Padmakar Biography

Padmakar is a famous poet of the Riti Kaal of Hindi literature. His full name was Padmakar Bhatt. He belonged to a family of scholars and poets so his family was called ‘Kavishwar’. They were patronized by the courts of Panna, Gwalior, Bundi, Udaipur, and Jaipur. His father Mohanlal Bhatt was a brahmin.
Padmakar was born in 1753, in Sagar, in Madhya Pradesh. He was a scholar of ritishastra, and an excellent writer who wrote on the topics of bravery, love and devotion. He had an exceptional command over Hindi language. His expressions were mostly lively, natural, realistic and sweet, in fact appropriate to the context.

Some of the famous works of Padmakar are Jagdwinod, Padmabharan, Prabodh Pachasa, Himmatbahadur Virudawali and Ganga-Lahari. He was a well-known author of Ritikavya or Ritismagra Kavya period. The word Riti means ‘procedure’, and this period was an acme of the development of different poetical forms and theory. This period is noted for its pre dominance of erotic elements in Hindi literature. As a typical writer of the period, Padmakar mostly wrote about the Krishna’s life emphasizing more on the Shringaric aspects, his leela, his relation with the Gopis and the physical description of the beauty of Radha. His dohas or couplets were predominantly about Bhakti which means devotion, and Shringaar which means love towards Lord Krishna and Radha. He passed away in the year 1833.