Indian literature
Encyclopedia
Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent
until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognized languages
.
The earliest works of Indian literature were oraly
transmitted. Sanskrit literature
begins with the Rig Veda a collection of sacred hymns dating to the period 1500–1200 BCE. The Sanskrit epics Ramayana
and Mahabharata
appeared towards the end of the first millennium BCE. Classical Sanskrit
literature flourished in the first few centuries of the first millennium CE, as did the Tamil
Sangam literature
, and the Pāli Canon
.
In the medieval period, literature in Kannada
and Telugu
appeared in the 5th and 11th centuries respectively. Later, literature in Marathi
, Bengali
, various dialects of Hindi
, Persian
and Urdu
began to appear as well. Early in the 20th century, Bengali poet
Rabindranath Tagore
became India's first Nobel laureate
. In contemporary Indian literature, there are two major literary awards; these are the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
and the Jnanpith Award
. Eight Jnanpith awards each have been awarded in Hindi and Kannada
, followed by five in Bengali
, four in Malayalam
, and three in Gujarati
, Marathi
and Urdu.
include the holy Hindu texts, such as the core Vedas
. Other examples include the Sulba Sutras
, which are some of the earliest texts on geometry
..
and Valmiki
's Ramayana
, written in Epic Sanskrit, are regarded as the greatest Sanskrit epics.
wrote two epics: Raghuvamsha (Dynasty of Raghu) and Kumarasambhava
(Birth of Kumar Kartikeya); they were written in Classical Sanskrit rather than Epic Sanskrit. Other examples of works written in Classical Sanskrit include the Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi which standardized the grammar and phonetics of Classical Sanskrit. The Laws of Manu is an important text in Hinduism. Kālidāsa
is often considered to be the greatest playwright in Sanskrit literature, and one of the greatest poets in Sanskrit literature, whose Recognition of Shakuntala
and Meghaduuta are the most famous Sanskrit plays. He occupies the same position in Sanskrit literature that Shakespeare
occupies in English literature
. Some other famous plays were Mricchakatika by Shudraka, Svapna Vasavadattam by Bhasa
, and Ratnavali by Sri Harsha. Later poetic works include Geeta Govinda by Jayadeva
. Some other famous works are Chanakya
's Arthashastra
and Vatsyayana
's Kamasutra.
languages were the Jain Prakrit
(Ardhamagadhi), Pali
, Maharashtri
and Shauraseni.
One of the earliest extant Prakrit works is Hāla
's anthology of poems in Maharashtri, the Gāhā Sattasaī, dating to the 3rd to 5th century CE. Kālidāsa
and Harsha
also used Maharashtri in some of their plays and poetry. In Jainism
, many Svetambara
works were written in Maharashtri.
Many of Aśvaghoṣa
's plays were written in Shauraseni as were a sizable number of Jain works and Rajasekhara
's Karpuramanjari. Canto 13 of the Bhaṭṭikāvya is written in what is called "like the vernacular" (bhāṣāsama), that is, it can be read in two languages simultaneously: Prakrit and Sanskrit
.
literature however was mostly produced outside of the mainland Indian subcontinent
, particularly in Sri Lanka
and Southeast Asia
.
Pali literature includes Buddhist philosophical works, poetry and some grammatical works. Major works in Pali are Jataka tales, Dhammapada
, Atthakatha
, and Mahavamsa
. Some of the major Pali grammarians were Kaccayana, Moggallana and Vararuci
(who wrote Prakrit Prakash).
After the Charyapadas, the period may again be split into (a) Pre-Vaishnavite and (b) Vaishnative sub-periods. The earliest known Assamese writer is Hema Saraswati
, who wrote a small poem "Prahlada Charita". In the time of the King Indranarayana (1350–1365) of Kamatapur the two poets Harihara Vipra and Kaviratna Saraswati composed Asvamedha Parva and Jayadratha Vadha respectively. Another poet named Rudra Kandali translated Drona Parva into Assamese. But the most well-known poet of the Pre-Vaishnavite sub period is Madhav Kandali, who rendered Valmiki's Ramayana into Assamese verse (Kotha Ramayana
, 11th century) under the patronage of Mahamanikya, a Kachari king of Jayantapura.
The most famous modern Assamese writers are Indira Goswami, Nirupama Bargohain, Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya
, Homen Borgohain
, Bhabendra Nath Saikia
, Amulya Barua
, Nabakanta Barua
, Atul Chandra Hazarika
, Nalini Bala Devi, Nirmal Prabha Bordoloi, Mahim Bora
, Arupa Kalita Patangia
, Bhabananda Deka
, Purobi Bormudoi, Mamoni Raisom Goswami
, Arun Sharma, Anuradha Sharma Pujari
, Atulananda Deva Goswami, Hiren Bhattachaya, Roindra Bora etc.
The most internationally famous Bengali
writer is Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore
, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his work "Gitanjali". He wrote the national anthem of India and Bangladesh namely, "Jana Gana Mana" and "Amar Sonar Bangla", respectively. He was the first Asian who won the Nobel Prize.
Rabindranath has written enormous amount of Poems, Songs, Essays, Novels, Plays and Short-stories.
His songs remain popular and are still widely sung in Bengal.
Another poet, one generation younger is equally popular, valuable, and influential
in his country, though virtually unknown in foreign countries: Kazi Nazrul Islam
.
Other famous Indian Bengali writers were Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
,
and Michael Madhusudan Dutt
. Bengali is the second most commonly spoken language in India (after Hindi).
As a result of the Bengal Renaissance
in the 19th and 20th centuries, many of India's most famous, and
relatively recent, literature, poetry, and songs are in Bengali.
In the history of Bengali literature there has been only one path-breaking literary movement by a group of poets and artists who called themselves Hungryalists
and Tulsidas
. In modern times, the Khadi dialect became more prominent and Sanskrit.
Chandrakanta, written by Devaki Nandan Khatri
, is considered to be the first work of prose in Hindi. Munshi Premchand
was the most famous Hindi novelist. The chhayavadi poets include Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala'
, Prem Bajpai, Jaishankar Prasad
, Sumitranandan Pant
, and Mahadevi Varma
. Other renowned poets include Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'
, Maithili Sharan Gupt
, Agyeya, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and Dharmveer Bharti.
Gujarati literature's history may be traced to the 1000 AD.Since then literature has flourished till date. Well known laureates of Gujarati literature are Hemchandracharya, Narsinh Mehta
, Mirabai, Akho
, Premanand Bhatt
, Shamal Bhatt
, Dayaram
, Dalpatram
, Narmad, Govardhanram Tripathi
, Gandhiji, K. M. Munshi
, Umashankar Joshi
, Suresh Joshi
, Pannalal Patel
and Rajendra Keshavlal Shah
.
Gujarat Vidhya Sabha, Gujarat Sahitya Sabha, and Gujarati Sahitya Parishad are Ahmedabad based literary institutions promoting the spread of Gujarati literature.
Umashankar Joshi
, Pannalal Patel
and Rajendra Keshavlal Shah
have won the Jnanpith Award
, the highest literary award in India.
The oldest existing record of Kannada poetry in tripadi metre is the Kappe Arabhatta
record of 700 CE. The folk form of literature began earlier than any other literature in Kannada. "Gajashtaka" of
Shivamara, "Chudamani" of Thumbalacharya are examples of early literature. Kavirajamarga
by King Nripatunga Amoghavarsha
I (850
CE) is the earliest existing literary work in Kannada. It is a writing on literary criticism and poetics meant to standardize various written Kannada dialects used in literature in previous centuries. The book makes reference to Kannada works by early writers such as King Durvinita
of the 6th century and Ravikirti, the author of the Aihole record of 636 CE. An early extant
prose work, the Vaddaradhane by Shivakotiacharya of 900
CE provides an elaborate description of the life of Bhadrabahu of Shravanabelagola
. Since the earliest available Kannada work is one on grammar and a guide of sorts to unify existing variants of Kannada grammar and literary styles, it can be safely assumed that literature in Kannada must have started several centuries earlier.
Pampa
who popularised Champu
style which is unique to Kannada wrote the epic "Vikramarjuna Vijaya
". He also wrote "Adipurana
". Other famous poets like Ponna and Ranna wrote "Shantipurana" and "Ghadayudha" respectively. The jain poet Nagavarma_2 wrote "Kavyavalokana", "Karnatabhashabhushana" and "Vardhamanapurana" . Janna was the author of "Yashodhara Charitha". Rudhrabhatta and Durgashima wrote "Jagannatha Vijaya" and "Panchatantra" respectively. The works of the medieval period are based on Jain
and Hindu
principles. The Vachana Sahitya tradition of the 12th century is purely native and unique in world literature. It is the sum of contributions by all sections of society. Vachanas were pithy comments on that period's social, religious and economic conditions. More importantly, they held a mirror to the seed of social revolution, which caused a radical re-examination of the ideas of caste, creed and religion. Some of the important writers of Vachana literature include Basavanna, Allama Prabhu
and Akka Mahadevi
. Kumara Vyasa
, who wrote the Karnata Bharata Katamanjari, has arguably been the most famous and most influential Kannada writer of the 15th century. The Bhakti movement
gave rise to Dasa Sahitya
around the 15th century which significantly contributed to the evolution of Carnatic music
in its present form. This period witnessed great Haridasa
s like Purandara Dasa
who has been aptly called the Pioneer of Carnatic music, Kanaka Dasa
, Vyasathirtha and Vijaya Dasa
. Modern Kannada in the 20th century has been influenced by many movements, notably Navodaya, Navya, Navyottara, Dalita and Bandaya. Contemporary Kannada literature has been highly successful in reaching people of all classes in society. Works of Kannada literature have received Eight Jnanpith awards, which is the highest number awarded for the literature in any Indian language. It has also received forty-seven Sahitya Academy awards.
which commenced in 825 AD, Malayalam literature remained in preliminary stage. During this time, Malayalam literature consisted mainly of various genres of songs. Ramacharitham written by Cheeramakavi is a collection of poems written at the end of preliminary stage in Malayalam literaure's evolution, and is the oldest Malayalam book available. Thunchaththu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan
(17th century) is considered as the Father of the Malayalam language
, because of his influence on the acceptance of the Malayalam alphabet and his extremely popular poetic works like Adhyathmaramayanam
. Several noted works were written during the 19th century, but it was in the 20th century the Malayalam literary movement came to prominence. Malayalam literature flourished under various genres and today it is a fully developed part of Indian literature.One main poet in Malayalam literature is Vishnu Raj,Santha Kumari,and Sandhya.S,Sreedharan nambiar.
literature began with saint-poets like Dnyaneshwar
, Tukaram
, Ramdas
, and Eknath
. Modern Marathi literature was marked by a theme of social reform. Well-known figures from this phase include Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Lokhitwadi, and others. Prominent modern literary figures include Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar
, P.L. Deshpande, Vijay Tendulkar
, Indira Sant
and Vishnu Vaman Shirvadakar (Kavi Kusumagraj).
din mor
Early Marathi Literature (before 1800 CE)
Though the earliest known Marathi inscription found at the foot of the statue at Shravanabelgola in Karnataka is dated c. 983 CE, the Marathi literature actually started with the religious writings by the saint-poets belonging to Mahanubhava and Warkari sects. Mahanubhava saints used prose as their main medium, while Warkari saints preferred poetry as the medium. The early saint-poets were Mukundaraj who wrote Vivekasindhu, Dnyaneshwar (1275–1296) (who wrote Amrutanubhav and Bhawarthadeepika, which is popularly known as Dnyaneshwari, a 9000-couplets long commentary on the Bhagavad Gita) and Namdev. They were followed by the Warkari saint-poet Eknath (1528–1599). Mukteswar translated the great epic Mahabharata into Marathi. Social reformers like saint-poet Tukaram transformed Marathi into an enriched literary language. Ramdas's (1608–1681) Dasbodh and Manache Shlok are well-known products of this tradition.
In the 18th century, some well-known works like Yatharthadeepika (by Vaman Pandit), Naladamayanti Swayamvara (by Raghunath Pandit), Pandava Pratap, Harivijay, Ramvijay (by Shridhar Pandit) and Mahabharata (by Moropant) were produced. However, the most versatile and voluminous writer among the poets was Moropanta (1729–1794) whose Mahabharata was the first epic poem in Marathi. The historical section of the old Marathi literature was unique as it contained both prose and poetry. The prose section contained the Bakhars that were written after the foundation of the Maratha kingdom by Shivaji. The poetry section contained the Povadas and the Katavas composed by the Shahirs. The period from 1794 to 1818 is regarded as the closing period of the Old Marathi literature and the beginning of the Modern Marathi literature.
[edit] Modern Period (after 1800)
The period of the late 19th century in Maharashtra is the period of colonial modernity. Like the corresponding periods in the other Indian languages, this was the period dominated by the English educated intellectuals. It was the age of prose and reason. It was the period of reformist diadicticism and a great intellectual ferment.
The first English Book was translated in Marathi in 1817. The first Marathi newspaper started in 1835. Many books on social reforms were written by Baba Padamji (Yamuna Paryatana, 1857), Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Lokhitwadi, Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade, Hari Narayan Apte (1864–1919) etc. Lokmanya Tilak's newspaper Kesari, set up in 1880, provided a platform for sharing literary views. Marathi at this time was efficiently aided by Marathi Drama. Here, there also was a different genre called 'Sangit Natya' or Musicals. The first play was V.A. Bhave's Sita Swayamvar in 1843 Later Kirioskar (1843–85) and G.B. Deval (1854-19l6) brought a romantic aroma and social content. But Krishnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar (1872~1948) with his banned play Kichaka-Vadh (1910) set the trend of political playwriting. Later on this "stage" was ably served by stalwarts like Ram Ganesh Gadkari and Prahlad Keshav Atre.The Drama Flourished in 60s and 70s with few of the best Indian actors available to take on a variety of protagonists. Mohan Agashe, Sriram Lagoo, Kashinath Ghanekar, Prabhakar Panshikar playing many immortal characters penned by greats like Vasant Kanetkar, Kusumagraj, vijay Tendulkar to name a few. This Drama movement was ably supported by Marathi films which did not enjoy a continuous success. Starting with V.Shantaram and before him the pioneer DadaSaheb Phalke, Marathi cinema went on to influence contemporary Hindi cinema. Director Raja Paranjape, Music director Sudhir Phadke, lyricist G.Madgulkar and actor Raja Gosavi came together to give quite a few hits in later period. Marathi Language as spoken by people here was throughout influenced by drama and cinema along with contemporary literature. Modern Marathi poetry began with Mahatma Jyotiba Phule's compositions. The later poets like Keshavsuta, Balakavi, Govindagraj, and the poets of Ravi Kiran Mandal like Madhav Julian wrote poetry which was influenced by the Romantic and Victorian English poetry. It was largely sentimental and lyrical.Prahlad Keshav Atre, the renowned satirist and a politician wrote a parody of this sort of poetry in his collection Jhenduchi Phule. Sane Guruji (1899–1950) contributed to the children's literature in Marathi. His major works are Shyamchi Aai (Shyam's Mother), Astik (Believer), Gode Shevat (The Sweet Ending) etc. He translated and simplified many Western Classics and published them in a book of stories titled Gode Goshti (Sweet Stories). Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar (1889–1976)'s Yayati won him the Jnanpith Award for 1975. He also wrote many other novels, short stories, essays etc. His major works are Don Dhruv (Two Poles), Ulka (Meteorite), Krounchavadh, Jalalela Mohar, Amrutvel.
The major paradigm shift in sensibility began in the forties with the avant-garde modernist poetry of B.S. Mardhekar. In the mid fifties, the 'little magazine movement' gained momentum. It published writings which were non-conformist, radical and experimental. Dalit literary movement also gained strength due to the little magazine movement. This radical movement was influenced by the philosophy of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and challenged the literary establishment which was largely middle class, urban, and upper caste people. The little magazine movement threw up many excellent writers. Bhalchandra Nemade is a well known novelist, critic and poet. Dr.Sharad Rane is a well known bal-sahityakar. The poetry of Arun Kolatkar, Dilip Chitre, Namdeo Dhasal, Vasant Abaji Dahake, Manohar Oak and many other modernist poets is complex, rich and provokative. Bhau Padhye, Vilas Sarang, Shyam Manohar, Suhas Shirvalkar and Visharm Bedekar are well known fiction writers.
The another major paradigm shift in Marathi sensibility began in the nineties with the another avant-garde modernist poetry of poets associated with Abhidhanantar and Shabadavedh. In the post nineties, this 'new little magazine movement' gained momentum and poets like Manya Joshi, Hemant Divate, Sachin Ketkar, Mangesh Narayanrao Kale, Saleel Wagh, Mohan Borse, Nitin Kulkarni, Nitin Arun Kulkarni, Varjesh Solanki, Sandeep Deshpande, Vasant Gurjar touched the new areas of post-modern life. The poetry collections broughtout by Abhidhanantar Prakashan and the regular issues of the magazine Abhidhanantar is taking Marathi poetry to the global standards.[1] Another leading wave in contemporary Marathi poetry is the poetry of non-urban poets like Arun Kale, Bhujang Meshram, Pravin Bandekar, Shrikant Deshmukh, Veerdhaval Parab etc. They insist on native values in their poetry.
Marathi is also one of the few Indian languages (and possibly the only one) where there is a stream of science fiction literature. A few well known Marathi science fiction authors are Dr. Jayant Narlikar, Dr Bal Phondke, Subodh Javadekar, and Laxman Londhe.
Many writers like Dnyaneshwar Mulay have added new dimensions and enriched Marathi with their literary talent. His autobiographical book 'Maati Pankh Aani Aakaash' was considered to be among the best ten autobiographies of last 100 years in Marathi by a survey conducted by Antarnaad, a respected martahi literary magazine. His other books are 'Russia Navya Dishanche Amantran' a book that captures post 1992 Russia. It is popular because it is probably the only work of its kind in Marathi. His recent poetry collection 'Swatahteel Awakash' won the state literary award of governmment of Maharashtra. He writes regular columns in Marathi dailies like Lokmat and Loksatta and Sadhana, weekly published from Pune.
who lived in the 14th century is known as the Vyasa
of Orissa. He translated the Mahabharata
into Oriya. In fact the language was initially standardised through a process of translation of classical Sanskrit texts like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana
and the Srimad Bhagabatam. Jagannatha Das translated the Srimad Bhagabatam into Oriya and his translation standardized the written form of the language. Oriya has had a strong tradition of poetry, especially that of devotional poetry. Some other eminent ancient Oriya Poets include Kabi Samrat Upendra Bhanja and Kabi Surya Bala Dev Ratha.
In 19th century, Fakir Mohan Senapati
(1843–1918), Gouri Shankar Ray, Gopal Chandra Praharaj, Pandit Nilmani Vidyaratna, Kabibar Radhanath Ray were prominent figure in prose and poetry writinga of Oriya Literature
. In 20th century Godabarish Mohapatra, Kalindi Charana Panigrahi, Kanhu Charan Mohanty (1906–1994), Gopinath Mohanty, Sachchidananda Routray, Surendra Mohanty, Manoj Das
, Kishori Charan Das, Sitakanta Mohapatra, Ramakanta Rath, Binapani Mohanty, Jagadish Mohanty
, Sarojini Sahoo
, Rajendra Kishore Panda, Padmaj Pal, Ramchandra Behera, Pratibha Satpathy are few names who made the Oriya Literature
and Oriya language
worthy.
Punjab provided them the perfect environment in which to compose the ancient texts. The Rig-Veda is first example in which references are made to the rivers, flora and fauna of Punjab. The Punjabi literary tradition is generally conceived to commence with Fariduddin Ganjshakar (1173–1266).[2]. Farid's mostly spiritual and devotional verse were compiled after his death in the Adi Granth.
The Janamsakhis, stories on the life and legend of Guru Nanak (1469–1539), are early examples of Punjabi prose literature. Nanak himself composed Punjabi verse incorporating vocabulary from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and other Indic languages as characteristic of the Gurbani tradition. Sufi poetry developed under Shah Hussain (1538–1599), Sultan Bahu (1628–1691), Shah Sharaf (1640–1724), Ali Haider (1690–1785), and Bulleh Shah (1680–1757). In contrast to Persian poets who had preferred the ghazal for poetic expression, Punjabi Sufi poets tended to compose in the Kafi.[3].
Punjabi Sufi poetry also influenced other Punjabi literary traditions particularly the Punjabi Qissa, a genre of romantic tragedy which also derived inspiration from Indic, Persian and Qur'anic sources. The Qissa of Heer Ranjha by Waris Shah (1706–1798) is among the most popular of Punjabi qisse. Other popular stories include Sohni Mahiwal by Fazal Shah, Mirza Sahiba by Hafiz Barkhudar (1658–1707), Sassi Punnun by Hashim Shah (1735?-1843?), and Qissa Puran Bhagat by Qadaryar (1802–1892).
The Victorian novel, Elizabethan drama, free verse and Modernism entered Punjabi literature through the introduction of British education during colonial rule. The setting up of a Christian mission at Ludhiana in 1835 (where a printing press was installed for using Gurmukhi fonts, and which also issued the first Punjabi grammar in 1838), the publication of a Punjabi dictionary by Reverend J. Newton in 1854 and the ripple-down effect of the strengthening and modernizing the education system under the patronage of the Singh Sabha Movement in 1860s, were some of the developments that made it possible for ‘modernism’ to emerge in Punjabi literary culture. It needs to be pointed out here that ‘modernism’ is being used here as an umbrella term to cover a whole range of developments in the Punjabi literary culture, starting with the break from tradition or the past to a commitment to progressive ideology, from the experimental nature of the avant-garde to the newness of the forward-looking.
literature has a rich and long literary tradition spanning more than 2000 years. Tolkaappiyam has been credited as the oldest work in Tamil available today. The history of Tamil literature follows the history of Tamil Nadu
, closely following the social and political trends of various periods. The secular nature of the early Sangam
poetry gave way to works of religious and didactic nature during the Middle Ages. Tirukkural
is a fine example of such work on human behaviour and political morals. A wave of religious revival helped generate a great volume of literary output by Saivite and Vaishnavite authors. Jain and Buddhist authors during the medieval period and Muslim
and European authors later also contributed to the growth of Tamil literature.
A revival of Tamil literature took place from the late 19th century when works of religious and philosophical nature were written in a style that made it easier for the common people to enjoy. Nationalist poets began to utilise the power of poetry in influencing the masses. Short stories and novels began to appear. The popularity of Tamil Cinema
has also provided opportunities for modern Tamil poets to emerge.
The earliest written literature dates back to the 7th century. The epic literary tradition started with Nannayya
who is acclaimed as Telugu's Aadikavi meaning the first poet. He belongs to the tenth or 11th century.
Vemana
was a prince, also called Pedakomati or Vemaa Reddy, who lived in the 14th century and wrote poems in the language of the common man. He questioned the prevailing values and conventions and religious practices in his poems. His philosophy made him a unique poet of the masses.
Viswanadha Satyanarayana (Veyipadagalu) (1895–1976), a doyen of conventional yet creative literature, was the first to receive the Jnanpith Award
for Telugu followed by C. Narayana Reddy.
Srirangam Srinivasarao
or Sri Sri (born 1910) was a popular 20th century poet and lyricist. Srisri took the "Telugu literary band wagon that travelled in roads of kings and queens in to that of muddy roads of common man".
Literary Movements:
Old Era:
Telugu literature has been enriched by many literary movements like Veera Shaiva movement which gave birth to dwipada kavitvam (couplets). Bhakti movement which gave us immortal compilations by Annamayya, Kshetrayya
and Tyagaraja and kancharla Gopanna (Ramadasu). The renaissance movement heralded by Vemana stand for the old Telugu literary movements.
New era:
Romantic Movemnet (led by Krishnasashtri, Rayaprolu, Vedula), Progressive Writers Movement, Digambara Kavitvam (Nagnamuni, Cherabanda Raju, Jwalamukhi, Nikhileswar, Bhairavayya and Mahaswapna Revolutionary Writers' Movement, Streevada Kavitvam and Dalita Kavitvam all flourished in Telugu Literature and in fact, Telugu Literature has been the standard bearer of Indian Literature in these respects.
Fiction and Prose literature:
Kadukuri Veeresalingam, is said to be the father of Modern Telugu fiction. Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao laid foundation for the realistic modern Telugu Novel and Short Story, Rachakonda and Kalipatnam carried the flag in to excellency.
Annamaya, Gurajada Appa Rao, Kandukuri
, Devulapalli
, Jashuva
, Unnava Laxminarayana (Malapalli), Bucchi Babu, Tripuraneni Gopichand
and many more had a profound impact on Telugu literature.
and Persian
vocabulary based on the Hindi language resulted in a vast and extremely beloved class of ghazal literature, usually written by Muslims in contexts ranging from romance and society to philosophy and devotion to Allah. Urdu soon became the court language of the Mughals and in its higher forms was once called the "Kohinoor" of Indian languages.
In Urdu literature fiction has also flourished well. Umrao Jaan Ada of Mirza Hadi Ruswa is first significant Urdu novel. Premchand is treated as father of modern Urdu fiction with his novel Godan and short stories like Kafan. The art of short story was further taken ahead by Manto, Bedi, Krishn Chander and a host of highly acclaimed writers.Urdu novel reached further heights in 1960s with novels of Quratul Ain Haider and Abdullah Hussain. Towards the end of 20th century Urdu novel entered into a new phase with trend setter novel MAKAAN
of Paigham Afaqui
. Urdu ghazal has also recently changed its colour with more and more penetration in and synchronization with modern and contemporary issues of life.
from Persia itself was popular, several Indians became major Persian poets, the most notable being Amir Khusro
and in more modern times Allama Iqbal. Much of the older Sanskrit
literature was also translated into Persian. For a time, it remained the court language of the Mughals, soon to be replaced by Urdu. Persian still held its status, despite the spread of Urdu, well into the early years of the British rule in India. Most British officials had to learn Persian on coming to India and concluded their conversations in Persian. In 1837, however, the British, in an effort to expand their influence, made a government ruling to discontinue the use of Persian and commence the use of English instead. Thus started the decline of Persian as the subcontinent's lingua franca, a position to be taken up by the new language of the British Raj
, English. Many modern Indian languages still show signs of heavy Persian influence, most notably Urdu and Hindi.
writer Rabindranath Tagore
, who wrote some of his work originally in English, and did some of his own English translations from Bengali. More recent major writers in English who are either Indian or of Indian origin and derive much inspiration from Indian themes are R. K. Narayan
, Vikram Seth
, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy
, Raja Rao
, Amitav Ghosh
, Rohinton Mistry
, Vikram Chandra
, Mukul Kesavan
, Raj Kamal Jha
, Vikas Swarup
, Khushwant Singh
, Shashi Tharoor
, Nayantara Sehgal, Anita Desai
, Kiran Desai
, Ashok Banker
, Shashi Deshpande
, Jhumpa Lahiri
, Kamala Markandaya, Gita Mehta
, Manil Suri
, Ruskin Bond
, Preeti Shenoy
and Bharati Mukherjee
.
In the 1950s, the Writers Workshop
collective in Calcutta was founded by the poet and essayist P. Lal
to advocate and publish Indian writing in English. The press was the first to publish Pritish Nandy
, Sasthi Brata
, and others; it continues to this day to provide a forum for English writing in India.In modern times, Indian poetry in English was typified by two very different poets. Dom Moraes
, winner of the Hawthornden Prize
at the age of 19 for his first book of poems A Beginning went on to occupy a pre-eminent position among Indian poets writing in English. Nissim Ezekiel
, who came from India's tiny Bene Israel
Jewish community, created a voice and place for Indian poets writing in English and championed their work.
Their contemporaries in English poetry in India were Jayanta Mahapatra
, Gieve Patel
, A. K. Ramanujan
, Arun Kolatkar
, Dilip Chitre
, Eunice De Souza
, Kersi Katrak, P. Lal
and Kamala Das
among several others.
Younger generation of poets writing in English include Rukmini Bhaya Nair
, Makarand Paranjape
Arundhathi Subramaniam
, Ranjit Hoskote
, Sudeep Sen
, Jerry Pinto
among others.
A generation of exiles also sprang from the Indian diaspora. Among these are names like Agha Shahid Ali
, Sujata Bhatt
, Richard Crasta, Yuyutsu Sharma
and Vikram Seth
.
In recent years, English-language writers of Indian origin are being published in the West at an increasing rate.
Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy
, Kiran Desai
and Arvind Adiga have won the prestigious Man Booker Prize
, with Salman Rushdie going on to win the Booker of Bookers.
refers to literature of Languages of North East India, and also the body of work by English-language writers from this region. North-East India
is an under-represented region in many ways. The troubled political climate, the beautiful landscape and the confluence of various ethnic groups perhaps have given rise to a body of writing that is completely different from Indian English Literature. North-East India
was a colonial construct and continues to be one by virtue of having a historically difficult relationship with the Indian nation state.
. It was used mainly for printing religious literature like tracts, hymn books etc.
The first printed newspaper of India was in English, and was called Hicky’s Bengal Gazette. It was edited and published by James Augustus Hicky, an ex-employee of the East India Company. The first issue of this newspaper came out in 1780 and carried only classified advertisements on its front page. It was a weekly newspaper and generally dealt with the arrival and departure of Europeans, timings of steamers, fashionable news from London, Paris and Vienna, and personal news. It attended to the needs of the small European community of Calcutta. Many other Anglo-Indian newspapers emerged after Hicky’s pattern- such as John Bull, Calcutta Journal, Bengal Harkaru. In the year 1781, Hicky’s Bengal Gazette was forced to close down after Hicky published a scandalous story about Warren Hastings, the then Governor-General and his wife.
Later on, another type of newspaper emerged- Indo-Anglian papers. They were English newspapers run by Indians primarily for English educated elite Indians. The first newspaper of this type was Bengal Gazette, started in 1816 by Gangadhar Bhattacharya, a disciple of Raja Rammohan Roy. Rammohan Roy also began his famous Brahmanical Magazine, English fortnightly.
The early Indo-Anglian papers concentrated on drawing the attention of the British to the cultural and philosophical history of India. They did not openly attack social and political evils.
The first war of Independence was fought from 1857-59 in various parts of the country. Between 1860 and 1899, hundreds of newspapers came up demanding freedom of expression and criticizing the repressive measures taken by the British. Journalism played an important role in making educated Indians aware of their rights. Some newspapers of this period are The Hindu of Madras and Amrit Bazaar Patrika of Calcutta. Another significant factor was that during this period a large number of colleges imparting science and liberal arts education sprang up in the major towns of India.
Digdarshan (World Vision) was the first Indian language newspaper, a Bengali religious weekly started in Sehrampur by Christian missionaries. Based on the pattern of Digdarshan, Raja Rammohan Roy brought out Bengali and Urdu weeklies like Bangadoota and Mirat-ul-Akhbar. The newspaper with the greatest longevity in India is the first Gujarati newspaper- Mumbai Samachar, established in 1822. Some of the early Hindi publications were Oodunt Martand, Banaras Akhbar, Shimla Akhbar and Samayadant Martand, the first Hindi daily. Mangaloora Samachar, published from Mangalore, was the first Kannada journal. Malayala Manorama, the second oldest newspaper in Kerala was started in 1890, and was the first newspaper to be published by a joint stock company formed solely for the purpose of publishing a newspaper. The first Marathi newspaper was Darpan- a bilingual fortnightly in Englisha and Marathi, started by a professor of the Elphinstone College of Bombay. The first all Marathi journal was Mumbai Akhbar. During the early part of the 20th century, Marathi journalism played an important role in the freedom movement. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a renowned freedom fighter started two powerful journals- Kesari and Maratha.
Despite the numerous columns and articles demanding political and social reforms, journalism during the 19th century had little impact on the Indian masses, due to widespread illiteracy and poverty.
In 1947, the major English newspaper in India were the Times of India (Bombay), Statesman (Calcutta), Hindu (Madras), Hindustan Times (New Delhi), Indian Express (Bombay & Madras) Amrita Bazaar Patrika (Calcutta). Of these, the Times of India, Statesman & Pioneer were under British ownership till 1964, when it came under a group of Indian business.
During the long struggle for India’s Independence, the major English newspaper that served the national cause were the Hindu (1878), Amrita Bazaar Patrika (1868), & Hindustan Times (1924). Among the Indian language newspapers, the prominent ones were, Ananda bazaar Patrika (1922), Sakal (1931), Mumbai Samachar (1822), Malayala Manorama (1890) & Mathrubhumi (1930).
During the 1950s 214 daily newspapers were published in the country. Out of these, 44 were English language dailies while the rest were published in various regional languages. This number rose to 2,856 dailies in 1990 with 209 English dailies.
There are four major publishing groups in India, each of which controls national and regional English-language and vernacular publications. They are the Times of India Group, the Indian Express Group, the Hindustan Times Group, and the Anandabazar Patrika Group. The Times of India is India's largest English-language daily, with a circulation of 656,000 published in six cities. The Indian Express, with a daily circulation of 519,000, is published in seventeen cities. There also are seven other daily newspapers with circulations of between 134,000 and 477,000, all in English and all competitive with one another. Indian-language newspapers also enjoy large circulations but usually on a statewide or citywide basis. For example, the Malayalam-language daily Malayala Manorama circulates 673,000 copies in Kerala; the Hindi-language Dainik Jagran circulates widely in Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi, with 580,000 copies per day; Punjab Kesari, also published in Hindi and available throughout Punjab and New Delhi, has a daily circulation of 562,000; and the Anandabazar Patrika, published in Calcutta in Bengali, has a daily circulation of 435,000. There are also numerous smaller publications throughout the nation. The combined circulation of India's newspapers and periodicals is in the order of 60 million, published daily in more than ninety languages.
Immediately she took control of the press, prohibiting their reporting of all domestic and international news. The government expelled several foreign correspondents (mainly American and British) and withdrew accreditation from more than 40 Indian reporters who normally covered the capital.
The fundamental rights of the Indian people were suspended, and strict controls were imposed on freedom of speech and press. According to the Right of Freedom-Article 19(1) of the Indian Constitution, Indians have the right (a) to freedom of speech and expression, (b) to assemble peacefully and without arms, (c) to form associations or unions, (d) to move freely across the length and breadth of the country, (e) to reside or settle in any part of India, (f) to own or dispose of property, and (g) to carry on any lawful trade of occupation.'
It is obvious that, unlike the American Constitution or others In which freedom of the press is mentioned as one of the fundamental rights, the Indian Constitution doesn't specifically mention freedom of the press. However, the fundamental Rights Clause of the Indian Constitution treats freedom of the press as an integral part of the larger "freedom of expression."
Indira Gandhi's government used the "security of the state" and "promotion of disaffection" as its defense for imposing strict control on the press. And with the airwaves already under government ownership, Indira Gandhi successfully controlled the mass communication system in India for over a year and a half.
During censorship, most of the nation's domestic dailies gave up the battle for press freedom. Their pages were "filled with fawning accounts of national events, flattering pictures of Gandhi and her ambitious son, and not coincidentally, lucrative government advertising." But two tough, prominent publishers of English language dailies, The Indian Express and The Statesman, fought courageously against Indira Gandhi's opposition of the Indian press. Despite some bold fights and stubborn stands taken up by these publishers, its was quite clear that Indira Gandhi had as strong a grip on the Indian press as she had on Indian politics, at least during the government-imposed emergency.
Methods of Press Control
Like other dictators in history, Indira Gandhi's first attempt was to impose "thought control" on the populace. For her, this was to be effectuated not merely by controlling the Indian mass media but also by moulding the media to her own purpose. It has now become a well known fact that during the emergency Indira Gandhi had a firm grip on the Indian mass media. This was especially true since radio and television in India are government owned and operated; for Indira, there was the simple matter of controlling the newspapers in order to achieve a total control of the mass media. She used at least three methods in manipulating the newspapers:
(1) allocation of government advertising;
(2) shotgun merger of the news agencies; and
(3) use of fear-arousal techniques on newspaper publishers, journalists and individual shareholders.
The Indian newspapers depend a great deal on governmental advertising; without such revenues, it would be difficult for many Indian newspapers to stay in business. Unfortunately, this has kept many of them vulnerable to government manipulation. The large scale possibility of such manipulation, however, was not fully demonstrated until Indira Gandhi's government decided to take advantage of this unique circumstance. In the beginning of censorship, when a few leading newspapers such as The Indian Express and The Statesman refused to abide the governmental censorship, the government withdrew its advertising support from these newspapers. Later on, this type of financial castigation was used on several other rebellious newspapers.
The second and perhaps more profound way of manipulating the news flow resulted from the governmental decision to bring about a shot-gun merger of the four privately-owned Indian news agencies; the main purpose behind this merger was to alter the management and control of the Indian news agencies and thus to control much of the content of the leading newspapers. Since these agencies had been acting as the gatekeepers of information, it was essential for Indira Gandhi and her Information and Broadcasting Minister, Mr. V.C. Shukla, to control the gatekeepers. To effect such a merger, the government carried through various successful tactics. First of all, pressure was put on the members of boards of these agencies. Then the financial squeeze was applied to the agencies themselves by withholding governmental subsidy. Thirdly, the government introduced the threat of cutting-off the teleprinter services, the lifelines of a news agency. For example, the government-owned Post and Telegraph Department was ordered to impose a suspension of services to the United News of India if it resisted the merger. The manipulation of these four news agencies was so effective that hardly a voice was raised to resist the governmental perfidy. Soon after this, Shukla reported to the Indian parliament that these four news agencies accepted the merger "voluntarily."
A third and an equally effective method applied by Indira Gandhi was to use fear-arousal techniques on the newspaper publishers, editors, reporters and shareholders. Such techniques were imposed by making false charges with regard to tax arrears, possible reductions in newsprint quotas, imprisonment of publishers
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognized languages
Languages of India
The languages of India belong to several language families, the major ones being the Indo-European languages—Indo-Aryan and the Dravidian languages...
.
The earliest works of Indian literature were oraly
Oral literature
Oral literature corresponds in the sphere of the spoken word to literature as literature operates in the domain of the written word. It thus forms a generally more fundamental component of culture, but operates in many ways as one might expect literature to do...
transmitted. Sanskrit literature
Sanskrit literature
Literature in Sanskrit begins with the Vedas, and continues with the Sanskrit Epics of Iron Age India; the golden age of Classical Sanskrit literature dates to late Antiquity . Literary production saw a late bloom in the 11th century before declining after 1100 AD...
begins with the Rig Veda a collection of sacred hymns dating to the period 1500–1200 BCE. The Sanskrit epics Ramayana
Ramayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
and Mahabharata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
appeared towards the end of the first millennium BCE. Classical Sanskrit
Classical language
A classical language is a language with a literature that is classical. According to UC Berkeley linguist George L. Hart, it should be ancient, it should be an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own, not as an offshoot of another tradition, and it must have a large and extremely rich...
literature flourished in the first few centuries of the first millennium CE, as did the Tamil
Tamil literature
Tamil literature refers to the literature in the Tamil language. Tamil literature has 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...
Sangam literature
Sangam literature
Sangam literature refers to a body of classical Tamil literature created between the years c. 600 BCE to 300 CE. This collection contains 2381 poems composed by 473 poets, some 102 of whom remain anonymous The period during which these poems were composed is commonly referred to as the Sangam...
, and the Pāli Canon
Pāli Canon
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down...
.
In the medieval period, literature in Kannada
Kannada literature
Kannada literature is the corpus of written forms of the Kannada language, a member of the Dravidian family spoken mainly in the Indian state of Karnataka and written in the Kannada script....
and Telugu
Telugu literature
The Telugu literature or Telugu Sahityam is one of the most precious possessions of the literary products of India. Telugu literature is rich reserve of poems, stories, dramas and puranas. It flowered in the early 16th century under the Vijayanagar empire, of which Telugu was one of the court...
appeared in the 5th and 11th centuries respectively. Later, literature in Marathi
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
, Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, various dialects of Hindi
Hindi
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...
, Persian
Persian literature
Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language...
and Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
began to appear as well. Early in the 20th century, Bengali poet
Bengali poetry
Bengali poetry is a form that originated in Pāli and other Prakrit socio-cultural traditions. It is antagonistic towards Vedic rituals and laws as opposed to the shramanic traditions such as Buddhism and Jainism...
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
became India's first Nobel laureate
Nobel laureates of India
-Rabindranath Tagore:First non European1913 as well as first Asian to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913.Rabindranath Tagore was a poet, philosopher, educationist, artist and social activist. Hailing from an affluent land-owning family from Bengal, he received traditional education...
. In contemporary Indian literature, there are two major literary awards; these are the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
Sahitya Akademi Fellowship
The Sahitya Akademi Fellowship is a literary honour in India. Awarded by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, to the "immortals of literature," and limited to twenty one individuals at any given time, it is the highest literary honour conferred by the Government of India...
and the Jnanpith Award
Jnanpith Award
The Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country...
. Eight Jnanpith awards each have been awarded in Hindi and Kannada
Kannada language
Kannada or , is a language spoken in India predominantly in the state of Karnataka. Kannada, whose native speakers are called Kannadigas and number roughly 50 million, is one of the 30 most spoken languages in the world...
, followed by five in Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
, four in Malayalam
Malayalam language
Malayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people...
, and three in Gujarati
Gujarati language
Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived from a language called Old Gujarati which is the ancestor language of the modern Gujarati and Rajasthani languages...
, Marathi
Marathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
and Urdu.
Indian literature in archaic Indian languages
Vedic literature
Examples of early works written in Vedic SanskritVedic Sanskrit
Vedic Sanskrit is an old Indo-Aryan language. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language...
include the holy Hindu texts, such as the core Vedas
Vedas
The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
. Other examples include the Sulba Sutras
Sulba Sutras
The Shulba Sutras or Śulbasūtras are sutra texts belonging to the Śrauta ritual and containing geometry related to fire-altar construction.- Purpose and origins :...
, which are some of the earliest texts on geometry
Geometry
Geometry arose as the field of knowledge dealing with spatial relationships. Geometry was one of the two fields of pre-modern mathematics, the other being the study of numbers ....
..
Epic Sanskrit literature
Ved Vyasa's MahabharataMahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
and Valmiki
Valmiki
Valmiki is celebrated as the poet harbinger in Sanskrit literature. He is the author of the epic Ramayana, based on the attribution in the text of the epic itself. He is revered as the Adi Kavi, which means First Poet, for he discovered the first śloka i.e...
's Ramayana
Ramayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
, written in Epic Sanskrit, are regarded as the greatest Sanskrit epics.
Classical Sanskrit literature
The famous poet and playwright KālidāsaKalidasa
Kālidāsa was a renowned Classical Sanskrit writer, widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language...
wrote two epics: Raghuvamsha (Dynasty of Raghu) and Kumarasambhava
Kumarasambhava
Kumārasambhava is a Sanskrit epic poem by Kālidāsa; the first eight cantos are accepted as his authorship...
(Birth of Kumar Kartikeya); they were written in Classical Sanskrit rather than Epic Sanskrit. Other examples of works written in Classical Sanskrit include the Pāṇini's Ashtadhyayi which standardized the grammar and phonetics of Classical Sanskrit. The Laws of Manu is an important text in Hinduism. Kālidāsa
Kalidasa
Kālidāsa was a renowned Classical Sanskrit writer, widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language...
is often considered to be the greatest playwright in Sanskrit literature, and one of the greatest poets in Sanskrit literature, whose Recognition of Shakuntala
Abhijñānaśākuntalam
Abhijñānashākuntala or Abhijñānaśākuntalam) , is a well-known Sanskrit play by Kālidāsa. Its date is uncertain, but Kalidasa is often placed in the period between the 1st century BCE and 4th century CE....
and Meghaduuta are the most famous Sanskrit plays. He occupies the same position in Sanskrit literature that Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
occupies in English literature
English literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
. Some other famous plays were Mricchakatika by Shudraka, Svapna Vasavadattam by Bhasa
Bhasa
Bhāsa is one of the earliest and most celebrated Indian playwrights in Sanskrit. However, very little is known about him.Kālidāsa in the introduction to his first play Malavikagnimitram writes -...
, and Ratnavali by Sri Harsha. Later poetic works include Geeta Govinda by Jayadeva
Jayadeva
Jayadeva was a Sanskrit poet circa 1200 AD. He is most known for his composition, the epic poem Gita Govinda, which depicts the divine love of Krishna-an avatar of Vishnu and his consort, Radha, and it is mentioned that Radha is greater than Hari, and is considered an important text in the...
. Some other famous works are Chanakya
Chanakya
Chānakya was a teacher to the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta , and the first Indian emperor generally considered to be the architect of his rise to power. Traditionally, Chanakya is also identified by the names Kautilya and VishnuGupta, who authored the ancient Indian political treatise...
's Arthashastra
Arthashastra
The Arthashastra is an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy which identifies its author by the names Kautilya and , who are traditionally identified with The Arthashastra (IAST: Arthaśāstra) is an ancient Indian treatise on statecraft, economic policy and...
and Vatsyayana
Vatsyayana
Vātsyāyana is the name of a Hindu philosopher in the Vedic tradition who is believed to have lived during time of the Gupta Empire in India...
's Kamasutra.
Prakrit literature
The most notable PrakritPrakrit
Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...
languages were the Jain Prakrit
Jain Prakrit
Jain Prakrit is a term loosely used for the language of the Jain Agamas . The books of Jainism were written in the popular vernacular dialects , and therefore encompass a number of related dialects...
(Ardhamagadhi), Pali
Páli
- External links :* *...
, Maharashtri
Maharashtri
Maharastri or Maharastri Prakrit, SIL: Mahārāṣṭri Prākrit , is a language of ancient and medieval India which is the ancestor of Marathi, Konkani, Sinhala and the Maldivian language as well. It is one of the many languages of a complex called Prakrit, and the chief Dramatic Prakrit...
and Shauraseni.
One of the earliest extant Prakrit works is Hāla
Hala
Hala can refer to:* Hala , an Arabic given name meaning "sweetness"* An informal salutation or greeting in the Arabic language* Hāla, an Indian king of the Satavahana dynasty* Hala , a clan of India and Pakistan...
's anthology of poems in Maharashtri, the Gāhā Sattasaī, dating to the 3rd to 5th century CE. Kālidāsa
Kalidasa
Kālidāsa was a renowned Classical Sanskrit writer, widely regarded as the greatest poet and dramatist in the Sanskrit language...
and Harsha
Harsha
Harsha or Harsha Vardhana or Harshvardhan was an Indian emperor who ruled northern India from 606 to 647 AD. He was the son of Prabhakara Vardhana and younger brother of Rajya Vardhana, a king of Thanesar, Haryana...
also used Maharashtri in some of their plays and poetry. In Jainism
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
, many Svetambara
Svetambara
The Śvētāmbara is one of the two main sects of Jainism, the other being the Digambar. Śvētāmbara "white-clad" is a term describing its ascetics' practice of wearing white clothes, which sets it apart from the Digambara "sky-clad" Jainas, whose ascetic practitioners go naked...
works were written in Maharashtri.
Many of Aśvaghoṣa
Asvaghosa
' was an Indian philosopher-poet, born in Saketa in northern India to a Brahmin family. He is believed to have been the first Sanskrit dramatist, and is considered the greatest Indian poet prior to Kālidāsa. He was the most famous in a group of Buddhist court writers, whose epics rivaled the...
's plays were written in Shauraseni as were a sizable number of Jain works and Rajasekhara
Rajasekhara
Rajashekhara was an eminent Sanskrit poet, dramatist and critic. He was court poet of the Gurjara Pratiharas.He wrote Kavyamimamsa between 880 and 920 CE. The work is essentially a practical guide for poets that explains the elements and composition of a good poem. The fame of Rajashekhara...
's Karpuramanjari. Canto 13 of the Bhaṭṭikāvya is written in what is called "like the vernacular" (bhāṣāsama), that is, it can be read in two languages simultaneously: Prakrit and Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
.
Pali literature
The Pali Canon is mostly of Indian origin. Later PaliPali language
Pāli is a Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is best known as the language of many of the earliest extant Buddhist scriptures, as collected in the Pāi Canon or Tipitaka, and as the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism.-Etymology of the name:The word Pali itself...
literature however was mostly produced outside of the mainland Indian subcontinent
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent, also Indian Subcontinent, Indo-Pak Subcontinent or South Asian Subcontinent is a region of the Asian continent on the Indian tectonic plate from the Hindu Kush or Hindu Koh, Himalayas and including the Kuen Lun and Karakoram ranges, forming a land mass which extends...
, particularly in Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
and Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, South-East Asia, South East Asia or Southeastern Asia is a subregion of Asia, consisting of the countries that are geographically south of China, east of India, west of New Guinea and north of Australia. The region lies on the intersection of geological plates, with heavy seismic...
.
Pali literature includes Buddhist philosophical works, poetry and some grammatical works. Major works in Pali are Jataka tales, Dhammapada
Dhammapada
The Dhammapada is a versified Buddhist scripture traditionally ascribed to the Buddha himself. It is one of the best-known texts from the Theravada canon....
, Atthakatha
Atthakatha
Atthakatha refers to Pali-language Theravadin Buddhist commentaries to the canonical Theravadin Tipitaka. These commentaries give the traditional interpretations of the scriptures. The major commentaries were based on earlier ones, now lost, in Old Sinhalese, which were written down at the same...
, and Mahavamsa
Mahavamsa
The Mahavamsa is a historical poem written in the Pali language, of the kings of Sri Lanka...
. Some of the major Pali grammarians were Kaccayana, Moggallana and Vararuci
Vararuci
Vararuci is a name associated with several literary and scientific texts in Sanskrit and also with various legends in several parts of India. This Vararuci is often identified with Kātyāyana...
(who wrote Prakrit Prakash).
Assamese literature
The Charyapadas are often cited as the earliest example of Assamese literature. The Charyapadas are Buddhist songs composed in 8th-12th century. These writings bear similarities to Oriya and Bengali languages as well. The phonological and morphological traits of these songs bear very strong resemblance to Assamese some of which are extant.After the Charyapadas, the period may again be split into (a) Pre-Vaishnavite and (b) Vaishnative sub-periods. The earliest known Assamese writer is Hema Saraswati
Hema Saraswati
Hema Saraswati was amongst the earliest known Assamese writers, most known for his poem, Prahlada Charita, the earliest known poetic work in Assamese language. He was court poet under the patronage of Kamtapur's King Durlabh Narayan of Kamata Kingdom, who also provided patronage to his...
, who wrote a small poem "Prahlada Charita". In the time of the King Indranarayana (1350–1365) of Kamatapur the two poets Harihara Vipra and Kaviratna Saraswati composed Asvamedha Parva and Jayadratha Vadha respectively. Another poet named Rudra Kandali translated Drona Parva into Assamese. But the most well-known poet of the Pre-Vaishnavite sub period is Madhav Kandali, who rendered Valmiki's Ramayana into Assamese verse (Kotha Ramayana
Kotha Ramayana
Kotha Ramayana is a poem written by the powerful Assamese poet Madhava Kandali during the 14th century and is one of many versions of Ramayana in a regional Indian language other than Valmiki's Ramayana in Sanskrit...
, 11th century) under the patronage of Mahamanikya, a Kachari king of Jayantapura.
The most famous modern Assamese writers are Indira Goswami, Nirupama Bargohain, Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya
Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya
Dr. Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya was a famous Indian writer and one of the pioneers of modern Assamese Literature. He was first ever recipient of the Jnanpith Award given to an Assamese writer, in the year 1979 for his novel Mrityunjay...
, Homen Borgohain
Homen Borgohain
Homen Borgohain is an Indian writer, poet, critic, columnist and editor in the Assamese language. He was awarded the 1978 Sahitya Akademi Award in Assamese language for his novel, Pita Putra....
, Bhabendra Nath Saikia
Bhabendra Nath Saikia
Dr. Bhabendra Nath Saikia was a novelist, short story writer and film director from Assam. He had a PhD in Nuclear Physics from the University of London and later taught at Gauhati University. He won many literary awards, including Sahitya Academy , and was also recognised with the Padma...
, Amulya Barua
Amulya Barua
Amulya Barua was a pioneer of modern Assamese poetry. He was born at Jorhat on June 30, 1922. In 1941, he passed matriculation examination from Jorhat Govt High School with letter marks in Assamese and in 1945 he passed his B.A. examination from Jagannath Barooah College, Jorhat. Then he went to...
, Nabakanta Barua
Nabakanta barua
Navakanta Barua , also known as Ekhud Kokaideu, was a prominent Assamese novelist and poet.-Early life and education:...
, Atul Chandra Hazarika
Atul Chandra Hazarika
Atul Chandra Hazarika was a prominent Assamese litterateur from Assam. He excelled as a poet, dramatist, children story writer and translator...
, Nalini Bala Devi, Nirmal Prabha Bordoloi, Mahim Bora
Mahim Bora
Mahim Bora is an Indian writer and educationist from Assam state. He was born at a tea estate of Sonitpur district. He is an M.A. in Assamese literature from Gauhati University and had been a teacher in the Nowgong College for most of his teaching career.He has now retired and lives at Nagaon...
, Arupa Kalita Patangia
Arupa Kalita Patangia
Arupa Kalita Patangia is a popular Assamese novelist and an English literature teacher based in Darrang, Assam, India. She completed her graduation with English Honors from Debraj Roy College, Golaghat under Dibrugarh University. She is the author of over several novels and more than half a dozen...
, Bhabananda Deka
Bhabananda Deka
Prof Bhabananda Deka , is a multi-faceted writer of one hundred twelve books, textbooks on economics, literature and political science, and articles from Assam, a state in the north-eastern part of India.-Biography:...
, Purobi Bormudoi, Mamoni Raisom Goswami
Mamoni Raisom Goswami
Indira Goswami , known by her pen name Mamoni Raisom Goswami and popularly as Mamoni Baideo, was an Assamese editor, poet, professor, scholar and writer....
, Arun Sharma, Anuradha Sharma Pujari
Anuradha Sharma Pujari
Anuradha Sharma Pujari is an influential Assamese journalist and author. She is the editor or Sadin and Satsori. Her contributions to Assamese literature include fiction and essays. She is editor of the Assamese monthly magazine Satsari and the highest circulated Assamese weekly SAADIN . She lives...
, Atulananda Deva Goswami, Hiren Bhattachaya, Roindra Bora etc.
Bengali literature
The first evidence of Bengali literature is known as Charyapada or Charyageeti, which were Buddhist hymns from the 8th century. Charyapada is in the oldest known written form of Bengali. The famous Bengali linguist Harprashad Shastri discovered the palm leaf Charyapada manuscript in the Nepal Royal Court Library in 1907.The most internationally famous Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
writer is Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his work "Gitanjali". He wrote the national anthem of India and Bangladesh namely, "Jana Gana Mana" and "Amar Sonar Bangla", respectively. He was the first Asian who won the Nobel Prize.
Rabindranath has written enormous amount of Poems, Songs, Essays, Novels, Plays and Short-stories.
His songs remain popular and are still widely sung in Bengal.
Another poet, one generation younger is equally popular, valuable, and influential
in his country, though virtually unknown in foreign countries: Kazi Nazrul Islam
Kazi Nazrul Islam
Kazi Nazrul Islam , sobriquet Bidrohi Kobi, was a Bengali poet, musician and revolutionary who pioneered poetic works espousing intense spiritual rebellion against fascism and oppression. His poetry and nationalist activism earned him the popular title of Bidrohi Kobi...
.
Other famous Indian Bengali writers were Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay is one of the most popular Bengali novelists and short story writers of early 20th century.- Background and writing :Sarat Chandra was born into poverty in Debanandapur, Hooghly, India...
, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay was a famous Bengali writer, poet and journalist. He was the composer of India’s national song Vande Mataram, originally a Bengali and Sanskrit stotra personifying India as a mother goddess and inspiring the activists during the Indian Freedom Movement...
,
and Michael Madhusudan Dutt
Michael Madhusudan Dutt
Michael Madhusudan Dutt or Michael Madhusudan Dutta was a popular 19th century Bengali poet and dramatist. He was born in Sagardari , on the bank of Kopotaksho [কপোতাক্ষ] River, a village in Keshobpur Upozila, Jessore District, East Bengal . His father was Rajnarayan Dutt, an eminent lawyer, and...
. Bengali is the second most commonly spoken language in India (after Hindi).
As a result of the Bengal Renaissance
Bengal Renaissance
The Bengal Renaissance refers to a social reform movement during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the region of Bengal in Undivided India during the period of British rule...
in the 19th and 20th centuries, many of India's most famous, and
relatively recent, literature, poetry, and songs are in Bengali.
In the history of Bengali literature there has been only one path-breaking literary movement by a group of poets and artists who called themselves Hungryalists
Hindi literature
Hindi literature started as religious and philosophical poetry in medieval periods in dialects like Avadhi and Brij. The most famous figures from this period are KabirKabir
Kabīr was a mystic poet and saint of India, whose writings have greatly influenced the Bhakti movement...
and Tulsidas
Tulsidas
Tulsidas , was a Hindu poet-saint, reformer and philosopher renowned for his devotion for the god Rama...
. In modern times, the Khadi dialect became more prominent and Sanskrit.
Chandrakanta, written by Devaki Nandan Khatri
Devaki Nandan Khatri
Devaki Nandan Khatri was an Indian writer, who belonged to the first generation of popular novelists in the modern Hindi language. Also known as Babu Devakinandan Khatri, he was the first author of mystery novels in Hindi. Chandrakanta is the most popular of his works.- Biography :Khatri was born...
, is considered to be the first work of prose in Hindi. Munshi Premchand
Munshi Premchand
Munshi Premchand , was a famous writer of modern Hindi-Urdu literature. He is generally recognized in India as the foremost Hindi-Urdu writer of the early twentieth century...
was the most famous Hindi novelist. The chhayavadi poets include Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala'
Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala'
Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala' was one of the most famous figures of the modern Hindi literature. He was a poet, novelist, essayist and story-writer...
, Prem Bajpai, Jaishankar Prasad
Jaishankar Prasad
Jaishankar Prasad , one of the most famous figures in modern Hindi literature as well as Hindi theatre.- Biography :...
, Sumitranandan Pant
Sumitranandan Pant
Sumitranandan Pant was one of the most famous modern Hindi poets. He is considered one of the major poets of the Chhayavaadi school of Hindi literature. Pant mostly wrote in Sanskritized Hindi. Pant authored twenty eight published works including poetry, verse plays and essays.Pant was born at...
, and Mahadevi Varma
Mahadevi Varma
Mahadevi Varma best known as an outstanding Hindi poet, was a freedom fighter, woman's activist and educationist from India. She is widely regarded as the "modern Meera". She was a major poet of the Chhayavaad generation, a period of romanticism in Modern Hindi poetry ranging from 1914-1938...
. Other renowned poets include Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'
Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar'
Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar was an Indian Hindi poet, essayist and academic, who is considered as one of the most important modern Hindi poets. He remerged as a poet of rebellion as a consequence of his nationalist poetry written in the days before Indian independence...
, Maithili Sharan Gupt
Maithili Sharan Gupt
Maithilisharan Gupt was one of the most important modern Hindi poets. He is considered among the pioneers of Khari Boli poetry and wrote in Khari Boli at a time when most Hindi poets favoured the use of Brajbhasha.- Early life :Born Chirgaon, Jhansi in a Gahoi family...
, Agyeya, Harivansh Rai Bachchan, and Dharmveer Bharti.
Gujarati literature
Narsinh Mehta
Narsinh Mehta also known as Narsi Mehta or Narsi Bhagat was a poet-saint of Gujarat, India, and a member of the Nagar Brahmins community, notable as a bhakta, an exponent of Hindu devotional religious poetry. He is especially revered in Gujarati literature, where he is acclaimed as its Adi Kavi...
, Mirabai, Akho
Akho
Akha Bhagat was a medieval period poet in Gujarati literature who wrote in the tradition of the Bhakti movement. He kept Gujarati literature alive and wrote his poems in pattern which is called "chhappa" .- History :He came to Ahmedabad from Jetalpur in the 17th Century...
, Premanand Bhatt
Premanand Bhatt
Premanand Bhatt is known for his contribution in Gujarati literature. Popularly, he is known as Premanand in Gujarat. Premanand is known for his literary form called "Aakhyan" in Gujarati...
, Shamal Bhatt
Shamal Bhatt
Shamal Bhatt was a Gujarati author of the middle age in Gujarati literature. He is known for his "Padhya-Vaarta"....
, Dayaram
Dayaram
Dayaram was a Gujarati poet. He belongs to middle age or " Madhya-kal " in Gujarati literature.He was known for his literary form called " Garbi " in Gujarat.He was a follower of Pushtimarg of Hindu religion....
, Dalpatram
Dalpatram
Nanalal Dalpatram Kavi was a noted author, poet of Gujarati literature, and was given a title of "Kavishwar" by people of Gujarat...
, Narmad, Govardhanram Tripathi
Govardhanram Tripathi
Govardhanram Tripathi was a novel writer of Gujarati literature.-Life:Govardhanram Tripathi was born in Nadiad, India on 20 October 1855 on the day of the Dasara festival....
, Gandhiji, K. M. Munshi
K. M. Munshi
Kanaiyalal Maneklal Munshi was an Indian independence movement activist, politician, writer and educationist from Gujarat state. A lawyer by profession, he later turned to literature and politics. He was a well known name in Gujarati literature...
, Umashankar Joshi
Umashankar Joshi
Umashankar Joshi was an eminent poet, scholar and writer. He received the Jnanpith Award in 1967 for his contribution to Indian, especially Gujarati literature.-Works:...
, Suresh Joshi
Suresh Joshi
Suresh Joshi was an Indian novelist, short-story writer, critic, poet, translator, writer and academic in the Gujarati language.He was born in Valod, a small town in South Gujarat on 30 May 1921....
, Pannalal Patel
Pannalal Patel
Pannalal Nanalal Patel is a Gujarati author. He was the recipient of Jnanpith Award in 1985. He was born at Mandli village, Dungarpur, Rajasthan.-Works:- Novels :* Maanavi Ni Bhavaai...
and Rajendra Keshavlal Shah
Rajendra Keshavlal Shah
Rajendra Keshavlal Shah was a lyrical poet who wrote in Gujarati. Born in Kapadvanaj, he authored more than 20 collections of poems and songs, mainly on the themes of the beauty of nature, and about the everyday lives of indigenous peoples and fisherfolk communities...
.
Gujarat Vidhya Sabha, Gujarat Sahitya Sabha, and Gujarati Sahitya Parishad are Ahmedabad based literary institutions promoting the spread of Gujarati literature.
Umashankar Joshi
Umashankar Joshi
Umashankar Joshi was an eminent poet, scholar and writer. He received the Jnanpith Award in 1967 for his contribution to Indian, especially Gujarati literature.-Works:...
, Pannalal Patel
Pannalal Patel
Pannalal Nanalal Patel is a Gujarati author. He was the recipient of Jnanpith Award in 1985. He was born at Mandli village, Dungarpur, Rajasthan.-Works:- Novels :* Maanavi Ni Bhavaai...
and Rajendra Keshavlal Shah
Rajendra Keshavlal Shah
Rajendra Keshavlal Shah was a lyrical poet who wrote in Gujarati. Born in Kapadvanaj, he authored more than 20 collections of poems and songs, mainly on the themes of the beauty of nature, and about the everyday lives of indigenous peoples and fisherfolk communities...
have won the Jnanpith Award
Jnanpith Award
The Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country...
, the highest literary award in India.
Kannada literature
The oldest existing record of Kannada poetry in tripadi metre is the Kappe Arabhatta
Kappe Arabhatta
Kappe Arabhatta was a Chalukya warrior of the 8th century who is known from a Kannada verse inscription, dated to c. 700 CE, and carved on a cliff overlooking the northeast end of the artificial lake in Badami, Karnataka, India. The inscription consists of five stanzas written out in ten lines in...
record of 700 CE. The folk form of literature began earlier than any other literature in Kannada. "Gajashtaka" of
Shivamara, "Chudamani" of Thumbalacharya are examples of early literature. Kavirajamarga
Kavirajamarga
Kavirajamarga is the earliest available writing on rhetoric, poetics and grammar in the Kannada language. It was written by the famous Rashtrakuta King "Nripatunga" Amoghavarsha I and some say that it is based partly on an earlier Sanskrit writing, Kavyadarsa...
by King Nripatunga Amoghavarsha
Amoghavarsha
Amoghavarsha I was a Rashtrakuta emperor, the greatest ruler of the Rashtrakuta dynasty, and one of the great emperors of India. His nominal reign of 64 years is the longest precisely dated monarchical reign on record in India and one of the longest documented reigns of all monarchy since...
I (850
850
Year 850 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.- Asia :* Emperor Montoku succeeds Emperor Nimmyō as Emperor of Japan.- Europe :...
CE) is the earliest existing literary work in Kannada. It is a writing on literary criticism and poetics meant to standardize various written Kannada dialects used in literature in previous centuries. The book makes reference to Kannada works by early writers such as King Durvinita
Durvinita
Durvinita is seen as the most successful ruler of the Western Ganga Dynasty. Son of the previous ruler, Avinita, Durvinita's assession to the throne was disputed by his brother, who had gained the support of the Pallavas and Kadambas. There are Nallala and Kadagattur inscriptions that refer to...
of the 6th century and Ravikirti, the author of the Aihole record of 636 CE. An early extant
Extant literature
Extant literature refers to texts that have survived from the past to the present time. Extant literature can be divided into extant original manuscripts, copies of original manuscripts, quotations and paraphrases of passages of non-extant texts contained in other works, translations of non-extant...
prose work, the Vaddaradhane by Shivakotiacharya of 900
900
Year 900 was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.- Asia :* April 21 – Namwaran and his children, Lady Angkatan and Bukah, are granted pardon by the Datu of Tondo, as represented Jayadewa, Lord Minister of Pila, which released them of all their debts as inscribed in the...
CE provides an elaborate description of the life of Bhadrabahu of Shravanabelagola
Shravanabelagola
Shravana Belgola is a city located in the Hassan district in the Indian state of Karnataka and is 158 km from Bangalore. The statue of Gommateshvara Bahubali at Śravaṇa Beḷgoḷa is one of the most important pilgrimage destinations in Jainism, one that reached a peak in architectural and sculptural...
. Since the earliest available Kannada work is one on grammar and a guide of sorts to unify existing variants of Kannada grammar and literary styles, it can be safely assumed that literature in Kannada must have started several centuries earlier.
Pampa
Adikavi Pampa
Pampa , called by the honorific Ādikavi is one of the greatest Kannada poets of all time.He is very famous even today for his philosophical beliefs...
who popularised Champu
Champu
Champu or Champu-Kavya is a genre in Sanskrit literature. It consists of a mixture of prose and poetry passages , with verses interspersed among prose sections...
style which is unique to Kannada wrote the epic "Vikramarjuna Vijaya
Vikramarjuna Vijaya
Vikramarjuna Vijaya , also known as Pampa Bharatha is a classic work of the 10th century Jain poet Pampa . It is an Kannada version of the great epic, the Mahabharata of Vyasa. Pampa choose the Arjuna, the central figure of the Pandava Clan, as the hero of his epic...
". He also wrote "Adipurana
Adipurana
Adipurana is a 10th century Kannada text written in Champu style, a mix of prose and verse, dealing with the ten lives of the first tirthankara, Adinatha, also known as Rishabhanatha . This work is known to be the first work of Kannada poet Adikavi Pampa . It is based on the story narrated by...
". Other famous poets like Ponna and Ranna wrote "Shantipurana" and "Ghadayudha" respectively. The jain poet Nagavarma_2 wrote "Kavyavalokana", "Karnatabhashabhushana" and "Vardhamanapurana" . Janna was the author of "Yashodhara Charitha". Rudhrabhatta and Durgashima wrote "Jagannatha Vijaya" and "Panchatantra" respectively. The works of the medieval period are based on Jain
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
and Hindu
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
principles. The Vachana Sahitya tradition of the 12th century is purely native and unique in world literature. It is the sum of contributions by all sections of society. Vachanas were pithy comments on that period's social, religious and economic conditions. More importantly, they held a mirror to the seed of social revolution, which caused a radical re-examination of the ideas of caste, creed and religion. Some of the important writers of Vachana literature include Basavanna, Allama Prabhu
Allama Prabhu
Allama Prabhu is a mystic-saint and Vachana poet of the Kannada language in the 12th century. Prabhu is the patron saint , the undisputed spiritual authority, and an integral part of the Lingayata movement that decisively shaped society in medieval Karnataka and...
and Akka Mahadevi
Akka Mahadevi
Akka Mahadevi was a prominent figure of the Veerashaiva Bhakti movement of the 12th century Karnataka. Her Vachanas in Kannada, a form of didactic poetry are considered her greatest contribution to Kannada Bhakti literature. In all she wrote about 430 Vachanas which is relatively fewer than that...
. Kumara Vyasa
Kumara Vyasa
Kumara Vyasa is the pen name of Gadhugina Veera Naranappa , a classical poet of Kannada. His pen name is a tribute to his magnum opus, a rendering of the Mahabharatha in Kannada. Kumara Vyasa literally means Little Vyasa or Son of Vyasa....
, who wrote the Karnata Bharata Katamanjari, has arguably been the most famous and most influential Kannada writer of the 15th century. The Bhakti movement
Bhakti movement
The Bhakti movement is a Hindu religious movement in which the main spiritual practice is loving devotion among the Shaivite and Vaishnava saints. The Bhakti movement originated in ancient Tamil Nadu and began to spread to the north during the late medieval ages when north India was under Islamic...
gave rise to Dasa Sahitya
Dasa Sahitya
Dasa Sahitya is the literature of bhakti movement composed by devotees in honor of Lord Vishnu or one of his Avatars. Dasa is literally servant in Kannada and sahitya is literature. Haridasas were preachers of bhakti to Lord Vishnu or one of his avatars. The bhakti literature of these Haridasas...
around the 15th century which significantly contributed to the evolution of Carnatic music
Carnatic music
Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
in its present form. This period witnessed great Haridasa
Haridasa
The Haridasa devotional movement is considered as one of the turning points in the cultural history of India. Over a span of nearly six centuries, several saints and mystics helped shape the culture, philosophy and art of South India and Karnataka in particular by exerting considerable spiritual...
s like Purandara Dasa
Purandara Dasa
Purandara Dāsa is one of the most prominent composers of Carnatic music and is widely regarded as the "father of Carnatic Music". Purandara Dasa addressed social issues in addition to worship in his compositions, a practice emulated by his younger contemporary, Kanaka Dasa...
who has been aptly called the Pioneer of Carnatic music, Kanaka Dasa
Kanaka Dasa
Kanaka Dasa was a great poet, philosopher, musician and composer from Karnataka. He is known for his Kirtanes and Ugabhoga compositions in the Kannada language for Carnatic music...
, Vyasathirtha and Vijaya Dasa
Vijaya Dasa
Vijaya Dasa or Sri Vijaya Dasa was a prominent saint from the Haridasa tradition of Karnataka, India in the 18th century. Sri VijayaDasaru is an amsha of Sri Brighu Muni; the very same muni, who was the nimmita for the eternal kshetra Tirumala ! Sri Krishna himself in BG 10.25 says "maharsinam...
. Modern Kannada in the 20th century has been influenced by many movements, notably Navodaya, Navya, Navyottara, Dalita and Bandaya. Contemporary Kannada literature has been highly successful in reaching people of all classes in society. Works of Kannada literature have received Eight Jnanpith awards, which is the highest number awarded for the literature in any Indian language. It has also received forty-seven Sahitya Academy awards.
Malayalam literature
Even up to 500 years since the start of the Malayalam calendarMalayalam calendar
Malayalam calendar is a solar and sidereal Hindu calendar used in Kerala, India. The origin of the calendar has been dated as 825 CE....
which commenced in 825 AD, Malayalam literature remained in preliminary stage. During this time, Malayalam literature consisted mainly of various genres of songs. Ramacharitham written by Cheeramakavi is a collection of poems written at the end of preliminary stage in Malayalam literaure's evolution, and is the oldest Malayalam book available. Thunchaththu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan
Thunchaththu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan
Thunjathu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan was an Indian poet from around the 16th century, known as the father of the Malayalam language — the principal language of the Indian state of Kerala, spoken by 36 million people in the world...
(17th century) is considered as the Father of the Malayalam language
Malayalam language
Malayalam , is one of the four major Dravidian languages of southern India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages of India with official language status in the state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Pondicherry. It is spoken by 35.9 million people...
, because of his influence on the acceptance of the Malayalam alphabet and his extremely popular poetic works like Adhyathmaramayanam
Adhyathmaramayanam
Adhyathmaramayanam is the Malayalam version of Ramayana written by Thunchaththu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan in the early 17th Century. It is considered to be a classic of Malayalam literature...
. Several noted works were written during the 19th century, but it was in the 20th century the Malayalam literary movement came to prominence. Malayalam literature flourished under various genres and today it is a fully developed part of Indian literature.One main poet in Malayalam literature is Vishnu Raj,Santha Kumari,and Sandhya.S,Sreedharan nambiar.
Manipuri literature
Manipuri literature is the literature written in the Manipuri Language (Meiteilon), including literature composed in Manipuri Language by writers from Manipur, Assam, Tripura, Myanmar and Bangladesh .The history of Manipuri literature trace back to thousands of years with flourish of its civilization. The survival of Manipuri literature after passing through the massive devastation, the terror event of history, by burning of Meetei Scriptures, which is known as Puya Meithaba, was a miracle. The resilience that Meeteis could acquire in the event of devastation proved her ability to survive in history. Most of the early literary works found in Manipuri Literature were in Poetry and Prose . Some of the books were written with combination of both the Prose and Poetry.Marathi literature
MarathiMarathi language
Marathi is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people of western and central India. It is the official language of the state of Maharashtra. There are over 68 million fluent speakers worldwide. Marathi has the fourth largest number of native speakers in India and is the fifteenth most...
literature began with saint-poets like Dnyaneshwar
Dnyaneshwar
Dnyāneshwar , also known as Jñanadeva , was born into a Deshastha Brahmin Kulkarni family.He was a 13th century Maharashtrian Hindu saint , poet, philosopher and yogi of the Nath tradition whose works Bhavartha deepika teeka ,...
, Tukaram
Tukaram
Sant Tukaram was a prominent Varkari Sant and spiritual poet during a Bhakti movement in India.Sant Tukaram was born and lived most of his life in Dehu, a town close to Pune in Mahārāshtra, India. He was born to a couple with the family name "More", the descendent of the Mourya Clan with first...
, Ramdas
Ramdas
Ramdas or Ram Das may refer to:*S. A. Ramadass, a MLA from Karnataka, India*Samarth Ramdas or Samartha Ramdas Swami, a 17th-century Hindu saint from Maharashtra, who was a devotee of Lord Rama and the spiritual guru of Maratha king Shivaji*Ramadasu, a 17th-century Hindu devotee from Andhra...
, and Eknath
Eknath
Eknath was a prominent Marathi scholar and religious poet. He is called a "sant" in the Marathi tradition as are most other religious poets...
. Modern Marathi literature was marked by a theme of social reform. Well-known figures from this phase include Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Lokhitwadi, and others. Prominent modern literary figures include Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar
Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar
Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar was an eminent Marathi writer from Maharashtra, India.-Early life:...
, P.L. Deshpande, Vijay Tendulkar
Vijay Tendulkar
Vijay Tendulkar was a leading Indian playwright, movie and television writer, literary essayist, political journalist, and social commentator primarily in Marāthi...
, Indira Sant
Indira Sant
Indira Sant was a Marathi poetess from Maharashtra, India.She was born on January 4, 1914, as Indira Dikshit in the small town of India, Karnataka....
and Vishnu Vaman Shirvadakar (Kavi Kusumagraj).
din mor
Early Marathi Literature (before 1800 CE)
Though the earliest known Marathi inscription found at the foot of the statue at Shravanabelgola in Karnataka is dated c. 983 CE, the Marathi literature actually started with the religious writings by the saint-poets belonging to Mahanubhava and Warkari sects. Mahanubhava saints used prose as their main medium, while Warkari saints preferred poetry as the medium. The early saint-poets were Mukundaraj who wrote Vivekasindhu, Dnyaneshwar (1275–1296) (who wrote Amrutanubhav and Bhawarthadeepika, which is popularly known as Dnyaneshwari, a 9000-couplets long commentary on the Bhagavad Gita) and Namdev. They were followed by the Warkari saint-poet Eknath (1528–1599). Mukteswar translated the great epic Mahabharata into Marathi. Social reformers like saint-poet Tukaram transformed Marathi into an enriched literary language. Ramdas's (1608–1681) Dasbodh and Manache Shlok are well-known products of this tradition.
In the 18th century, some well-known works like Yatharthadeepika (by Vaman Pandit), Naladamayanti Swayamvara (by Raghunath Pandit), Pandava Pratap, Harivijay, Ramvijay (by Shridhar Pandit) and Mahabharata (by Moropant) were produced. However, the most versatile and voluminous writer among the poets was Moropanta (1729–1794) whose Mahabharata was the first epic poem in Marathi. The historical section of the old Marathi literature was unique as it contained both prose and poetry. The prose section contained the Bakhars that were written after the foundation of the Maratha kingdom by Shivaji. The poetry section contained the Povadas and the Katavas composed by the Shahirs. The period from 1794 to 1818 is regarded as the closing period of the Old Marathi literature and the beginning of the Modern Marathi literature.
[edit] Modern Period (after 1800)
The period of the late 19th century in Maharashtra is the period of colonial modernity. Like the corresponding periods in the other Indian languages, this was the period dominated by the English educated intellectuals. It was the age of prose and reason. It was the period of reformist diadicticism and a great intellectual ferment.
The first English Book was translated in Marathi in 1817. The first Marathi newspaper started in 1835. Many books on social reforms were written by Baba Padamji (Yamuna Paryatana, 1857), Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Lokhitwadi, Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade, Hari Narayan Apte (1864–1919) etc. Lokmanya Tilak's newspaper Kesari, set up in 1880, provided a platform for sharing literary views. Marathi at this time was efficiently aided by Marathi Drama. Here, there also was a different genre called 'Sangit Natya' or Musicals. The first play was V.A. Bhave's Sita Swayamvar in 1843 Later Kirioskar (1843–85) and G.B. Deval (1854-19l6) brought a romantic aroma and social content. But Krishnaji Prabhakar Khadilkar (1872~1948) with his banned play Kichaka-Vadh (1910) set the trend of political playwriting. Later on this "stage" was ably served by stalwarts like Ram Ganesh Gadkari and Prahlad Keshav Atre.The Drama Flourished in 60s and 70s with few of the best Indian actors available to take on a variety of protagonists. Mohan Agashe, Sriram Lagoo, Kashinath Ghanekar, Prabhakar Panshikar playing many immortal characters penned by greats like Vasant Kanetkar, Kusumagraj, vijay Tendulkar to name a few. This Drama movement was ably supported by Marathi films which did not enjoy a continuous success. Starting with V.Shantaram and before him the pioneer DadaSaheb Phalke, Marathi cinema went on to influence contemporary Hindi cinema. Director Raja Paranjape, Music director Sudhir Phadke, lyricist G.Madgulkar and actor Raja Gosavi came together to give quite a few hits in later period. Marathi Language as spoken by people here was throughout influenced by drama and cinema along with contemporary literature. Modern Marathi poetry began with Mahatma Jyotiba Phule's compositions. The later poets like Keshavsuta, Balakavi, Govindagraj, and the poets of Ravi Kiran Mandal like Madhav Julian wrote poetry which was influenced by the Romantic and Victorian English poetry. It was largely sentimental and lyrical.Prahlad Keshav Atre, the renowned satirist and a politician wrote a parody of this sort of poetry in his collection Jhenduchi Phule. Sane Guruji (1899–1950) contributed to the children's literature in Marathi. His major works are Shyamchi Aai (Shyam's Mother), Astik (Believer), Gode Shevat (The Sweet Ending) etc. He translated and simplified many Western Classics and published them in a book of stories titled Gode Goshti (Sweet Stories). Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar (1889–1976)'s Yayati won him the Jnanpith Award for 1975. He also wrote many other novels, short stories, essays etc. His major works are Don Dhruv (Two Poles), Ulka (Meteorite), Krounchavadh, Jalalela Mohar, Amrutvel.
The major paradigm shift in sensibility began in the forties with the avant-garde modernist poetry of B.S. Mardhekar. In the mid fifties, the 'little magazine movement' gained momentum. It published writings which were non-conformist, radical and experimental. Dalit literary movement also gained strength due to the little magazine movement. This radical movement was influenced by the philosophy of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar and challenged the literary establishment which was largely middle class, urban, and upper caste people. The little magazine movement threw up many excellent writers. Bhalchandra Nemade is a well known novelist, critic and poet. Dr.Sharad Rane is a well known bal-sahityakar. The poetry of Arun Kolatkar, Dilip Chitre, Namdeo Dhasal, Vasant Abaji Dahake, Manohar Oak and many other modernist poets is complex, rich and provokative. Bhau Padhye, Vilas Sarang, Shyam Manohar, Suhas Shirvalkar and Visharm Bedekar are well known fiction writers.
The another major paradigm shift in Marathi sensibility began in the nineties with the another avant-garde modernist poetry of poets associated with Abhidhanantar and Shabadavedh. In the post nineties, this 'new little magazine movement' gained momentum and poets like Manya Joshi, Hemant Divate, Sachin Ketkar, Mangesh Narayanrao Kale, Saleel Wagh, Mohan Borse, Nitin Kulkarni, Nitin Arun Kulkarni, Varjesh Solanki, Sandeep Deshpande, Vasant Gurjar touched the new areas of post-modern life. The poetry collections broughtout by Abhidhanantar Prakashan and the regular issues of the magazine Abhidhanantar is taking Marathi poetry to the global standards.[1] Another leading wave in contemporary Marathi poetry is the poetry of non-urban poets like Arun Kale, Bhujang Meshram, Pravin Bandekar, Shrikant Deshmukh, Veerdhaval Parab etc. They insist on native values in their poetry.
Marathi is also one of the few Indian languages (and possibly the only one) where there is a stream of science fiction literature. A few well known Marathi science fiction authors are Dr. Jayant Narlikar, Dr Bal Phondke, Subodh Javadekar, and Laxman Londhe.
Many writers like Dnyaneshwar Mulay have added new dimensions and enriched Marathi with their literary talent. His autobiographical book 'Maati Pankh Aani Aakaash' was considered to be among the best ten autobiographies of last 100 years in Marathi by a survey conducted by Antarnaad, a respected martahi literary magazine. His other books are 'Russia Navya Dishanche Amantran' a book that captures post 1992 Russia. It is popular because it is probably the only work of its kind in Marathi. His recent poetry collection 'Swatahteel Awakash' won the state literary award of governmment of Maharashtra. He writes regular columns in Marathi dailies like Lokmat and Loksatta and Sadhana, weekly published from Pune.
Oriya literature
Oriya has a rich literary heritage dating back to the 13th century. Sarala DasaSarala Dasa
Sarala Dasa was one of the great scholars of Oriya literature whose work formed a perennial source of information for succeeding generations....
who lived in the 14th century is known as the Vyasa
Vyasa
Vyasa is a central and revered figure in most Hindu traditions. He is also sometimes called Veda Vyasa , or Krishna Dvaipayana...
of Orissa. He translated the Mahabharata
Mahabharata
The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India and Nepal, the other being the Ramayana. The epic is part of itihasa....
into Oriya. In fact the language was initially standardised through a process of translation of classical Sanskrit texts like the Mahabharata, the Ramayana
Ramayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is ascribed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon , considered to be itihāsa. The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India and Nepal, the other being the Mahabharata...
and the Srimad Bhagabatam. Jagannatha Das translated the Srimad Bhagabatam into Oriya and his translation standardized the written form of the language. Oriya has had a strong tradition of poetry, especially that of devotional poetry. Some other eminent ancient Oriya Poets include Kabi Samrat Upendra Bhanja and Kabi Surya Bala Dev Ratha.
In 19th century, Fakir Mohan Senapati
Fakir Mohan Senapati
Fakir Mohan Senapati born on January 13, 1843, at Mallikashpur in Balasore, played a leading role in establishing the distinct identity of Oriya, a language mainly spoken in the Indian state of Orissa...
(1843–1918), Gouri Shankar Ray, Gopal Chandra Praharaj, Pandit Nilmani Vidyaratna, Kabibar Radhanath Ray were prominent figure in prose and poetry writinga of Oriya Literature
Oriya literature
Oriya is an official language of the state of Orissa, India. The region has been known at different stages of history as Kalinga, Udra, Utkala, or Koshala. The language is also spoken by minority populations of the neighboring states of Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. The...
. In 20th century Godabarish Mohapatra, Kalindi Charana Panigrahi, Kanhu Charan Mohanty (1906–1994), Gopinath Mohanty, Sachchidananda Routray, Surendra Mohanty, Manoj Das
Manoj Das
Manoj Das is an Indian award-winning author who writes in Oriya and English.Manoj Das, a profilic author,he is India's foremost short story writers. He writes both in Oriya and english and is a proffesor of English at the Sri Aurobindo International University, Pondicherry.Manoj Das was born in a...
, Kishori Charan Das, Sitakanta Mohapatra, Ramakanta Rath, Binapani Mohanty, Jagadish Mohanty
Jagadish Mohanty
Jagadish Mohanty ' is a renowned Oriya writer, considered as a trendsetter in modern Oriya fiction, has received the prestigious Sarala Award 2003, Orissa Sahitya Akademy Award 1990, Jhankar Award, 1985 Dharitri Award, Prajatantra Award....
, Sarojini Sahoo
Sarojini Sahoo
Sarojini Sahoo is an Orissa Sahitya Academy Award winner Indian feminist writer, a columnist in The New Indian Express and associate editor of Chennai based English magazine Indian AGE, who has been enlisted among 25 Exceptional Women of India by ‘Kindle’ English magazine of Kolkata.Born in the...
, Rajendra Kishore Panda, Padmaj Pal, Ramchandra Behera, Pratibha Satpathy are few names who made the Oriya Literature
Oriya literature
Oriya is an official language of the state of Orissa, India. The region has been known at different stages of history as Kalinga, Udra, Utkala, or Koshala. The language is also spoken by minority populations of the neighboring states of Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh. The...
and Oriya language
Oriya language
Oriya , officially Odia from November, 2011, is an Indian language, belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family. It is mainly spoken in the Indian states of Orissa and West Bengal...
worthy.
Punjabi literature
The history of Punjabi literature starts with advent of Aryan in Punjab.Punjab provided them the perfect environment in which to compose the ancient texts. The Rig-Veda is first example in which references are made to the rivers, flora and fauna of Punjab. The Punjabi literary tradition is generally conceived to commence with Fariduddin Ganjshakar (1173–1266).[2]. Farid's mostly spiritual and devotional verse were compiled after his death in the Adi Granth.
The Janamsakhis, stories on the life and legend of Guru Nanak (1469–1539), are early examples of Punjabi prose literature. Nanak himself composed Punjabi verse incorporating vocabulary from Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian, and other Indic languages as characteristic of the Gurbani tradition. Sufi poetry developed under Shah Hussain (1538–1599), Sultan Bahu (1628–1691), Shah Sharaf (1640–1724), Ali Haider (1690–1785), and Bulleh Shah (1680–1757). In contrast to Persian poets who had preferred the ghazal for poetic expression, Punjabi Sufi poets tended to compose in the Kafi.[3].
Punjabi Sufi poetry also influenced other Punjabi literary traditions particularly the Punjabi Qissa, a genre of romantic tragedy which also derived inspiration from Indic, Persian and Qur'anic sources. The Qissa of Heer Ranjha by Waris Shah (1706–1798) is among the most popular of Punjabi qisse. Other popular stories include Sohni Mahiwal by Fazal Shah, Mirza Sahiba by Hafiz Barkhudar (1658–1707), Sassi Punnun by Hashim Shah (1735?-1843?), and Qissa Puran Bhagat by Qadaryar (1802–1892).
The Victorian novel, Elizabethan drama, free verse and Modernism entered Punjabi literature through the introduction of British education during colonial rule. The setting up of a Christian mission at Ludhiana in 1835 (where a printing press was installed for using Gurmukhi fonts, and which also issued the first Punjabi grammar in 1838), the publication of a Punjabi dictionary by Reverend J. Newton in 1854 and the ripple-down effect of the strengthening and modernizing the education system under the patronage of the Singh Sabha Movement in 1860s, were some of the developments that made it possible for ‘modernism’ to emerge in Punjabi literary culture. It needs to be pointed out here that ‘modernism’ is being used here as an umbrella term to cover a whole range of developments in the Punjabi literary culture, starting with the break from tradition or the past to a commitment to progressive ideology, from the experimental nature of the avant-garde to the newness of the forward-looking.
Tamil literature
TamilTamil language
Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
literature has a rich and long literary tradition spanning more than 2000 years. Tolkaappiyam has been credited as the oldest work in Tamil available today. The history of Tamil literature follows the history of Tamil Nadu
History of Tamil Nadu
The region of Tamil Nadu in modern India has been under continuous human habitation since prehistoric times, and the history of Tamil Nadu and the civilization of the Tamil people are among the oldest in the world. Throughout its history, spanning the early Paleolithic age to modern times, this...
, closely following the social and political trends of various periods. The secular nature of the early Sangam
Sangam literature
Sangam literature refers to a body of classical Tamil literature created between the years c. 600 BCE to 300 CE. This collection contains 2381 poems composed by 473 poets, some 102 of whom remain anonymous The period during which these poems were composed is commonly referred to as the Sangam...
poetry gave way to works of religious and didactic nature during the Middle Ages. Tirukkural
Tirukkuṛaḷ
Tirukkuṛaḷ , sometimes spelt 'Thirukkural, is a classic of couplets or Kurals or aphorisms celebrated by Tamils. It was authored by Thiruvalluvar, a poet who is said to have lived anytime between the 2nd and 6th centuries AD. Although the exact period of its composition is still disputed,...
is a fine example of such work on human behaviour and political morals. A wave of religious revival helped generate a great volume of literary output by Saivite and Vaishnavite authors. Jain and Buddhist authors during the medieval period and Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
and European authors later also contributed to the growth of Tamil literature.
A revival of Tamil literature took place from the late 19th century when works of religious and philosophical nature were written in a style that made it easier for the common people to enjoy. Nationalist poets began to utilise the power of poetry in influencing the masses. Short stories and novels began to appear. The popularity of Tamil Cinema
Tamil cinema
Tamil cinema is the film industry based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, dedicated to the production of films in the Tamil language. It is based in Chennai's Kodambakkam district, where several South Indian film production companies are headquartered...
has also provided opportunities for modern Tamil poets to emerge.
Telugu literature
Telugu, the Indian language with the third largest number of speakers (after Hindi & Bengali), is rich in literary traditions.The earliest written literature dates back to the 7th century. The epic literary tradition started with Nannayya
Nannayya
Nannaya Bhattaraka is the earliest known Telugu author, and the author of the first third of the Andhra Mahabharatamu, a Telugu retelling of the Mahabharata. Nannaya is held in high regard as the person who revived the Telugu language...
who is acclaimed as Telugu's Aadikavi meaning the first poet. He belongs to the tenth or 11th century.
Vemana
Vemana
Kumaragiri Vema Reddy popularly known as Vemana was a 14th century Telugu poet. His poems were written in the popular vernacular of Telugu, and are known for their use of simple language and native idioms. His poems discuss the subjects of Yoga, wisdom and morality...
was a prince, also called Pedakomati or Vemaa Reddy, who lived in the 14th century and wrote poems in the language of the common man. He questioned the prevailing values and conventions and religious practices in his poems. His philosophy made him a unique poet of the masses.
Viswanadha Satyanarayana (Veyipadagalu) (1895–1976), a doyen of conventional yet creative literature, was the first to receive the Jnanpith Award
Jnanpith Award
The Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country...
for Telugu followed by C. Narayana Reddy.
Srirangam Srinivasarao
Srirangam Srinivasarao
Srirangam Srinivasarao , often called Sri Sri , was a popular modern Telugu poet and lyricist. Sri Sri was given the title Mahakavi .-Early life:...
or Sri Sri (born 1910) was a popular 20th century poet and lyricist. Srisri took the "Telugu literary band wagon that travelled in roads of kings and queens in to that of muddy roads of common man".
Literary Movements:
Old Era:
Telugu literature has been enriched by many literary movements like Veera Shaiva movement which gave birth to dwipada kavitvam (couplets). Bhakti movement which gave us immortal compilations by Annamayya, Kshetrayya
Kshetrayya
Kshetrayya was a prolific Telugu poet and composer of Carnatic music. He lived in the area of Andhra Pradesh in South India. He composed a number of padams and keertanas, the prevalent formats of his time. He is credited with more than 4000 compositions, although only a handful have survived...
and Tyagaraja and kancharla Gopanna (Ramadasu). The renaissance movement heralded by Vemana stand for the old Telugu literary movements.
New era:
Romantic Movemnet (led by Krishnasashtri, Rayaprolu, Vedula), Progressive Writers Movement, Digambara Kavitvam (Nagnamuni, Cherabanda Raju, Jwalamukhi, Nikhileswar, Bhairavayya and Mahaswapna Revolutionary Writers' Movement, Streevada Kavitvam and Dalita Kavitvam all flourished in Telugu Literature and in fact, Telugu Literature has been the standard bearer of Indian Literature in these respects.
Fiction and Prose literature:
Kadukuri Veeresalingam, is said to be the father of Modern Telugu fiction. Kodavatiganti Kutumba Rao laid foundation for the realistic modern Telugu Novel and Short Story, Rachakonda and Kalipatnam carried the flag in to excellency.
Annamaya, Gurajada Appa Rao, Kandukuri
Kandukuri Veeresalingam
Rao Bahadur Kandukuri Veeresalingam , also known as Kandukuri Veeresalingham Pantulu , was a social reformer of Andhra Pradesh. He was born in an orthodox Niyogi Telugu Brahmin family...
, Devulapalli
Devulapalli Krishnasastri
Devulapalli Venkata Krishnasastri was a Telugu poet, playwright and translator. He is famously known as Andhra Shelley.-Early life:Krishnasastri was born in East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, India...
, Jashuva
Gurram Jashuva
Gurram Jashuva was a popular Telugu poet. He belonged to a Yadav family but was also part Madiga and so he was discriminated against as an untouchable in school, college and professional life.-Early life:Jashuva was born into a poor yaadava caste family in Vinukonda, Guntur district, Andhra...
, Unnava Laxminarayana (Malapalli), Bucchi Babu, Tripuraneni Gopichand
Tripuraneni Gopichand
Tripuraneni Gopichand was a Telugu short story writer, novelist, editor, essayist, playwright and film director. Gopichand's writings are remarkable for interplay of values, ideas and 'isms' - materialism, rationalism, existentialism, realism and humanism...
and many more had a profound impact on Telugu literature.
Urdu literature
Among other traditions, Urdu poetry is a fine example of linguistic and cultural synthesis. ArabArab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
and Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
vocabulary based on the Hindi language resulted in a vast and extremely beloved class of ghazal literature, usually written by Muslims in contexts ranging from romance and society to philosophy and devotion to Allah. Urdu soon became the court language of the Mughals and in its higher forms was once called the "Kohinoor" of Indian languages.
In Urdu literature fiction has also flourished well. Umrao Jaan Ada of Mirza Hadi Ruswa is first significant Urdu novel. Premchand is treated as father of modern Urdu fiction with his novel Godan and short stories like Kafan. The art of short story was further taken ahead by Manto, Bedi, Krishn Chander and a host of highly acclaimed writers.Urdu novel reached further heights in 1960s with novels of Quratul Ain Haider and Abdullah Hussain. Towards the end of 20th century Urdu novel entered into a new phase with trend setter novel MAKAAN
Makaan
Makaan is a Urdu novel by Paigham Afaqui that was first published in 1989 and first published in English in 2002.It is now well recognized as an important Indian novel and a step forward in Indian fiction and a significant part of Indian literature....
of Paigham Afaqui
Paigham Afaqui
Paig̲h̲ām Āfāqī , also written Paigham Afaqi pr Paigham Afaqui is the literary name of Akhtar Ali Farooquee , an Indian writer, known particular for his Urdu novels and short stories....
. Urdu ghazal has also recently changed its colour with more and more penetration in and synchronization with modern and contemporary issues of life.
Indian Persian literature
During the early Muslim period, Persian became the lingua franca of the subcontinent, used by most of the educated and the government. Although Persian literaturePersian literature
Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically been the national language...
from Persia itself was popular, several Indians became major Persian poets, the most notable being Amir Khusro
Amir Khusro
Ab'ul Hasan Yamīn ud-Dīn Khusrow , better known as Amīr Khusrow Dehlawī , was an Indian musician, scholar and poet. He was an iconic figure in the cultural history of the Indian subcontinent...
and in more modern times Allama Iqbal. Much of the older Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
literature was also translated into Persian. For a time, it remained the court language of the Mughals, soon to be replaced by Urdu. Persian still held its status, despite the spread of Urdu, well into the early years of the British rule in India. Most British officials had to learn Persian on coming to India and concluded their conversations in Persian. In 1837, however, the British, in an effort to expand their influence, made a government ruling to discontinue the use of Persian and commence the use of English instead. Thus started the decline of Persian as the subcontinent's lingua franca, a position to be taken up by the new language of the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
, English. Many modern Indian languages still show signs of heavy Persian influence, most notably Urdu and Hindi.
Indian English literature
In the 20th century, several Indian writers have distinguished themselves not only in traditional Indian languages but also in English. India's only Nobel laureate in literature was the BengaliBengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
writer Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
, who wrote some of his work originally in English, and did some of his own English translations from Bengali. More recent major writers in English who are either Indian or of Indian origin and derive much inspiration from Indian themes are R. K. Narayan
R. K. Narayan
R. K. Narayan , shortened from Rasipuram Krishnaswami Iyer Narayanaswami Tamil: ) , Madras Presidency, British India. His father was a school headmaster, and Narayan did some of his studies at his father's school...
, Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist.-Early life:Vikram Seth was born on 20 June 1952 to Leila and Prem Seth in Calcutta...
, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays...
, Raja Rao
Raja Rao
Raja Rao was an Indian writer of English language novels and short stories, whose works are deeply rooted in Hinduism. Raja Rao's semi-autobiographical novel, The Serpent and the Rope , is a story of a search for spiritual truth in Europe and India...
, Amitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh , is a Bengali Indian author best known for his work in the English language.-Life:Ghosh was born in Calcutta on July 11, 1956, to Lieutenant Colonel Shailendra Chandra Ghosh, a retired officer of the pre-independence Indian Army, and was educated at The Doon School; St...
, Rohinton Mistry
Rohinton Mistry
Rohinton Mistry is an Indian-born Canadian writer in English. Residing in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, Mistry is of Indian origin, originally from Mumbai, Zoroastrian and belongs to the Parsi community. Mistry is a Neustadt International Prize for Literature laureate .-Biography:Rohinton Mistry was...
, Vikram Chandra
Vikram Chandra
Vikram Chandra is an Indian writer. His first novel, Red Earth and Pouring Rain, won the 1996 Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Best First Book....
, Mukul Kesavan
Mukul Kesavan
Mukul Kesavan is an Indian writer and essayist. He studied History at the University of Delhi and later at Trinity College, Cambridge where he received his MLitt. His first book - Looking Through Glass received critical acclaim. He teaches social history at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi. He's keen...
, Raj Kamal Jha
Raj Kamal Jha
Raj Kamal Jha is an Indian novelist and journalist.Jha was born in Bihar and was raised in Calcutta, West Bengal, where he went to school at St. Joseph's College, Calcutta...
, Vikas Swarup
Vikas Swarup
Vikas Swarup is an Indian novelist and diplomat who has served in Turkey, the United States, Ethiopia, the United Kingdom, South Africa and Japan, best known for his novels Q & A and Six Suspects.-Early life:...
, Khushwant Singh
Khushwant Singh
Khushwant Singh is a prominent Indian novelist and journalist. Singh's weekly column, "With Malice towards One and All", carried by several Indian newspapers, is among the most widely-read columns in the country....
, Shashi Tharoor
Shashi Tharoor
Shashi Tharoor is an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala...
, Nayantara Sehgal, Anita Desai
Anita Desai
Anita Mazumdar Desai is an Indian novelist and Emeritus John E. Burchard Professor of Humanities at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology...
, Kiran Desai
Kiran Desai
Kiran Desai is an Indian author who is a citizen of India and a permanent resident of the United States. Her novel The Inheritance of Loss won the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award...
, Ashok Banker
Ashok Banker
Ashok Kumar Banker is a novelist and short story writer living in Mumbai, India. He has written professionally since his early teens, and has worked as a door-to-door surveyor for market research firms, a print journalist, columnist, scriptwriter for television series and documentaries, and in...
, Shashi Deshpande
Shashi Deshpande
Shashi Deshpande , is an award-winning Indian novelist. She is the second daughter of famous Kannada dramatist and writer Sriranga. She was born in Karnataka and educated in Bombay and Bangalore. Deshpande has degrees in Economics and Law...
, Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri
Jhumpa Lahiri is a Bengali American author. Lahiri's debut short story collection, Interpreter of Maladies , won the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and her first novel, The Namesake , was adapted into the popular film of the same name. She was born Nilanjana Sudeshna, which she says are both...
, Kamala Markandaya, Gita Mehta
Gita Mehta
Gita Mehta is an Indian writer and was born in Delhi in a renowned Oriya family of freedom fighters. She is the daughter of Biju Patnaik, an Indian independence activist and a Chief Minister in post-independence Orissa. Her younger brother Naveen Patnaik is presently the Chief Minister of Orissa...
, Manil Suri
Manil Suri
Manil Suri is an Indian-American mathematician and writer, most notable for his first novel, The Death of Vishnu, which was long-listed for the 2001 Booker Prize, short-listed for the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and won the Barnes & Noble Discover Prize that year...
, Ruskin Bond
Ruskin Bond
Ruskin Bond, born 19 May 1934, is an Indian author of British descent. He is considered to be an icon among Indian writers and children's authors and a top novelist....
, Preeti Shenoy
Preeti Shenoy
Preeti Shenoy, née Preeti Kamath, is a painter and writer from Pune, India.- Biography :During her school years Preeti studied in Kendriya Vidyalayas all over India, due to her father's constant job transfers, and this contact with different cultures and languages may have had an influence in her...
and Bharati Mukherjee
Bharati Mukherjee
Bharati Mukherjee is an award-winning Indian-born American writer. She is currently a professor in the department of English at the University of California, Berkeley.-Background:...
.
In the 1950s, the Writers Workshop
Writers Workshop
Writers Workshop is a Calcutta-based literary publisher founded by the poet-professor P. Lal in 1958. Over the next few decades it published many new authors in urban literature of the post-independence period. These authors later became big names.-History:...
collective in Calcutta was founded by the poet and essayist P. Lal
P. Lal
Purushottama Lal was an Indian poet, essayist, translator, professor and publisher. He was the founder and publisher of Writers Workshop in Calcutta, established in 1958.-Life and education:...
to advocate and publish Indian writing in English. The press was the first to publish Pritish Nandy
Pritish Nandy
Pritish Nandy is a Indian poet, painter, journalist, politician, media and television personality, animal activist and film producer. He is Bengali by ethnicity. He was member of Rajya Sabha, the upper house of the Indian parliament representing Maharashtra based party Shiv Sena...
, Sasthi Brata
Sasthi Brata
Sasthi Brata is an Indo-Anglian writer of fiction. He was educated at Calcutta Boys' School, Kolkata and then at Presidency College, Kolkata...
, and others; it continues to this day to provide a forum for English writing in India.In modern times, Indian poetry in English was typified by two very different poets. Dom Moraes
Dom Moraes
Dominic Francis Moraes , popularly known as Dom Moraes, was a Goan writer, poet and columnist. He published nearly 30 books.-Early life:...
, winner of the Hawthornden Prize
Hawthornden Prize
The Hawthornden Prize is a British literary award that was established in 1919 by Alice Warrender. Authors are awarded on the quality of their "imaginative literature" which can be written in either poetry or prose...
at the age of 19 for his first book of poems A Beginning went on to occupy a pre-eminent position among Indian poets writing in English. Nissim Ezekiel
Nissim Ezekiel
' was an Indian Jewish poet, playwright, editor and art-critic. He was a foundational figure in postcolonial India's literary history, specifically for Indian writing in English....
, who came from India's tiny Bene Israel
Bene Israel
The Bene Israel are a group of Jews who migrated in the 19th century from villages in the Konkan area to the nearby Indian cities, primarily Mumbai, but also to Pune, and Ahmedabad. Prior to these waves of emigrations and to this day, the Bene Israel formed the largest sector of the subcontinent's...
Jewish community, created a voice and place for Indian poets writing in English and championed their work.
Their contemporaries in English poetry in India were Jayanta Mahapatra
Jayanta Mahapatra
Jayanta Mahapatra is one of the best known Indian English poets.By all standards, Mahapatra's tryst with the muse came rather late in life. He took to writing poetry when he was into his 40s...
, Gieve Patel
Gieve Patel
Gieve Patel is a poet, playwright and artist, as well as a practicing doctor.-Early life and education:Gieve Patel was born in 1940 in Mumbai. He was educated at St Xavier's High School and Grant Medical College...
, A. K. Ramanujan
A. K. Ramanujan
Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan was a scholar of Indian literature who wrote in both English and Kannada. Ramanujan wore many hats as a Indian poet, scholar and author, those of a philologist, folklorist, translator, poet and playwright. His academic research ranged across five languages: Tamil,...
, Arun Kolatkar
Arun Kolatkar
Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar was a poet from Maharashtra, India. Writing in both Marathi and English, his poems found humor in many everyday matters. His poetry had an influence on modern Marathi poets...
, Dilip Chitre
Dilip Chitre
Dilip Purushottam Chitre was one of the foremost Indian writers and critics to emerge in the post Independence India. Apart from being a very important bilingual writer, writing in Marathi and English, he was also a painter and filmmaker.-Biography:He was born in Baroda on 17 September 1938...
, Eunice De Souza
Eunice De Souza
Eunice de Souza is a contemporary Indian English language poet, literary critic and novelist. Among her notable books of poetry is Women in Dutch painting .-Early life and education:...
, Kersi Katrak, P. Lal
P. Lal
Purushottama Lal was an Indian poet, essayist, translator, professor and publisher. He was the founder and publisher of Writers Workshop in Calcutta, established in 1958.-Life and education:...
and Kamala Das
Kamala Das
Kamala Suraiyya was a major Indian English poet and literateur and at the same time a leading Malayalam author from Kerala state, South India...
among several others.
Younger generation of poets writing in English include Rukmini Bhaya Nair
Rukmini Bhaya Nair
-Biography:Rukmini Bhaya Nair received her Ph.D at the University of Cambridge. She specializes in cognitive linguistics and critical theory. She is a professor of Linguistics and English in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. She is the...
, Makarand Paranjape
Makarand Paranjape
Makarand Paranjape is an Indian poet and professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India.-Early life and education:...
Arundhathi Subramaniam
Arundhathi Subramaniam
Arundhathi Subramaniam is a woman poet and writer and web editor based in Mumbai.Arundhathi Subramaniam has published three collections of poetry: On Cleaning Bookshelves and Where I Live and Where I Live: New & Selected Poems brought out by Bloodaxe Books in 2009...
, Ranjit Hoskote
Ranjit Hoskote
Ranjit Hoskote is a contemporary Indian poet, art critic, cultural theorist and independent curator.-Early life and education:...
, Sudeep Sen
Sudeep Sen
-Life and work:Sen studied at St Columba's School and read literature at Hansraj College Delhi University. As an Inlaks Scholar, he received a master's degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York...
, Jerry Pinto
Jerry Pinto
Jerry Pinto is a Mumbai-based Indian writer of poetry, prose and children's fiction in English, as well as a journalist. His noted works include, Helen: The Life and Times of an H-Bomb which won the Best Book on Cinema Award at the 54th National Film Awards, Surviving Women and Asylum and Other...
among others.
A generation of exiles also sprang from the Indian diaspora. Among these are names like Agha Shahid Ali
Agha Shahid Ali
Agha Shahid Ali was a Kashmiri American poet...
, Sujata Bhatt
Sujata Bhatt
Sujata Bhatt is an Indian poet, a native speaker of Gujarati.-Life and career:Bhatt was born in Ahmedabad, and brought up in Pune until 1968, when she emigrated to the United States with her family. She has an MFA from the University of Iowa, and for a time was writer-in-residence at the...
, Richard Crasta, Yuyutsu Sharma
Yuyutsu Sharma
Yuyutsu R.D. Sharma is a widely traveled Nepali/Indian writer who was born at Nakodar, Punjab and grew up in Nakodar and later at Nangal Township of Shivalik ranges of Mahabharata Hills where his father worked. He moved to Nepal at an early age and now writes in English and Nepali...
and Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth
Vikram Seth is an Indian poet, novelist, travel writer, librettist, children's writer, biographer and memoirist.-Early life:Vikram Seth was born on 20 June 1952 to Leila and Prem Seth in Calcutta...
.
In recent years, English-language writers of Indian origin are being published in the West at an increasing rate.
Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays...
, Kiran Desai
Kiran Desai
Kiran Desai is an Indian author who is a citizen of India and a permanent resident of the United States. Her novel The Inheritance of Loss won the 2006 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Fiction Award...
and Arvind Adiga have won the prestigious Man Booker Prize
Man Booker Prize
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...
, with Salman Rushdie going on to win the Booker of Bookers.
Literature from North East India
Literature from North East IndiaLiterature from North East India
Literature from North East India refers to literature of Languages of North East India, and also the body of work by English-language writers from this region. North-East India is an under-represented region in many ways...
refers to literature of Languages of North East India, and also the body of work by English-language writers from this region. North-East India
North-East India
Northeast India refers to the easternmost region of India consisting of the contiguous Seven Sister States, Sikkim, and parts of North Bengal...
is an under-represented region in many ways. The troubled political climate, the beautiful landscape and the confluence of various ethnic groups perhaps have given rise to a body of writing that is completely different from Indian English Literature. North-East India
North-East India
Northeast India refers to the easternmost region of India consisting of the contiguous Seven Sister States, Sikkim, and parts of North Bengal...
was a colonial construct and continues to be one by virtue of having a historically difficult relationship with the Indian nation state.
Journalism in India
The first printing press arrived in India in the year 1556, through the efforts of Jesuit missionaries. It was brought from Portugal and installed at the college of St. Paul in GoaSaint Paul's College, Goa
St. Paul's College was a Jesuit college founded circa 1542 at Old Goa. It was once the main Jesuit institution in India. It housed the first printing press in India, having published the first books in 1556...
. It was used mainly for printing religious literature like tracts, hymn books etc.
The first printed newspaper of India was in English, and was called Hicky’s Bengal Gazette. It was edited and published by James Augustus Hicky, an ex-employee of the East India Company. The first issue of this newspaper came out in 1780 and carried only classified advertisements on its front page. It was a weekly newspaper and generally dealt with the arrival and departure of Europeans, timings of steamers, fashionable news from London, Paris and Vienna, and personal news. It attended to the needs of the small European community of Calcutta. Many other Anglo-Indian newspapers emerged after Hicky’s pattern- such as John Bull, Calcutta Journal, Bengal Harkaru. In the year 1781, Hicky’s Bengal Gazette was forced to close down after Hicky published a scandalous story about Warren Hastings, the then Governor-General and his wife.
Later on, another type of newspaper emerged- Indo-Anglian papers. They were English newspapers run by Indians primarily for English educated elite Indians. The first newspaper of this type was Bengal Gazette, started in 1816 by Gangadhar Bhattacharya, a disciple of Raja Rammohan Roy. Rammohan Roy also began his famous Brahmanical Magazine, English fortnightly.
The early Indo-Anglian papers concentrated on drawing the attention of the British to the cultural and philosophical history of India. They did not openly attack social and political evils.
The first war of Independence was fought from 1857-59 in various parts of the country. Between 1860 and 1899, hundreds of newspapers came up demanding freedom of expression and criticizing the repressive measures taken by the British. Journalism played an important role in making educated Indians aware of their rights. Some newspapers of this period are The Hindu of Madras and Amrit Bazaar Patrika of Calcutta. Another significant factor was that during this period a large number of colleges imparting science and liberal arts education sprang up in the major towns of India.
Digdarshan (World Vision) was the first Indian language newspaper, a Bengali religious weekly started in Sehrampur by Christian missionaries. Based on the pattern of Digdarshan, Raja Rammohan Roy brought out Bengali and Urdu weeklies like Bangadoota and Mirat-ul-Akhbar. The newspaper with the greatest longevity in India is the first Gujarati newspaper- Mumbai Samachar, established in 1822. Some of the early Hindi publications were Oodunt Martand, Banaras Akhbar, Shimla Akhbar and Samayadant Martand, the first Hindi daily. Mangaloora Samachar, published from Mangalore, was the first Kannada journal. Malayala Manorama, the second oldest newspaper in Kerala was started in 1890, and was the first newspaper to be published by a joint stock company formed solely for the purpose of publishing a newspaper. The first Marathi newspaper was Darpan- a bilingual fortnightly in Englisha and Marathi, started by a professor of the Elphinstone College of Bombay. The first all Marathi journal was Mumbai Akhbar. During the early part of the 20th century, Marathi journalism played an important role in the freedom movement. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, a renowned freedom fighter started two powerful journals- Kesari and Maratha.
Despite the numerous columns and articles demanding political and social reforms, journalism during the 19th century had little impact on the Indian masses, due to widespread illiteracy and poverty.
In 1947, the major English newspaper in India were the Times of India (Bombay), Statesman (Calcutta), Hindu (Madras), Hindustan Times (New Delhi), Indian Express (Bombay & Madras) Amrita Bazaar Patrika (Calcutta). Of these, the Times of India, Statesman & Pioneer were under British ownership till 1964, when it came under a group of Indian business.
During the long struggle for India’s Independence, the major English newspaper that served the national cause were the Hindu (1878), Amrita Bazaar Patrika (1868), & Hindustan Times (1924). Among the Indian language newspapers, the prominent ones were, Ananda bazaar Patrika (1922), Sakal (1931), Mumbai Samachar (1822), Malayala Manorama (1890) & Mathrubhumi (1930).
During the 1950s 214 daily newspapers were published in the country. Out of these, 44 were English language dailies while the rest were published in various regional languages. This number rose to 2,856 dailies in 1990 with 209 English dailies.
There are four major publishing groups in India, each of which controls national and regional English-language and vernacular publications. They are the Times of India Group, the Indian Express Group, the Hindustan Times Group, and the Anandabazar Patrika Group. The Times of India is India's largest English-language daily, with a circulation of 656,000 published in six cities. The Indian Express, with a daily circulation of 519,000, is published in seventeen cities. There also are seven other daily newspapers with circulations of between 134,000 and 477,000, all in English and all competitive with one another. Indian-language newspapers also enjoy large circulations but usually on a statewide or citywide basis. For example, the Malayalam-language daily Malayala Manorama circulates 673,000 copies in Kerala; the Hindi-language Dainik Jagran circulates widely in Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi, with 580,000 copies per day; Punjab Kesari, also published in Hindi and available throughout Punjab and New Delhi, has a daily circulation of 562,000; and the Anandabazar Patrika, published in Calcutta in Bengali, has a daily circulation of 435,000. There are also numerous smaller publications throughout the nation. The combined circulation of India's newspapers and periodicals is in the order of 60 million, published daily in more than ninety languages.
Journalism During the Emergency Period
During the summer of 1975, as Indira Gandhi became increasingly threatened by the mounting criticisms of her government, she declared a state of emergency. The declaration of a national emergency lasted for about 19 months. The emergency was declared as a result of mounting political pressure exerted upon the government from opposing political parties which were striving to fight corruption, inflation and economic chaos in the country. Indira Gandhi's government, rather than taking this as a political challenge, resorted to declaring a national emergency and imprisoning the opposition party leaders, including all dissenting voices from the media.Immediately she took control of the press, prohibiting their reporting of all domestic and international news. The government expelled several foreign correspondents (mainly American and British) and withdrew accreditation from more than 40 Indian reporters who normally covered the capital.
The fundamental rights of the Indian people were suspended, and strict controls were imposed on freedom of speech and press. According to the Right of Freedom-Article 19(1) of the Indian Constitution, Indians have the right (a) to freedom of speech and expression, (b) to assemble peacefully and without arms, (c) to form associations or unions, (d) to move freely across the length and breadth of the country, (e) to reside or settle in any part of India, (f) to own or dispose of property, and (g) to carry on any lawful trade of occupation.'
It is obvious that, unlike the American Constitution or others In which freedom of the press is mentioned as one of the fundamental rights, the Indian Constitution doesn't specifically mention freedom of the press. However, the fundamental Rights Clause of the Indian Constitution treats freedom of the press as an integral part of the larger "freedom of expression."
Indira Gandhi's government used the "security of the state" and "promotion of disaffection" as its defense for imposing strict control on the press. And with the airwaves already under government ownership, Indira Gandhi successfully controlled the mass communication system in India for over a year and a half.
During censorship, most of the nation's domestic dailies gave up the battle for press freedom. Their pages were "filled with fawning accounts of national events, flattering pictures of Gandhi and her ambitious son, and not coincidentally, lucrative government advertising." But two tough, prominent publishers of English language dailies, The Indian Express and The Statesman, fought courageously against Indira Gandhi's opposition of the Indian press. Despite some bold fights and stubborn stands taken up by these publishers, its was quite clear that Indira Gandhi had as strong a grip on the Indian press as she had on Indian politics, at least during the government-imposed emergency.
Methods of Press Control
Like other dictators in history, Indira Gandhi's first attempt was to impose "thought control" on the populace. For her, this was to be effectuated not merely by controlling the Indian mass media but also by moulding the media to her own purpose. It has now become a well known fact that during the emergency Indira Gandhi had a firm grip on the Indian mass media. This was especially true since radio and television in India are government owned and operated; for Indira, there was the simple matter of controlling the newspapers in order to achieve a total control of the mass media. She used at least three methods in manipulating the newspapers:
(1) allocation of government advertising;
(2) shotgun merger of the news agencies; and
(3) use of fear-arousal techniques on newspaper publishers, journalists and individual shareholders.
The Indian newspapers depend a great deal on governmental advertising; without such revenues, it would be difficult for many Indian newspapers to stay in business. Unfortunately, this has kept many of them vulnerable to government manipulation. The large scale possibility of such manipulation, however, was not fully demonstrated until Indira Gandhi's government decided to take advantage of this unique circumstance. In the beginning of censorship, when a few leading newspapers such as The Indian Express and The Statesman refused to abide the governmental censorship, the government withdrew its advertising support from these newspapers. Later on, this type of financial castigation was used on several other rebellious newspapers.
The second and perhaps more profound way of manipulating the news flow resulted from the governmental decision to bring about a shot-gun merger of the four privately-owned Indian news agencies; the main purpose behind this merger was to alter the management and control of the Indian news agencies and thus to control much of the content of the leading newspapers. Since these agencies had been acting as the gatekeepers of information, it was essential for Indira Gandhi and her Information and Broadcasting Minister, Mr. V.C. Shukla, to control the gatekeepers. To effect such a merger, the government carried through various successful tactics. First of all, pressure was put on the members of boards of these agencies. Then the financial squeeze was applied to the agencies themselves by withholding governmental subsidy. Thirdly, the government introduced the threat of cutting-off the teleprinter services, the lifelines of a news agency. For example, the government-owned Post and Telegraph Department was ordered to impose a suspension of services to the United News of India if it resisted the merger. The manipulation of these four news agencies was so effective that hardly a voice was raised to resist the governmental perfidy. Soon after this, Shukla reported to the Indian parliament that these four news agencies accepted the merger "voluntarily."
A third and an equally effective method applied by Indira Gandhi was to use fear-arousal techniques on the newspaper publishers, editors, reporters and shareholders. Such techniques were imposed by making false charges with regard to tax arrears, possible reductions in newsprint quotas, imprisonment of publishers
Awards
- Sahitya Akademi FellowshipSahitya Akademi FellowshipThe Sahitya Akademi Fellowship is a literary honour in India. Awarded by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, to the "immortals of literature," and limited to twenty one individuals at any given time, it is the highest literary honour conferred by the Government of India...
- Jnanpith AwardJnanpith AwardThe Jnanpith Award is a literary award in India. Along with the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, it is one of the two most prestigious literary honours in the country...
- Sahitya Akademi AwardSahitya Akademi AwardSahitya Akademi Award is a literary honor in India which Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of outstanding works in one of the following twenty-four major Indian languagesAssamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri,...
- Vyas SammanVyas SammanThe Vyas Samman is a literary award in India, first awarded in 1991 . It is awarded annually by the K.K. Birla Foundation and includes a cash payout of Rs 2.5 lakh ....
- Saraswati SammanSaraswati SammanThe Saraswati Samman is an annual award for outstanding prose or poetry literary works in any Indian language listed in Schedule VIII of the Constitution of India. It is named after an Indian goddess of learning and is considered to be among the highest literary awards in India.The award consists...
- Paschimbanga Bangla Academy Award
See also
- Indian epic poetryIndian epic poetryIndian epic poetry is the epic poetry written in the Indian subcontinent, traditionally called Kavya . The Ramayana and Mahabharata, originally composed in Sanskrit and translated thereafter into many other Indian languages, are some of the oldest surviving epic poems on earth and form part of...
- Indian Literature (journal)Indian Literature (journal)Indian Literature is an English-language literary journal published bi-monthly by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters. the editor was A. J. Thomas, and Gopi Chand Narang, Sunil Gangopadhyaya and Agrahara Krishna Murthy, inspired by K...
- Indian poetryIndian poetryIndian poetry, and Indian literature in general, has a long history dating back to Vedic times. They were written in various Indian languages such as Vedic Sanskrit, Classical Sanskrit, Oriya, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali and Urdu. Poetry in foreign languages such as Persian and English also have a...
- Literature from North East IndiaLiterature from North East IndiaLiterature from North East India refers to literature of Languages of North East India, and also the body of work by English-language writers from this region. North-East India is an under-represented region in many ways...
- Stephanian School of LiteratureStephanian School of LiteratureStephanian School of Literature refers to a body of fictional works written in English, mostly novels written by the alumni of St. Stephen's College, Delhi....
External links
- Indian Literature on Indohistory
- http://indianreview.in/
- South Asian Canonical Texts