In Literary Traditions
At present there is little literary endeavor in Awadhi, since most speakers have adopted western Hindi. Although today it is only considered a dialect of Hindi, before the standardization of Hindi, it was one of the two most important literary dialect of Hindustani (the other being Brij Bhasha). Awadhi has been one of the earliest Indo Aryan languages to be cultivated for literature. The oldest specimen of Awadhi is found in Ukti-vyakti-prakarana of Damodara Pandita who flourished during the first half of the 12th century. He wrote this book to teach Sanskrit through his mother tongue which was a kind of old Awadhi. The Sufi tradition which became established in India in the 14th century found a series of writers mostly Muslim who took a number of poems of medieval Hindu inspiration and wove them into poems in Awadhi, Maulana Daud was probably the first of them. The manuscripts of these poems in Awadhi are mostly Persian in character due to the Muslim influence existing at that point of time.
The Awadhi dialect of Hindi was enriched by a number of Sufi writers who wove some romantic tales of the folklore type into beautiful allegorical plays by way of elucidating the characteristics of Sufi doctrines. Maulana Daud is the author of the oldest work of this type Chandayan. But the greatest writer of this school was Malik M Jayasi whose poem Padumavati composed between 1520 to 1540 is a detailed Sufi allegorical treatment of the famous story of Padmini of Chitor.
The greatest Hindi writer during this period was Gosvami Tulsidas, born in U.P. sometime in 1523. He wrote his masterpieceRamcharitmanas sometime in 1574 in his native language Awadhi. It narrates the story of Rama and through it propounds the story of the Bhakti Cult. Tulsidas wrote many other devotional works of which Vinaya-Patrika (letters of Prayer) is most well known.
Important works in Awadhi are the Candayan of Maulana Da’ud, the Padmavat of Malik Mohammad Jaisi (1540 A.D.), the Ramcharitmanas of Tulsidas (1575 A.D.), Indravati by Nur Muhammad (1757 A.D.). Most of the Hindu literature, including Chalisas such as Hanuman Chalisha, are written in Avadhi. Most of the North-Indian Hindu literature, including Chalisas such as Hanuman Chalisha, are written in Awadhi.
Read more about this topic: Awadhi Language
Famous quotes containing the words literary and/or traditions:
“It is a good lesson—though it may often be a hard one—for a man who has dreamed of literary fame, and of making for himself a rank among the world’s dignitaries by such means, to step aside out of the narrow circle in which his claims are recognized, and to find how utterly devoid of all significance, beyond that circle, is all that he achieves, and all he aims at.”
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)
“Napoleon never wished to be justified. He killed his enemy according to Corsican traditions [le droit corse] and if he sometimes regretted his mistake, he never understood that it had been a crime.”
—Guillaume-Prosper, Baron De Barante (1782–1866)