Period 3: Early Medieval Period

Starts with Fahua Xuanyi (601A.D.) and ends with Bhagavata Purana (~850A.D.?) 

From the perspectives of canonical texts, the whole medieval period (Periods 3-5, from 550A.D. through 1450A.D.) can be characterized by the dual leadership of the Islamicate-Persianate and the East Asian traditions. In this Early Medieval period, Islam's religious tradition (Quran, hadith and fiqh) was founded in Arabic, whose prestige extended to poetry. In East Asia, its own Buddhistic traditions formed and spreaded from China to Korea and Japan, whose elite wrote important texts in the Chinese language. Incidentally, it was also the golden age of (Tang) poetry, yet comprehensive anthologies on these authors would emerge much later. In South Asia, intellectual activities continued, yet most works become sidelined later in the tradition because of the eventual dominance of Vedanta (philosophically) and bhakti (religiously). In the West, the "classical" period of Christian canonical texts had passed its prime.