Literature in Sanskrit, India's oldest language, and the mother language of several modern languages in India. Given its extensive use in religious literature, primarily of Hinduism, and the fact that most modern Indian languages have been directly derived from or strongly influenced by Sanskrit, it is not surprising that the position of Sanskrit in Indian culture is not unlike that of Latin in European culture. Sanskrit has a long tradition of literature. This article tries to touch the major phases of Sanskrit literature. ...

Including:

• Sanskrit literature - The Vedic Period
• Sanskrit literature - The Epics
• Sanskrit literature - The Ramayana
• Sanskrit literature - The Mahabharata
• Sanskrit literature - Panini and Ashtadhyayi
• Sanskrit literature - Sanskrit Plays
• Sanskrit literature - Mricchakatika The Little Clay Cart
• Sanskrit literature - Bhasa's plays
• Sanskrit literature - Kalidasa
• Sanskrit literature - Bharata's Natyasastra
• Sanskrit literature - Classical Poetry
• Sanskrit literature - Later Sanskrit literature
• Sanskrit literature - Reference

Read more here: » Sanskrit literature: Encyclopedia - Sanskrit literature

See also:

Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - The Vedic Period, Sanskrit literature - The Epics, Sanskrit literature - The Ramayana, Sanskrit literature - The Mahabharata, Sanskrit literature - Panini and Ashtadhyayi, Sanskrit literature - Sanskrit Plays, Sanskrit literature - Mricchakatika The Little Clay Cart, Sanskrit literature - Bhasa's plays, Sanskrit literature - Kalidasa, Sanskrit literature - Bharata's Natyasastra, Sanskrit literature - Classical Poetry, Sanskrit literature - Later Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - Reference

Read more here: » Sanskrit literature: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit literature - Bharata's Natyasastra

Arguably, no grammarian has had as much influence over the grammar of any language as much as Panini has had over Sanskrit grammar and phonetics. Panini was a Vaishnava grammarian from approximately the 5th cent BC. The Ashtadhyayi was his magnum-opus. The book completely standardized Sanskrit grammar and phonetics. Panini's grammar became widely accepted and is still the standard (a common way to classify ancient Sanskrit b ...

See also:

Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - The Vedic Period, Sanskrit literature - The Epics, Sanskrit literature - The Ramayana, Sanskrit literature - The Mahabharata, Sanskrit literature - Panini and Ashtadhyayi, Sanskrit literature - Sanskrit Plays, Sanskrit literature - Mricchakatika The Little Clay Cart, Sanskrit literature - Bhasa's plays, Sanskrit literature - Kalidasa, Sanskrit literature - Bharata's Natyasastra, Sanskrit literature - Classical Poetry, Sanskrit literature - Later Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - Reference

Read more here: » Sanskrit literature: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit literature - Panini and Ashtadhyayi

The period between approximately the 12th and the 2nd centuries BC saw the composition of the two great Hindu epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. They are known to Hindus as itihaas, or "that which occurred" and are both collective works, having evolved through the centuries before finally being put into writing sometime in the 2nd century AD. Sanskrit literature - The Ramayana. While not as big as the Mahabharata, the Ramayana is still twice as big as the Iliad and the Odyssey put together. Tr ...

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Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - The Vedic Period, Sanskrit literature - The Epics, Sanskrit literature - The Ramayana, Sanskrit literature - The Mahabharata, Sanskrit literature - Panini and Ashtadhyayi, Sanskrit literature - Sanskrit Plays, Sanskrit literature - Mricchakatika The Little Clay Cart, Sanskrit literature - Bhasa's plays, Sanskrit literature - Kalidasa, Sanskrit literature - Bharata's Natyasastra, Sanskrit literature - Classical Poetry, Sanskrit literature - Later Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - Reference

Read more here: » Sanskrit literature: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit literature - The Epics

Composed between approximately 2000 BC and 500 BC, Vedic literature forms the basis for the further development of Hinduism. There are fours books of Vedas - Rig, Yajus, Sāma and Atharva. Some people consider the first three as the more important ones. Each veda contains four parts - hymns, rituals, meditation and mystical philosophy. The Vedas were not written at any single time, and have been compiled over several centuries by thousands of people. As a result, the Vedas provide an insight into the historical and cultural developmen ...

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Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - The Vedic Period, Sanskrit literature - The Epics, Sanskrit literature - The Ramayana, Sanskrit literature - The Mahabharata, Sanskrit literature - Panini and Ashtadhyayi, Sanskrit literature - Sanskrit Plays, Sanskrit literature - Mricchakatika The Little Clay Cart, Sanskrit literature - Bhasa's plays, Sanskrit literature - Kalidasa, Sanskrit literature - Bharata's Natyasastra, Sanskrit literature - Classical Poetry, Sanskrit literature - Later Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - Reference

Read more here: » Sanskrit literature: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit literature - The Vedic Period

India has a rich tradition of theatrical arts, possibly longer than that of the western world. The theatrical tradition of India was not born out of the Greek invasion as believed by several scholars. Theatre has existed as an indigenous institution at least since the Vedic period. Later Hellenistic influences on Sanskrit theatre however cannot be denied. The earliest forms of theatrical arts could have existed in the form of dance-dramas as evidenced by iconography from the Indus Valley Civilisation. As the Indus Valley Civilisation ...

See also:

Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - The Vedic Period, Sanskrit literature - The Epics, Sanskrit literature - The Ramayana, Sanskrit literature - The Mahabharata, Sanskrit literature - Panini and Ashtadhyayi, Sanskrit literature - Sanskrit Plays, Sanskrit literature - Mricchakatika The Little Clay Cart, Sanskrit literature - Bhasa's plays, Sanskrit literature - Kalidasa, Sanskrit literature - Bharata's Natyasastra, Sanskrit literature - Classical Poetry, Sanskrit literature - Later Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - Reference

Read more here: » Sanskrit literature: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit literature - Sanskrit Plays

This refers to the poetry produced from the 3rd to approximately the 7th centuries. Kalidasa is the foremost example of a classical poet. While Kalidasa's Sanksrit usage is simple but beautiful, later Sanskrit poetry shifted towards highly stylized literary accents: stanzas that read the same backwards and forwards, words that can be split in different ways to produce different meanings, sophisticated metaphors, and so on. A classic example is the poet Bharavi a ...

See also:

Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - The Vedic Period, Sanskrit literature - The Epics, Sanskrit literature - The Ramayana, Sanskrit literature - The Mahabharata, Sanskrit literature - Panini and Ashtadhyayi, Sanskrit literature - Sanskrit Plays, Sanskrit literature - Mricchakatika The Little Clay Cart, Sanskrit literature - Bhasa's plays, Sanskrit literature - Kalidasa, Sanskrit literature - Bharata's Natyasastra, Sanskrit literature - Classical Poetry, Sanskrit literature - Later Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - Reference

Read more here: » Sanskrit literature: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit literature - Classical Poetry

Some important works from the 11th century include the Katha-Saritsagara and Geeta Govinda. The Katha-Saritsagara (An Ocean of Stories) by Somadeva was a poetic adaptation in Sanskrit of Brihat-katha, written in the 5th cent BC in the Paishachi dialect. The Paishachi manuscript of the Brihat-katha has not been found. The thousands of short stories embedded in this book inspired numerous later stories, most notably several stories of the Arabian Nights (note that the Arabian Nights was f ...

See also:

Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - The Vedic Period, Sanskrit literature - The Epics, Sanskrit literature - The Ramayana, Sanskrit literature - The Mahabharata, Sanskrit literature - Panini and Ashtadhyayi, Sanskrit literature - Sanskrit Plays, Sanskrit literature - Mricchakatika The Little Clay Cart, Sanskrit literature - Bhasa's plays, Sanskrit literature - Kalidasa, Sanskrit literature - Bharata's Natyasastra, Sanskrit literature - Classical Poetry, Sanskrit literature - Later Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit literature - Reference

Read more here: » Sanskrit literature: Encyclopedia II - Sanskrit literature - Later Sanskrit literature