and in some areas of the Indian government. Hindi, the most widely spoken lan
guage in India today, serves as the lingua franca across much of North and Centr
al India.[12] However, there have been anti-Hindi agitations in South India, mos
t notably in the state of Tamil Nadu (anti-Hindi agitations of Tamil Nadu). Ther
e is also opposition in non-Hindi belt states towards any perceived imposition o
f Hindi in these areas.
Sanskrit Literature
Literature in Sanskrit begins with the spoken or sung literature of the Vedas fr
om the mid-2nd millennium BCE, and continues with the oral tradition of the Sans
krit epics of Iron Age India; the golden age of Classical Sanskrit literature da
tes to Late Antiquity (roughly the 3rd to 8th centuries CE). Indian literary pro

duction saw a late bloom in the 11th century before declining after 1100 CE, has
tened by the Islamic conquest of India, due to the destruction of ancient seats
of learning such as the universities at Taxila and Nalanda. There are contempora
ry efforts towards revival, with events like the All-India Sanskrit Festival (si
nce 2002) holding composition contests.
Given its extensive use in religious literature, primarily in Hinduism, and the
fact that most modern Indian languages have been directly derived from or strong
ly influenced by Sanskrit, the language and its literature is of great importanc
e in Indian culture akin to that of Latin in European culture. Some Sanskrit lit
erature such as the Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali and the Upanishads were translated
into Arabic and Persian, most significantly by the emperor Akbar. The Panchatant
ra was also translated into Persian.
Rig Veda
The Rigveda is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns. It is one o
f the four canonical sacred texts (ruti) of Hinduism known as the Vedas. The text
is a collection of 1,028 hymns and 10,600 verses, organized into ten books (Man
dalas). The hymns are dedicated to Rigvedic deities.
The Rigveda begins with a small book addressed to deity Agni, Indra and other go
ds, all arranged according to decreasing total number of hymns in each deity col
lection; for each deity series the hymns progress from longer to shorter ones; y
et, the number of hymns per book increases; finally, the meter is systematically
arranged from jagati and tristubh to anustubh and gayatri as the text progresse
s. In terms of substance, the hymns predominantly discuss cosmology and praise d
eities in the earliest composed eight books, shifting in books 1 and 10, that we
re added last, to philosophical or speculative questions about the origin of the
universe and the nature of god, the virtue of Dna (charity) in society, and othe
r metaphysical issues in its hymns.
Rigveda is one of the oldest extant texts in any Indo-European language.[10] Phi
lological and linguistic evidence indicate that the Rigveda was composed in the
north-western region of the Indian subcontinent, most likely between c. 15001200
BC, though a wider approximation of c. 17001100 BC has also been given.
Some of its verses continue to be recited during Hindu rites of passage celebrat
ions such as weddings and religious prayers, making it probably the world's olde
st religious text in continued use.
Ramayana
The Ramayana is a Sanskrit epic poem ascribed to the Hindu sage and Sanskrit poe
t Valmiki. It is regarded as one of the two great works of Indian literature, al
ong with the Mahabharata. The Ramayana also plays an important role in Hindu lit
erature (smti). It depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characte
rs like the ideal father, the ideal servant, the ideal brother, the ideal wife a
nd the ideal king. The name Ramayana is a tatpurusha compound of Rma and ayana ("
going, advancing"), translating to "Rama's Journey". The Ramayana consists of 24
,000 verses in seven books (kas) and 500 cantos (sargas) and tells the story of Ram
a (the seventh avatar of the Hindu supreme-god Vishnu), whose wife Sita is abduc
ted by Ravana, the king of Lanka (current day Sri Lanka). Incidentally the first
letter of every 1000 verses (total 24) make the Gayatri mantra. Thematically, t
he Ramayana explores human values and the concept of dharma.
Verses in the Ramayana are written in a 32-syllable meter called anuubh. The Ramay
ana was an important influence on later Sanskrit poetry and Hindu life and cultu
re. Like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana is not just a story: it presents the teac
hings of ancient Hindu sages in narrative allegory, interspersing philosophical

and devotional elements. The characters Rama, Sita, Lakshman, Bharata, Hanuman a
nd Ravana are all fundamental to the cultural consciousness of India, Nepal and
many south-east Asian countries such as Thailand and Indonesia.
There are other versions of the Ramayana in Indian languages, besides Buddhist a
nd Jain adaptations; and also Cambodian, Indonesian, Filipino, Thai, Lao, Burmes
e, and Malaysian versions of the tale.
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata or Mahbhrata (US /mhbrt/;[1] UK / mhbrt/;[2] Sanskrit:
he two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the Ramayana.[3]
The Mahabharata is an epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the
Kaurava and the Pandava princes. It also contains philosophical and devotional
material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or purusharthas (12.1
61). Among the principal works and stories in the Mahabharata are the Bhagavad G
ita, the story of Damayanti, an abbreviated version of the Ramayana, and the Ris
hyasringa, often considered as works in their own right.
Traditionally, the authorship of the Mahabharata is attributed to Vyasa. There h
ave been many attempts to unravel its historical growth and compositional layers
. The oldest preserved parts of the text are thought to be not much older than a
round 400 BCE, though the origins of the epic probably fall between the 8th and
9th centuries BCE. The text probably reached its final form by the early Gupta p
eriod (c. 4th century CE). The title may be translated as "the great tale of the
Bhrata dynasty". According to the Mahabharata itself, the tale is extended from
a shorter version of 24,000 verses called simply Bhrata.
The Mahabharata is the longest known epic poem and has been described as "the lo
ngest poem ever written". Its longest version consists of over 100,000 shloka or
over 200,000 individual verse lines (each shloka is a couplet), and long prose
passages. About 1.8 million words in total, the Mahabharata is roughly ten times
the length of the Iliad and the Odyssey combined, or about four times the lengt
h of the Ramayana. W. J. Johnson has compared the importance of the Mahabharata
in the context of world civilization to that of the Bible, the works of Shakespe
are, the works of Homer, Greek drama, or the Qur'an.

Tamil Literature
Tamil literature (Tamil:
) refers to the literature in the Tamil language. Tam
as a rich and long literary tradition spanning more than two thousand years. The
oldest extant works show signs of maturity indicating an even longer period of
evolution. Contributors to the Tamil literature are mainly from Tamil people fro
m South India, including the land now comprising Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Sri Lankan
Tamils from Sri Lanka, and from Tamil diaspora. The history of Tamil literature
follows the history of Tamil Nadu, closely following the social, political and c
ultural trends of various periods. The early Sangam literature, starting from th
e period of 2nd century BCE, contain anthologies of various poets dealing with m
any aspects of life, including love, war, social values and religion. This was f
ollowed by the early epics and moral literature, authored by Hindu, Jain and Bud
dhist authors, lasting up to the 5th century CE. From the 6th to 12th century CE
, the Tamil devotional poems written by Nayanmars (sages of Shaivism) and (Alvar
s, sages of Vaishnavism) heralded the great Bhakti movement which later engulfed
the entire Indian subcontinent. It is during this era that some of the grandest
of Tamil literary classics like Kambaramayanam and Periya Puranam were authored
and many poets were patronized by the imperial Chola and Pandya empires. The la
ter medieval period saw many assorted minor literary works and also contribution
s by a few Muslim and European authors. By having the most ancient non-Sanskriti
zed Indian literature, Tamil literature is unique and thus has become the subjec
t of study by scholars who wish to delineate the non-Aryan and pre-Aryan strands

in Indian culture.
A revival of Tamil literature took place from the late 19th century when works o
f religious and philosophical nature were written in a style that made it easier
for the common people to enjoy. The modern Tamil literary movement started with
Subramania Bharathi, the mutlifaceted Indian Nationalist poet and author, and w
as quickly followed up by many who began to utilize the power of literature in i
nfluencing the masses. With growth of literacy, Tamil prose began to blossom and
mature. Short stories and novels began to appear. Modern Tamil Literary critici
sm also evolved. The popularity of Tamil Cinema has also interacted with Tamil l
iterature in some mutually enriching ways.
Sangam Literature
The Sangam period is the period in the history of ancient southern India (known
as the Tamilakam) spanning from c. 300 BCE to 300 CE. This collection contains 2
381 poems composed by 473 poets, some 102 of whom remain anonymous. The period d
uring which these poems were composed is called the Sangam period, referring to
the prevalent Sangam legends claiming literary academies lasting thousands of ye
ars, giving the name to the corpus of literature. Sangam literature is primarily
secular, dealing with everyday themes in a Tamilakam context.
The poems belonging to Sangam literature were composed by Tamil poets, both men
and women, from various professions and classes of society. These poems were lat
er collected into various anthologies, edited, and with colophons added by antho
logists and annotators around 1000 AD. Sangam literature fell out of popular mem
ory soon thereafter, until they were rediscovered in the 19th century by scholar
s such as Arumuga Navalar, C. W. Thamotharampillai and U. V. Swaminatha Iyer.
Pali Canon
Pli Canon (Pali: Tipitaka) is the standard collection of scriptures in the Therav
adan Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pli language. It is the first known
and most complete extant early Buddhist canon.
It was composed in North India, and preserved orally until it was committed to w
riting during the Fourth Buddhist Council in Sri Lanka in 29 BCE, approximately
four hundred and fifty four years after the death of Gautama Buddha.
The Pli Canon falls into three general categories, called pitaka (from Pali piaka,
meaning "basket", referring to the receptacles in which the palm-leaf manuscrip
ts were kept). Because of this, the canon is traditionally known as the Tipiaka (
Sanskrit: Tripiaka; "three baskets"). The three pitakas are as follows:
Vinaya Pitaka ("Discipline Basket"), dealing with rules for monks and nuns
Sutta Pitaka (Sutra/Sayings Basket), discourses, mostly ascribed to the Buddha,
but some to disciples
Abhidhamma Pitaka, variously described as philosophy, psychology, metaphysics, e
tc.
The Vinaya Pitaka and the Sutta Pitaka are remarkably similar to the works of ot
her early Buddhist schools. The Abhidhamma Pitaka, however, is a strictly Therav
ada collection, and has little in common with the Abhidhamma works recognized by
other Buddhist schools.
Kannada Literature
Kannada literature is the corpus of written forms of the Kannada language, a mem
ber of the Dravidian family spoken mainly in the Indian state of Karnataka and w
ritten in the Kannada script.

Attestations in literature span something like one and a half millennia, with so
me specific literary works surviving in rich manuscript traditions, extending fr
om the 9th century to the present. The Kannada language is usually divided into
three linguistic phases: Old (4501200 CE), Middle (12001700 CE) and Modern (1700pre
sent); and its literary characteristics are categorised as Jain, Veerashaiva and
Vaishnavarecognising the prominence of these three faiths in giving form to, and
fostering, classical expression of the language, until the advent of the modern
era. Although much of the literature prior to the 18th century was religious, s
ome secular works were also committed to writing.
Starting with the Kavirajamarga (c. 850), and until the middle of the 12th centu
ry, literature in Kannada was almost exclusively composed by the Jains, who foun
d eager patrons in the Chalukya, Ganga, Rashtrakuta, Hoysala and the Yadava king
s. Although the Kavirajamarga, authored during the reign of King Amoghavarsha, i
s the oldest extant literary work in the language, it has been generally accepte
d by modern scholars that prose, verse and grammatical traditions must have exis
ted earlier.
The Veerashaiva movement of the 12th century created new literature which flouri
shed alongside the Jain works. With the waning of Jain influence during the 14th
-century Vijayanagara empire, a new Vaishnava literature grew rapidly in the 15t
h century; the devotional movement of the itinerant Haridasa saints marked the h
igh point of this era.
After the decline of the Vijayanagara empire in the 16th century, Kannada litera
ture was supported by the various rulers, including the Wodeyars of the Kingdom
of Mysore and the Nayakas of Keladi. In the 19th century, some literary forms, s
uch as the prose narrative, the novel, and the short story, were borrowed from E
nglish literature. Modern Kannada literature is now widely known and recognised:
during the last half century, Kannada language authors have received eight Jnan
pith awards, 58 Sahitya Akademi awards and 9 Sahitya Akademi Fellowships in Indi
a.
Telugu Literature
Telugu literature or Telugu Sahityam is the body of works written in the Telugu
language. It consists of poems, novels, short stories, dramas and puranas. Telug
u literature can be traced back to the early 11th century period when Mahabharat
a was first translated to Telugu from Sanskrit by Nannaya. It flourished under t
he rule of the Vijayanagar empire, where Telugu was one of the empire's official
languages.
Telugu split from Proto-Dravidian between 1500-1000 BC. So, Telugu became a dist
inct language by the time any literary activity began to appear in the Tamil lan
d, along with Parji, Kolami, Nayaki and Gadaba languages.
Apparently Andhras adopted a form of Prakrit which, in course of development, be
came the immediate ancestor of Telugu literature. Literary texts in Telugu may b
e lexically Sanskrit or Sanskritized to an enormous extent, perhaps seventy perc
ent or more and every Telugu grammatical rule is laboriously deduced from a Sans
krit canon. Prakrit and Telugu alphabet are similar and exhibit one on one corre
spondence.
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 7 August 1941), sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali
polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with
Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of Gitanj
ali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the fir

st non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. In translation his

poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and m
agical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. Tagore introduced new pros
e and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, th
ereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was hig
hly influential in introducing the best of Indian culture to the West and vice v
ersa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of the mod
ern Indian subcontinent.
A Pirali Brahmin from Calcutta with ancestral gentry roots in Jessore, Tagore wr
ote poetry as an eight-year-old. At age sixteen, he released his first substanti
al poems under the pseudonym Bhnusiha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by lite
rary authorities as long-lost classics. By 1877 he graduated to his first short
stories and dramas, published under his real name. As a humanist, universalist i
nternationalist, and strident nationalist he denounced the British Raj and advoc
ated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he adv
anced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of t
exts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy endures also in the institution he
founded, Visva-Bharati University.
Tagore modernised Bengali art by spurning rigid classical forms and resisting li
nguistic strictures. His novels, stories, songs, dance-dramas, and essays spoke
to topics political and personal. Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced)
and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse
, short stories, and novels were acclaimedor pannedfor their lyricism, colloquiali
sm, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two
nations as national anthems: India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shona
r Bangla. Some sources state that Sri Lanka's National Anthem was written by Tag
ore whilst others state it was inspired by the work of Tagore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwb0Y9f62Bk