Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognized languages. India has a rich literary traditions. Every Indian language has its share of enrichment in Indian literature. Great works are created in every field and to mention them and their authors will be exhaustive. The earliest literary works were revolving mainly around mythology and religion but gradually started to deal directly with social, political and economical themes.
Our literary heritage is also varied and superb. India has given to the world some fine works of great variety of literary heritage and universal merit, India has a large number of languages and dialects and each one of them produced literature of great quality, both the written and oral type.
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Sanskrit Literature
The earliest Upanishads are the Brihad Aranyaka and Chanddogya. The Upanishads are in the form of dialogues and express the highest thoughts in simple and beautiful words.
India has 22 officially recognised languages, and a huge variety of literature has been produced in these languages over the years. Hindu literary traditions dominate a large part of Indian culture.
Apart from the Vedas, which are a sacred form of knowledge, there are other works such as the Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata, treatises such as Vaastu Shastra in architecture and town planning, and Arthashastra in political science.
Buddhist and Jain Literature
The Buddhists and the Jain literature too have great literary value. The Tripitakas and Jatakas of the Buddhist in Pali language are superb in their rendering. Likewise the great Jaina works like the Agamas and Upangas, Haribhadra’s -Shaddarshan-Samuchchaya have great literary as well as religious value.
Other Literary Works:
The Prakrits continued to evolve through everyday use. One of these dialects was Pali, which was spoken in the western portion of peninsular India. Pali became the language of Theravada Buddhism; eventually it came to be identified exclusively with religious contexts.
The different language clusters in India are distinctive but share a common heritage and core identity. Nurturing its plural and diverse traditions, emergent India is engaged in an act of constant and ongoing cultural translation and interpretation.
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