Vidyapati

Vidyapati विद्यापति বিদ্যাপতি
Born	1352 Madhubani, (in Present - day India)
Died	1448 Janakpur
Resting place	Janakpur (in exile)
Occupation	Writer , Poet
Language	Maithili
Nationality	Indian
Ethnicity	Maithil
Website
www.vidyapatidham.tk

Vidyapati (1352 – 1448), also known by the sobriquet Maithil Kavi Kokil (the poet cuckoo of Maithili) was a Maithili poet and a Sanskrit writer. He was born in the village Bisfi in Madhubani district of Mithila region of Bihar, India and died in Janakpur. He was the son of shri Ganapati Thakur. The name Vidyapati is derived from two Sanskrit words, Vidya (knowledge) and Pati (master), connoting thereby, a man of knowledge.

Vidyapati's poetry was widely influential in centuries to come, in the Hindustani as well as Bengali, Maithili, less actively Nepali language and other Eastern literary traditions. Indeed, the language at the time of Vidyapati, the prakrit-derived late abahatta, had just began to transition into early versions of the Eastern languages, Maithili, Nepali, Bengali, Odia, etc. Thus, Vidyapati's influence on making these languages has been described as "analogous to that of Dante in Italy and Chaucer in England."

Vidyapati is as much known for his love-lyrics as for his poetry dedicated to Shiva.

The love songs of Vidyapati, which describe the sensuous love story of Radha and Krishna, follow a long line of Vaishnav love poetry, popular in Eastern India include much celebrated poetry such as Jayadeva's Gita Govinda of the 12th century. This tradition which uses the language of physical love to describe spiritual love, was a reflection of a key turn in Hinduism, initiated by Ramanuja in the 11th century which advocated an individual self-realization through direct love. Similar to the reformation in Christianity, this movement empowered the common man to realize God directly, without the intervention of learned priests. Part of the transformation was also a shift to local languages as opposed to the formal Sanskrit of the religious texts.

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Wikipedia