The Dhaarmik Traditions - Indic Studies Foundation

Telugu literature. The king, a poet himself, introduced the Prabandha (a kind of love
poetry) in Telugu literature with his Amukta Malyada. His court had the Ashtadiggajas
(literal: eight elephants) who were the known to be the greatest of poets of that time.
Tyagaraja (1767 – 1847) of Thanjavur composed devotional songs in Telugu, which
form a big part of the repertoire of Karnatak music.
In Kannada, another South Indian language, the Virasaiva movement led to the
composition of Vachakam containing the sayings of Basava.
In the north notable works in the vernacular languages included the
Ramacharitmanas of Tulsidas and the Sursagar of Surdas, both in Hindi,
Chatanyamrita of Sri Chaitanya and Mangal kavyas in Bengali, the devotional
compositions of Namdev in Marathi, the poems of Mirabai in Gujrathi, the
Gitagovinda of Jaidev and so on. Both the epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata
were translated into many local languages.
3. What do Hindus understand by religion and what do they call their
religion
The word religion as it is understood in the west and in the Judeo Christian Islamic
world does not translate very easily into any Indian language because of the
baggage of dogma and unquestioning belief that the word religion invokes in the
west. The closest word to Religion is Dharma which roughly translates into
responsibilities and duties of an individual to the society at large. These duties are
accompanied by a set of ethical values, but the emphasis in Hinduism is on
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