THE REGIONAL KINGDOMS OF EARLY MEDIEVAL INDIALiterature and languageThe regionalisation of Indian culture had begun with the emergence of the
great regional kingdoms. This change of political structure was then
paralleled by a religious transformation. The more or less unified
Brahminical Hinduism of an earlier age was disrupted by the rise of
popular religious movements, which in turn led to the formulation of new
philosophical doctrines. At the same time regional languages produced a
rich literature which challenged the monopoly of Sanskrit literature. In the
period from about 1000 to 1300, the Indo-Aryan languages of North,
Central and East India attained their specific regional identity, among them
Marathi, Bengali, Assamese and Oriya. Their early development and their
relationship to the Middle Indian Sanskrit dialects, Prakrit and
Apabhramsha, is surely as fascinating a subject for research as the rise of
the various European literary languages which took place at almost the
same time.
In India the various sects and religious movements made a great impact
on this development of regional languages and literatures. Some of the
founders of these sects did not know Sanskrit at all and therefore expressed
themselves in the respective regional languages. However, even the
Brahmins among them who knew Sanskrit were eager to communicate
with the people and therefore preferred the regional languages. Moreover,
many of the saintly poets who inspired these movements created great
works of literature and thus enriched the regional languages.
In addition Sanskrit texts, starting with the great Puranas, had to be
translated into the regional languages. The Bhagavata Purana was very
important for the Vaishnavites in this respect. Such translations were often
the first great works of literature in some of the regional languages. The
free rendering of the Ramayana in Hindi by Tulsidas (1532–1632) is a
prime example of this development. In the midst of the fifteenth century
Sharala Das translated the Mahabharata into Oriya and thus paved the
way for the rise of Oriya literature in the sixteenth.
Two other types of literature should be briefly mentioned in this
context: the chronicles of temples and of dynasties. All great temples and
centres of pilgrimage produced Sanskrit collections of their legends, the
Mahatmyas, but these were soon translated into the respective vernacular
language and recited by pilgrims everywhere. Priests who were sent out to
recruit pilgrims for these centres in distant parts of the country also
contributed to the spread of this kind of literature. The chronicles of kings
(rajavamshavali) and local rulers had a similar function. They were often
produced by bards to provide patrons with an impressive genealogy
reaching back into antiquity, or even into the age of mythical heroes. Such
chronicles also often contain legends about the temples which the
respective dynasties had founded. Only their final chapters are devoted to