A History of Hindi Literature

Book excerpt: Description: The ballads of Rajput prowess, the aphorisms of Kabir, Tulsidas, Ramayana, the bhajans of Sur and Mira, the poetical rhetoric of Kesava, the closed-packed epigrams of Behari, the lyrics of mystics Prasada, Pant and Mahadevi make Hindi literature an 'enchanted garden'. The present work seeks to give a glimpse of that 'enchanted garden' to those whose mother-tongue is not Hindi. At the end there is an anthology of Hindi verse containing best pieces of the 'nine gems' of mediaeval Hindi. A glance through the anthology may enduce the reader to read the full text in the original. From the Chhandas of the Vedas to the Khadi Boli of the present day is a long span of five thousand years. From Chhandas to Sanskrit, from Sanskrit to Prakrit, from Prakrit to Apabhramsa, from Apabhramsa to local dialects Dingal, Pingal, Avadhi, Brajbhasa, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Bundeli, Dakhani, and finally a wrench from the past and the birth of a new language, the Khadi Boli of today-is a phenomenon unparalleled in the history of any language.