Indian literature refers to literature produced on the Indian subcontinent. It began with oral traditions and the earliest works were composed in Sanskrit. The two major Sanskrit epics are the Ramayana and Mahabharata. India has over 700 languages belonging to several families, with Indo-Aryan and Dravidian being the major ones. Hindi in the Devanagari script is the official language of India, though English also has official status and is widely used.
2. 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.
3. The Indian subcontinent, is a southern region and
peninsula of Asia, mostly situated on the Indian Plate and
projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the
Himalayas.
The Indian Plate or India Plate is a major tectonic plate
straddling the equator in the eastern hemisphere.
4. The earliest works of Indian literature were orally transmitted.
Sanskrit literature refers to texts composed in Sanskrit language since
the 2nd-millennium BCE. Many of the prominent texts are associated
with Indian religions, i.e., Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and were
composed in ancient India. However, others were composed central,
East or Southeast Asia and the canon includes works covering secular
sciences and the arts. Early works of Sanskrit literature were
transmitted through an oral tradition for centuries before they were
written down in manuscript form.
5. Sanskrit literature begins with the oral literature of the Rig Veda a
collection of sacred hymns dating to the period 15001200 BCE.
The Sanskrit epics Ramayana and Mahabharata appeared towards the
end of the 2nd millennium BCE.
There are two major Sanskrit epics in ancient India.
1. Ramayana The Ramayana contains the story of Rama and
incidentally relates the legends of the Solar dynasty. A story is considered
to be 'Itihasa' only when the writer of the story has himself witnessed the
story.
2. Mahabharata - It narrates the struggle between two groups of
cousins in the Kurukshetra War and the fates of the Kaurava and the
P畊畍ava princes and their succession.
6. Languages spoken in India belong to several language families,
the major ones being the Indo-Aryan languages spoken by
78.05% of Indians and the Dravidian languages spoken by 19.64%
of Indians. Languages spoken by the remaining 2.31% of the
population belong to the Austroasiatic, Sino-Tibetan, Tai-Kadai
and a few other minor language families and isolates.
India has the world's second highest number of languages (780),
after Papua New Guinea (839).
7. Indo-Aryan language family - The largest of the language
families represented in India, in terms of speakers, is the Indo-
Aryan language family, a branch of the Indo-Iranian family, itself
the easternmost, extant subfamily of the Indo-European
language family. This language family predominates, accounting
for some 1035 million speakers, or over 76.5 of the population,
as per 2018 estimate.
Dravidian language family - The second largest language family
is the Dravidian language family, accounting for some 277 million
speakers, or approximately 20.5% as per 2018 estimate The
Dravidian languages are spoken mainly in southern India and
parts of eastern and central India as well as in parts of
northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.
8. Austroasiatic language family - Families with smaller numbers
of speakers are Austroasiatic and numerous small Sino-Tibetan
languages, with some 10 and 6 million speakers, respectively,
together 3% of the population.
Sino-Tibetan language family - The Sino-Tibetan language
family are well represented in India. However, their
interrelationships are not discernible, and the family has been
described as "a patch of leaves on the forest floor" rather than
with the conventional metaphor of a "family tree".
9. Article 343 of the Indian constitution stated that the official language
of the Union should become Hindi in Devanagari script instead of the
extant English. Later, a constitutional amendment, The Official
Languages Act, 1963, allowed for the continuation of English
alongside Hindi in the Indian government indefinitely until legislation
decides to change it.
Devanagari - also called Nagari, is a left-to-right abugida
(alphasyllabary), based on the ancient Brhm朝 script, used in the
Indian subcontinent. It was developed in ancient India from the 1st
to the 4th century CE, and was in regular use by the 7th century CE.
The Devanagari script, composed of 47 primary characters including
14 vowels and 33 consonants, is one of the most adopted writing
systems in the world, being used for over 120 languages.
10. Prominent languages of india:
Bengali Kannada
Marathi Malayalam
Telugu Odia
Tamil Punjabi
Urdu Assamese
Gujarati Maithili