Shyamaldas Dadhavadhia, a charan

Charan

Chāraṇ is the term for a caste living in the Gujarat and Rajasthan states of India. According to Shrimada Bhagwata Skand Charans were created along with other divine forms such as Yaksha, Gandharvas, Kinnara, Sidhdhas, Apsara, etc. and lived with them in Heaven...

, popularly referred to as Kaviraj (Hindi

Hindi

Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, also known as Manak Hindi , High Hindi, Nagari Hindi, and Literary Hindi, is a standardized and sanskritized register of the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi...

:king of poets) Shyamaldas was one of the early writers involved in documenting the history and culture of the Rajasthan

Rajasthan

Rājasthān the land of Rajasthanis, , is the largest state of the Republic of India by area. It is located in the northwest of India. It encompasses most of the area of the large, inhospitable Great Indian Desert , which has an edge paralleling the Sutlej-Indus river valley along its border with...

 region of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

.

Authorship

Kaviraj Shyamaldas co-wrote ( with his father Kayamadana Dadhavadhia ) the Dipanga Kul Prakash, an extended narrative poem on the Dodia Rajputs of Mewar. Maharana Sajjan Singh, ruler of Udaipur

Udaipur

Udaipur , also known as the City of Lakes, is a city, a Municipal Council and the administrative headquarters of the Udaipur district in the state of Rajasthan in western India. It is located southwest of the state capital, Jaipur, west of Kota, and northeast from Ahmedabad...

 (princely state

Princely state

A Princely State was a nominally sovereign entitity of British rule in India that was not directly governed by the British, but rather by an Indian ruler under a form of indirect rule such as suzerainty or paramountcy.-British relationship with the Princely States:India under the British Raj ...

), assigned Mahamahopadhayaya Kaviraj Shyamaldas the arduous task of compiling an authentic history of Mewar

Mewar

Mewar is a region of south-central Rajasthan state in western India. It includes the present-day districts of Pratapgarh, Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Udaipur, Dungarpur, Banswara and some of the part of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. The region was for centuries a Rajput kingdom that later...

 . Titled the Vir Vinod ( Hindi: Heroes' Delight ), this is the earliest known comprehensive history written in Mewar . It reached the public only in 1930 as Maharana Fateh Singh ( Maharana Sajjan Singh's successor) was averse to its publication .

Negotiator and mentor

Kaviraj Shyamaldas was also a confidant of Maharana Sajjan Singh and was entrusted with the delicate negotiations which resulted in a quick end to the Bhil rebellion of 1881 . Later, Kaviraj Shyamaldas' pupil, Gaurishankar Hirachand Ojha also became a famed historian and writer.

Honors and awards

The Kaviraj was honored with the degree of Mahamahopadhayaya and conferred with the Kesar-e-Hind ( Lion of India) by the British Government .

External links

• Permalink to Vir Vinod listing in Library of Congress catalog http://lccn.loc.gov/2007342511
• University of Chicago Library Catalog https://libcat.uchicago.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1J685212838R6.15318&profile=ucpublic&uri=link=3100006~!678172~!3100001~!3100002&aspect=subtab13&menu=search&ri=1&source=~!horizon&term=%C5%9Ay%C4%81malad%C4%81sa&index=AUTHORP
• Mewar ke gaurav-Kaviraj Shyamaldas in Hindi मेवाड़ के गौरव - कविराजा श्यामल दास