Sanskrit: formative period (1400–400 bc)

The oldest document in the literature of South Asia is the Rigveda, or Veda of the Stanzas (c. 1400 bc), the fundamental text of Brahminical Hinduism. Not literary but religious-magical in its purposes, it is mostly a compilation of hymns, dedicated to a number of gods of the Vedic religion. They have the regular structure of an invocation: the attention of the god is evoked; a brief account of some of his feats is given, to hold his attention; and an exhortation for his help concludes the hymn. The poets, of whom little is known, appear to have come at the close of a priestly poetical tradition, rivalling one another in allusions to obscure exploits, in language often opaque and at times intended to mystify. Nevertheless, the Rigvedic hymns include lines of great beauty. They may occur in a riddling verse, such as “When the ancient Dawns first dawned, the great Syllable was born in the footsteps of the Cow,” alluding to the birth of speech at the beginning of creation. Or they may occur in poetry addressed to a deity whose beauty inspires the poet to well-turned lines. To the Dawns, for example: “They approach equally in the east, spreading themselves equally from the same place./ The Goddesses waking from the seat of order, like herds of kine set loose, the Dawns are active”; or to the goddess of the night: “Night coming on, the goddess shines/ In many places with her eyes:/ All-glorious she has decked herself./ Immortal goddess, far and wide/ She fills the valleys and the heights:/ Darkness with light she overcomes.”

Nonsacred verses are very rare in the Rigveda, but, when they occur, they can be quite powerful, as in a hymn of a gambler, who is speaking:

It pains the gambler when he sees a woman,

Another’s wife, and their well-ordered household:

He yokes these brown steeds early in the morning,

And, when the fire is low, sinks down an outcast.

“Play not with dice, but cultivate thy cornfield;

Rejoice in thy goods, deeming them abundant:

There are thy cows, there is thy wife, O gambler.”

This counsel Savitri the kindly gives me.

Although not literary in purpose, the Rigveda had a decisive influence on the form of Sanskrit poetry: except for narrative verse, the basic unit of all subsequent poems (no matter how many verses they consist of) is the single stanza that contains one complete thought.

The second Veda (c. 1200 bc), the Yajurveda (Veda of the Yajus [Formulas]), contains sacred formulas recited by a group of priests at the great Vedic sacrifices; and the third (c. 1100 bc), the Sāmaveda (Veda of the Chants), is in essence an anthology of the Rigveda. More literary interest attaches to the fourth Veda (1200 bc), the Atharvaveda (an atharvan was a special priest), which contains hymns, incantations, and many magic charms.

The succeeding literature (c. 1000–700 bc), the Brāhmaṇas (“Disquisitions About the Ritual”), continues not the poetry but the liturgical concerns of the Rigveda. They were written in a dry, expository prose, so that only their narrative portions have any literary interest. Much the same is true of the next layer of Vedic texts (800–600 bc), the Āraṇyakas (“Books Studied in the Forest”). But the picture changes in the Upaniṣads (c. 1000–500 bc; “Collections of Esoteric Equations”). These prose texts at times convey the actual mode of teaching of a revered sage, in a style that can be strikingly intimate:

“Bring me a fruit of that nyagrodha (banyan) tree.”

“Here it is, venerable Sir.”

“Break it.”

“It is broken, venerable Sir.”

“What do you see there?”

“These seeds, exceedingly small, venerable Sir.”

“Break one of these, my son.”

“It is broken, venerable Sir.”

“What do you see there?”

“Nothing at all, venerable Sir.”

The father said: “That subtle essence, my dear, which you do not perceive there—from that very essence this great nyagrodha arises. Believe me, my dear.”

While the older Upaniṣads are in prose, the later ones, dating from around 500 bc, mark a shift back to verse. They are the oldest examples of didactic verse, a genre that later gained enormous popularity.

The contribution of late-Vedic texts to later literature is preeminently that of the development of an expository prose style and the evolution of a sacred language, which, in order to be effective, must be completely correct. Thus, the Vedic religion evolved a science of phonetics and, later, of grammar, which was summed up in the 5th or 6th century bc by the grammarian Pāṇini in Aṣṭādhyāyī (“Eight Chapters”), a book that was to become basic to Sanskrit education. This language, Sanskrit, remained the language par excellence for later literature and was used for literary purposes until the 13th century and, epigonically, until today.