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The
main languages derived from Sanskrit are Bengali, Hindi (with its
many dialects, of which Maithili is the oldest and Urdu,heavily
influenced by Persian and Arabic and written in a
Perso-Arabic script, is the most important), Punjabi, Gujarati,
Marathi, Oriya, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Assamese, Nepali, Rajasthani, and
Sinhalese. Most of these languages began to develop literary
traditions around AD 1000. The earliest texts in
Hindi are those attributed to the 13th-14th-century Muslim
poet Amir Khosrow.
Hindi
literature produced its own great religious lyricists beginning with
the disciples of Ramananda
(c. 1450), who was a follower of the philosopher Ramanuja. Among
them the most famous is Kabir,
whose bhakti was nonsectarian. Tulsidas, apart from his
Ramcaritmanas, composed Ramaite lyrics.
Surdas (1483-1563), a follower of the Vallabha school of
Vedanta, is famous for his Sursagar
("Ocean of the Poems of Sur"), a collection of poems based
on the childhood of Krishna, following the account of the
Bhagavata-Purana.
Indian
literature in the medieval period developed from many different
strands. Regional court
poets composed poems in praise of kings and warriors; many poets
produced works on themes taken from the Sanskrit epics and Puranas;
and Persian-speaking Muslim courts introduced elements of Islamic
culture to India. In
particular, the spread of Hinduism produced large amounts of
religious literature, often dedicated to the deities Rama and
Krishna. This was the
literature of bhakti (devotional religion), based on the importance
of a loving relationship between the worshipper and God.
Meanwhile, varieties of folk poetry celebrating the seasons
and festivals were passed down from generation to generation and are
still recited today.
The
bhakti literature is the most important development of the medieval
period. Krishna and
Rama, the two main incarnations of the great god Vishnu, began to be
worshipped widely. Many
temples were built for them, and their worshippers formed a number
of different sects, each one following a particular religious
teacher. Much bhakti
literature was written in the form of hymns, still sung today.
These hymns praised the deities and their deeds, or humbly
requested their help.
Poetry
in praise of Krishna, the cowherd god, centres on his playful
activities with the gopis, the cowherd girls among whom he spent his
youth. The stories come
mostly from the Bhagavata Purana and the Gitagovinda.
They describe a very different aspect of Krishna from the
noble and kingly Krishna of the Mahabharata.
His worshippers are charmed by his pranks and his romantic
lovemaking. Rama, on
the other hand, is revered as an ideal and heroic king, and his
wife, Sita, is the model of Hindu womanhood.
The monkey god Hanuman, faithful henchman of Rama in the war
against Ravana, appears as the ideal devotee.
Bhakti
poetry was an important influence in the development of regional
languages because it emphasized people's everyday speech, rejecting
the elite tradition of Sanskrit.
Bhakti also challenged the caste system as many of its poets
were from the lower castes and a common theme of the poetry is that
God is within every human being.
Some
of the earliest bhakti poetry was written in Tamil.
From the A.D. 900's, Kannada became an important influence,
with devotional literature such as the Vachanas (sayings) of
the saints of various Hindu sects.
Famous Kannada poets of the medieval period include Basavanna
and Allama Prabhu.
The
next language to adopt bhakti was Marathi, the most important poet
being Gyaneswar (1200's). Other
Marathi poets were Eknath and Tuka Ram.
In Gujarati, prominent poets were Narsi Mehta and Premananda.
Other languages to follow the tradition were Kashmiri,
Bengali, Assamese, Manipuri, Oriya, and early variants of Hindi.
Another
kind of bhakti is found in the Sant tradition, which believes in one
omnipresent God. Bhakti
became a great platform for Hindu-Muslim unity.
Women
poets of Bhakti
The
contribution of women writers in different languages deserves
special attention. Lal
Ded (1320-1384) was a Muslim poet from Kashmir.
She wrote in the Sant tradition.
Mira Bai (1500's) wrote in Gujarati, Rajasthani, and Hindi.
She wrote songs of Krishna in a voice of longing, expressing
the pain of separation from the god she loved as a husband (see MIRA
BAI). Avvayyar, writing
in Tamil, and Akkamahadevi, writing in Kannada, wrote about the
position of women in society
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