Early texts in Hindi literature

Continuing the series on Hindi literary culture, in this week’s column I further explore the evolution of Hindi language and the early Hindi texts that led Hindi to become a literary language.

As discussed in the previous week’s column, a seminal text in the early stage of evolving Hindi is Daud’s Candayan. Stuart McGregor in a paper entitled ‘Progress of Hindi’ points out how important Daud’s text in the evolution of Hindi. “We see the most distinctive stanza structure Hindi narrative poetry established here, at the very outset of the extant Hindi literary tradition. Equally significant- and a powerful testimony to the cultural rapprochement- is the presence of Sanskrit loanwords in appreciable numbers in this founding text of the tradition.

The literary identity of Candayan is clear again in Daud’s treatment of the story of Lorik and Canda as compared with modern folk version. Daud expands a single central theme of the tale, providing with a more elaborate structure than the folk versions and a style capable of carrying Sufi symbolism. His Poetic technique draws on both Persian and Indian traditions. ”

Contribution

Gwalior poet Visnudas made a substantial contribution to development of the early Hindi literature particularly establishing vernacular narrative on Sanskrit themes. One of the major contributions of Visnudas was his adaptation of Mahabharata and Ramayana entitled Padavacarit (Deeds of Pandavas; 1435) and Ramayanakatha (The story of Rama and his deeds; 1442) to Brajbhasha, the rudimentary form of Hindi.

On his seminal contribution to Hindi, McGregor states, “Visnuda’s introduction to Pandavacarit and Ramayanakatha are among the most elaborate found in Hindi prabandha (narrative-expository) works. They placed him and his poem firmly within the literary ambience of the Gwalior court and seem to confirm that he stands near the inception of the Brajbhasha tradition of prabandha verse. Visnudas disclaims knowledge of versification and figurative language (chandu and lacchanu) but is well versed in the latter at least. In his invocation to the goddess Sarasvati in Pandavacarit , he inventively replaces her standard, the vina, with a book, as if seeking acknowledgement that the new vernacular prabandha is now under her patronage. With a similar intention, he seems to strive for an easy use of Sanskrit vocabulary in his vernacular verse.

It may be in accordance with his family sakta sympathies that he chooses to invoke king Dumgarsi’s queen as devi in the course of referring to interests in poetry (Vacana) from his guru, Sahajnath, and the evidence of variant manuscript readings confirms that Pandavacarit was originally transmitted. Visnudas thus worked within the ambit of Sanskrit literary culture while giving it a popular dimension. Standing at or near the beginning of the Hindi literary tradition, he revived in new form of the foundamental Krisna and Rama traditions enshrined in the old epics; in so doing he established a vernacularising procedure that would be followed by many other during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. ”

One of the important developments that took place was the succession of Brajbhasha over Apabhramsa. McGregor points out that this linguistic environment facilitated the development of Krsnaite poetry in the North. “In this situation, the popular and learned Krishnaite poetry that flourished in Gujarat in the 15th century appears to have been a developmental model for Krisna poetry in the North. Songs of devotion to Krisna were composed in the early 16th century by Mirabai, of the Mewar (Udaipur) region of Rajasthan, and other Krisna poets were probably active at the same time in the more Northerly Rajasthan-Braj area. ”

Modern Hindi

Although the early Hindi can be attributed to Brajbhasha and the varied influence it received from diverse literary traditions of the day, modern Hindi writing emerged with Hariscandra’s writings. At the outset of his career Hariscandra of Benares (1850-1885) was motivated by a new cultural attitude. But what he lacks was a modern language to express him and a substantial precedence in Brajbhasha literary tradition for drama. At this juncture of the evolution of Hindi, the use of modern Hindi became an issue.

McGregor observes, “In this situation, the use of modern Hindi, and the cultural significance of its Devanagari script in the context of relative dominance of Urdu in public life, became an issue at Benares and elsewhere. The importance of Devanagari script, structurally related to all other scripts of Indian origin and sharply distinct in this regard from Urdu, was underlined by the Bengali antiquarian Rajendralal Mitra in a paper read at Calcutta in 1864. In the same year a member of the Benares Institute named Mathuraprasad Misra completed his elaborate trilingual dictionary of the bipartite Hindi-Urdu and English. Two, years later, Nabincandra Ray, a Brahmisamaj missionary was drawing attention to possible new, national dimension of Hindi. ”

One of the significant developments, apart from the evolution of Hindi as a national language, was political implications that would arise as Hindi assumes a prominent status over Urdu. In fact, Muslim leader Saiyad Ahmad Khan expressed doubt about the ‘Hindi language movement’ and questioning whether Muslims and Hindus would be able to work together; through Urdu, towards the development of a new India.

The phenomenal growth of Hindi as a major language is intrinsically linked to the socio-political developments and Hindi’s role in the anti-colonial struggle which ultimately crowned it as the official language.

Describing this aspect of the language, McGregor states, “ "The current preeminence of Hindi among the modern Indian languages is a phenomenon of surprisingly recent growth and represents a dramatic change in its fortunes. Until about a hundred years ago, Hindi was commonly perceived to be an underdeveloped and underprivileged language, fragmented into several competing dialects, backward and dusty by association with its largely rural constituency, and medievally devout and convention-bound in its literary orientation.

Beginning in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, however, Hindi began to refashion itself comprehensively and to assert vigorously its new identity, especially in relation to its sister language, Urdu, which inhibited the same vast and populous expanse of Northern India. Through repeated and sustained, it was able to enlarge its public cultural space to such as extent that it was adopted by Gandhi and Congress as the rastrabhasa, the national language. Hindi became not only the medium but also one of the major planks of anti-colonial nationalism, which led to its installation after independence as the rajabhasa, the official language of the nation-state. ”