Damodar Gulati Explained

Damodar Gulati
Native Name:ਦਮੋਦਰ ਦਾਸ ਅਰੋੜਾ
Birth Place:Jhang
Occupation:Punjabi poet
Language:Punjabi
Period:17th century
Genre:Punjabi literature
Notable Works:Heer and Ranjha

Damodar Gulati (Gurmukhi: ਦਮੋਦਰ ਦਾਸ ਅਰੋੜਾ, Shahmukhi:) also known as Damodar Das Arora, was a Punjabi Hindu poet.[1] [2] [3] He hailed from Jhang. He lived during the reign of Mughal king Akbar.

Biography

Heer and Ranjha

He wrote the qissa Heer and Ranjha and was the first to put the story to pen, adapted from a preexisting and circulating legend.[4] [5] [6] He claims to be the eye witness of this tale. His Qissa (story) is deemed the oldest and the first Heer Ranjha in Punjabi literature. He states in the poem that he is from Jhang—the home of Heer, one of the poem's two main characters.[7] He wrote his rendition and the original tale of Heer Ranjha in the dialect of Sandal Bar, despite this fact after the lapse of five hundred years the language used in the story is nearer to modern Majhi dialect. An analysis by Najam Hussain Syed led him to believe that Damodar Gulati was not actually an eyewitness to the tale but rather he was using a storytelling technique that was misinterpreted as meaning he was simply an eyewitness. In reality, Gulati's position to the characters in the tale is similar to that of Sanjaya of the Mahabharata epic, who used paranormal powers to see what was happening at the battle of Kurukshetra.

Religious identity

On the matter of his religious identity, the majority of scholars describe him as a "Punjabi Hindu". Amaresh Dutta makes mention of Sufi and Sikh influence on Gulati.[8]

Style

He does have also a peculiar style, at the end of a quaternary he repeats Aakkh Damodar means "Say Damodar":Waris Shah later adapted Heer and Ranjha.[9]

Particular importance is placed on finer details in the storytelling of Gulati's works.[10]

Legacy

The Heer and Ranjha renditions of Waris Shah, Muqbal, and Charag Awan were all based on Damodar Gulati's original version.

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Book: Singh, Nikky-Guninder . Of Sacred and Secular Desire: An Anthology of Lyrical Writings from the Punjab . 30 January 2012 . I.B, Tauris . 9780857730985 . It is in the context of multidimensional love that Waris Shah frames his qissa. Emperor Akbar's Hindu courtier, Damodar Gulati, had popularized the story of Heer and Ranjha at the beginning of the seventeenth century..
  2. Book: Gaur, ID . Martyr as a Bridegroom . July 2008 . Anthem Press . 28-29 . 9781843313489 . Damodar, a Punjabi 'Hindu', picked up the legend of a Punjabi 'Muslim' girl who is said to have rebelled against the social and religious patriarchs of her community during the first and second quarters of the fifteenth century..
  3. Book: Mir, Farina . https://books.google.com/books?id=_vQtDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT333 . Punjab Reconsidered: History, Culture, and Practice . 2012-02-21 . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-908877-5 . Malhotra . Anshu . en . Genre and Devotion in Punjabi Popular Narratives: Rethinking Cultural and Religious Syncretism . The Hindu poet Damodar, as far as we know, was the first person to compose an epic-length Punjabi text of Hir Ranjha..
  4. Book: Ray, Bharati . Different Types of History . 2009 . . 978-81-317-1818-6 . 204 . en.
  5. Book: Gaur, I. D. . Martyr as Bridegroom: A Folk Representation of Bhagat Singh . 2008 . Anthem Press . 978-81-905835-0-3 . 29 . en.
  6. News: Soofi . Mushtaq . 7 June 2013 . Damodar Gulati: poet who immortalised Heer and Ranjha — Part I . Dawn . deviated . https://web.archive.org/web/20230701033307/https://apnaorg.com/columns/mushtaq-soofi/column-22.html . 2023-07-01.
  7. Book: Davis, Geoffrey V. . Performing Identities: Celebrating Indigeneity in the Arts . 2017-07-05 . . 978-1-351-55462-6 . 51 . en.
  8. Book: Encyclopædia of Indian Literature . 1949 . . Datta . Amaresh . 3 . New Delhi . 2418.
  9. Book: Shah, Waris. https://archive.org/details/dli.bengal.10689.12897/page/n1105/mode/1up. Medieval Indian Literature: An Anthology. 1959. Sahitya Akademi. 1959. 3. New Delhi. 1090. Kanda. K. C.. Heer-Ranjha.
  10. News: Soofi . Mushtaq . 14 June 2013 . Damodar Gulati: poet who immortalised Heer and Ranjha – Part II . The Dawn (republished by the Academy of the Punjab in North America) . For Damodar small things suggest meanings, enhancing the impact of the whole if placed in a perspective. And this is what he does. He misses out on nothing. Whenever he creates a scene, like a sensitive film-maker he takes care of everything; the background, the foreground, the getup, movement of the actors, the body language and the gestures making the overall expression expressing the unexpressed. With the socio-cultural and psychological details woven into fabric of the story, he reminds us of the Great Russian classical novelists..

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