Indian literature

Indian Literature

India has over two millennia old literary history. But

unlike the Chinese early literary works which were either
poetic or philosophical works, the earliest literary works in
India were the Sanskrit sacred Vedic texts.
Indian literature is based on piety, a deeply religious
spirit.
 The Indian literary tradition is primarily one of verse and
is also essentially oral. The earliest works were
composed to be sung or recited and were so
transmitted for many generations before being written
down. As a result, the earliest records of a text may be
later by several centuries than the conjectured date
of its composition
Sanskrit

 The literature of India is often called as the Sanskrit

literature. The word ‘Sanskrit’ means cultivated or
perfected. Hindu literature reveals the inner and outer
life of a remarkable people ; it extends from a remote
past to the present.
Early Sanskrit Literature
The first Indian literary work was a collection of Sanskrit
hymns that was orally transmitted. The so-called Vedas,
Vedas, a collection of traditions handed orally. It contains
hymns addressed to Indian gods, who are very numerous,
and stories about them which were either sung or
recited .It was thought to have been composed as early
as 1500 to 1200 BCE but they were written down only at
the end of the first millennium BCE, while the oldest Veda
texts date to around 11th century.
Classical Sanskrit Literature
 Despite the fact that India is home to many different
languages, religious importance of the early Sanskrit
texts and the influence of Sanskrit on many Indian
languages enabled Sanskrit literature to flourish over
one millennium.
The most prominent surviving Sanskrit literary from the
classical period include the
 Abhijnanasakuntalam by Kalidasa
 Arthashastra and Neetishastra by Chanakya
 Vasavadatta by Subandhu and his son Skandagupta
 Dashakumaracharita by Dandin and
 Kama Sutra by Vatsyayana.
Medieval Indian Literature
With the exception of south India where Tamil literature
has been produced from the ancient times, medieval
Indian literature remained strongly influenced by the
Sanskrit literature. However, literary works that were
created between the 11th and early 19th century also
reveal a major influence of Buddhist and Jain works.

Tamil - is the oldest literature in India.

Modern Indian Literature
The modern Indian literature began in the 18th century
with the colonization of India by the British. There was
not a complete break with the past, however. The
influence of the Early Sanskrit classics could still be
seen in the modern novels, poetry, and drama that
were being reshaped by Western political ideas and
literary styles.
Two major epics of Indian Literature
Mahabharata

The Mahabharata is one of the two most important ancient epics

of India, the other being the Ramayana. It is believed to be written by
Sage Ved Vyasa. The great work depicts the struggle for power
between two group of cousins, the Kauravas and the Pandavas in
Greater India. No wonder The Mahabharata is the longest known
epic poem and has been described as the longest poem ever written.
There is also a 19th section named Harivamsha. The
Bhagavadgita, a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, is a part of
the Mahabharata.
Ramayana
The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic about Rama.
The epic was originally written by sage Valmiki. The Ramayana
plays an important role in Hindu literature. The Ramayana
consists of 96,000 verses in seven books and tells the story of
Rama, whose wife Sita is abducted by Ravana, the king of
Lanka.
The characters Rama, Sita, Lakshman, Bharata,
Hanuman and Ravana are all fundamental to the cultural
consciousness of India, Nepal and many south-east Asian
countries such as Thailand and Indonesia.
Important Writers in Indian
Literature

Rabindranath Tagore
A poet, short-story writer, song composer,
playwright, essayist, and painter who introduced new
prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language
into Bengali literature , thereby freeing it from traditional
models based on classical Sanskrit. he is generally
regarded as the outstanding creative artist of early 20th-
century India. In 1913 he became the first non-European
to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Bengali- is an Indo-Aryan language primarily spoken by the Bengalis in the Indian subcontinent.
Sarojini Naidu
political activist, feminist, poet, and the first
Indian woman to be president of the Indian National
Congress and to be appointed an Indian state governor.
She was sometimes called “the Nightingale of India.”
Her first volume of poetry,
The Golden Threshold (1905), followed by
The Bird of Time (1912), and in 1914 she was elected a
fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Her collected poems, all of which she wrote in English,
have been published under the titles
The Sceptred Flute (1928) and
The Feather of the Dawn (1961).
Premchand
Indian author of novels and short stories in Hindi and
Urdu who pioneered in adapting Indian themes to Western
literary styles. His first major Hindi, novel Sevasadana (1918;
“House of Service”), dealt with the problems of prostitution
and moral corruption among the Indian middle class.
Premchand’s works depict the social evils of arranged marriages,
the abuses of the British bureaucracy, and exploitation of the
rural peasantry by moneylenders and officials.

Premchand’s novels include:

Premashram (1922; “Love Retreat”)
Rangabhumi (1924; “The Arena”)
Ghaban (1928; “Embezzlement”)
Karmabhumi (1931; “Arena of Actions”)
Godan(1936; The Gift of a Cow).
Subramania Bharati

An outstanding Indian writer of the nationalist period who is

regarded as the father of the modern Tamil style.

Bharati’s best-known works

Kaṇṇan pāṭṭu (1917; Songs to Krishna)
Panchali sapatham(1912; Panchali’s Vow)
Kuyil pāṭṭu (1912; Kuyil’s Song).

Many of his English works were collected in Agni and

Other Poems and Translations and Essays and Other Prose
Fragments(1937)..
Santha Rama Rau
Indian author and journalist. W as best known for her
travel books, but all of her work was characterized by a strong
autobiographical element and the examination of the tension
between Western and Indian traditions.
During her time she published travel essays and short stories in
such periodicals as:
The New Yorker and Vogue;
completed her third novel, Remember the House (1956);
and wrote a stage adaptation (first produced in London, 1960)
of E.M. Forster’s novel A Passage to India.
Rama Rau’s other nonfiction works include This Is India (1954)
My Russian Journey (1959)
The Cooking of India (1970)
Gifts of Passage (1961).
R.K. Narayan
one of the finest Indian authors of his generation writing in English.
Narayan typically portrays the peculiarities of human
relationships and the ironies of Indian daily life, in which modern
urban existence clashes with ancient tradition. His style is
graceful, marked by genial humor, elegance, and simplicity.
His famous works are
The English Teacher (1945)
Waiting for the Mahatma (1955)
The Guide (1958), The Man-Eater of Malgudi (1961)
The Vendor of Sweets (1967), and
A Tiger for Malgudi (1983).
Narayan also wrote a number of short stories; collections
include Lawley Road (1956)
A Horse and Two Goats and Other Stories (1970)
Under the Banyan Tree and Other Stories (1985)
The Grandmother’s Tale (1993).