Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "राजस्थानी साहित्य" in Hindi language version.
The lok gathā (literally, folk narrative) was a highly developed tradition in the Indian subcontinent, especially after the twelfth century, and was simultaneous with the growth of apabhransa, the literary languages of India that derived from Sanskrit and the Prakrits. This developed into the desa bhāṣā, or popular languages, such as Old Western Rajasthani (OWR) or Marubhasa, Bengali, Gujarati, and so on. The traditional language of Rajasthani bards is Dingal (from ding, or arrogance), a literary and archaic form of old Marwari. It was replaced by the more popular Rajasthani (which Grierson calls old Gujarati) that detached itself from western apabhransa about the thirteenth century. This language was the first of all the bhasas of northern India to possess a literature. The Dingal of the Rajasthani bards is the literary form of that language and the ancestor of the contemporary Marvari and Gujarati.
The writers in the Charan style did not write in one rasa only but showed the miracle of their genius by writing at the same time in all, i.e. the vir kavya, shringar kavya and bhakti kavya.
The literature of the Charanas mainly consists of Dingala Gitas, Duhas and other metrical writings. They have been well versed historians as well. Suryamall, Bamkidasa, Dayaladasa and Syamaladasa are the giants in the field. As poets they mainly composed heroic poems, and secondly those of devotion to gods, and rarely of erotic nature and other kinds. This literature has proved very inspiring to the Rajaputs who fought until death for the honour of their land, religion, women-folk and the oppressed ones. They were honoured by the ruling chiefs by the gift of fiefs, valuable presents and above all by a show of personal respect which heightened their position in the society.
