_damayanti.jpg&w=24&q=30&output=webp&we=&maxage=1y&fit=cover)
_damayanti.jpg&w=1200&q=72&output=webp&we=&maxage=1y&fit=cover)
1 verses · ~1 min
शिशिर न फिर गिरि वन में जितना माँगे पतझड़ दूँगी मैं इस निज नंदन में कितना कंपन तुझे चाहिए ले मेरे इस तन में सखी कह रही पांडुरता का क्या अभाव आनन में वीर जमा दे नयन नीर यदि तू मानस भाजन में तो मोती-सा मैं अकिंचना रक्खूँ उसको मन में हँसी गई रो भी न सकूँ मैं अपने इस जीवन में तो उत्कंठा है देखूँ फिर क्या हो भाव भुवन में।
इति
The Poet
मैथिलीशरण गुप्त
Maithili Sharan Gupt
1886 · 1964
The title Rashtriya Kavi National Poet was conferred upon Maithili Sharan Gupt by Mahatma Gandhi, and it was the most accurate literary judgment the Mahatma ever made. At a moment in history when Hindi literature stood at a crossroads between a dying classical tradition and an uncertain modern one, Gupt performed a double act of rescue: he saved the dignity of Khari Boli as a medium worthy of serious literary ambition, and he recovered from the mythology of India the voices that centuries of male centered narrative had buried the Urmilas, the Yashodharas, the women who loved and suffered and persisted at the margins of the great epics while their husbands received all of history's attention. His Bharat Bharati, released in 1912, became the literary proclamation of national self consciousness at a moment when such proclamation was both desperately needed and politically dangerous. He did not write merely about India's past glory he used that past to locate a moral standard against which the present could be measured and found responsible. Gupt was a man of deep humility who built works of imperial scale. He stands at the very origin point of modern Hindi literature, the patriarch in whose shadow all subsequent poets grew.
Paired Painting
Damayanti Deserted in the Forest
This profound work depicts a harrowing moment from the epic Mahabharata, where the noble Queen Damayanti is cruelly abandoned by her husband, King Nala, in the depths of a dense and unforgiving forest. Raja Ravi Varma captures the poignant vulnerability of the queen, whose expression is etched with sorrow and quiet strength. The presence of the snake near her feet serves as a chilling reminder of the perilous wilderness and the heavy weight of her isolation. Through this painting, Varma does not merely tell a story: he invites us to feel the spiritual endurance of a woman tested by divine trials, making her suffering both intimate and universal.
Open the viewer →