Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature

Extract

South Asian literature, in the broadest sense of that term, begins with the Vedic scriptures, the earliest of which is the Rigveda (ca. 1500–1000 bce ). The earliest portions of the Vedic corpus consist of versified hymns, typically addressed to one or more divine beings and invoking their blessings. These hymns contain frequent allusions to what must have been well-known stories of the deeds of the gods, but these are generally brief and cryptic. A few hymns take the form of dialogues, but these too are opaque and allusive; there is little in the way of straightforward narrative. The later Vedic canon, particularly the prose texts called Brahmanas (ca. 1000–500 bce ) that grew up around the earlier collections of hymns, contains many, mostly brief, narrative sections, some providing context for the hymns themselves, and others explaining or providing justifications for elements of the elaborate rituals prescribed by the texts. Full-fledged narrative literature comes into its own for the first time with the emergence of the two great Sanskrit epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana . These texts would appear to have developed out of an oral epic tradition, and presumably underwent a long process of development, but took on something close to the current shape around the beginning of the first millennium ce . These two vast texts—the first consisting of roughly 25,000 ... log in or subscribe to read full text