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{{Short description|Indian writer, businessman and poet of Mughal India}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2016}}
{{Use Indian English|date=January 2016}}
{{Infobox person
| birth_date = 1586
| birth_place = [[Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh]]
| death_date = {{death year and age|1643|1586}}
| parents = Kharagsen (father)
| occupation = Businessman, Poet
}}
{{Jainism}}
'''Banarasidas''' (b. [[Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh|Jaunpur]] 1586{{spaced ndash}}1643) was a [[Shrimal Jain]] businessman and poet of [[Mughal India]]. He is known for his poetic autobiography - ''Ardhakathānaka'', (The Half Story),<ref>Ardhakathanaka: Half a Tale by Mukund Lath (Translator), Rupa & Co, 2005</ref> composed in [[Braj Bhasa]], an early dialect of [[Hindi]] linked with the region around [[Mathura, Uttar Pradesh|Mathura]]. It is the first [[autobiography]] written in an [[Languages of India|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.

==Life==
Banarasidas was born in a [[Shrimal]] Jain family in 1587.{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|p=70}} His father Kharagsen was a jeweller in [[Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh|Jaunpur]] (now in [[Uttar Pradesh]]).{{cn|date=April 2020}} 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.{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|p=75}} He further completed his higher studies in [[astrology]] and ''Khandasphuta'', a work on mathemetics.{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|pp=75-76}} He studied lexicographical texts like ''Namamala'' ([[synonyms]]) and ''Anekarthakosha'' (words with multiple meanings).{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|p=76}} He also studied ''[[alankara]]'' (techniques of poetic embellishment) and ''Laghukoka'' (a text on erotics).{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|p=76}}

He later shifted to [[Agra]] in 1610-1611 for trade.{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|pp=74-75}} 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 [[Hindustani language|Hindavi verses]].{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|p=75}} He was influenced by the sermons of ''[[Gommatasara]]'' in 1635 by Rupchand Pande, spiritual teacher of [[Hemraj Pande]].{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|pp=70-71}}{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|p=87}}

He was one of the leading proponents of the Adyatma movement, which eventually led to the [[Digambar Terapanth|Terapanth]] sect of the [[Digambar]] [[Jainism|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, Uttar Pradesh|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.{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|p=70}}

==Works==
Banarasidas is known for his works, ''Moha Vivek Yuddha'', ''Banārasi Nāmamāla'' (1613) ''Banārasivilāsa'' (1644), ''Samayasāra Nātaka'' (1636) and ''Ardhakathanaka'' (1641) in Braj Bhasa.{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|pp=70-71}} He translated ''Kalyanamandir stotra's''.{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|p=88}} The ''Banārasi Nāmamāla'' is a lexicographic work based on Dhananjaya's ''Nāmamāla'' in [[Sanskrit language|Sanskrit]]. The ''Banārasivilāsa'' is an anthology of his poetic works collected by Pandit Jagjivan. It was completed in 1644.{{cn|date=April 2020}} The ''Samayasāra Nātaka'' is a work on the Jain philosophy, largely based on [[Kundakunda]]'s [[Samayasāra]] (a [[Digambara]] text), its [[Sanskrit language|Sanskrit]] commentary by [[Amritchandra]] and [[Hindi language|Hindi]] commentary by Rajamalla.{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|pp=71-72}}

The ''Ardhakathānaka'' is his autobiography which describes his transition from an unruly youth, to a religious realization by the time the work was composed.{{sfn|Orsini|Schofield|1981|p=70}} The work is notable for many details of life in Mughal times - Banarasidas lived during the reign of [[Akbar]], [[Jahangir]] and [[Shahjahan]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ebene_1/fiindolo/gretil/3_nia/hindi/bardhkpu.htm |title=Archived copy |access-date=2008-04-18 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101110111544/http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de/ebene_1/fiindolo/gretil/3_nia/hindi/bardhkpu.htm |archive-date=10 November 2010 |df=dmy-all }} Banarasidasa
Ardhakathanaka, Based on the ed. by Nathuram Premi, Bombay, Hindi Grantha Ratnakara, 1957</ref>

He appears to have been an occasional chess partner of Emperor Shahjahan (this is not mentioned in the Ardhakathanaka though).{{cn|date=April 2020}} The following stanzas describe the effect of Akbar's sudden death in 1605 – the uncertainty of succession induced widespread fear among the wealthier classes:
{{Verse translation|lang=bra-Latn|
ghar-ghar dar-dar kiye kapaaT,
haTavaanii nahi.n baithe haaT.

bhale vastra aru bhuushaNa bhale,
te sab gaaDhe dharatii tale.

ghar-ghar sabani visaahe shashhtra,
logan pahine moTe vastra.

u.nch niich kouu nahi.n pahichaan,
dhanii daridrii bhaye samaan.
|
At all the houses, doors were kept closed,
merchants stopped sitting at the shops.

Nice clothes and ornaments were
all buried under the ground.

People started keeping their swords ready,
they started wearing coarse clothes.

You could not recognize the status of a person,
the rich and poor looked alike.}}

==Recent interest==
Pioneering work on Banarasi and his trio of works, ''Banarasi Vilasa'', ''Samayasara Nataka'' and ''Ardhakathanaka'' was carried out by Pandit Nathuram Premi in the early decades of the 20th Century. Since then, only Mukund Lath's translation, ''Half a Tale'' was published in 1981.

Recent interest in the works of Banarasi, particularly in his ''Ardhakathanaka'' are a direct result of the abiding interest of two scholars.

Professor Nalini Balbir of Sorbonne Institute of France encouraged her student Jérôme Petit to work on Banarasi for his Ph.D. Petit has now completed the study and a French translation of the ''Ardhakathanaka''.

Professor Rupert Snell, of [[University of Texas at Austin]], USA not only wrote an article on Banarasi, but also encouraged Chloe Martinez of Santa Barbara to work on Banarasi.

[[Rohini Chowdhury]]'s Hindi translation of Banarasidas' ''Ardhakathanaka'' has been published by Penguin Books India, 2007. {{ISBN|978-0-14-310056-0}}. A new English translation by Chowdhury has been published by Penguin Classics in 2009 {{ISBN|978-0143100546}}. Chowdhury's translations were inspired by Rupert Snell, he also wrote the Introduction to the work.

== See also ==
* [[List of Jains]]
* [[Champat Rai Jain]]

==References==
===Citations===
{{Reflist}}
===Sources===
* {{citation |editor-last=Orsini |editor-first=Francesca |editor-link=Francesca Orsini |editor-last2=Schofield |editor-first2=Katherine Butler |title=Tellings and Texts: Music, Literature and Performance in North India |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P0SlCgAAQBAJ |publisher=[[Open Book Publishers]] |year=1981 |isbn=978-1-78374-105-2 }}

{{Modern Jain writers}}
{{Jainism topics}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Banarasidas}}
[[Category:Indian male poets]]
[[Category:Hindi-language poets]]
[[Category:1586 births]]
[[Category:1643 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh]]
[[Category:People from Agra]]
[[Category:17th-century Indian poets]]
[[Category:Poets from Uttar Pradesh]]
[[Category:17th-century Indian Jains]]
[[Category:17th-century male writers]]

Banarasidas - Revision history

>RAJIVVASUDEV at 12:38, 9 February 2021