Banarasidas

Banarasidas
Born	1586 Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh
Died	1643 (aged 56–57)
Occupation	Businessman, Poet
Parent(s)	Kharagsen (father)

Banarasidas (Hindi: बनारसीदास) (b. Jaunpur 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. His father Kharagsen was a jeweller in Jaunpur. He spent his childhood in Jaunpur but later shifted to Agra. He is 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.

The Banārasi Nāmamāla is a lexicographic work based on Dhananjaya's Nāmamāla in Sanskrit.

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