A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c19.7

c19.7

Sanskrit was the language of higher culture throughout South India, and a considerable volume of literature in its various branches arose from the activity of poets and scholars through the centuries. We shall trace the history of this activity in outline before proceeding to a study of the literatures in the languages of the people, viz. Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayālam, to name them in the probable order in which they developed their literary idioms. All these literatures owed a great deal to Sanskrit, the magic wand whose touch alone raised each of the Dravidian languages from the level of a patois to that of a literary idiom, and the influence they exercised on one another was also not inconsiderable; but their interaction cannot be adequately considered in the brief sketch that follows.