Late-medieval and early-modern India In this period, Awadhi became the vehicle for
epic poetry in northern India. Its literature is mainly divided into: bhaktīkāvya (devotional poetry) and premākhyān (romantic tales).
Bhaktīkāvyas The most important work, probably in any modern
Indo-Aryan language, came from the poet-saint
Tulsidas in the form of
Ramcharitmanas (1575 C.E.) or "The Lake of the Deeds of
Rama", written in
doha-
chaupai metre. Its plot is mostly derivative, either from the original
Rāmāyaṇa by
Valmiki or from the
Adhyātma Rāmāyaṇa, both of which are in
Sanskrit.
Mahatma Gandhi had acclaimed the
Ramcharitmanas as "the greatest book of all devotional literature" while western observers have christened it as "the Bible of
Northern India". It is sometimes synonymously referred as 'Tulsidas Ramayana' or simply 'the Ramayana'.
Tulsidas's compositions
Hanuman Chalisa,
Pārvatī Maṅgala and
Jānakī Maṅgala are also written in Awadhi. The first Hindi vernacular adaptation of the 'Dasam Skandha' of the
Bhagavata Purana, the "Haricharit" by Lalachdas, who hailed from Hastigram (present-day Hathgaon near
Rae Bareilly), was concluded in 1530 C.E. It circulated widely for a long time and scores of manuscript copies of the text have been found as far as eastern Uttar Pradesh and
Bihar,
Malwa and
Gujarat, all written in the
Kaithi script.
Satyavatī (ca. 1501) of Ishvaradas (of Delhi) under the reign of
Sikander Lodi and
Avadhabilāsa (1700 C.E.) of Laladas were also written in Awadhi. Awadhi appeared as a major component in the works of
Bhakti saints like
Kabir, who used a language often described as being a
pancmel khicṛī or "a hotch-potch" of several vernaculars. The language of
Kabir's major work
Bijak is primarily Awadhi.
Premākhyāns Awadhi also emerged as the favourite literary language of the Eastern Sufis from the last quarter of the 14th century onwards. It became the language of
premākhyāns, romantic tales built on the pattern of Persian
masnavi, steeped in Sufi
mysticism but set in a purely Indian background, with a large number of
motifs directly borrowed from Indian lore. The first of such
premākhyān in the Awadhi language was
Candāyan (1379 C.E.) of Maulana Da'ud. The tradition was carried forward by
Jayasi, whose masterpiece, the
Padmāvat (1540 C.E.) was composed under the reign of the famous ruler
Sher Shah Suri. The Padmavat travelled far and wide, from
Arakan to the
Deccan, and was eagerly copied and retold in
Persian and other languages. Other prominent works of Jayasi such as Kānhāvat, Akhrāvaṭ are also written in Awadhi. {{Rquote In the
satyayuga it was a holy place, then it was called the "Town of Gardens." Then the
treta went, and when the
dvapara came, there was a great rishi called
Bhunjaraja. 88,000 rishis lived here then, and dense ... and eighty-four ponds. They baked bricks to make solid ghats, and dug eight-four wells. Here and there they built handsome forts, at night they looked like stars in the sky. They also put up several orchards with temples on top. Doha: They sat there doing tapas, all those human
avataras.They crossed this world doing
homa and
japa day and night. The Awadhi romance Mirigāvatī (ca.1503) or "The Magic Doe", was written by Shaikh 'Qutban' Suhravardi, who was an expert and storyteller attached to the court-in-exile of Sultan Hussain Shah Sharqi of
Jaunpur. Another romance named
Madhumālatī or "Night Flowering Jasmine" by poet Sayyid Manjhan Rajgiri was written in 1545 C.E.
Amir Khusrau (d. 1379 C.E) is also said to have written some compositions in Awadhi.
Modern India The most significant contributions to the Awadhi literature in the modern period have come from writers like
Ramai Kaka (1915–1982 C.E.), Balbhadra Prasad Dikshit better known as ‘Padhees’(1898–1943 C.E.) and Vanshidhar Shukla (1904–1980 C.E.). ‘Krishnayan’ (1942 C.E.) is a major Awadhi epic-poem that Dwarka Prasad Mishra wrote in imprisonment during the
Freedom Movement of India. In 2022 Dr.
Vidya Vindu Singh has been awarded
Padma Shri for her contribution in Awadhi literature. == Phonology ==