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Acharya Bhanu 1814 - 1868 (54)

It’s a shame to sit idle without doing some good deed.


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The grass cutter



Bhanu Bhakta Acharya was a Nepalese poet, the first to write poems in Nepali language. He was born in 1814 in Chundi Ramgha Gaun, a village in western Nepal and lived most of his life in the capital Kathmandu.

He belonged to a wealthy family with his father being a senior government official. He was educated at home by his grandfather and lived carefree until he met a gardener who had built a well on their estate because he wanted to be remembered. Shocked by this simple man, he wrote the poem "The Grass-cutter".

At that time, most of the written texts of South Asia were written in Sanskrit, which were not accessible to the common people. The Brahmins were the ruling caste as teachers, scholars and priests, and access to religious writings and literary works was limited to the few who had the means to be educated and understand Sanskrit. Many poets had written poems in Sanskrit, Acharya began writing in the Nepalese language. One of his great achievements was that he translated "Ramayana", the great Indian epic, from Sanskrit into Nepali.

The main feature of his writings was simplicity with a sense of religiosity and warmth. Not much is known about his life, we know that due to a misunderstanding he was imprisoned and the letter he wrote to the prime minister became famous and gave him his freedom. He died in 1868 without knowing that he would become one of the most respected poets in his country.