National Education Policy-2020: Language, Literature And Culture

Abstract

India is a treasure house of culture, developed over thousands of years and manifested in the form of arts, works of literature, customs, traditions, linguistic expressions, artifacts, heritage sites and more. Ever since human beings have invented scripts, writing has reflected the culture, lifestyle, society and the polity of contemporary society. In the process, each culture evolved its own language and created a huge literary base. This literary base of a civilization tells us about the evolution of each of its languages and culture through the span of centuries. Indian literature, which has its origin to the most ancient times, has been exemplary for the rest of the world. The term, ‘Indian literature’ refers to the literary work that had been produced in various Indian languages since ages. In ancient times, the literary work used to be imparted orally. The first ever ancient Indian literature was Sanskrit literature comprising of the Rig Veda, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, which were written in the first millennium BCE. Kannada and Telugu Literature were developed during the medieval era. They were followed by Marathi, Bengali and Urdu literature. Later, the Indian literature got new dimensions in various other Indian languages like Assamese, Bhojpuri, Gujarati, Konkani, Malayali, Manipuri, Marathi, Mizo, Oriya, Punjabi, Rajasthani and Tamil. The literary tradition in India dominates a large part of Indian culture.