Remembering Bhanubhakta and his lyrical Ramayan

“Ek din Narad satyalok pugigaya lokko garun hit bhani.”

Thus begins Bhanubhakta Acharya’s Ramayan, the Nepali translation of Brahmarshi Balmiki’s epic, the Adhyatma Ramayan.  

The purpose of the pioneer poet of the Nepali language is lucidly clear in the above-mentioned line: Lokko hit (the good of the public, the worlds). Bhanubhakta’s Ramayan begins with Brahmarshi Narad visiting Satyalok (the realm of truth) for doing the good of the Lok (the people, the worlds); the purpose of Bhanubhakta’s labor is also to serve the people by translating the Ramayan from Sanskrit into a poetic Nepali. In the course of time, Bhanubhakta’s Ramayan has become immensely popular in Nepal and India, especially among Nepali-speaking communities.

Bhanubhakta was well-versed in Sanskrit, a language mainly of rich and well-educated people like scholars, priests and teachers of those times, but most of the Nepali society was not even familiar with Sanskrit. So, Bhanubhakta took it upon himself to translate the epic into simple and lyrical Nepali, making it hugely popular in Nepali households, both in Nepal and parts of India.

Ahead of his times and aware of the public pulse, Bhanubhakta has well-established himself in the literary firmament and earned himself a place in the hearts and minds of the Nepali Lok based in Nepal and abroad.

Apart from the Ramayan, his works including Badhushiksha Prashnottari, Bhaktamala and Ram Geeta have also sought to serve the public by reforming society through moral education.

The work titled Badhushiksha Prasnottari, for example, is Bhanubhakta’s attempt to teach good manners to daughters-in-law, to teach them how to behave with their mothers-in-law. 

 

Bhanubhakta was a devotee of Lord Ram and his lyrical Ramayan made him popular far and wide.

There’s a vast scope for a comparative study of Bhanubhakta’s contributions vis-à-vis other contemporary poets, but the sad fact is that there is no comparative study department in any universities of Nepal for such an undertaking.

Nonetheless, he is comparable to the great poet of Sanskrit, Balmiki, the prominent Awadhi poet Tulasi Das and the celebrated Maithili poet Chanda Jha.

 

A long time ago, Prof Surdeo Singh Prabhakar earned his PhD for his thesis titled ‘Comparative study of Bhanubhakta and Tulasi Das’ from the University of Allahabad, India. But his dissertation remains unpublished till date, somehow obscuring Bhanubhakta’s contribution.

The then Royal Nepal Academy (Nepal Academy now) has published Prof Dhundhiraj Bhandari’s article titled ‘A comparative study of Bhanubhakta and Tulasi Das’ in its research magazine named ‘Pragya’. This writer’s article on a comparative study of Bhanubhakta and Tulasi Das also got published in the same magazine.

In the World Sanskrit Seminar held in Kathmandu under the aegis of the Embassy of India in Kathmandu two years ago, this writer had made a presentation on a comparative study of the Ram Katha (story of Ram) of Bhanubhakta and Ram Katha of Tulasi Das.

Scholar Ram Chandra Poudel has also done research on the comparative study of Bhanubhakta and Balmiki whereas Prof Jayaraj Acharya has written a book titled ‘Bhanubhakta Acharya: His life and selected poems (2011), highlighting Bhanubhakta’s valuable contribution to Nepali language and literature.

Acharya has touched upon the need for a comparative study on Bhanubhakta and some other poets, especially Tulsidas from India. Notably, though well-versed in Sanskrit, Tulsidas also chose to write his ‘Ramcharit Manas’ in Awadhi, to reach and serve a wider audience.

Bhanubhakta was from the times when a clique consisting of teachers, preachers, scholars and priests from the elite class had a kind of monopoly over knowledge, given their command of Sanskrit in which most of the literature of those times was written.   

Yet he caught the pulse of the commoners of those times and had the foresight to translate the Ramayan into Nepali, which earned him immense fame, thanks to its lyrical and simple language.

Notably, this poet, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, in Ramgha of Tanahun district, drew inspiration for doing something good for the society from a grass-cutter, who, in the course of a conversation, said he was saving his hard-earned money to dig a well for fellow villagers.  

The rest, as they say, is history.

By taking the Ramayan, considered a fountainhead of peace and spiritual bliss for the religious minded people, to Nepali households, Bhanubhakta has helped spread the glory of Ram further and also immortalized the grass-cutter.

Bhanubhakta has become a national icon because of his contributions. He will shine in the firmament of Nepali language and literature forever.