The peace and order secured by Akbar, and the cosmopolitan ideas of the religious movements of the period, preached by a band of saintly teachers in a language “understanded of the people “, stimulated the genius of the latter, which unfolded itself in manifold petals. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries consequently became “the Augustan age of Hindustani literature “. The first writer of note after 1526 was Malik Muhammad Jayasi, who in 1540 wrote ” the fine philosophic epic entitled the Padmavat, which gives the story of Padmini, the queen of Mewar, in an allegorical setting”. Akbar’s keen interest in, and patronage of, Hindi poetry gave a great stimulus to Hindi literature. Among the courtiers of the Emperor, Birbal, who received from him the title of Kavi Priya, was a famous poet. Raja Man Singh also wrote verses in Hindi and was a patron of learning. The most distinguished writer among Akbar’s ministers was’ Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan, whose dohas are even now read with interest and admiration all over Northern India. Narahari, whom the Emperor gave the title of Mahapatra, Harinath and Ganj were also noted writers of his court.
The greater part of the poetical literature of the time was religious, marked by an exposition of either Krishna, worship or the Rama cult. Many writers of the former faith flourished in the Brajabhumi, corresponding roughly to the Jumna valley, where it developed remarkably. Among the eight disciples of Vallabhacharya and his son Bithal Nath, grouped under the name of “Astachap”, the most notable was Surdas, “the blind bard of Agra”, who, writing in Brajabhasha, described in his Sursagar the sports of Krishna’s early life, and composed many verses on the charm of Krishna and his beloved Radha. The other important poets of this school were Nand Das, author of the Ras-panchadhyayi, Vithal Nath, author of the Chaurasi Vaishnava ki varta in prose, Paramananda Das, Kumbhan Das, and Ras Khan (a Muslim disciple of Vithal Nath), author of Premavartika. Among the writers of the Rama cult, the most illustrious was Tulsi Das (A.D. 1532-1623), who lived in Benares “unapproachable and alone in his niche in the temple of Fame”. He was not merely a poet of a high order, but a spiritual teacher of the people of Hindustan, where his name has become a household word and his memory is worshipped by millions. The most famous of his works, known as Ramcharitamanasa, or “The Pool of Rama’s life”, has been justly described by Sir George Grierson as “the one Bible of a hundred millions of people” of Hindustan. Growse also observed in his translation of the Ramayana of Tulsi Das that “his book is in every one’s hands, from the court to the cottage, and is read and heard and appreciated alike by every class of the Hindu community, whether high or low, rich or poor, young or old”. This period was also marked by “the first attempts to systematise the art of poetry itself “, made by writers like Keshava Das (A.D. 1580), a Sandhya Brahmana of Orcha, Sundar Senapati and the Tripathi brothers, who flourished during the reign of Shah Jahan.
In Bengal, this period was remarkable for a brilliant outburst of the Vaishnava literature. Its various branches, such as the Karchas or notes, the padas and songs, and the biographies of Chaitanya Deva, have not only saturated the minds of the people of Bengal with feelings of love and liberalism, but have also survived as a mirror of the social life of the province during that age. The most prominent Vaishnava writers were Krishnadas Kaviraj (born in A.D. 1517 of a Vaidya family of Jhamalpur in Burdwan), the author of the most important biography of Chaitanya, bearing the title of Chaitanyacharitamitra; Brindavan Das (born in A.D. 1507), the author of Chaitanya Bhagavata, which besides being a standard work on the life of Chaitanya Deva, is a storehouse of information concerning the Bengali society of his time; Jayananda (born in A.D. 1513), the author of Chaitanya Mangal, a biographical work giving some fresh information about Chaitanya Deva’s life; Trilochan Das (born in A.D. 1523 at Kowgram, a situated thirty miles to the north of Burdwan), the author of a very popular biography of Chaitanya Deva also known as Chaitanya Mangal; and Narahari Chakravarty, the author of Bhaktiratnakar, a voluminous biography of Chaitanya Deva, written in fifteen chapters and considered to be next in importance only to the work of Krishnadas Kaviraj. This period also saw the production of numerous translations of the great epics and the Bhagavata, and books in praise of Chandi Devi and Manasa Devi. The most important of these works were the Mahabharata of Kasiram Das and the Kavikankan Chandi of Mukundaram Chakravarti, which enjoys to this day as much popularity in Bengal as the famous book of Tulsi Das in upper India. Mukundaram’s work depicts a graphic picture of the social and economic conditions of the people of Bengal of his time, and it is for this that Prof. Cowell has described him as “the Crabbe of Bengal”, and Dr. Grierson considers his poetry “as coming from the heart, and not from the school, and as full of passages adorned with true poetry and descriptive power”.
The Emperors’ fondness for books led to the foundation of libraries, which were stocked with numerous valuable manuscript works. Akbar’s library had enormous collections, which were properly classified under different sections. The art of calligraphy reached a high state of excellence. Among the famous penmen of Akbar’s court, of whom the ‘Ain-i-Akbari has preserved a list, the most distinguished was Muhammad Husain of Kashmir, who got the title of Zarrinqalam (Gold-pen).
The growth of Hindi literature received a setback during the reign of Aurangzeb, owing to the stoppage of court patronage. Not much Urdu poetry also was written in Northern India during this period; but some famous writers of Urdu verse flourished in the Deccan.
Literary activity did not entirely cease even in the troubled days of later Mughul rule. Men of letters were patronised by Emperors like Bahadur Shah and Muhammad Shah, subahdars like Murshid Quli Jafar Khan and ‘Alivardi Khan, and zamindars like Raja Krishnachandra of Nadia, Asadullah of Birbhum and some others. The literature of this period, with the exception of the devotional songs of Ramprasad, was often of a low tone and a vitiated taste. Female education, both among the Hindus and the Muslims, was not unknown to the age. The two daughters of Jan Muhammad, a converted Hindu and father of the well-known Koki Jiu, were “sent to school and attained some proficiency in letters”. Koki Jiu, “excelled her brothers in handwriting and composition”. In Bengal, we find several instances of educated ladies; for example, the wives of Raja Navskrishna of Sobhabazar (in Calcutta) were famous for their capacity to read, and Anandamayi of East Bengal was a poetess of no mean reput
