Vidyapati lived in the second half of fourteenth century. The exact years are not known, but the Tithi was Kartik Dhawal (bright half) Trayodashi. The ancestors belonged to the Gadha Bisaphi family of Maithil Brahmins of Kashyap Gotra. The ancestry is traced as Vishnu Thakur –> Haraditya –> Karmaditya –> Devaditya –> Dhireshwara-> Jayadatta -> Ganpati ->...

Jul 5, 2011

The poet Vidyapati appears to have been born in or around 1352 in Bihar, in the Madhubani village of Bisapi in the region of north eastern Bihar known as Mithila. 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...

Maithili is an “ancestor” of today’s Hindi language. Maithili is closer in spirit, vocabulary and grammatical structure to Prakrit, itself a derivative of Sanskrit, than Hindi proper, which really flowered as a literary language with the great Bhakti poets (Tulsidas, Suradas, Kabir, Ramananda). Incidentally, Maithili is still spoken as a...

Maithili is widely spoken in Northern Bihar, from Muzaffarpur on the west, past the Kosi on the east to western Purnia District, to the districts of Munger and Bhagalpur in the south, and the Himalayan foothills on the north. Cultural and linguistic center are the districts of Madhubani and Darbhanga. Janakpur also important culturally and religiously. Also...

Gotra is one of the many considerations that exist during match making in the traditional manner. Janmakundalis (horoscopes) of the prospective bride and groom are compared to see if a match could he made. Gotras have to be different while Matchmaking for a Marriage While in matching Janmakundalis the consideration is for the common and symmetrical features, but...