Banarasidas

Banarasidas (1586 1643) was a Shrimal Jain businessman and poet of Mughal India. He is known for his poetic autobiography - Ardhakathānaka, (The Half Story), composed in Braj Bhasa, an early dialect of Hindi linked with the region around Mathura. It is the first autobiography written in an Indian language. At the time, he was living in Agra and was 55 years old - the "half" story refers to the Jain tradition, where a "full" lifespan is 110 years. Banarasidas was born in a Shrimal Jain family in 1587. His father Kharagsen was a jeweller in Jaunpur (now in Uttar Pradesh). He received basic education in letters and numbers from a local Brahmin in Jaunpur for one year and then from another Brahmin named Pandit Devdatt at the age of 14. He further completed his higher studies in astrology and Khandasphuta, a work on mathemetics. He studied lexicographical texts like Namamala (synonyms) and Anekarthakosha (words with multiple meanings). He also studied alankara (techniques of poetic embellishment) and Laghukoka (a text on erotics). He later shifted to Agra in 1610-1611 for trade. He started his poetic and singing career with poems like Qutban's Mirigavati (1503 CE) and Manjhan's Madhumalati (1545 CE), which were composed by Sufi poets in Hindavi verses. He was influenced by the sermons of Gommatasara in 1635 by Rupchand Pande, spiritual teacher of Hemraj Pande. He was one of the leading proponents of the Adyatma movement, which eventually led to the Terapanth sect of the Digambar Jains. Banarasidas appears to have been a better poet than a businessman; at one stage he relates how after incurring several business losses, his wife gave him twenty rupees that she had saved up. At times a friend of the Nawab of Jaunpur Chini Kilechkhan, at other times persecuted, he had to flee to other cities. Despite the long life expectancy inherent in the title of his work Ardhakathānaka, Banarasidas died two years after writing it, in 1643. Banarasidas is known for his works, Moha Vivek Yuddha, Banārasi Nāmamāla (1613) Banārasivilāsa (1644), Samayasāra Nātaka (1636) and Ardhakathanaka (1641) in Braj Bhasa.