The great personalities of Mithila:

Vidyapati

The poet Vidyapati appears to have been born in or around 1352 in Bihar, in the Madhubani village of Bisfi in the region of north eastern Bihar known as Mithila. Mithila has had a tradition of producing many renowned men in the field of art, culture and music etc.amongst them, vidyapati undoubtedly is the most versatile and famous.
Though he himself did not at any time say anything about his date of birth but based on certain facts and documents, the historians have arrived at the two years 1350 and 1360 d as being the most probable ones. But before we come to that it would be worthwhile to consider the documents related to his birth
1) There is a copy of shrimad bhagvatgita in the darbhanga raj library, written by vidyapati himself. In one of the passages of the epic, it is described about the ascension of throne of maharaj shiv singh, in 1324( shak samvat era); 1402 .
2) There is also a description of another calendar, the lakshman samvat era, which began in 1109 ( 1031 shak samvat)
there is also a substantial proof that vidyapati was two years older to the king shiv singh. Shiv singh became the king in 1402 when he was 50 years old. So we can conclude that vidyapati was born in 1350 . but some argue that the birth year was instead 1460
there is a similar lack of consensus on the year of death of vidyapati. According to some he died sometime between the years 1448- 1461 while few say that he died around 1446- 1448. but whatever the actual year may be, we can conclude that vidyapati lived for around 100 years and still continues to live in the hearts of his admirers.

As a Brahmin, he is likely to have learned Sanskrit at an early age, and certainly his earliest compositions suggest his mastery of the language. Vidyapati received his first commission from Kirti Simha, the Mathili king who reigned from 1370 onwards, and he penned a poem in which he celebrated the king’s prowess; he then became resident at the court of Kirti Simha’s son and successor, Deva Simha, and in his work Bhuparikrama (Around the World), Vidyapati offered political and religious wisdom in the form of romantic stories.

Vidyapati’s most enduring contribution to Indian literature, indeed what he has been remembered for in the last few hundred years, is a corpus of over five hundred love songs. The subject of these songs, which were composed between 1380 and 1406, is the love of Krishna and Radha; surprisingly, perhaps, Vidyapati himself was not a Krishna bhakta, not even a Vaishnava. Vidyapati lived for another forty odd years, dying around 1448, but he never returned to the theme of Krishna and Radha, and indeed in the later compositions his attention was riveted on Shiva and Durga.


Dr.Laxman Jha



Dr.Laxman Jha was one of the great scholars of modern age in Mithila.His greatness can be understood by this fact only that his lecture on topics of Archaeology was broadcasted by B.B.C. many times.The life story of LAKSHAMAN JHA is very interesting.Even his certificate name up to B.A.was"LAKHAN JHA".Even LAKHAN JHA was not his actual name,his actual name was"CHANDRA NARAYAN JHA".From his childhood he was very naughty.His character was same as that of one person liviving in Rashiyari named "LAKHANA" so that people started calling him"LAKHANA"which finally became his name.But after B.A. for the admission in M.A. in OXFORD UNIVERSITY he applied by the name OF "LAKSHAMAN JHA".It was very suprising thing for the authorities so they called him for interview. In the interview interviewer asked him a question over a historic place in Malaya.Interviewer asked "I know about improvement of archeological work up to 1936 . can you tell me its improvment after that?" Dr. Laxman jha told him about that place from beginning to till that date.The interviewer became very surprised and at the same time they gave him the degree of M.A.from Oxford University and accepted his application for admission in Ph.D. by the name of Laxman Jha.


Baidyanath Mishra "Yatri"

Nagarjun was born as Baidyanath in a Maithil Brahmin family of Mithila region of Bihar in 1911, he grew to become a restless traveler, a Sanskritist, classicist scholar, poet and religious rebel. He came under the spell of the anti-colonial nationalism and joined the revolutionary peasant movement led by Swami Sahajanand Saraswati. He wrote in Maithili under the pen name ‘Yatri’ (Hence the name Baidyanath Mishra ‘Yatri’). His association with the legendary Hindi litterateur and Buddhist scholar Rahul Sankrtyayana led him to travels to Sri Lanka and conversion to Buddhism. He became a communist at the same time and started writing in Hindi under his new Buddhist name Nagarjun.

Mandan Mishra

Maheshi village is ancient and, according to the legend commonly known throughout Bihar, was the place where Mandan Misra, a great philosopher of the Eighth Century, lived.

It is here that Sankaracharya came from the south and had a philosophic discussion first with Mandan Misra and then with his wife Bharati Devi. The story mentions that Sankaracharya first met a maid servant filling up her pitcher from a tank and asked her where Mandan Misra lived. The maid servant replied in Sanskrit that he should go a little farther and when he could find a village on the same path where even the birds talk Sanskrit he should know that Mandan Misra lived there.

Sankaracharya was amazed and followed the direction and came to Maheshi. He had a philosophic discussion (Shastrartha) and Mandan Misra was defeated. Mandan Misra's wife Bharati Devi told Sankara- charya that he had to defeat her also who was the other half of Mandan Misra. Sankaracharya agreed and Bharati Devi put some questions based on sexology. Sankaracharya could not reply as he did not know anything of sexology, and went back to equip him.

The body was left and the soul went into some one else to get an inkling of sexology. Sankaracharya subsequently defeated Bharati Devi in the discussion. The villagers still show a mound at Maheshi village and mention that the philosophic discussion took place at that site. It is at this village Maheshi that there is an Ugratara temple and it is said that Mandan was a devotee of this deity.

Kaviwar Chanda Jha

Chndranath jha popularly known as chanda jha was a renowned poet of his time; a man of multiple personalities. He was born at pindaruch village in Darbhanga, on 20 January 1839 . People of that village always used to criticise him and make jokes over him, so after some time he left "pindarucha" and shifted to his maternal place in " andra thodi" ,Madhubani. He served as a pandit, both in the darbars of Maharaj Lakshmishwar Singh and Maharaj Rameshwar Singh. He died on 14 december 1907, at kashi. Chanda jha was also known as Kavishwar. Apart form being a maithili mahakavi, he was an expert of Sanskrit. He studied the lives of Vidyapati and other poets and brought in light many facts of their lives and works which till then had not come in public. He was adept in the field of music and the work of translation.He was the great poet of mithila. He translated "Ramayan"in to Maithali.
He wrote " Ramayan" in Maithali, he was the head poet in the darbar of Maharaja "Laxmeshwar Singh" and at that time in the whole " darbar" he had the maximum general knowledge at national and international level.
He was great devotee of Lord Shiv.His life story is very much tragic. His wife ,son and daughter all died before him ,only one daughter remained alive . He named her "chamnia" but even she died. Despite all this he did not stop the worship of "mahadev" and "parvati".
One instant is very famous about him .While he was a professor in "Rameshawari Lata Sanskrit College" ,Darbhanga. Students always use d to pluck the leaves of banana tree from his garden in order to tease and stop him from doing his work.To this he wrote these line"aab je sajjan katta pat,hunka ghar me hait utpat"and pasted over the tree.Actually many proverbs of Maithali were first used by Chanda Jha like"echna pothi chal diye rahua sir vise"and others.

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