The Indian Classical languages, or the Śāstrīya Bhāṣā (Hindi) or the Dhrupadī Bhāṣā (Assamese, Bengali) or the Abhijāta Bhāṣā (Marathi) or the Śhāstrīya Bhāṣā (Odia) or the Cemmoḻi (Tamil), is an umbrella term for the languages of India having high antiquity, and valuable, original and distinct literary heritage. The Government of India declared in 2004 that languages that met certain strict criteria could be accorded the status of a classical language of India. It was instituted by the Ministry of Culture along with the Linguistic Experts' Committee. The committee was constituted by the Government of India to consider demands for the categorisation of languages as classical languages. In 2004, Tamil became the first language to be recognised as a classical language of India. As of 2024, 11 languages have been recognised as classical languages of India.

In the year 2004, the tentative criteria for the age of antiquity of "classical language" was assumed to be at least 1000 years of existence.

The Central Government has revised the criteria 3 times.

The following criteria were set during the time Tamil was given the classical language status by the government of India:

The following criteria were set during the time Sanskrit was given the classical language status by the government of India

After classical language status was granted to Tamil in 2004, there were similar demands for other languages. Subsequently Telugu (2008), Kannada (2008), Malayalam (2013) and Odia (2014) were given the status.

The following criteria were set by the Ministry of Culture:

i. High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500–2000 years.