Today being HINDI DIWAS the 14th of September, which holds a special place in India's cultural and linguistic calendar. This significant day commemorates the adoption of Hindi as one of the official languages of India. Let's celebrate this Hindi Diwas by going through a work in Brij Basha's first piece of literary gem.
Prithviraj Raso, an epic poem written by Chand Bardai (1149 – c. 1200), is considered one of the first works in the history of Hindi Literature. Chand Bardai was a court poet of Prithviraj Chauhan, the famous ruler of Delhi and Ajmer during the invasion of Muhammad of Ghor.
It narrates the life and heroic exploits of Prithviraj Chauhan, a legendary Rajput king who ruled Delhi in the 12th century. The poem holds immense historical and cultural significance, and it has been celebrated as a masterpiece of medieval Indian Literature.
The poem is about the 12th-century Indian Rajput king Prithviraj Chauhan. The poem is written by Chand Bardai. Chand Bardai immortalized Prithviraj Chauhan's life in the poem Prithviraj Raso. The poem describes the love and abduction of Raja Jai Chandra's daughter of Kannauj by Prithviraj Chauhan.
Prithviraj defeated Muhammad Ghor in the first battle of Tarain, but years later he was able to defeat him again, thanks to a successful army deception. He underestimated Muhammad Ghor and never thought he would have to fight him again.
Prithviraj Chauhan is widely known as a warrior king who bravely resisted the Muslim ruler, Muhammad of Ghor, the ruler of the Muslim Ghurid dynasty with all his might. In 1192 CE, Prithviraj was defeated by Ghurids at the second battle of Tarain and later he was executed after his defeat.
Since the 16th century, the Rajput rulers patronized Prithviraj Raso for its elements of heroic exploits, romance and revenge. Because of this, it became the most popular biography of Prithviraj among the Rajputs.
Prithviraj Raso, a legendary text patronized largely by the Rajput courts, portrays Prithviraj as a great hero. Over time, Prithviraj came to be portrayed as a patriotic Hindu warrior who fought against Muslim enemies. He is remembered as a king whose reign separated the two major epochs of Indian history.
Thus literary works allows a person to step back in time and learn about life on Earth from the ones who walked before us. We can gather a better understanding of culture and have a greater appreciation of them. We learn through the ways history is recorded, in the forms of manuscripts and through speech itself.
In literature, language is manipulated for the expression of a people's culture. While language is the medium used in expressing people's culture, literature is the reflection of this culture. Literature itself has been described as a bundle of material, oral or written, which reflects how people live their lives.
Read Literature, understand and appreciate it.
