Abraham Eraly - The Age of Wrath - A History of the Delhi Sultanate

Still, some amount of Sanskrit literary activity continued at this time, mainly in regions outside the Muslim rule, particularly in Vijayanagar, under the vigorous patronage of its rajas, some of whom, like Krishnadeva, were themselves literary figures of merit. The old Indian tradition of poets writing panegyrics in Sanskrit on kings also continued during this period, and such poems were written even on sultans, like the one on Mahmud Begarha of Gujarat. In fact, similar eulogies continued to be written in modern times too, such as Victoria-charita —on Victoria, queen of England and empress of India — published in Dacca in the late nineteenth century. But none of these works had any literary merit compared to the Sanskrit classics of the ancient period.

A positive consequence of the decline of Sanskrit in medieval times was that it opened up literary space for regional Indian languages to grow and flourish. Sanskrit, or rather Prakrit, had spawned a number of regional offshoots in North India in the late classical times, and from around the eighth century on some of these regional languages began to produce their own literatures, and this gathered considerable momentum over the years. Many of the early writers in these languages were Buddhists and Jains, as they sought to reach out to the common people by writing in their languages, rather than in Sanskrit, which was understood only by the erudite. Buddhists in particular made major contributions in promoting regional languages — the earliest writers in Bengali, for instance, were Buddhists.

The spread of the Bhakti movement in Hinduism at this time was another factor that stimulated literary activity in regional languages — as Bhakti was a movement of the common people, it used the language of the common people for its devotional literature. At this time there were also several translations of popular Sanskrit works, like the Puranas and the epics, into regional languages, and that greatly enriched the literature in these languages.

IN CONTRAST TO the moribund state of Sanskrit literature in medieval times, Tamil, the only other ancient Indian language which had a literature of its own, remained vibrantly alive during this period. But the ethos of Tamil literature in the medieval times had changed altogether from what it had been in the classical period. While Tamil in the classical period produced sensitive secular literature, depicting the chiaroscuro of everyday life, its miseries and pleasures, mainly under Buddhist and Jain influence, its emphasis now shifted to religious literature, both devotional and expository, under the influence of resurgent Hinduism and its devotional cults. Religious fervour now replaced the calm reflectiveness that had earlier characterised Tamil literature.

The golden age of this new Tamil literature was the imperial Chola period, from the mid-ninth to the late twelfth century, when a great amount of Shaiva and Vaishnava texts, and even a few Buddhist and Jain texts, were written. The age also produced a few quasi-historical works in the style of the Puranas, mainly describing the legends about prominent South Indian temples. A few secular works on the exploits of local heroes, and some anthologies of old Tamil works, with commentaries appended to them, were also compiled at this time. A major lexicographic work on Tamil, Nigandu-cudamani by Mandalapurusha, a Jain scholar, also belongs to this period. But the best known Tamil literary work of the age is the Ramavatharam , popularly known as Kambaramayanam , a retelling of the story of the Ramayana by Kamban in the twelfth century. Its story is drawn from the Sanskrit epic, but Kamban enriches it by introducing a good amount of local flavour into it.

This emphasis on local flavour is particularly evident in the literature of the regional offshoots of Tamil that appeared in the late classical period, around the same time when literature in the regional offshoots of Sanskrit appeared. Tamil spawned three offshoots — Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam — and these in time produced impressive literatures of their own in the medieval period, each distinguished by the distinctive flavour of its region. As these offshoots of Tamil evolved, their literature came to be heavily influenced by Sanskrit, while Tamil literature itself remained relatively unaffected by it. In fact, a major part of the early literature in these regional languages consisted of reworked old Sanskrit texts. But in time these languages developed distinctive literatures of their own. The individuation of these languages, and the growth of literature in them, were facilitated by the use of these languages by Bhakti sages, and by the patronage of the literature in them by local rulers.

The earliest of the offshoots of Tamil to develop a literature of its own was Kannada, in which literary works began to appear around the middle of the first millennium, and by around the tenth century it produced some major works. The oldest extant literary work in Kannada is considered to be Kavirajamarga (Royal Path of Poets) of around the ninth century, its very title indicating the existence of older literature in the language. Most of the early works in Kannada were by Jains, and this was followed by the contributions of Vira-Shaivas, a sect of Shiva devotees.

A fascinating development in Kannada literature at this time was the introduction in it of a folksy style known as vacana , using simple, clear prose without any literary flourishes. The pioneer of this style is thought to be Madara Chennaiah, an eleventh century cobbler-sage. In the following century, this form of literature flourished under the patronage of Basava, the chief minister of the local kingdom, and himself a distinguished poet.

Early Telugu had a very close affinity with Kannada, and the two shared virtually the same script. But by around the fifth or sixth century, Telugu acquired many distinctive characteristics of its own, and it gradually grew into a separate language. The first major literary work in Telugu is Mahabharatam , written by Nannaya in the early eleventh century. But Nannaya died before he could finish the work. Two centuries would pass before the gargantuan task of completing the work was taken up by another poet, Tikkana, the greatest Telugu poet of all time, who, because of his brilliant literary skills, came to be known as Kavi Brahma. But even he left out a portion of the epic, and it was Yerrapragada (Errana) of the fourteenth century who finally completed the translation.

Around this time Telugu developed its own distinctive script, in the place of the Kannada script it had been using all along. Further, literary Telugu then began to diverge from the language of the common people, because of its heavy Sanskritisation. The high period of Telugu literature was the early sixteenth century, during the reign of Krishnadeva of Vijayanagar, who was himself a noted writer.

The last of the Dravidian languages to break free from Tamil was Malayalam, the language of Kerala. This separation began around the sixth century, and in the following centuries the language in its literary form became heavily Sanskritised, and came to have a very large number of its words drawn from Sanskrit. Its script however remained a variant of the Tamil Grantha script. It is believed that Malayalam began to evolve a distinct literature of its own by around the eleventh century, but the oldest extant literary works in the language are only of the fourteenth century, the best known among them being Unnuneeli-sandesam , an anonymous work modelled on Kalidasa’s Megha-sandesam , and uses a rich mixture of Sanskrit and Malayalam called Manipravalam: ruby-coral.

Music was an integral part of the social and religious life of Indians from very early times, but it is hard to trace its early history, as very little data is available on it. In early medieval times Indian classical music split into two distinct streams: Carnatic music of South India, and Hindustani music of North India. This was because North Indian music had at this time come under the influence of Perso-Arabic musical tradition, while South Indian music remained virtually unaffected by it. Further, Hindustani music at this time became primarily court music (because its main patronage now, consequent of the collapse of the Hindu political power in North India, came from sultans and Muslim nobles) while Carnatic music (which flourished mainly in peninsular India, in regions outside Muslim rule) largely retained its old character as devotional music. Besides, Carnatic music remained essentially a vocal music, as most of its compositions were written to be sung, and even when this music was played on instruments, it usually mimicked singing. In contrast, musical instruments came to play a much larger role in Hindustani music, and it used far more instruments than Carnatic music. But despite all these differences, the two schools of music share the same basic compositional and improvisational elements: sruti (pitch), swara (note), raga (melody) and tala (rhythmic pattern). [11] For more on Indian music, see The First Spring , Part XI, Chapter 1