Everything about Sanskrit Literature totally explained
Literature in Sanskrit begins with the
Vedas, and continues with the
Sanskrit Epics of
Iron Age India; the golden age of
Classical Sanskrit literature dates to the
Early Middle Ages (roughly the 3rd to 8th centuries AD). Literary production saw a late bloom in the 11th century before declining after 1100 AD. There are contemporary efforts towards
revival, with events like the "All-India Sanskrit Festival" (since 2002) holding composition contests.
Given its extensive use in religious literature, primarily in
Hinduism, and the fact that most modern
Indian languages have been directly derived from or strongly influenced by Sanskrit, the language and its literature is of great importance in
Indian culture, not unlike that of
Greek and
Latin in
European culture.
The Vedas
Composed between approximately 1500 BC and 600 BC (the
Late Bronze Age to
Early Iron Age) in
pre-classical Sanskrit, Vedic literature forms the basis for the further development of
Hinduism. There are four
Vedas -
Rig, Yajur, Sāma and Atharva, each with a main
Samhita and a number of circum-vedic genres, including
Brahmanas,
Aranyakas,Vedang for example
Grhyasutras and
Shrautasutras and
Dharmasutras. The main period of Vedic literary activity falls into ca. the 9th to 7th centuries when the various
shakhas (schools) compiled and
memorized their respective corpora.
The older
Upanishads (
BAU,
ChU,
JUB,
KathU,
MaitrU) belong to the Vedic period, but the larger part of the
Muktika canon is post-Vedic. The
Aranyakas form part of both the Brahmana and Upanishad corpus.
Sutra literature
Continuing the tradition of the late Vedic
Shrautasutra literature, Late Iron Age scholarship (ca. 500 to 100 BCE) organized knowledge into
Sutra treatises, including the
Vedanga and the religious or philosophical
Brahma Sutras,
Yoga Sutras,
Nyaya Sutras.
In the Vedanga disciplines of
grammar and
phonetics, no author had greater influence than with his (ca. 5th century BC). In the tradition of Sutra literature exposing the full grammar of Sanskrit in extreme brevity, Panini's brilliance lies in the nature of his work of a prescriptive
generative grammar, involving
metarules,
transformations and
recursion. Being prescriptive for all later grammatical works, such as
Patanjali's, 's grammar effectively fixed the grammar of
Classical Sanskrit. The
Backus-Naur Form or BNF grammars used to describe modern programming languages have significant similarities with Panini's grammar rules.
See also:
Shulba Sutras,
Kalpa Sutras,
Dharma Sutras;
Shastras are commentaries on Sutras.
The Epics
The period between approximately the 6th to 1st centuries BC saw the composition and redaction of the two great epics, the
Mahabharata and the
Ramayana, with subsequent redaction progressing down to the 4th century AD. They are known as
itihasa, or "
that which occurred".
The Mahabharata
The
Mahabharata (
Great Bharata) is one of the largest poetic works in the world. While it's clearly a poetic epic, it contains large tracts of
Hindu mythology,
philosophy and religious tracts.Traditionally, authorship of the
Mahabharata is attributed to the sage
Vyasa.According to the Adi-parva of the Mahabharata (81, 101-102), the text was originally 8,800 verses when it was composed by Vyasa and was known as the
Jaya (Victory), which later became 24,000 verses in the
Bharata recited by Vaisampayana.
The broad sweep of the story of the
Mahabharata chronicles the story of the conflict between two families for control of
Hastinapur, a city in Ancient
India.
The impact of the
Mahabharata on
India and Hinduism can't be stressed enough. Having been molded by Indian culture, it has in turn molded the development of Indian culture. Thousands of later writers would draw freely from the story and sub-stories of the
Mahabharata.
The Ramayana
While not as big as the
Mahabharata, the
Ramayana is still twice as big as the
Iliad and
Odyssey put together. Traditionally, the authorship is attribued to the Hindu sage who is referred to as
Adikavi, or "first poet." Valmiki in Ramayana introduced the Anushtubh meter for the first time.
Akin to the Mahabharata, the Ramayana is also handed down orally and evolved through several centuries before being transferred into writing. It includes tales that form the basis for modern
Hindu festivals and even contains a description of the same marriage practice still observed in contemporary times by people of Hindu persuasion.
The story deals with Prince
Rama (Indian vernaculars: Raam or Sri Ram), his exile and the abduction of his wife by the Rakshas king
Ravana, and the
Lankan war. Similar to the Mahabharata, the Ramayana also has several full-fledged stories appearing as sub-plots.
The Ramayana has also played a similar and equally important role in the development of Indian culture as the Mahabharata.
The
Ramayana is also extant in
Ramayana: Southeast Asian versions
Classical Sanskrit Literature
The classical period of Sanskrit literature dates to the
Gupta period and the successive pre-Islamic
Middle kingdoms of India, spanning roughly the 3rd to 8th centuries CE.
Drama
Drama as a distinct genre of
Sanskrit literature emerges in the final centuries BC, influenced partly by
Vedic mythology and partly by
Hellenistic drama. It reaches its peak between the 4th and 7th centuries before declining together with Sanskrit literature as a whole.
Famous Sanskrit dramatists include
Śhudraka,
Bhasa,
Asvaghosa and
Kalidasa. Though numerous plays written by these playwrights are still available, little is known about the authors themselves.
One of the earliest known Sanskrit plays is the
Mrichakatika, thought to have been composed by
Śhudraka in the 2nd century BC. The
Natya Shastra (ca. 2nd century AD, literally "Scripture of Dance," though it sometimes translated as "Science of Theatre'") is a keystone work in Sanskrit literature on the subject of stagecraft.
Bhasa and
Kalidasa are major early authors of the first centuries AD, Kalidasa qualifying easily as the greatest poet and playwright in Sanskrit He deals primarily with famous
Hindu legends and themes; three famous plays by Kalidasa are
Vikramōrvaśīyam (Vikrama and Urvashi),
Mālavikāgnimitram (Malavika and Agnimitra), and the play that he's most known for:
Abhijñānaśākuntalam (The Recognition of Shakuntala).
Late (post 6th century) dramatists include
Dandi and
Sri Harsha. The only surviving ancient Sanskrit drama theatre is
Koodiyattam. Which is being preserved in
Kerala by the
Chakyar community.
Scholarly treatises
The earliest surviving treatise on astrology is the
Yavanajataka "sayings of the Greeks" (3rd century). Classical
Hindu astrology is based on early medieval compilations, notably the [[BṛhatParāśara Horāśāstra|]] and
Sārāvalī (7th to 8th century). The earliest surviving treatise on (non-divinatory)
Indian astronomy predates the Yavanajataka: the
Vedanga Jyotisha of Ladaga documents the state of in the
Maurya period. The astronomy of the classical
Gupta period, the centuries following
Indo-Greek contact, is documented in treatises known as
Siddhantas (which means "established conclusions" ).
Varahamihira in his
Pancha-Siddhantika contrasts five of these: The
Surya Siddhanta besides the
Paitamaha Siddhantas (which is more similar to the "classical"
Vedanga Jyotisha), the
Paulisha and
Romaka Siddhantas (directly based on Hellenistic astronomy) and the
Vasishta Siddhanta.
The earliest treatise in
Indian mathematics
is the
[[Aryabhatiya|]] (written ca. 500 CE), a work on astronomy and mathematics. The mathematical portion of the was composed of 33
sūtras (in verse form) consisting of mathematical statements or rules, but without any proofs. However, according to, "this doesn't necessarily mean that their authors didn't prove them. It was probably a matter of style of exposition." From the time of
Bhaskara I (600 CE onwards), prose commentaries increasingly began to include some derivations (
upapatti).
"Tantra" is a general term for a scientific, magical or mystical treatise and mystical texts both
Hindu and
Buddhist said to concern themselves with five subjects, 1. the creation, 2. the destruction of the world, 3. the worship of the gods, 4. the attainment of all objects, 5. the four modes of union with the supreme spirit by meditation. These texts date to the entire lifespan of Classical Sanskrit literature.
The
Panchatantra is a collection of fables estimated to have reached its fixed form around 200 BCE.
Classical Poetry
This refers to the poetry produced from the approximately the 3rd to 8th centuries.
Kalidasa is the foremost example of a classical poet.
Great poets are great poets everywhere because their language is beautiful without being recherché, whatever language they work with. In this sense, Kalidasa isn't second to, say, Shakespeare or Kavafis.
But a striking characteristic of Indian literary tradition is that sometimes poets show off their technical dexterity with highly Oulipian word-games, like stanzas that read the same backwards and forwards, words that can be split in different ways to produce different meanings, sophisticated metaphors, and so on. This style is referred to as
kavya. A classic example is the poet
Bharavi and his magnum opus, the Kiratarjuniya (6th-7th century).
The greatest works of poetry in this period are the six
Mahakavyas, or "great composition":
Some would include the
Bhattikavya as a seventh Mahakavya.
Other major literary works from this period are
Kadambari by
Bana Bhatta, the first Sanskrit novelist (6th-7th centuries), the
Kama Sutra by
Vatsyayana, and the shatakas of .
Puranas
The corpus of the
Hindu Puranas likewise falls into the classical period of Sanskrit literature, dating to between the 5th and 10th centuries, and marks the emergence of the
Vaishna and
Shaiva denominations of classical
Hinduism.
The Puranas are classified into a Mahā- ("great") and a Upa- ("lower, additional") corpus.
Traditionally they're said to narrate five subjects, called ("five distinguishing marks"), which are:
Sarga - The creation of the universe.
Pratisarga - Secondary creations, mostly re-creations after dissolution.
Vamśa - Genealogy of gods and sages.
Manvañtara - The creation of the human race and the first human beings.
Vamśānucaritam - Dynastic histories.
A Purana usually gives prominence to a certain deity (Shiva, Vishnu or Krishna, Durga) and depicts the other gods as subservient.
Later Sanskrit literature
Some important works from the 11th century include the Katha-sarit-sagara and the Geeta Govinda.
The Katha-sarita-sagara (An Ocean of Stories) by Somadeva was an 11th century poetic adaptation in Sanskrit of Brihat-katha, written in the 5th century BC in the Paishachi dialect. One of the famous series of stories in this work is the Vikrama and Vetaala series, known to every child in India.
The Gita Govinda (The song of Govinda) by the Orissan composer Jayadeva is the story of Krishna's love for Radha, and is written in spectacularly lyrical and musical Sanskrit. A central text for several Hindu sects in eastern India, the Gita Govinda is recited regularly at major Hindu pilgrimage sites such as Jagannath temple at Puri, Orissa. The Ashtapadis of the Gita Govinda also form a staple theme in Bharatanatyam and Odissi classical dance recitals.
Beyond the 11th century, the use of Sanskrit for general literature declined, most importantly because of the emergence of literature in vernacular Indian languages (notably Hindi, Marathi, Kannada, and Telugu). Sanskrit continued to be used, largely for Hindu religious and philosophical literature. Sanskrit literature fueled literature in vernacular languages, and the Sanskrit language itself continued to have a profound influence over the development of Indian literature in general.
Attempts at revival of Sanskrit have been undertaken in the Republic of India since its foundation in 1947.
Further Information
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