Classical Sanskrit Literature

Most of the literature in Sanskrit has been divided into the Vedic and the Classical categories. The two epics: Mahabharata and Ramayana are also part of the classical category but are discussed separately because of their religious importance. Irrespective of their centrality to the Hindu religion, these epics can also be considered to be the pre-cursors of Sanskrit Kavya (epic poetry), nataka (classical drama) and other treatises on medicine, statecraft, grammar, astronomy, mathematics, etc. Most of this Sanskrit literature was bound by the rules of grammar that have been explained brilliantly in Panini’s Ashtadhyayi, a treatise on the rigid rules which bind the Sanskrit language.