Little relevance, therefore, attaches to the distinction between written and oral traditions. A story is narrated, a process that is designated in Sanskrit by such words as purana (ancient story) and akhyana (illustrative narrative). In the oldest source, the Rigveda, myths are not so much told as alluded to; it is in the later Vedic literature of the Brahmanas that narratives are found, and these are often prejudiced by the liturgical concerns of the authors.
The recitation of certain myths was prescribed for various rituals. The epic Mahabharata states that Vedic stories were narrated “in the pauses of the ritual,” probably by Brahmans. The sutas (charioteers and panegyrists), who celebrated the feats of great rulers, were the mythographers of the Kshatriyas (the warrior class). The sutas were popular narrators of myth and legend and developed their own bardic repertoire, which was extended to higher mythology. They—and other wanderers who found ready audiences at sacrifices or places of pilgrimage—disseminated the lore.
Narrators continue to repeat and embroider the ancient stories of gods, sages, and kings. At an early stage their narratives were dramatized and gave rise to the Sanskrit theatre, in which epic mythic themes preponderate, and to the closely related dance, which survives in the now largely South Indian schools of bharata natyam (traditional dance) and the kathakali (narrative dance) of Kerala. Thus, even in Sanskrit literature, oral performance was an essential component, which further facilitated the assimilation of oral vernacular elements.
Of the four primary Dravidian literatures—Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam—the oldest and best-known is Tamil. The earliest preserved Tamil literature, the so-called Sangam poetry anthologies, dates from the 1st century bce. These poems are classified by theme into akam (“interior,” primarily love poetry) and puram (“exterior,” primarily about war, the poverty of poets, and the deaths of kings).
Tamil devotional poetry was remarkable for a number of reasons. It was composed by both men and women, by people of different castes (including “outcastes”), and in a language that was classical (Tamil already had a long and rich literary heritage) but also vernacular, or spoken. Despite all these factors, the poems were frequently hailed as divine revelation and sometimes as the equal of the Sanskrit Vedas.
The bhakti movement has been traced to Tamil poetry, beginning with the poems of the devotees of Shiva called Nayanars and the devotees of Vishnu called Alvars. The Nayanars, who date from about 800 ce, composed intensely personal and devout hymns addressed to the local manifestations of Shiva. The most famous Nayanar lyricists are Appar, Sambandar, and Chuntarar, whose hymns are collected in the Tevaram (c. 11th century). More or less contemporary were their Vaishnava counterparts, the Alvars Poykai, Putan, Peyar, and Tirumankaiyalvar; and in the 8th century the poetess Andal, as well as Periyalvar, Kulachekarar, Tiruppanalvar, and notably Nammalvar, who is held to be the greatest, composed their works. Shrivaishnavas consider Nammalvar’s poems, especially his Tiruvaymoli (“Sacred Utterance”), to be the Tamil Veda.
The devotion of which they sang exemplified the new bhakti movement, which sought a more direct contact between humans and God, carried by a passionate love for the Deity, who would reciprocate by extending his grace to humankind. These saints became the inspiration of theistic systematic religion: the Shaivas for the Shaiva-siddhanta, the Vaishnavas for Vishistadvaita. In Kannada the same movement was exemplified by Basava, whose vachanas (“sayings” or “talks”) achieved great popularity.
New literary genres in Dravidian languages continued to evolve into the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Tamil Chittars (name derived from Sanskrit siddha, “perfected one”), who were eclectic mystics, composed poems noted for the power of their naturalistic diction. The Tamil sense and style of these poems belied the Sanskrit-derived title of their authors, a phenomenon that could stand as a symbol of the complex relationship between the vernacular and Sanskrit religious texts.
The main languages derived from Sanskrit are Bengali, Hindi (with its many dialects, of which Maithili is the oldest and Urdu, heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic and written in a Perso-Arabic script, is the most important), Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Oriya, Kashmiri, Sindhi, Assamese, Nepali, Rajasthani, and Sinhalese. Most of these languages began to develop literary traditions about 1000 ce.
Although the earliest texts in Hindi are sometimes attributed to the 13th–14th-century Muslim poet Amir Khosrow, it was not until the 15th century that Hindi literature produced its own great religious lyricists. The earliest of these lyricists were the disciples of Ramananda (c. 140), who was a follower of the philosopher Ramanuja. The most famous of these lyricists is Kabir, a poet and mystic who was the forerunner of Sikhism. Tulsidas, apart from his Ramcharitmanas, composed Ramaite lyrics. Surdas (1483–1563), a follower of the Vallabha school of Vedanta, is known for his Sursagar (“Ocean of the Poems of Sursagar”), a collection of poems based on the stories of the childhood of Krishna found in the Bhagavata-purana. Perhaps the best-known bhakti poems are those of Mira Bai (1503–73), a Rajput princess who composed mostly in a local dialect of Hindi. She wrote passionate love poems to Krishna, whom she regarded as her husband and lover. Her bhajans (devotional songs) are sung by Hindus both privately and in public performances in India and throughout the diaspora. In the Marathi tradition, Namdev (1270?–1350?) celebrated Vishnu, particularly in his manifestation as Vitthoba at the Pandharpur temple; and in the 17th century Tukaram, the greatest poet of this literature, sang of the god of love in numerous hymns.
The importance of these writers is not limited to literature. A small sect, the Kabirpanthis, acknowledges Kabir as its founder, but its importance is less than that of the vigorous new religion (Sikhism) founded by one of Kabir’s disciples, Nanak.
Although the earliest Hindu text in Bengali is a mid-15th-century poem about Radha and Krishna, texts in praise of gods and goddesses, known as mangal-kavyas, surely existed in oral versions long before then. In later Bengal Vaishnavism, the emphasis shifts from service and surrender to mutual attachment and attraction between God (i.e., Krishna) and humankind: God is said to yearn for the worshiper’s identification with himself, which is his gift to the wholly purified devotee. The mystical and devotional possibilities of the Krishna legend are subordinated to religious practice; the divine sport and wonderful feats of this youthful hero are interpreted symbolically and allegorically. Thus, the highest fruition of bhakti is admission to the eternal sport of Krishna and his beloved Radha, whose sacred love story is explained as the mutual love between God and the human soul. Various gradations of bhakti are distinguished, such as awe, subservience, and parental affection. These are correlated with the persons of the Krishna legend; the highest and most intimate emotion is said to be the love of Radha and her girlfriends for Krishna.
Krishna and Radha, detail of a Kishangarh painting, mid-18th century; in a private collection.P. Chandra
A particularly rich Bengali tradition concentrated on the love of Radha, who symbolizes the human soul, for Krishna, the supreme god. In this tradition are Chandidas, a 15th-century poet known for his love songs, and the Maithili poet Vidyapati (c. 1400). The single most influential figure, however, was Chaitanya, who in the 16th century renewed Krishnaism. He left no writings but inspired many hagiographies, among the most important of which is the Chaitanya-charitamrita (“Nectar of Chaitanya’s Life”) by Krishna Das (born 1517).