Indian literature spans across numerous languages and dialects. Have a glance at different aspects of literature in India!
Indian Literature
Indian literature is generally believed to be
the oldest in the world. With vast cultural diversities, there are
around two dozen officially recognized languages in India. Over
thousands of years, huge literature has been produced in various
languages in India. It is to be noted that a large part of Indian
literature revolves around devotion, drama, poetry and songs.
Sanskrit language dominated the early Indian literary scene whereas
languages like Prakrit and Pali too had fair share as they were the
languages of the common people.
It is interesting to note that the Hindu literary traditions have
dominated a large part of Indian culture. These traditions are well
reflected in great works like Vedas and epics such as Ramayana and
Mahabharata. Treatises like Vaastu Shastra (architecture),
Arthashastra (political science) and Kamsutra are true reflection of
the Indian literary excellence.
Early Hindi literature, in dialects like Avadhi and Brai, began
around religious and philosophical poetry in medieval period. Sant
Kabir and Tulsidas were the greatest exponents of the Hindi
literature during this period. With the passage of time, the Khadi
boli (dialect) became more prominent and saw a great upsurge, which
continues to this day.
During the medieval period, Muslim literary traditions dominated a
large part of Indian literature and saw flourishing of Muslim
literature. Muslim rule during the medieval times saw rapid growth
and development of Persian and Urdu literature in India. A huge
variety of literature spanning across history, culture and politics
was written in this period.
With the coming of the British in India, works started to be
written in English language. As more and more Indians became well
versed with the English language, the number of works in English
literature began to grow. During the contemporary times, numerous
Indian authors have made their mark on the world English literature
scene. Some of the most noted Indian born or Indian writers are R.
K. Narayan, Vikram Seth, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Amitav
Ghosh, Khushwant Singh, Anita Desai and Jhumpa Lahiri.
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