Indian Tradition Culture & Society

Unit-2

Syllabus:-Evolution of script and languages in India: Harappan Script and Brahmi Script, The
Vedas, the Upanishads, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, Puranas, Buddhist and Jain
Literature in Pali, Prakrit and Sanskrit, Kautilya’s Arthashastra, Famous Sanskrit Authors,
Telugu Literature, Kannada Literature, Malayalam Literature, Sangama Literature, Northern
Indian Languages & Literature, Persian and Urdu, Hindi Literature.

Different language of India.

Language is a medium through which we express our thoughts. To know any particular culture and its
tradition it is very important that we understand the evolution of its language.

Classification of Indian languages : The Indian people speaks languages belonging to following four
distinct speech families :

1. Aryan:

1-Of the ancient Indian linguistic and cultural groups, the Aryan is the most important.
2-Indian civilization has found its expression primarily through the Aryan speech as it developed
over the centuries.
3-Aryan speech developed over time through Vedic Sanskrit (old Indo- Aryan), then Classical
Sanskrit, then Early Middle Indo-Aryan dialects like Pali and Old Ardha-Magadhi, then Buddhist
and Jaina Sanskrit and after that the various Prakrits and Apabhramsas, and finally the different Modern
Indo-Aryan languages of the country

2-Dravidian:
1. Dravidian is the second important language family of India and has some special characteristics
of its own.
2. After the Aryan speech, it has very largely functioned as the exponent of Indian culture.
3. It forms a solid bloc in South India, embracing the four great literary languages, Kannada,
Malayalam, Tamil, and Telugu.
4. The Dravidian speech in its antiquity in India is older than Aryan.
3-Sino-Tibetan :

1.Peoples of Mongoloid origin, speaking languages of the Sino-Tibetan family, were present in
India at least as early as the tenth century B.C.
2.The Sino-Tibetan languages do not have much numerical importance or cultural significance in
India, with the exception of Manipuri of Manipur.
3.Everywhere they are gradually receding before the Aryan languages like Bengali and Assamese.

4-Austric :
5. The Austric languages represent the oldest speech family of India, but they are spoken by a very
small number of people, comparatively.
6. The Austric languages of India have a great interest for the student of linguistics and human
culture.
7. They are valuable relics of India's past, and they link up India with Burma, with Indo-China,
with Malaya, and with Indonesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.
8. Their solidarity is, however, broken by the more powerful Aryan speeches.
9. Speakers of Austric know some Aryan language. In some cases they have become very largely
bilingual.
10. Speakers of Austric introduced some of their own speech habits and their own words into Aryan.
In this way, the Austrics peoples helped to modify the character of the Aryan speech in India and
even to build up Classical Sanskrit as the great culture speech of India.

Brahmi script in India

1. On the Indian subcontinent during the final centuries BCE and the early centuries CE.
2. The most disputed point about the origin of the Brahmi script is whether it was a purely
indigenous development or was inspired or derived from scripts that originated outside India.
3. It is noted that the indigenous view is strongly preferred by Indian scholars, whereas the idea of
Semitic borrowing is preferred most often by Western scholars.
4. Most scholars until recently thought that the Brahmi scripts was derived from the ancient
Phoenician script which itself is a derivative of the still more ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic
writing, through the later Demotic style.
5. Others thought that the South Arabian form of Phoenician was the immediate source of Brahmi.

Characteristics of Brahmi script :

1. Brahmi is usually written from left to right.

2. Brahmi is an abugida, meaning that each letter represents a consonant, while vowels are written
with obligatory diacritics called matras in Sanskrit.
3. Vowels following a consonant are inherent or written by diacritics, but initial vowels have
dedicated letters.
4. Brahmi characters are joined vertically downwards.

5. In the early Brahmi period, the existence of punctuation marks is not very well shown.
6. Each letter has been written independently with some space between words and edicts
 occasionally.
7. In the middle period, the system seems to be in progress.
8. The use of a dash and a curved horizontal line is found.
9. A flower mark seems to mark the end, and a circular mark appears to indicate the full stop.
There seem to be varieties of full stop.
10. In the late period, the system of interpunctuation marks gets more complicated.

Harappan script

1. The Harappan script is a corpus of symbols produced by the Indus valley civilisation.
2. Most inscriptions are extremely short.
3. It is not clear if these symbols constitute a script used to record a language, and the subject of
whether the Indus symbols were a writing system is controversial. 4. In spite of many attempts at
decipherment, it is undeciphered, and no underlying language has been identified.
5. There is no known bilingual inscription.
6. The script does not show any significant changes over time.
7. In the early 1970s, Iravatham Mahadevan published a corpus and concordance of Indus
inscriptions listing 3,700 seals and 417 distinct signs in specific patterns.
8. The average inscription contains five signs, and the longest inscription is only 17 signs long.
9. He also established the direction of writing as right to left.

Characteristics of Harappan script :

1. The characters are largely pictorial, but include many abstract signs.

2. The inscriptions are thought to have been written mostly from right-to- left.
3. The number of principal signs is about 400
4. Since that is considered too large a number for each character to be a phonogram, the script is
generally believed to instead be logo-syllabic.

Vedic literature

Rig-Veda, Yajur-Veda, Sama-Veda and Atharva-Veda.

1. The Vedas are the earliest known literature in India. The Vedas were written in Sanskrit and
were handed down orally from one generation to the other.
2. The word 'Veda' literally means knowledge. In Hindu culture, Vedas are considered as eternal and
divine revelations.
3. They treat the whole world as one human family Vasudev Kutumbakam.
4. There are four Vedas, namely, the - Rig-Veda, Yajur-Veda, Sama-Veda and Atharva-Veda.
Each Veda consists of the Brahmanas, the Upanishads and the Aranyakas.
 A. The Rig-Veda Samhita :
1. The oldest of the four samhitas mentioned is the Rig samhita.

2. It is the name given to that samhita in which the priest intones the mantras as an invitation to
the Gods to put in an appearance at a yagya.
3. It is the oldest and the most extensive of the samhitas, and many of its mantras have been
borrowed in the other samhitas.
4. Rig samhita has been divided into ten mandals or parts and the mantras that are included in each
mandal are given the prefix ‘sukta’.
5. There are 1028 suktas in the Rigveda. It took hundreds of years to compose these suktas.
Rig veda provides almost complete information concerning the old Vedic civilization. It contains
picture of the oldest Aryan civilization and their religion, way of life, thought and modes of behavior

A. The Sama-Veda Samhita :

6. This is the second Veda. It contains some 1549 mantras of which only 72 are new, while the rest
have all been derived from the Rigveda.
7. There are two parts to this veda. There are six kandas in the first and nine in the latter part.
8. Each kanda has numerous smaller kandas which are also called ‘sukta’. There are 459 such small
kandas.
9. The collection of the samhita of the Samaveda was made keeping in mind the requirements of
the singer priest.
10. Sama means song or singing. In the Samaveda everything is sung.
11. When the yagya was organised, the singer priest called out to the deity in question by singing the
mantras in a loud and sweet voice.
12. The Samaveda samhita has been divided into two parts - the purvarchika and the uttararchika.

B. The Yajur-Veda Samhita :

13. Yaju is the name given to poetry, for which reason much of this Veda is in poetry.
14. Etymologically the term 'Yajur Veda' means knowledge concerning yagya.
15. It contains 40 chapters in which there are 2000 couplets.
16. It contains poetical sentences which were employed at the time of the yagya for this reason yajur-
veda is particularly concerned with anushthana.
17. This Veda has two forms - the Shukla Yajurveda and the Krishna Yajurveda.
18. Each of the two forms has its own samhita, the samhita of the Shukla Yajurveda being called
the Vaajsaneyi sanhita.
19. The Shukla yajur-veda has two prominent branches of which each one has a separate samhita.
20. There are many branches of the Krishna yajur-veda, of which only four are existent.
21. Both the Krishna and the Shukla yajur-veda provide detailed description of yagya rituals.
22. In the yajur-veda one finds graphic descriptions of the difference between the caste and the varna
systems.
23. There is mention of mixed castes also, along with descriptions of handicrafts, science, trade, etc.

B. The Atharva-Veda Samhita :

1. In this Veda there are 20 kandas, 34 Prapathaka, 111 Anuvaka, 731 suktas and 1849 mantras.
2. In the Atharva-Veda little attention has been paid to the technique or mode of yagya.
3. Rig-Veda derives its importance from its independent development and from the fact that it is a
record of ancient history. The same is true of the Atharva-Veda also.
4. The chief difference between the two is that there was practically no class distinction or
brahmanic superiority in the Rig veda but it is clearly in evidence in the Atharva veda.
5. Some of the mantras of the Atharva-Veda are concerned with such occult activities as magic,
curses, casting spells, ghosts, witches, causing invisibility, and hypnotism.
6. The beginning of Ayurveda, medicine and pharmacology are to be found in this Veda.
7. This Veda also provides some glimpses of the manner in which the beliefs and ideas concerning
life evolved in the Aryan period.

Story of Ramayana
1. Dasaratha, king of Ayodhya, is about to install his eldest son, Rama, on the throne.
2. Kaikeyi, Rama‘s step-mother, wants her own son Bharata to be crowned king, and Rama to be
sent into exile for fourteen years.
3. The old and infirm king, though reluctant, has to agree.
4. Rama goes to live in the forest, accompanied by his consort, Sita, and his brother, Laksmana.
5. The demon-king of Lanka, Ravana, abducts Sita.
6. Rama, determined to rescue Sita, wages a dour war against Ravana who is ultimately
vanquished and killed.
7. Rama comes back to Ayodhya and assumes his position as king, with Sita as queen.

Literary characteristics of Ramayana

1. In the Ramayana the art of poetry appears to have made great progress.
2. The poet is an adept in characterization, and this is displayed in a series of unparalleled
portraits :
i. Rama’s supreme sacrifice for the sake of his father;
ii. Sita is the glowing example of chastity and high-mindedness;

iii. Laksmana’s obedience to his elder brother;

iv. The self-abnegation of Bharata in abjuring royal comforts during the absence of Rama;
v. The unflinching loyalty of Hanuman to his master.

vi. Across the sea, in Lanka, we find Ravana, of tremendous physical and mental vigour.
3. The author of the Ramayana has thus presented a magnificent life- gallery throbbing with
profound human appeal, and in the centre of this gallery the character of Ram shines.
4. He is a model son, husband, brother, king, warrior, and man.
5. The Ramayana brings out the close relationship between external nature and internal nature
expressed in the minds and moods of people.
6. Unlike the other epic, the Ramayana creates an idyll out of nature and produces a lyrical
effect.
7. Various sentiments have been introduced, into the epic, but the main sentiment is the heroic.

Story of Mahabharata
1. The Pandavas, headed by Yudhisthira, and the Kauravas, headed by Duryodhana, descended
from common ancestors.
2. Duryodhana becomes jealous and, coveting the crown invites Yudhisthira to a game of dice.
3. As the result of a rash wager, Yudhisthira loses his kingdom to Duryodhana and is then forced to
go into exile, together with his brothers and Draupadi, the common consort of the Pandavas, for
twelve years, followed by one year during which they must live incognito.
4. But even when the stipulated period is over, Duryodhana refuses to give even a fraction of his
territory to Yudhisthira, the rightful owner.
5. A grim battle ensues. The Kauravas are routed and ruined, and the Pandavas regain their lost
kingdom.

Literary characteristics of Mahabharata

1. The Mahabharata has been characterized as a “whole literature”.

2. The nucleus of the epic is simple. Around this nucleus has gathered a diverse mass of material
dealing with innumerable topics-legendary, didactic, ethical, heroic, aesthetic, philosophical,
political, and so on.
3. Even a casual reader is struck by the wealth of characters in the epic, and the way they have been
so beautifully portrayed.
4. The composer knows the value of contrast, for he shows how a good character shines brighter
against a bad one
5. Each of the five Pandava brothers has his own distinct traits of character. Yudhisthira, the eldest,
never departs from the age-old path of virtue. Unflinching in his devotion to dharma, he has an
unshaken faith that Dharma must ultimately triumph.
6. Duryodhana is materialistic in outlook; he is concerned mainly with artha (wealth) and kama
(desire), and does not bother himself about dharma. He thus serves as an excellent foil to
Yudhisthira.
7. The suffering caused by their enemies rouses the righteousness of Draupadi. Her speech to urge
Yudhisthira to action is fiery and imbued with the high Ksatriya spirit.
8. Similarly Gandhari, the mother of the Kauravas, condemns Dhritrashtra as the one who is fully
responsible for the rout and ruin of the Kauravas.
9. Thus clearly showing that she is not blinded by attachment to her husband or by affection for her
sons. Her judgment is impartial and sound.
10. The dominant sentiment in the Mahabharata is the heroic, but here too the pathetic sentiment is
equally noteworthy.
11. The epic reveals the poet’s mastery of the art of description. In general, the style is effortless.

Purana
1. The term purana means, “that which lives from ancient times”.
2. The Puranas are a very important branch, of the Hindu sacred literature.
3. They enable us to know the true import of the ethos, philosophy, and religion of the Vedas.
4. The Puranas were written with the object of popularizing the truths taught in the Vedas by
presenting them in relation to specific personages and to the events of their lives.
5. The real function of the Puranas is to explain, illustrate, and amplify the Vedas.
6. The main value of the Puranas consists in amplifying, enforcing, and illustrating the spiritual
truths stated in the Vedas in the form of injunctions and commands.
7. The principal (Maha) Puranas are eighteen in number. There are also eighteen secondary (Upa)
Puranas. These contain about 4,00,000 verses on the whole and relate to a vast variety of topics.

Pali language
1. The word Pali simply means ‘a line’ and is regarded as a Middle Indo- Aryan language that
is native to India.
2. The earliest known origins of this language are unclear.
3. It was earlier known as Magadhi, named after its place of origin in modern-day Bihar.
4. Buddha spent most of his time in Magadha and preached his doctrine there in the dialect of that
region.
5. It is but natural that the early Buddhist scriptures were composed in Magadhi in which Buddha
himself spoke.
6. The Tripitaka was committed to writing during the reign of Vattagamani Abhaya in the first
century B.C.
7. Apart from the canonical literature(those that are the most commonly studied,read,and
celebrated in a particular culture) in Pali, there are also a large number of post-canonical Pali
works. They comprise mostly tikas and tippanis.
8. The extracanonical works can be divided in to the commentaries, then the chronicles, manuals,
poetical works, grammars, and works on rhetoric and metrics, and lastly, the lexicons.

Buddhist literature
1. The earliest Buddhist works were written in Pali, which was spoken in Magadha and South Bihar.
2. The Buddhist works can be divided into the canonical and the non- canonical.
3. The canonical literature is best represented by the Tripitaka, that is, three baskets :
i. Vinaya Pitaka : It deals with rules and regulations of daily life.
ii. Sutta Pitaka : It contains dialogues and discourses on morality and deals with Dharma.

iii. Abhidhamma Pitaka : It deals with philosophy and metaphysics. It includes discourses on
various subjects such as ethics, psychology, theories of knowledge and metaphysical
problems.
 Literature of Jainism

1. The Jain texts were written in Prakrit and were compiled in the sixth century AD in Valabhi
in Gujarat.
2. The important works are known as Angas, Upangas, Prakirnas, Chhedab Sutras and
Malasutras.
3. Jainism helped in the growth of a rich literature comprising poetry, philosophy and
grammar.
4. These works contain many passages which help us to reconstruct the political history of eastern
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
5. The Jain texts refer repeatedly to trade and traders.
6. Jaina literature begins with the last of the Tirthankaras, Mahavir, who reorganized the old
Nirgrantha sect and revitalized its moral and religious zeal and activities.
7. He preached his faith of ahimsa (non-violence) and self-purification to the people in their own
language Prakrit.
8. The form of Prakrit which he is said to have used was Ardha-Magadhi

Northern Indian languages and

literature.

1. In early medieval period the old apabhramsha had taken new forms and was in the
process of evolving into other forms.
2. These languages were evolving at two levels : the spoken and the written language.
3. The old Brahmi script of the Ashoka days had undergone a great change.
4. The alphabets during Ashoka’s period were uneven in size but by the time of
Harsha, the letters had become of the same size.
5. All the scripts of present northern Indian languages, except that of Urdu, have
had their origin in old Brahmi.
6. At present there are over 200 languages or dialects spoken in India. Some are
widely used while others are limited to a particular area.
7. A large number of people speak Hindi in its different forms that include Braj Bhasha,
Avadhi, Bhojpuri, Magadhi, Maithili, Rajasthani and Khadi Boli.
8. The language used by Surdas and Bihari has been given the name of Braj
Bhasha; that used by Tulsidas in the Ramacharitamanasa is called Avadhi and the one
used by Vidyapati has been termed as Maithili.
9. But Hindi, as we know it today is the one called Khadi Boli.
10. Extensive use of Khadi Boli in literature began only in the nineteenth century. It
even shows some influence of Urdu.

Hindi Literature
1. In the 14th century the emergence of regional languages resulted in the decline of
Sanskrit as they came to be used as the medium through which the administrative
machinery functioned.
2. The rise of the Bhakti movement and the use of these regional languages by the
various saints helped in their growth and development.
3. The language went on changing as the area where it was used expanded. New
words to express new situations were either coined or taken from areas coming
under its influence.
4. The influence of Bhakti movement started affecting the prose and poetry that were
being composed in Hindi.
5. These poets influenced the Indian society in a manner that had never happened
earlier. As it is easier to remember poetry than prose, they became immensely
popular.
6. In modern times, the Khadi dialect became more prominent.

Kannada literature
1. Kannada literature is the corpus of written forms of the Kannada language, a
member of the Dravidian family.
2. The Kannada language is usually divided into three linguistic phases : Old (450–
1200 CE), Middle (1200–1700 CE) and Modern (1700–present).
3. Its literary characteristics are categorised as Jain, Veerashaiva and Vaishnava —
recognising the prominence of these three faiths in giving form to the classical
expression of the language.
4. Starting with the Kavirajamarga (c. 850), and until the middle of the 12th
century, literature in Kannada was almost exclusively composed by the Jains.
5. The Veerashaiva movement of the 12th century created new literature which
flourished alongside the Jain works.
6. With the waning of Jain influence during the 14 th century Vijayanagara Empire, a
 new Vaishnava literature grew rapidly in the 15th century.
7. In the 19th century, some literary forms, such as the prose narrative, the novel,
and the short story, were borrowed from English literature.

Malayalam literature
1. Malayalam literature comprises of literary texts written in Malayalam, a South-
Dravidian language spoken in Kerala.
2. The earliest known literary work in Malayalam is Ramacharitam, an epic poem
written by Cheeraman in 1198 CE.
3. In the subsequent centuries, besides a popular pattu literature, the
manipravalam poetry also flourished.
4. Manipravalam style consisted of poetry in an ad mixture of Malayalam and
Sanskrit.
5. Then came works such as champus and sandeshakavyas in which prose and poetry
were interspersed.

Telugu literature

1. Telugu is one of the classical languages of India. It is a language of the

Dravidian family.
2. The Indian Constitution recognises it as one of the 22 official languages of India.
3. Telugu literature is the body of works written in the Telugu language. It consists of
poems, short stories, novels, plays, and song lyrics, among others.
4. Early Telugu literature is predominantly religious in subject matter. Poets and
scholars drew most of their material from epics, such as the Ramayana, the
Mahabharata, the Bhagavata and the Puranas.
5. From the 16th century onwards, rarely known episodes from the Puranas would
form the basis for the tradition of Telugu-language kavya.
6. Literary works drawn from episodes of the Puranas under the name Akhyana or
Khanda became popular along with depictions of the fortune of a single hero under
the title of Charitra, Vijaya, Vilasa.
7. In the eighteenth-century, marriages of heroes under the title Parinaya, Kalyana
and Vivaha became popular.
 Sangam Literature
1. In ancient times the association or academy of the most learned men of the Tamil
land was called ‘Sangam’ whose chief function was promotion of literature.
2. Later Tamil writers mention the existence of three literary academies (Sangams) at
different periods.
3. The last academy is credited with the corpus of literature now known as ‘Sangam
Works’.
4. Naturalism and romanticism were the salient features of the poems of the Sangam
bards.
5. Tolkappiyam, the name signifying the ancient book or ‘the preserver of ancient
institutions’ was written by Tolkappiyanar and is the oldest extant Tamil grammar
dating back to 500 B.C.
6. It lays down rules for different kinds of poetical compositions drawn from the
examples furnished by the best works then extant.
7. It contains about 1,610 suttirams (aphorisms). It is in three parts : ezhuttu
(orthography), sol (etymology), and porul (literary conventions and usages) each
with nine sections.
8. The principal works of the third Sangam have come down to us in the shape
of anthologies of poems.
9. The anthologies of the third Sangam consist of poems divided into two broad
categories : aham or interior and puram or exterior.
10. An allegory of the different stages through which the soul of man passes from its
manifestation in the body to its final unification with the Supreme Being is seen in
aham.

Persian language

1. As Persian was the language of the court, much of the literature produced in this
period was written in Persian.
2. We find several historical accounts, administrative manuals and allied literature in
this language.
3. The Mughal rulers were great patrons of leaning and literature.
4. Quite a fair amount of Persian literature has been produced by the courtiers of
the Mughals.
5. From there we get a good deal of information about Mughal period.
6. Several collections of letters of the Mughal period (insha) have come down to us.
Besides shedding light on Mughal history, they indicate different styles of letter
writing.

Urdu language
1. Arabic and Persian were introduced in India with the coming of the Turks and the
Mongols.
2. Urdu as a language was born out of the interaction between Hindi and Persian.
3. Originally it was a dialect but slowly it acquired all the features of a formal
language when the authors started using Persian script.
4. Urdu became more popular in the early eighteenth century. People even wrote
accounts of later Mughals in Urdu.
5. Gradually it achieved a status where literature (both poetry and prose) started being
composed in it.
6. Urdu was given its pride of place by a large number of poets who have left
inimitable poetry for posterity. The earliest Urdu poet is supposed to be Khusrau
(1253 - 1325).
7. Among the best prose writers were people like Pandit Ratan Nath Sarshar, who
wrote the famous Fasanah-i-Azad.
8. Urdu has given us a new form of poem that is called a nazm.
9. Urdu was patronised by the Nawabs of Lucknow, who held symposiums in this
language. Slowly it became quite popular.