Indian literary works are as diverse as the languages spoken in the country and include everything from epics, lyrics, poetry, aphorisms, drama, fables, folk stories to scientific prose. Traditional literature is dominated by religious themes from Hinduism, with writers singing praises of the gods and invoking their blessings. The entire corpus of Vedic texts—the Puranas, the epics the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, the Bhagavad Gita—and renowned poet Kalidas’ Abhijnana Shakuntala are some of the celebrated works from this genre. The Puranas, 18 in number, are ancient Sanskrit texts that are said to pre-date the epics. The Puranas discuss the creation of the universe, the powers of the gods and the genealogies of kings.
Most of early Indian literature was in the Sanskrit language, the dominant language of intellectual pursuits at that time; however, in south India during ancient times, literary works were written in the Tamil language. During the period of Muslim rule from the 11th century onwards, classical Persian poetry took centre stage, giving way to Urdu literature during the Mughal period. By the 16th century, an exhaustive written literature in the vernacular languages had appeared. In the early 19th century, prose in different Indian languages got an impetus with the setting up of vernacular schools, with Bengali writers taking the lead. The British brought English literature to India, and it had a profound influence on many writers of that period who assimilated some of its elements to Indian themes.
Today there is an extensive body of literature in all the important languages of India, as well as an impressive collection of works in English. Illustrious Indian writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries include Ram Mohun Roy, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Prem Chand, a renowned writer known as the Father of Urdu short stories, Vivekananda and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, who won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. Tulsidas, who lived in the 17th century, is considered the greatest Hindi poet, while Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, or Ghalib, was the greatest Urdu poet of the 19th century. Muhammad Iqbal was a celebrated Muslim poet of the 20th century.
Among the later writers are Nirad C Chaudhuri, R K Narayan, Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Chandra, Vikram Seth, Anita Desai, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai, many of whom represent the new breed of Indians writing in English for a national as well as an international audience. Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Kiran Desai have been honoured by the international community with the prestigious Booker Prize, while Jhumpa Lahiri has received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for her debut collection of short stories.
It was Salman Rushdie’s 1981 novel Midnight’s Children that set the trend of Indian authors writing in English. This trend has seen a newfound resurgence in recent years. The number of Indians writing in English has mushroomed in the 21st century with more and more writers, particularly those belonging to the diaspora in the United States and Canada, drawing on their personal experiences in post-colonial India or their lives overseas, to spin a fascinating story centred around their unique identity.
Autobiography Of An Unknown Indian
Nirad C Chaudhuri is best known for his Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, a controversial book about his experiences as a Bengali under British rule. The book is rated as Chaudhuri’s magnum opus for his vivid articulation of middle class Bengali society in the early 1900s. Chaudhuri, an eccentric Anglophile who offended many Indians because of his open admiration for the British Raj, moved to Britain in the 1970s and lived in Oxford until his death in August 1999 at the age of 101. He continued to write while at Oxford, penning his last book, an anti-India, pro-British collection of essays titled Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse, when he was 99.