UNIT-TWO

Indian Literature, Culture, Tradition and

Practices.
 Evolution Of Script and Languages in India
• Language: It is a medium through which express
our thoughts.

• Language is used to understand about a culture

and its different traditions. For that we should
know about evolution of its language.
Classification of the Languages

Indian Languages

Sino-
Dravidian Aryan Austric
Tibetian
• Aryan :- It is the most important language among the Indian linguistic and cultural groups.
• It is believed that the Indian civilization found expression through Aryan speech as it is
developed over centuries.
• The hymes Poems collected in the four Vedas are in the evidence of this language.
• It is developed over the time through Vedic Sanskrit.

• Dravidian:- It is considered as the second important language in the Indian language

family.
• After the Aryan Language this language is largely has functions. It has its own special
characteristics.
• Forms solid form in the south India, embraced 4 great literary languages: Kannada,
Malyalam, Tamil, Telugu.
• It is older than the Aryan language.
• Sino- Tibetan: The people of Mangloid origin, spoke this language.
• Not have much numerical importance or cultural significance in India. With the
exception of Manipuri of Manipur.
• These are constantly receding before Bengali and Assames.

Austric:
Represents oldest speech family of India but spoken by very small number of
people.
Great interest for the student of linguistic and human culture.
Valuable relics of India’s past.
Speakers of Autistic know some Aryan languages and they become largely bilingual.
 Harappan Scripts
• Collection of symbols produced by the Indus Valley Civilization.
• Most inscriptions are extremely short.
• Not clear that it was used to record language or symbols of writing.
• Still unclear, no underlying language identified.
• No known bilingual inscriptions.
• Script does not show any significant changes over time.
• Characters are largely pictorial.
• Established direction of writing is right to left.
• Number of principal sign is about 400.
 Brahmi Script
• This name of the script is given to the oldest scripts used on
Indian Subcontinent during the BCE & CE centuries.

• The origin of this language is much debated that if it is derived

from outside the India, derived from the ancient Phoenician
script or derived from Mohen-Jo-Daro script.

• There was also a suggestion that the Brahmi originated from

pictures of objects in India.

• It has great beauty of simplicity, they stand bold and clear.

• Characteristics: It is usually written from left to
right.
• Characters are joined vertically.
• Extremes of punctuations are not well shown.
• Gaps between the words.
• Flower mark end.
• Full stop- circular mark.
Vedas:
Earliest known literature in India.
They were written in Sanskrit and passed over from one generation to
another.

They are considered divine and true in Hindu culture.

Veda means “ Knowledge”.

It has the essence of treating the whole world as a family “ Vasudev
Kutumbkam.”
 Four vedas
• 1. Rig Ved: It is oldest of the four vedas.
• It contains various facts and clarifications about the origin of world,
important of goals e.t.c.

• Indra is the chief deity stated in Rig Ved.

• Rig ved is divided into 10 books/ mandals.

• It contains 10,600 verses, 1028 hymes.

• Gayatri mantra is also written in it.

Sama Ved: Sama means singing, so
everything in sama ved is said by singing.

When a yagya is organised then they call

deities in sweet and loud voice.

Sama ved :
a.) Purvacharika
b.)Uttaracharika.
It contains 1549 mantras, 72 new, rest old.

6 kandas in uttarakshika

9 kandas in purvanshika.

459 small kandas or suktas.

Yajur Veda: Yajur means poetry.
It contains knowledge related to yagya.
Contains 40 chapters, 200 couplets.
Poetical sentences used at the time of anushthan.

Yajur Ved:
Shukla yajur ved and Krishna yajur ved.

Sanhita: Vaat Sanhita related to yagna.

Atharva Ved: Daily procedures of life
730 hymes, 6000 mantras,20 books.

Two surviving recensions, which are paipallada and

saunakiya.

Called vedas of magical formulas.

Beginning of Ayurveda, medicines and

pharmacology.

Hymes of Atharva ved are unique.

Upnishads:

They are the late vedic text that supply

the basic of Hindu philosophy. They are
the most recent part of the vedas, the
oldest scriptures of Hinduism., and deal
with meditation, philosophy,
consciousness and self realization.
Upnishads documents a wide variety of
incarnation, and esoteric knowledge, departing
from vedic ritualism and interpreted in various
ways, informed the later tradition of Hinduism.

The Upnishads are commonly referred to as

Vedanta.
Around 108 Upnishads are known, of
which dozens or so are the oldest and
most important are the referred to as
“mukhya Upnishads”.

The mukhya Upnishads are found mostly

in the concluding part of Brahmanas and
Aranyakas.
Ramayana: it is one of the most important
literature of Hinduism.

Writtem by Maharishi Valmiki, it narrates the

life of Rama, a legenderay prince of Ayodhya
and its story of win of good over evil
It contains 24,000 verses, divided into 7 kandas. The
first and the seventh being the later additions.

There are various versions of the Ramayana in Indian

Languages.

The Ramayana was an important influence on later

Sanskrit poetry and the hindu life and culture. It is a
most impotant moral influencer telling about virtues in
the life of citizen and in the formation of ideal states.
Mahabhartha: The mahbhartha is one of the
two major Sanskrit epic of India.

It narrates the story of the two groups of

cousins in the Kurukshetra war and fates of
Kaurav and Pandavs princes and their
successors.
The authorship if the Mahabhartha is
attributed to Vyasa.

The Mahabhartha distinguishes the core

portions of 24,000 verses.

It has the 18 Parv or books.

Puranas:

It is vast genre of Indian Literature about

a wide range of topics, particularly about
the legends and other traditional lore.
The Puranas are known for the intricate
layer of symbolism depicted within their
stories. The Puranic literature is
encyclopaedic.
The Hindu Maha purana is traditionally attributed, to
Vyasa.There are mainly 18 puranas and 18 up puranas
with over 400,000 verses. The first version of the
various puranas are likely to have been composed
rd th
between 3 and 10 century CE. They are considered
as smriti.

The Bahgvata Purana has been among the most

popular text in puranic genre.
Buddhist and Jain Literature In Pali,
Prakrit and Sanskrit.

The religious books of the Jain and

Buddhist refer to historical persons or
incidences.
The canonical literature is best represented by
the “Tripitakas” That is three baskets.

Vinaya Pitaka.
Sutta Pitaka
Abhidhamma Pitaka
The Non- canonical literature is best
represented by the Jatakas. They are the most
interesting stories on the previous births of
Buddha.

It was believed that before born as Gautam he

was practising the dharma passed through
more than 55o births, in many cases in the form
of animals also.
The Jain text was written in Prakrit and
were finally compiled in sixth century AD In
Valabhi in Gujrat.

The important works are known as angas,

Upangas, Parkirans, Chhedab Surtas ,
Malasutras.
Kautilya Arthshastra:

It is an ancient Sanskrit treatise on statecraft,

political science, economy and military
strategy. Kautilya, also identified as
Vishnugupta and Chankaya, is traditionally
credited as the author of the text. The later
was a scholar at Takshila.

The Arthshastra explores the issues of social

welfare.It deals with the issues that what a
king should do for the welfare of its kingdom
or Janpada.
The authorship and the date of writing are
unknown, and there is evidence that the
surviving manuscripts are not original and have
been modified in their history but are most
likely to be completed in the available form
nd RD
between 2 century BCE TO 3 Century CE.

Arthashastra is the product of the transmission

that involves at least three major overlapping
divisions or layers.
The division is into 15, 150 and 180 books,
chapters and topics were respectively was
probably were not incidental.

The whole book is around 5,300 sentences on

politics , governance, welfare, economics.
Defending the key officials as king, gathering
information about the hostile states, forming
strategic alliance and conduct of war.
Here we are listing some famous Sanskrit
authors:
Valmiki- Ramayana.
Bharat Muni- Natyashastra.
Kalidas- Abhigyanshkuntlam.
Dandi-Dhashakmurchritras
Narayan Sharma- Hitopdesh.
Shri Harsha- Ratnavali.
Ashvagosha-Sharikaputraprakaran.
Telugu Literature:

Early Telugu literature is predominantly

religious in subject matter. Poets and
scholars drew most of their material from,
and spent most of their time translating
epics, such as Ramayana and mahabhartha.
The various forms of the Telugu literature are:

Prabandhanam:Stories in the verse form.

Champu : Mixture of prose and poetry.
Kavyam: a poem that begins with a short
prayer.
Avdhanam: Partial improvisation of poems.
Naneelu : Epigrams.

Ashtadigajjas have written all three of

Prabandhanam.
Kannada Literature: The kannada literature is the
corpus of written forms of Kannada language, a
member of the Dravidian family spoken mostly in
the state of Karnataka and written in Kannad script.

Starting with Kavirajmarga( C 850) and until the

th
middle of the 12 century, literature in kannada was
almost exclusively composed by the Jains.
 th
The Lingyatism movement of the 12
century created new literature which
flourished alongside Jain works.With the
th
wanning of Jain influence dating the 14
century Vijayangra empire, a new
th
Vaishnav literature grew rapidly in 15
century.The devotional Movement of
Haridasa saint mark the high point of this
era.
Sangma Literature: The sangma literature
popularly known as “ The poetry of the noble
ones” connotes the Tamil Literature and its
earliest known Literature of South India.
Sangama means gathering, meeting,
fraternity academy.
North Indian Languages:
A large number of people speak hindi in different
forms that includes Braj Bhasha, Avadhi, Bhojpuri,
Magadhi and Maithili and Rajasthani and Khadi
Boli.

The studies shown the script present in the north

Indian Languages except Urdu has its origin from
Bramhi.

If we compare Gujrati, Hindi and Punjabi then we

can see the change.
Persian and Urdu:

Urdu appeared as an independent language

th
towards the end of 4 century AD. Arabic and
Persian were introduced in India with the arrival
of the Turks and the Mongols.
Persian remained the court language for many
centuries. Urdu was born out of the interactions
of Hindi and Persian.
Hindi Literature: It is known as the literature of Adi and
was spread over Kannauj, Delhi and Ajmer. The
literature of the Adi Kal or Vir Gatha Kal. In The Deccan
region of the south India, Dakkhini or Hindavi was used.

During the later part of this period and early Bhakti kala,
During the medieval era.

Hindi literature was developed. The main works of the

Awadhi are the Malik Muhhammad Jayasi’s “ Padmavat”
and Tulsidas’s Ramcharita manas.
Other kals of the Hindi Literature are also
here:
1. Riti- Kvya Kal- In the Ritikavya aur
Ritismarga period , the erotic element
became predominant in Hindi literature.
This era is called riti means procedure ,
because it was the age of the poetic
figures and the theory was developed to
the fullest.
Adhunik Kal: In the 1800, the British East India
company estabhished Fort William College at
Calcutta.

The person who brought realism in Hindi

Prose literature was Munshi Premchand, who
was considered as the most revered figure in
the world of the Hindi Fiction.
Dwivedi Yug:The Dwivedi Yug ( Age of
Dwivedi) in Hindi literature lasted from 1900 o
1918. It is named after Mahavir Prasad
Dwivedi, who has played a major role in the
establishing of the modern Hindi Language, in
poetry and broadening, the subject of the
Hindi poetry from the traditional ones of the
religion and the romantic love.
 th
Chhayavadi Yug: In the 20 century, Hindi
literature saw a romantic upsurge. This is known
as the “ Chhayawad” and the literary figures
belonging to this school are known as
Chhayavadi.
Jayshankar Prasad, Suryakant Tripathi’Nirala’,
Mahadevi Verma, Sumitranandan Pant are the
four major chhyavadi poets.
Vyanga ; The sense of humour is known
as “Vyanga”: These types of poems which
have vyangsas hidden in them are also a
very prominent part of the Hindi
Literature.