Hindi as we know it today, evolved between 7th and 14th century from Apabhramsa, which was evolved from Prakrit. The language got its biggest boost with the Bhakti movement, which shunned the use of Sanskrit as it was the language of the Brahmins and common people did not use it. Hence, they started writing in the language of the people and the twelfth century onwards we see a sharp rise in regional languages like Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, etc. For a long time, Hindi literature was in the shadow of its Sanskrit antecedents, but Prithviraj Raso was the first Hindi book and it documents the life and challenges faced by Prithviraj Chauhan.
The bulk of the work is poetry by Bhakti writers like Kabir who is famous for his dohas (couplets) that are used by the common people of India even today. Tulsidas produced couplets in Braj and was peppered by Persian. He became immortal by writing
Ramcharitmanas, one of the most revered Hindu texts. Lord Krishna’s life also became the subject of various medieval poets like Surdas who wrote Sur Sagar about Krishna’s infancy and adolescent affairs with the gopis. Rahim, Bhushan and Raskhan also wrote about the devotion to Lord Krishna.
Mirabai is also famous as the woman who renounced the world for Lord Krishna and wrote Bhakti poetry for him. Bihari’s Satsai is also famous in this regard.