| |
Literature
Malayalam,
the mother tongue of nearly thirty million Malayalis, ninety
per cent of whom live in Kerala State in the south-west corner
of India, belongs to the Dravidian family of languages. Like
the speakers, the languages also has been receptive to influences
from abroad and tolerant of elements added from outside.
Malayalam
literature too reflects this spirit of accommodation and has
over the centuries developed a tradition which, even while
rooted in the locality, is truly universal in taste. It is
remarkably free from the provincialism and parochial prejudices
that have bedeviled the literature of certain other areas.
To its basic Dravidian stock have been added elements borrowed
or adopted from non-Dravidian literature such as Sanskrit
, Arabic, French, Portuguese and English . The earliest of
these associations was inevitably with Tamil. Sanskrit, however,
accounts for the largest of the "foreign" influences, followed
closely in recent times by English. This broad based cosmopolitanism
has indeed become a distinctive features of Malayalam literature.
According
to the most dependable evidence now available to us, Malayalam
literature is at least a thousand years old. The language
must certainly be older, but linguistic research has yet
to discover unmistakable evidence to prove its antiquity.
Historical accuracy has often been a problem since the records
in most cases show no reference to the exact date of their
composition. Legends and folklore have often taken the place
of historical facts and chronology has been consciously
or unconsciously tampered with. Modern research on scientific
lines, however, has gone a long way to explain the origin
and early development of the language.
A
comprehensive literary history of Kerala should take into
account the works produced in the region not only in Malayalam
language, but also in Tamil, beginning with the fourth century
BC and continuing to the end of the first millennium AD
It should also trace the evolution of the works in Sanskrit
produced by writers in Kerala. The contribution of Kerala
to Tamil literature which includes Chilappadikaram produced
in the 2nd century BC, should be perhaps find its proper
place in the history of Tamil literature just as Kerala's
contribution to Sanskrit, which includes the works of Sankaracharya
and Kulasekhara Alwar of the early 9th century AD, should
come within a history of Sanskrit literature. The contribution
of Kerala writers to English and Hindi in recent years,
in the same way is part of the literature in those languages.
Since this article is primarily devoted to the evolution
of literature in Malayalam the political history and the
history of the language as well as the literature written
in other languages are not discussed here in detail.
|
|
