Indian literature is one of the world’s oldest, richest, and most diverse national literatures. Indian literature consists of works written in India as well as some works from the neighboring countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, and Pakistan. Together, these countries are known as the Indian subcontinent.
The literature of India originated more than 3,000 years ago. Over the centuries, hundreds of languages and dialects have contributed to shaping the multiple cultural influences that are characteristic of Indian literature. India’s main religious traditions—Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—have also played a critical role in creating the country’s literature and culture.
Like other national literatures, Indian literature has produced masterpieces of poetry, prose, and drama. The Indian literary tradition also includes many forms of religious literature, as well as history, science, philosophy, political science, and other writings.
Until the 1800’s, most Indian literature reached its audience through performance and recitation. People memorized religious texts and stories, some of enormous length, and handed them down orally from one generation to the next. This oral tradition allowed literature to flourish, even though the majority of people could not read or write.
Writing was introduced into India during the 2000’s B.C. Most kinds of literature became available in manuscript form. Although writers sometimes used prose, most literature was in verse form. Since the A.D. 1800’s, the use of prose has become common.
The literature of the Indian subcontinent has traditionally been divided into three periods. The first was the ancient period, which lasted from about 3000 B.C. to about A.D. 1000. This period was dominated by three languages known as India’s classical languages—Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit. The second period, called the medieval period, extended from about A.D. 1000 to the early 1800’s. During these periods, vernacular (local) languages became acceptable for literary use. The final period, called the modern period, reflects the influence of European culture and the English language.
Ancient literature
The Vedas.
The earliest Indian written works—the Vedas—are Hindu sacred writings more than 3,000 years old. Composed in an early form of Sanskrit, these Hindu scriptures are poetic compositions that discuss God, the universe, and the nature of life.
The oldest Vedic texts are those of the Rigveda, dating from about 1400 B.C. These are mostly mythical poems addressed to the great Vedic gods—Indra the Warrior; Agni, the god of fire; Surya, the sun god; and Varuna, the upholder of heaven and earth. The later books of the Vedas are the Samaveda, poetry from the Rigveda adapted to melodies as priestly chants; the Yajurveda, mainly formulas for sacrifice; and the Atharvaveda, verses dealing with health and prosperity and the daily life of human society.
Attached to the Vedas are two important later texts, the Brahmanas and the Upanishads. The Brahmanas are long prose essays that explain the mythological and theological significance of the religious rites. After the Brahmanas came the Upanishads. The Upanishads became the foundation of much later Indian philosophy.
The great epics.
Early Indian literature after the Vedas is dominated by two great epic poems in Sanskrit, the Mahabharata (“The Great Epic of the Bharatas”) and the Ramayana (“The Story of Rama”). A poet named Valmiki traditionally is considered the author of the Ramayana. However, both texts, which were begun more than 2,000 years ago, were composed over long periods by many poets for oral transmission by singers and storytellers. These two epics have inspired Indian literature throughout the centuries. They have been translated and retold in all of the Indian languages as well as in English and many other languages.
The Mahabharata is the world’s longest poem, consisting of nearly 100,000 verses. It took shape gradually between about 400 B.C. and A.D. 400. Hinduism developed into its classical form during the same period. The main story of the Mahabharata is a war over succession to the throne between the Pandavas and the Kauravas, two branches of a royal family. The god Krishna sides with the Pandavas, who are depicted as gods in later additions to the story.
Within the Mahabharata is the Bhagavad-Gita (“The Song of the Lord”), the most influential of all Hindu texts. In this story, Krishna explains to Arjuna, the Pandavan hero, the meaning of dharma (moral or religious law). Arjuna is upset that he must fight his own relatives in the war. Krishna teaches him that everyone must follow the obligation of duty without thinking about its results.
The Ramayana consists of 24,000 verses divided into seven books. It tells the story of the righteous King Rama and his battle with the demon Ravana. The demon kidnaps Rama’s wife, Sita, and holds her captive in Lanka (now Sri Lanka). Rama rescues Sita with help from an army of monkeys led by the monkey general Hanuman. Rama’s victory over Ravana symbolizes the triumph of righteousness over evil. Rama was originally a folk hero but was later portrayed as one of the 10 incarnations (forms) of the god Vishnu.
The Puranas
are another important collection of Hindu lore and religious history. The Puranas are long stories in verse that tell about Hindu gods and goddesses and the lives of great Hindu heroes. They also describe Hindu beliefs about how the world began and how it periodically ends and is reborn.
Purana means that which is ancient. Although there are many Puranas, tradition specifies a list of 18. They were probably compiled between A.D. 300 and 900. The main Puranas have five subjects: (1) the creation of the universe, (2) the cyclic process of destruction and re-creation, (3) the different eras or cosmic cycles, (4) the genealogies of gods, sages and kings, and (5) the histories of royal dynasties.
The Puranas include popular legends and mythology, which illustrate some of the key philosophical and religious ideas of the Vedas and other earlier religious literature. Many of the ideas associated with classical Hinduism are expressed in the Puranas. They include the stories of gods and heroes set in the sacred plains, mountains, and rivers of India. Many of the prominent Hindu deities, such as Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, Agni, and Brahma, are central subjects of the Puranas.
Classical Sanskrit literature.
In Indian literature, it is difficult to clearly divide religious and secular (nonreligious) works, because secular stories often symbolize a religious theme. Some forms of Sanskrit literature were written for pleasure and for the entertainment of the royal court. This literature consisted of dramas designed to portray shades of character and feeling. The audience had to be familiar with the Sanskrit language, which was known by the educated upper classes. The playwright’s skill in Sanskrit was essential to the play’s value. Some characters in the dramas, particularly women and members of certain lower social classes, use Prakrit, several languages of the common people that developed from Sanskrit.
The most admired Sanskrit dramatist and poet was Kalidasa, who lived in the late A.D. 300’s and the 400’s. His best-known play, Shakuntala, named after its heroine, Shakuntala, is based on a romantic story from the Mahabharata. Kalidasa was also a master of the epic poetry form called kavya. In this tradition, literary style and form tend to assume more importance than the theme of the story. Kalidasa’s narrative poem “Meghaduta” (“The Cloud Messenger”) describes how a cloud acts as a go-between for two separated lovers during the monsoon (rainy) season. It contains many elaborate descriptions of love and nature.
The Gitagovinda (The Song of the Cowherd) is an important lyric poem by Jayadeva, a poet of the 1100’s. The poem describes the lovemaking of Govinda (another name for Krishna) and the milkmaid Radha and is set on the bank of the Yamuna River. The poem is full of descriptions of nature and was popular as a subject for song and dance dramas, illustrating the devotional relationship between God (Krishna) and humanity (Radha).
Pali and Prakrit literature.
Pali and Prakrit were the spoken languages that evolved from Vedic, the earliest dialect form of Sanskrit, and from classical Sanskrit. Leaders of the Buddhist and Jain faiths used the Vedic and Sanskrit languages for their religious writings. The only people usually allowed to read the sacred Sanskrit texts were the brahmins (priests). But the teachings of the Buddha, who lived in the 500’s B.C., were meant to be open to everyone. Thus, the early Buddhist scriptures were written in the Pali language. These sacred religious writings are called the Tipitaka (Three Baskets) to denote the contents of the writings—the basket of discipline, the basket of teaching, and the basket of metaphysics.
Pali literature includes the colorful Jataka (Birth Story) tales, which are stories of the past lives of the Buddha. Once Pali became the language of Buddhism, it was regarded as sacred and, like Sanskrit, was preserved in its existing state. Pali is still important as a Buddhist language in countries where the school of Buddhism called Theravada is popular, such as Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, and Cambodia.
Prakrit, meaning common or vulgar, is applied to the popular languages that developed from Sanskrit over a period of several hundred years. These languages, in turn, are the source of such modern languages of India as Bengali, Hindi, and Punjabi. Several forms of Prakrit were used for writing the scriptures of Jainism, organized about 2,500 years ago by a teacher called Mahavira. Because of their religious importance, early Pali and Prakrit manuscripts containing the teachings of the Buddha and Mahavira were carefully preserved in monasteries and libraries. Other Prakrit literature includes moral tales and poetry, such as the Jain version of the Ramayana, known as the Paumacariya. The best-known secular poet in Prakrit is Hala, who lived in the A.D. 300’s. Hala compiled Gathasaptasati, an anthology of erotic poetry.
Tamil literature.
Tamil, one of the Dravidian languages spoken mostly in southern India, produced an ancient literature. This literature in its earliest stages was separate from the Sanskrit tradition, though later the Tamil language borrowed many words from Sanskrit.
The earliest classical Tamil literature, called Sangam literature, was written by poets at a literary academy in Madurai, India, called the Sangam. One group of poets wrote love poetry. Another group wrote poems describing the bravery and glory of kings and wrote about good and evil. The Sangam classics date mainly from the 300’s B.C.
Two important Tamil epics were written in the A.D. 200’s. Cilappatikaram (The Story of the Anklet) was composed by Ilanko-Atikal, who was a Jain. A sequel called Manimekalai was written by Cattanar. Both tell the story of a saintly heroine. The stories provide vivid accounts of Tamil society and give an elaborate explanation of the doctrines of Buddhism. In the 500’s, a Tamil poet named Tiruvalluvar wrote Tirukkural, a guide to a noble, refined way of living.
Religious literature, which reflected mainly Hindu and Buddhist traditions, was composed in Tamil after about the A.D. 600’s. A group of Tamil poets called the Nayanars were followers of the god Shiva. Another group, the Alvars, devoted themselves to the god Vishnu. The poetry of both groups had an intense personal quality. Many Tamil poems praised the sacred temples in the region. The great Tamil poet Kamban wrote a version of the Ramayana sometime between the 900’s and 1100’s.
Medieval literature
Medieval Indian literature developed from many different influences. Regional court poets composed poems in praise of kings and warriors. Many poets produced works on themes taken from the Sanskrit epics and Puranas. Persian-speaking Muslim courts introduced elements of Islamic culture to India. The spread of Hinduism produced large amounts of religious literature, often dedicated to Rama and Krishna, the two main incarnations of the great god Vishnu. Varieties of folk poetry celebrated the seasons and festivals. They were passed down from generation to generation and are still recited today.
The Apabhramsa language, a successor to Prakrit, developed about 500. Writers used Apabhramsa to compose popularized versions of Jain stories. Indian literature used Apabhramsa from 500 until about 1400, and the language represents the literary “bridge” from classical Sanskrit to vernacular languages, such as Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, and Hindi.
The bhakti movement.
From about 500 to 1600, a social and Hindu religious movement called bhakti swept across India. The bhakti movement promoted intense personal devotion to the two principal gods of Hinduism, Shiva and Vishnu. Bhakti poetry emphasized the individual’s intense love for, and emotional attachment to, these gods. Much bhakti literature was written in the form of hymns that are still sung and composed today. These hymns praise the deities and their deeds or humbly request their help.
Some of the earliest bhakti poetry was written in Tamil. After the 900’s, Kannada, another Dravidian language of southern India, became important in bhakti literature. The language produced devotional literature such as the Vacanas (Sayings) of the saints of various Hindu sects. Famous Kannada poets of the medieval period include Basavanna and Allamaprabhu.
According to Hindu tradition, the god Krishna was raised by foster parents in a cowherd village, where he played with the other children. Bhakti poetry in praise of Krishna centers on his playful activities with the gopis, the cowherd girls among whom he spent his youth. Many of the Krishna stories come from one of the Puranas, the Bhagavata Purana (about 900). Bhakti poetry portrays the god Rama as an ideal and heroic king, and his wife, Sita, as the model of Hindu womanhood. The monkey leader Hanuman, faithful ally of Rama in the war against Ravana, appears as an ideal follower.
Bhakti poetry was an important influence in the development of regional languages because the bhakti poets wrote in people’s everyday speech. They rejected the elite tradition of Sanskrit.
Another kind of bhakti literature is the Sant tradition. This poetry played an important role in forging new communities of religious believers, as well as promoting Hindu-Muslim unity. A common theme of Sant poetry is that God is within every human being.
Bhakti poetry also challenged the caste (social class) system because many of its poets were from the lower castes. Women poets expressed themselves within this movement. Lal Ded was a poet from Kashmir who wrote in the 1300’s. Mira Bai wrote poems about Krishna during the 1500’s in a voice full of longing. Auvaiyar, writing in Tamil, and Akkamahadevi, writing in Kannada, explored the position of women in society.
The next language to adopt bhakti was Marathi, led by the poet Jnanadeva in the 1200’s. Other Marathi poets were Eknath and Tukaram. In the Gujarati language, prominent poets were Narasimha Meheta and Premananda. Writers in many other languages followed the bhakti tradition, including authors in Kashmiri, Bengali, Assamese, Manipuri, Odia, and early variations of Hindi.
The Islamic influence.
During the late 1100’s and early 1200’s, Muslims from central Asia conquered what are now Pakistan and northern and western India. Various Muslim dynasties came to rule much of India. Most of the dynasties spoke Persian or Turkic languages, which were used in an Indianized form for the business of government and court. The Mughal Empire, founded by a Muslim prince, ruled most of India in the 1500’s and 1600’s. The empire offered a livelihood to many types of writers, poets, and scholars using both Persian and Sanskrit. Richly illustrated memoirs of the emperors written in Persian, such as the Baburnama of the Emperor Babur and the Akbarnama of Babur’s grandson Akbar, form part of the historical heritage of this period.
Authors also wrote cycles of stories, such as the Dastan of Amir Hamzah, under the patronage of the emperor. The stories were richly illustrated in the style of the Mughal court. During the rule of the Mughal emperors Akbar and Shah Jahan, important Sanskrit texts—such as the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, and the Upanishads—were translated into Persian.
The religious and cultural synthesis of Islam and Hinduism found frequent expression in the literature of such Muslim poets as Maulana Da’ud and Malik Muhammad Jayasi, who wrote poetry in Avadhi (eastern Hindi). Their works were based on well-known Hindu folk tales, turning them into allegories (symbolic stories) to popularize the belief in the unity of being and the potential of divine love. This trend continued into the 1700’s with the Muslim poets Bulleh Shah and Shah Abdul Latif. Both composed mystical poetry based on folk themes, casting the soul in the form of a heroine who suffers many hardships in her search for union with the divine beloved. The influence of a mystical sect of Islam called the Sufis appeared in the poetry of numerous poets writing in various Indian languages throughout the medieval period.
Hindavi, Dakani, and Urdu literature.
Amir Khusrau, a genius among India’s medieval poets, was also a historian and musician. He received patronage from the sultan’s court in Delhi in the late 1200’s and early 1300’s. Khusrau created a new style of writing poetry and prose in Persian called Sabki-i-Hindi. This system used Indian literary themes and experimented with poetry in a language that was a mixture of Persian and the local language of Delhi, known as Hindavi. The first writer to try Hindavi in a literary way may have been Mas‘ud Sa‘d Salman, who lived in Ghazni and Lahore and wrote almost exclusively in Persian.
The Hindavi language traveled during the 1400’s with the Delhi sultan’s armies to western India (now the state of Gujarat) where it was popularly known as Gujri or Dihlavi. Hindavi also spread to central India, where it took root in several Islamic courts, becoming known as Dakani.
Existing literary evidence suggests that Shaikh Baha ud-Din Bajan, a Sufi poet, was the first to write substantially in Hindavi. He was born at Ahmedabad in a family that had migrated from Delhi. He began the development of a literary language that 300 years later became known as Urdu.
Though the tradition is somewhat unclear, the first poet to introduce Hindavi into central India was probably Fakhr-e Din Nizami between 1421 and 1434, thus establishing the character of the Dakani dialect. By the late 1500’s, Quli Qutb Shah, the sultan of Hyderabad, had popularized Dakani through his mystical love poetry. Many poets continued to cultivate the Dakani language through the 1500’s and 1600’s. It may have reached its highest point with the poem “The Rose Garden of Love” by Nusrati Bijapuri in the 1600’s.
Rekhta was a form of the Hindavi language that developed during the Mughal period in Islamicized northern kingdoms of India. It contained many Persian and Arabic words. By the early 1700’s, Rekhta had developed a poetic style. The style favored the forms and meters of the Persian ghazal, a short lyric poem with strict requirements for meter and rhyme. Ghazals, typically love poems, are a traditional verse form in Persian, Urdu, Arabic, and Turkish literature. Other important poetic forms were the qasida (ode of praise) and the marsia (elegy). In particular, the language that was cultivated at the court of the Mughal emperor became known as the Zaban-e-Urdu-e-Mu‘alla (the Language of the Exalted Court).
Vali, a Dakani poet, migrated to Delhi about 1700. He profoundly shaped the language and style of the local poets. Under his influence, Rekhta matured in the mid-1700’s into the language of Urdu, which became the literary language of many poets, such as Sauda, Mir Hasan, and Mir Taqi Mir.
Hindi literature.
Standard Hindi developed from a combination of dialects and regional languages. Geographically, Hindi covered a large north-central area, including the modern Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Harayana, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar. However, a standardized Hindi grammar, dictionary, and literary canon—that is, an accepted set of literary works—were not established until the early 1800’s, under the influence of the educational system set up by the British.
A variety of Muslim poets, and some Hindu poets, employed the Hindi language. Other vernacular forms of Hindi were used throughout the medieval period. The sayings and songs of the poet Kabir in the 1400’s are composed in a mixed language showing a number of linguistic forms common to the Hindi area, and are still popular. Although Kabir was raised in a Muslim family, he taught that the path of religion consisted of an inner search for God, and rejected the rituals of both Hinduism and Islam. Although he often used the Hindu name Rama as one among many names for God, Kabir did not worship individual deities.
The dialect of Braj Bhasha was spoken around Agra to the south of Delhi. It was particularly popular, partly because, according to tradition, the god Krishna lived in the area. The greatest of the many bhakti poets devoted to Krishna was Surdas, a blind writer of the 1500’s. He skillfully described the child Krishna in touching and informal language.
The most famous of the bhakti poets devoted to Rama was Tulsidas (also spelled Tulsi Das), who lived in the later 1500’s and early 1600’s. His story Ramcharitmanas (The Holy Lake of the Deeds of Rama) became the most popular devotional text in northern India. It was a version of the Ramayana story written in Avadhi, a language earlier popularized by Sufi poets, such as Maulana Da’ud.
Court poetry in Hindi is best represented by Biharilal, who lived in the early 1600’s. He wrote of love and other subjects in skillfully composed couplets. Biharilal and similar poets borrowed many of the conventions and images of bhakti literature for their love poetry. Another important author of courtly love poetry was Keshavdas. He wrote the Rasikapriya, which describes the many types of love relationships and explains the special characteristics of different kinds of heroines.
Bengali literature.
The love story of Krishna and Radha forms a central theme in medieval poetry in the Bengali language of eastern India. The story was inspired by the Sanskrit poem of the 1100’s Gitagovinda. The Krishna songs of the poet Vidyapati, who wrote during the 1300’s and 1400’s, became popular. They were written in the dialect of Maithili, from an area of Bihar lying between the main Bengali- and Hindi-speaking areas.
A sect based on the teachings of Chaitanya, a mystic and follower of Krishna who lived in the late 1400’s and early 1500’s, produced large amounts of devotional poetry in Bengali. Muslim poets of rural Bengal, known as bauls (mad with love for the Divine), were influenced by both Islam and Hinduism. They expressed the ecstasy and longing of divine love. Related literature in the neighboring languages of Odia (spoken in the state of Odisha) and Assamese (spoken in the state of Assam) developed during the same period.
Punjabi literature.
The scriptures of the Indian religion of Sikhism form the most important part of literature in Punjabi, also spelled Panjabi, a language of Pakistan and northwestern India. Nanak was the founder of Sikhism and the religion’s first guru (spiritual teacher). He lived in the late 1400’s and early 1500’s. The writings of Nanak, later Sikh gurus, and other Sikh poets are collected in the sacred Sikh book Adi Granth (First Book). Many of the poems in this text, including some by the poet Kabir, are in the early forms of Hindi rather than Punjabi.
The line of Sikh gurus came to an end with the death of Gobind Singh in 1708. After his time, the Adi Granth itself became the source of all authority. It is considered the last living guru. Now called the Guru Granth Sahib, the sacred scripture is an object of great respect in the Sikh gurdwaras (places of worship).
Later Punjabi literature was largely the work of Muslim poets writing in Persian. Varis Shah’s poem Hir Ranjha (about 1766) is an example of the type of romantic legend still popular in modern times.
Gujarati and Marathi literature.
Early writings in Gujarati and Marathi, languages of western India, are mostly religious in character. The oldest Gujarati literature consists of narrative tales that teach the beliefs of Jainism, a religion still widely practiced in the Indian state of Gujarat. Also popular during this period was heroic verse, describing the valor of kings and heroes. By contrast, the bhakti poet Narasimha Meheta, who lived in the 1500’s, composed poems to Krishna. The devotional songs of Mira Bai also appear in Gujarati versions.
The Marathi language has one of the oldest northern regional literatures. Its most important early work is the Jnanesvari, a long commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita written in the 1200’s by Jnanadeva. A commentary on the sacred book Bhagavata Purana, written in the 1500’s by Eknath, is another example of how writers carried on the Sanskrit tradition in regional languages. Marathi poets wrote many devotional verses in praise of the god Vitthal (a form of Vishnu). The greatest of the poets to write about Vitthal was Tukaram, who lived in the early 1600’s.
Modern literature
The impact of European culture.
The heritage of the ancient and medieval periods of Indian culture is still a part of India today. But when India became exposed to European culture in the 1700’s—and eventually became part of the British Empire in the 1800’s—it came heavily under the influence of Western ideas. Some Indian writers reacted to the European presence by reviving the ancient values of Hinduism. Other writers eagerly adopted Western forms of writing, such as journalism and the novel.
The modern period of Indian literature began in the 1800’s, a period of great social change. All the major Indian languages developed a thriving literature which they still possess. The most important development was the increased prominence of prose. Although prose works had existed in earlier Indian literature, most authors wrote traditional texts in verse. Most earlier literature emphasized religious subjects or feeling. During the 1800’s and 1900’s, Indian writers began to express a wider range of ideas.
Two related developments helped the process of literary change. One was the introduction of the printing press by Christian missionaries, which made texts more widely available. Before then, scribes had copied texts by hand. The other development was the birth of Indian journalism. The spread of journalism helped the development of prose writing, with the short story becoming especially popular. An increase in Western-style education helped produce a new readership for the new literature. Writers expressed ideas of social reform and put new emphasis on realism in their work.
The birth of nationalism.
During the late 1800’s, various regions of India began to share a common purpose in reacting to the British presence in their country. A nationalist movement gradually grew in strength. This movement inspired much Indian writing in the 1800’s and early 1900’s.
Patriotic writings grew almost simultaneously in different languages as part of the resistance to foreign rule. These writings emerged especially after a rebellion in 1857 and 1858 against British rule in northern and central India. The writers all expressed their opposition to colonial rule and their pride in Indian culture. They included Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal emperor, writing in Urdu; Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, perhaps the greatest Urdu poet; Rangalala Bandyopadhyaya, writing in Bengali; and Bharatendu Hariscandra, writing in Hindi.
The Bengali author Bankim Chandra Chatterji attacked British colonialism and created his own brand of nationalism. Chatterji’s historical novels achieved popularity throughout the subcontinent and helped spread nationalism and patriotism by describing India’s glorious past.
Rabindranath Tagore, who lived in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, became one of the greatest authors in modern Indian literature. He was a novelist, poet, playwright, composer, and painter who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1913, the first Asian author to receive the honor. Tagore wrote his novel Gora (1910) to challenge colonial rule and to give new meaning to Indian nationalism.
The Marathi author Hari Narayan Apte wrote a number of historical novels describing his country’s proud history and trying to instill nationalist sentiments in his readers. Apte also wrote novels depicting contemporary Indian society in a realistic style.
New literary forms
appeared in Indian literature in the 1800’s. In 1861, the Bengali writer Michael Madhusudan Dutt wrote the first modern epic in an Indian language, the Meghanadabadh (The Slaying of Meghanada). Subramania Bharati, a great Tamil poet of the early 1900’s, revolutionized the poetic tradition in Tamil. Maithili Saran Gupta and Bhai Vir Singh, who wrote in the 1900’s in Hindi and Punjabi, respectively, took themes from mythology and history for their patriotic epics.
The first Indian novels appeared in the late 1800’s. Gopala Krishnama Chetty’s Sri Ranga Raja Charitra (1872) was the first novel in the Telugu language. Samuel V. Pillai’s Pratapa Mudaliyar Charitram (1879) was the first in Tamil; and O. Chanthu Menon’s Indu Lekha (1889) the first in the Malayalam language. These novels all question the social practices and customs of their time. Similarly, social issues were examined in the Bengali novel Phulmani O Karunar Bibaran (1852) by the English writer H. Catherine Mullens, the Urdu novel Minatul Urus by Nazier Ahmed (1869), and the Hindi novel Pariksha Guru (1882) by Lala Sriniwas Das.
Two major influences
on modern Indian literature were the mystic, poet, and independence activist Sri Aurobindo and the spiritual and political leader Mohandas Gandhi. Sri Aurobindo wrote mainly in English. His poetry and the philosophical treatise The Life Divine (1939-1940) express his search for the divine in humanity.
The ideas of Gandhi deeply affected India in the decades leading up to independence from the United Kingdom in 1947. Gandhi, writing in Gujarati, English, and Hindi, used the language of common people. He stressed nonviolence and spoke out in favor of traditional values and against industrialization. Gandhi became a symbol of peace and idealism. Writers of fiction and poetry in almost all the Indian languages adopted the Gandhian figure as a theme of cultural nationalism.
Saratchandra Chattopadhyay (also spelled Chatterji) became one of the most popular Bengali novelists of the early 1900’s. His influence spread throughout India with translations of his books in various Indian languages. The novelist and short-story writer Premchand wrote in both Urdu and Hindi about the plight of the poor in India. His greatest achievement, the novel Godan (The Gift of a Cow, 1936), tells the story of a debt-laden peasant and his struggle for survival. The greatest Urdu poet of this era is Muhammad Iqbal. His best-known collection of poetry is Jawid Nama (Book of Eternity, 1932).
Progressive literature.
In 1936, Mulk Raj Anand and other Indian writers living in London established the Progressive Writers’ Association. The movement soon spread throughout India. The main languages of the Progressive movement were Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Telugu, and Malayalam. The Progressives combined the ideas of Gandhi with the socialist philosophy of the German economic and political thinker Karl Marx. Anand, who wrote in English, sympathetically described the hardships of poor Indians in such novels as Untouchable (1935) and The Coolie (1936).
The principal Hindi poet of the Progressive group was Nagarjun. The Progressive movement also attracted such eminent Urdu poets and short-story writers as Josh Malihabadi, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Ismat Chughtai, Saadat Hasan Manto, Rashid Jahan, and Ali Sardar Jafri.
The search for a new voice.
In the period leading up to independence, Indian writers tried to find a personal expression of their place in history. Many writers of this time reflected a sense of despair and helplessness in society. The most important Bengali poet after Tagore is Jibananda Das. In Gujarati, Uma Shankar Joshi created a new, experimental poetry. Poets writing in other languages include Amrita Pritam, who wrote in Punjabi; B. S. Mardhekar, who wrote in Marathi; and N. M. Rashid and Miraji, writing in Urdu. All these poets developed their own styles to reflect the problems of modern life.
India after independence.
In 1947, Indian and British leaders agreed to partition (divide) the country into India, which would be mostly Hindu, and Pakistan, which would be mostly Muslim. The violence that accompanied the partition produced a sense of disillusionment and mourning. In literature, a conflict developed between the trend toward Western modernity and traditional Indian values.
Social Realism became a dominant trend in Indian literature. Social Realism realistically presents subjects of concern to society. The first Indian novelist of Social Realism was the Odia-language novelist, poet, and short-story writer Fakir Mohan Senapati.
Representative of the Social Realist movement were Gajanan Madhav Muktibodh, writing in Hindi; Kamala Markandaya, writing in English; and Bishnu Dey, writing in Bengali. A group of poets called Telugu Digambar (Telugu Naked) wrote political poetry with themes of pain and struggle. In the Kannada language, the Bandaya (Rebel) poets were concerned with violence and social divisions.
Writers throughout India have used mythology or folk legend to highlight the problems of modern society. The acclaimed Kannada novel Samskara (1966) by U. R. Anantha Murthy portrays a spiritual search against a background of the pressures of day-to-day living.
A number of novels look at neglected regions of India and their spoken dialects. For example, Jayamohan, writing in Tamil; Debes Ray, in Bengali; and Shivprasad Singh, in Hindi, provide portraits of modern Indian village life. Such writers also underscore the fact that India is a country of many religions and cultures.
Postmodernism.
In the 1970’s, the literary movement called Postmodernism appeared in India. This movement was a reaction against the ordered view of the world and of the meaning and form of texts. See Postmodernism.
One of the most significant features of the Postmodernist movement in India is literature dealing with the social outcast, or dalit (untouchables). Marathi, Gujarati, and Kannada writers started the dalit movement under the leadership of B. R. Ambedkar. Marathi writers, such as the poets Namdev Dhasal and Narayan Surve and novelists Daya Pawar and Laxman Gaikwad, reflected the anguish of a community. They demanded a just and realistic future for the underprivileged and the outcast in society.
The novels of Mahadev Devanur in Kannada and those of Joseph Macwan in Gujarati deal with the experience of violence, protest, and exploitation. Dalit literature introduced a new world of experience in Indian literature. It widened the range of expression and used the language of the outcasts and underprivileged in Indian society.
Indian literature today.
A central theme in much contemporary Indian literature is the change from rural, traditional life to an urban, modern life. Some writers examine this theme by portraying a romantic view of village life. Others describe the cruel and harsh realities of the impersonal city.
Feminist writers have challenged the values of male-dominated society and created works that emphasize the perspective of women. Authors from this movement include Kamala Das, who writes in Malayalam and English; Krishna Sobti, who writes in Hindi; Ashapurna Devi, who writes in Bengali; and Rajam Krishnan, who writes in Tamil.
Indian authors who write in English include Upamanyu Chatterjee, Anita Desai, Amitav Ghosh, Rohinton Mistry, R. K. Narayan, Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, and Shashi Tharoor. For many of these authors, English is no longer a colonial language. They are able to express their heritage while remaining committed to the modern reality of India.
Narayan and Rushdie, in particular, achieved international reputations. Narayan’s novels depict life in a fictional Indian village called Malgudi, exploring the struggle between Indian tradition and modern ideas. Rushdie won fame for his imaginative fiction, which combines fantasy, satire, and Hindu and Islamic lore. His novel Midnight’s Children (1981) traces the history of modern India through the lives of children born just after midnight on the morning of independence, Aug. 15, 1947.
Vikram Seth’s novels include A Suitable Boy (1993), the story of a woman who resists family efforts to arrange a marriage for her; and An Equal Music (1999), a novel about love between a violinist and a pianist who is losing her hearing. Rohinton Mistry has also gained international praise for his panoramic novels of modern Indian society. They include A Fine Balance (1995), about a widow and her three boarders, and Family Matters (2002), about a family’s struggle to care for a father with Parkinson disease.
