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One of the most extensively used Indo-Aryan languages is the Punjabi language. The unique Gurmukhi script, which is particularly connected with the Sikhs, is used to write Punjabi in India. Although it is written from left to right and is a member of the Indic family of scripts, the structuring of that script is very different from the Devanagari used to write Hindi.
In Pakistan, the right-to-left Urdu script is employed to write Punjabi, and it is now repeatedly alluded to as Shahmukhi. Unlike the majority of the other regional languages of the Indian subcontinent, Punjabi took longer to develop a documented literature. The Janam-sakhi, the biography of Guru Nanak written by his companion Bhai Bala, is the first text that can be verified as being in Punjabi.
The Adi Granth, the most well-known book to have originated in the Punjab, was composed in 1604 by Arjan, the fifth Guru of the Sikhs, from poems written by Guru Nanak, Amar Das, Angad, Ram Das, and others. Punjabi literature is known for some of the most beautiful poems that honor the memory of legendary lovers and heroes, called Quissas.
The legendary love story of Waris Shah’s Heer and Ranjha and Hashim’s Sassi and Sohni were the most notable. Around 1860, modern Punjabi literature first appeared. In contemporary poetry, a few patterns can be seen. Besides genres like Nationalist poetry with a humorous or satirical tone and experimental verse, conventional genres of mystic verse, narrative poetry, and love poems were added.
Shiv Kumar Batalvi, Baba Balwanta, Mohan Singh, Bhai Vir Singh, Puran Singh, Dhani Ram Chatrik are among the more notable Punjabi poets. For their short stories, Giani Gurdit Singh, Jaswant Singh Kanwal, Gurbhaksh Singh, Gurdial Singh, Devendra Satyarthi, Rajindar Lal Sahni, Sohan Singh Shital. I.C. Nanda, and Kulwant Singh Virk became well-known authors.
Between the birth of Guru Nanak and the death of Guru Gobind Singh, there existed the golden age for Punjabi works of literature. The Adi Granth, a significant collection of Bhakti poems, contains the majority of the holy and ethereal poetry written during this time. It includes a substantial amount of poetry that is organized in various ragas and is therefore intended to be performed.
Amrita Pritam is one of the most well-known for the compassionate poem she authored in memory of the 18th-century Punjabi poet, Ajj aakhaan Waris Shah nu. This resembled an embodiment of her seething anguish about the killings that took place when India was split. Her best-known work, Pinjar, which translates to "The Skeleton," was published in 1950.
It was here that she established the vivid character of Puro, who was the very definition of cruelty against women, dehumanization, and eventual submission to an unfathomable doom. In order to encourage young writers and people through her creative works, she entered the "Progressive Writers' Union."
The movement originated in pre-partition British India, when all of the participants shared a left-leaning and anti-imperialist outlook. Amrita Pritam was the first woman to win the Sahitya Akademi Award for Sunehadey. She also won India's highest literary honor, the Bharatiya Jnanpith Award for Kagaj te Canvas (Paper and Canvas).
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