Indian literature Royal Court Library in 1907. The most internationally famous Bengali writer is Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913 for his work "Gitanjali". He wrote the national anthem of India and Bangladesh namely, "Jana Gana Mana" and "Amar Sonar Bangla", respectively. He was the first Asian who won the Nobel Prize. Rabindranath has written enormous amount of poems, songs, essays, novels, plays and short stories. His songs remain popular and are still widely sung in Bengal. Kazi Nazrul Islam, who is one generation younger than Tagore, is also equally popular, valuable, and influential in
Vande Mataram unlike later verses that compare certain qualities of thee country and mother to goddesses like Durga and Lakshmi. There is no time limit or circumstantial specification for the rendition of this song [unlike the national anthem "Jana Gana Mana" that specifies 52 seconds]. The root of the Sanskrit word Vande is "Vand", which appears in "Rigveda" and other Vedic texts. According to Monier Monier-Williams, depending on the context, "vand" means "to praise, celebrate, laud, extol, to show honour, do homage, salute respectfully", or "deferentially, venerate, worship, adore", or "to offer anything respectfully to". The word "Mātaram" has Indo-European roots in