Lesson 67 of 94 7 min Premium

Indian Literature and Languages through the Ages

GS1 · Indian Art, Architecture and Literature

A many-tongued civilisation

India has one of the oldest and most varied literary traditions in the world, in Sanskrit, Prakrit and Pali, Tamil and the other Dravidian languages, Persian and Urdu, and the modern Indo-Aryan languages. Literature carried religion, philosophy, science, law and politics, and it often moved from oral recitation to written manuscripts much later. For UPSC, the important points are the major texts and their authors, the periods in which regional languages flourished, the classical language status, and the role of literature in the national movement.

Vedic and Sanskrit literature

Vedic literature (c. 1500–500 BCE) was preserved orally with remarkable accuracy.

Four Vedas – Rigveda (hymns; the oldest, with 10 mandalas and 1,028 hymns; the Gayatri mantra is in Mandala III), Samaveda (melodies for chanting – the root of Indian music), Yajurveda (sacrificial formulas) and Atharvaveda (spells, medicine, everyday life).
Each Veda has Brahmanas (ritual explanations), Aranyakas (forest texts) and Upanishads (philosophy of Brahman and Atman). There are 108 Upanishads traditionally, with about a dozen principal ones.
Vedangas – six auxiliary sciences: shiksha (phonetics), kalpa (ritual), vyakarana (grammar), nirukta (etymology), chhandas (metre) and jyotisha (astronomy).

An illustrated 19th-century Sanskrit manuscript of the Bhagavad Gita. Credit: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.

Timeline of Indian literature from the Rigveda to Rabindranath Tagore's Nobel Prize in 1913 — Dates for ancient texts are approximate.

Epics and Puranas. The Ramayana of Valmiki (the *adi-kavya*, first poem) and the Mahabharata attributed to Vyasa, with about 100,000 verses, including the Bhagavad Gita. The 18 Mahapuranas (such as the Vishnu, Bhagavata and Matsya Puranas) took shape in the Gupta and post-Gupta period.

Classical Sanskrit. Panini's Ashtadhyayi (c. 5th–4th century BCE) systematised grammar; Patanjali wrote the *Mahabhashya* on it.

Kalidasa (Gupta age): plays *Abhijnanashakuntalam*, *Malavikagnimitram*, *Vikramorvashiyam*; poems *Meghaduta*, *Raghuvamsha*, *Kumarasambhava*, *Ritusamhara*.
Political and other works: Kautilya's Arthashastra (statecraft); Vishakhadatta's *Mudrarakshasa* (about Chandragupta Maurya) and *Devichandraguptam*; Banabhatta's *Harshacharita* and *Kadambari*; Kalhana's Rajatarangini (12th century), the first true history of Kashmir; Jayadeva's Gita Govinda (12th century).
Story literature: *Panchatantra* (Vishnu Sharma), *Hitopadesha*, *Kathasaritsagara* (Somadeva).
Science: Aryabhata (*Aryabhatiya*), Varahamihira (*Brihat Samhita*), Brahmagupta, Charaka and Sushruta (medicine and surgery).

Buddhist and Jain literature

Buddhist canon in Pali: the Tripitaka – Vinaya (monastic rules), Sutta (discourses) and Abhidhamma (philosophy); the Jatakas (previous births of the Buddha); Sri Lankan chronicles Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa. Mahayana texts in Sanskrit, such as Ashvaghosha's Buddhacharita.
Jain canon in Ardhamagadhi Prakrit: the Agamas (12 Angas), compiled at Vallabhi (5th century CE); Hemachandra (12th century) wrote in Sanskrit and Prakrit.

Sangam and Tamil literature

Sangam literature (c. 3rd century BCE–3rd century CE) was composed by poets in three assemblies (sangams) traditionally held at Madurai under Pandya patronage.

Tolkappiyam – the oldest Tamil grammar.
Ettuthogai (eight anthologies) and Pattuppattu (ten idylls), classified into akam (love, inner life) and puram (war, public life).
Thirukkural by Thiruvalluvar – couplets on virtue, wealth and love.
Twin epics: Silappadikaram (Ilango Adigal; the story of Kannagi) and Manimekalai (Sittalai Sattanar).
Bhakti poetry of the Alvars (Vishnu) – compiled as the *Nalayira Divya Prabandham* – and the Nayanars (Shiva) – the *Tevaram* and *Tirumurai*. Kamban's Ramayana (12th century) under the Cholas.

A palm-leaf manuscript of the Tirukkural. Credit: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.

Other Dravidian classics: Kannada – Pampa, Ponna and Ranna (the "three gems"), *Kavirajamarga* (Rashtrakuta Amoghavarsha); Telugu – Nannaya's Mahabharata, and the court of Krishnadevaraya with the Ashtadiggajas (eight poets, including Allasani Peddana); Malayalam – Thunchaththu Ezhuthachan, father of modern Malayalam.

Medieval literature: Persian and the regional languages

Persian became the court language under the Sultanate and Mughals.

Amir Khusrau (1253–1325), "Tuti-i-Hind" (parrot of India), wrote in Persian and Hindavi and served several Delhi sultans.
Ziauddin Barani (*Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi*), Minhaj-us-Siraj (*Tabaqat-i-Nasiri*), Ibn Battuta (*Rihla*, in Arabic).
Babur's memoirs *Tuzuk-i-Baburi* (Baburnama, in Turkish); Gulbadan Begum's *Humayun-nama*; Abul Fazl's Akbarnama and Ain-i-Akbari; Jahangir's *Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri*; Dara Shikoh's *Majma-ul-Bahrain* and Persian translation of 50 Upanishads (*Sirr-i-Akbar*).

Cards linking Bhakti poets to languages: Tamil Alvars and Nayanars, Marathi Jnaneshwar and Tukaram, Hindi Kabir and Tulsidas, Assamese Sankardev, Punjabi Guru Nanak and Kashmiri Lal Ded — Bhakti turned regional languages into literary languages.

Bhakti and regional languages. The Bhakti movement made regional languages vehicles of devotion.

Hindi/Awadhi/Braj: Kabir (dohas, Bijak), Surdas (*Sur Sagar*), Tulsidas (*Ramcharitmanas*, Awadhi), Mirabai, Malik Muhammad Jayasi (*Padmavat*).
Marathi: Jnaneshwar (*Jnaneshwari*, a commentary on the Gita), Namdev, Eknath, Tukaram.
Bengali: Chandidas, Krittibas (Bengali Ramayana), Chaitanya-inspired Vaishnava poetry.
Assamese: Sankardev; Odia: Sarala Das (Odia Mahabharata); Gujarati: Narsinh Mehta; Punjabi: Guru Nanak and the Guru Granth Sahib (compiled by Guru Arjan Dev, 1604); Kashmiri: Lal Ded.
Urdu developed from Hindavi with Persian vocabulary; the Deccan was an early centre (Quli Qutb Shah), and Mir Taqi Mir and Mirza Ghalib were great poets of Delhi.

Modern literature and nationalism

Bengal: Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay – *Anandamath* (1882) with Vande Mataram; Rabindranath Tagore – *Gitanjali*, Asia's first Nobel Prize in Literature (1913), composer of Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's anthem *Amar Shonar Bangla*; Sarat Chandra; Kazi Nazrul Islam ("rebel poet").
Hindi: Bharatendu Harishchandra (father of modern Hindi), Premchand (*Godan*, *Rangbhoomi*), Maithili Sharan Gupt (*Bharat-Bharati*), Jaishankar Prasad, Mahadevi Varma.
Urdu: Muhammad Iqbal (*Saare Jahan se Achha*), Faiz Ahmad Faiz.
Tamil: Subramania Bharati; Marathi: Hari Narayan Apte; Odia: Fakir Mohan Senapati.
English: Dinabandhu Mitra's *Nil Darpan* (Bengali, on indigo), Dadabhai Naoroji's *Poverty and Un-British Rule in India*, Gandhi's *Hind Swaraj* (1909, Gujarati), Nehru's *Discovery of India*, and novelists Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan and Raja Rao.

Languages today

The Eighth Schedule lists 22 languages; the latest additions (2003, 92nd Amendment) were Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali.
Classical languages: Tamil (2004), Sanskrit (2005), Telugu and Kannada (2008), Malayalam (2013), Odia (2014), and in October 2024 Marathi, Pali, Prakrit, Assamese and Bengali, making eleven.
The Jnanpith Award (from 1965; first winner G. Sankara Kurup, Malayalam) and the Sahitya Akademi Award honour Indian writers.

Map of India marking classical languages by state with year of recognition: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Odia, Marathi, Assamese and Bengali, plus pan-Indian Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit — Eleven classical languages as of October 2024.

Why literature matters for a civil servant

Literature is not only a Prelims topic. It is a window into how people in the past thought about power, justice, gender, caste and the good life, and these themes reappear in GS1 society, GS4 ethics and the Essay paper. The Arthashastra discusses the duties of a king and the welfare of subjects; the Thirukkural speaks of honest administration and the qualities of ministers; Ashoka's edicts, Kabir's dohas and Basavanna's vachanas question ritual and hierarchy; and Premchand's stories show the burden of debt and caste on the Indian peasant. Quoting a line from Tagore ("Where the mind is without fear"), Gandhi's *Hind Swaraj* or a Kural couplet can make an essay or ethics answer memorable, provided the quotation is accurate and relevant.

Literature also shaped Indian nationalism. Printing presses and vernacular newspapers in the nineteenth century created a reading public. Novels such as *Anandamath*, plays such as *Nil Darpan*, and patriotic songs in many languages built an imagined community of "Indians" across regions. At the same time, debates about Hindi, Urdu and Hindustani, and about English, show that language could divide as well as unite – a tension the Constitution resolved through the Eighth Schedule, the three-language formula and linguistic states. Today, programmes such as the National Translation Mission, Bhashini (AI translation platform) and the National Education Policy 2020 emphasis on mother-tongue teaching carry this story forward.

Mains practice question

How did the Bhakti movement contribute to the growth of regional languages and literature in medieval India? (150 words)

Answer framework

Intro: shift from Sanskrit to the people's languages.
Examples: Alvars/Nayanars (Tamil), Jnaneshwar/Tukaram (Marathi), Kabir/Tulsidas (Hindi), Sankardev (Assamese), Guru Nanak (Punjabi).
Effects: standardised languages, new genres, social equality themes.
Conclusion: foundation for modern regional identities.

⚡ Quick revision

Rigveda 10 mandalas, 1,028 hymns; Samaveda → music; Upanishads (Brahman–Atman); 6 Vedangas
Panini Ashtadhyayi; Kalidasa (Shakuntalam, Meghaduta); Arthashastra; Mudrarakshasa; Harshacharita (Bana); Rajatarangini (Kalhana); Gita Govinda (Jayadeva)
Pali Tripitaka; Jain Agamas at Vallabhi; Sangam: Tolkappiyam, Thirukkural, Silappadikaram & Manimekalai
Amir Khusrau; Baburnama (Turkish); Akbarnama & Ain-i-Akbari (Abul Fazl); Ramcharitmanas (Tulsidas, Awadhi); Jnaneshwari; Guru Granth Sahib 1604
Tagore Nobel 1913; Anandamath 1882; Hind Swaraj 1909
22 languages in Eighth Schedule; 11 classical languages (5 added Oct 2024)

The oldest Indian sacred texts (Rig, Sama, Yajur and Atharva), composed in Vedic Sanskrit. Full coverage: The Vedic Age: Early and Later Vedic Society, Economy and Religion.The Upanishads are philosophical texts that form the concluding layer of the Vedic literature, exploring the relationship between the individual self (atman) and ultimate reality (brahman); they are the foundation of the Vedanta schools of Indian thought.Part of the Mahabharata that teaches action without attachment to its fruits (nishkama karma). Full coverage: Ancient Indian Ethics: Gita, Buddha, Mahavira and the Upanishads.Dynasty that ruled much of north India in the 4th–6th centuries CE. Full coverage: The Gupta Age and Harsha: Polity, Society, Science and Culture.The Rashtrakutas were a dynasty that ruled large parts of the Deccan from about the mid-eighth to the late tenth century CE, from their capital at Manyakheta, and are remembered for the Kailasa temple at Ellora and their role in the "tripartite struggle" for Kannauj.The Mughals were a dynasty of Central Asian origin, founded in India by Babur after the First Battle of Panipat in 1526, that ruled most of the subcontinent at its height and lasted, in name, until 1857.Akbar (1542–1605) was the third Mughal emperor, ruling from 1556 to 1605, who expanded and consolidated the empire, built its administrative system and followed a policy of religious accommodation known as sulh-i kul.Devotional movement in medieval India that stressed personal devotion to God over ritual. Full coverage: Bhakti and Sufi Movements: Saints, Ideas and Impact.Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) was a Bengali poet, novelist, composer, painter and educator who became the first non-European Nobel laureate in Literature in 1913 and wrote the national anthems of India and Bangladesh.Dadabhai Naoroji (1825–1917) was a Parsi scholar, businessman and early nationalist who developed the "drain of wealth" theory, presided over the Indian National Congress three times and became the first Indian elected to the British House of Commons.A system of hereditary social groups (jatis), traditionally linked to occupation, marriage within the group (endogamy) and ideas of ritual purity and pollution, which has shaped social hierarchy, opportunity and politics in India and South Asia.Mauryan-era thinker credited with the Arthashastra, a treatise on statecraft. Full coverage: Kautilya and Tiruvalluvar: Ethics of Statecraft.Mauryan emperor (c. 268–232 BCE) who embraced Buddhism after the Kalinga war and spread Dhamma. Full coverage: Ashoka: Kalinga War, Dhamma, Edicts and Mauryan Art.