Period 5: Late Medieval

Starts with Wang Chongyang (1170A.D.) and ends with Tsong Kha Ba (1408A.D.)

This is still a period of dual leadership of Islamicate-Persian and East Asian traditions - now under the political ascendancy and domination of the Mongols. In Islam, Sufism was now firmly becoming canonical, and Sufi orders spreaded to South Asia - Amir Khusrau, the Persian poet of Delhi was very close to a prominent Chistiyya master. Of course, Amir Khusrau is just one of the many canonical poets in Persian language from this period. Sanskrit is about to give way to vernaculars in South Asia - a development that will significantly reduce canonical texts from this world region in subsequent periods. Tibetan Buddhism took Sanskritic Buddhist text as classical. In East Asia, Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism saw revival. As books become a mass market commodity, canonical texts now include poetic anthologies and new popular literature (beyond poetry). In Europe, canonical texts formation began afresh, both with the solidification of the positions of Eastern vs. Western Christendom, and with the emergence of "national" literature coinciding with the early Renaissance.