Literature in Sanskrit, the classical language of India, represents a continuous cultural tradition from the time of the Vedas in the second millennium B.C.E. until the present. Sanskrit has an extremely rich and complex grammatical structure and an enormous vocabulary. It was a spoken language for centuries before the Vedas were written down. Around 600 B.C.E., in the classical period of Iron Age Ancient India, Sanskrit began the transition from a primary language to a second language of religion and learning, used by the educated elite. Literature in Sanskrit begins with the Vedas, and continues with the Sanskrit Epics of Iron Age India; the golden age of Classical Sanskrit literature dates to the Early Middle Ages (roughly the third to seventh centuries C.E.). Literary production in Sanskrit saw a late bloom in the eleventh century before declining after 1100 C.E.