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A Brief Bio-note A great scholar and poet of his time, the author of the Mahakavya Sriramacaritabdhiratna, Pandit Nityananda Shastri was born to the well-known poet Madhava Kavindra of Dadhich family in 1889. He had his education upto the age of 7 from his father. When he passed away in 1896, his elder brother Pandit Bhagawati Lal Sharma who was himself pursuing higher studies at that time took care of him and started teaching him. After a while he got him admitted to the Vaidika Pathashala of Jodhpur where he (Bhagawati Lal Sharma) was himself a teacher. It is from this Pathashala that he passed the Visharad examination of the Punjab University, Lahore with the highest marks. Lahore was the centre of Sanskrit studies at that time and its Oriental College had on its faculty one of the most renowned scholars of the time Pandit Shiva Datta Sharma Dadhimatha. Pandit Nityananda Shastri came to Lahore, got admission in the Oriental College and passed the Shastri examination in two years. Even while a student there, he impressed with his sharp intellect his teachers including the European Principal who was an erudite scholar of Sanskrit and who had earned fame by editing Asvaghosa's Mahakavyas the Buddhacarita and the Saundarananda. Pandit Shiva Datta Sharma Dadhimatha not only taught young Nityananda Vyakarana but also generated the urge in him for creative writing Sanskrit with the result that his poems found a place in the prestigious Oriental College Magazine. Pandit Shiva Datta Sharma Dadhimatha also imparted him training in editing

old Sanskrit manuscripts. Nityananda rendered him valuable assistance in editing the Kavyamala Sanskrit Series. His impromptu Sanskrit compositions earned Nityananda in his very student days the coveted title of Asukavi from the Sanskritists of Lahore. Once he was asked to complete the line ajagalastanasyeva tasya janma nirarthakam. Pat came the first line from him: navinair bahukote yad dharyate batanadvayam [ajagalastanasyeva tasya janma nirarthakam] While at the College Nityananda Shastri learnt English also which stood him in good stead the rest of his life. After completing his education at Lahore Nityananda Shastri came back to Jodhpur and got married. After that he was called in by the Proprieter of the Venkateshwar Steam Press, Bombay to assist in the editing of Sanskrit manuscripts to whose ears had reached his extraordinary editorial capabilities. His teacher Pandit Shiva Datta the up Sharma Dadhimatha also encouraged him to take assignment. Under this assignment he edited quite a few of the Sanskrit works. With his reputation spreading far and wide, the authorities of the Mahavir College, Bombay offered him the post of a Sanskrit teacher which he accepted. His health did not allow him to continue at Bombay for long. He then moved to Bhavnagar at the invitation of a Jain publishing house which provided him with an opportunity to study the Jain scriptures and interact with Jain Munis to a number of whom he taught Sanskrit besides editing a number of texts under the auspices of the Atmananda Jain Granthamala. He was now a well-established scholar of Sanskrit and Indology. His high reputation attracted the Ruling House of Jodhpur too with the result that the Regent of Jodhpur Maharaja Pratap Singh invited him to take up teaching at the prestigious Nobels School of Jodhpur meant for the

scions of the rulers and noblemen. Like Visnusarman of the Pancatantra fame he instilled in these scions the values of Indian culture and tradition apart from teaching them Sanskrit language and literature. In 1938 he was asked to take up the post of Head of the Manuscript Library called Pustakaprakasa consequent upon its having fallen vacant at the demise of Bhagawati Lal Sharma, his elder brother, its erstwhile incumbent. Pandit Nityananda Shastri was a great devotee of Lord Rama. That is why he started his literary career with the composition of a stotra the Hanumadduta which specially concentrates on the visit to Lanka of the great monkey. A speciality of this work is that the fourth line of each of the verses of the Meghaduta of Kalidasa has been added to those of the lines of the author's composition. The best of the works of Pandit Nityananda Shastri is the Sriramacaritabdhiratna which is unique in itself with the first letters of each of the quadrants (padas) of the verses beginning with the first letters of the Anustubh verses of the Ramayana of Valmiki. If all these initial letters of the quadrants were to be put together, it would lead to the appearance of the Valmikian text in its entirety. Apiece with the above is the structure of the stotras in the Supplement which have their quadrants carrying the initial letters of some of the other stotras or Vedic hymns. Another noteworthy work of Pandit Nityananda Shastri is the Ramakathakalpalata in Hindi. There had been a long tradition of Citrakavya in Sanskrit in medieval period. Though termed adhamakavya, a poem of low category, by rhetoricians it had been pursued by a long line of poets of eminence. The tradition became blurred in the modern period. It goes to the credit of the great savant Pandit Nityananda Shastri to revive it and to take it

to great heights. Whatever the opinion of the rhetoricians, it is not easy to handle it, requiring as it does, uncanny mastery over vocabulary touching encyclopaedic proportions and over grammar generating an infinite number of recondite forms. It was because Pandit Nityananda Shastri was endowed with this equipment that he could handle this almost faded genre with verve and grit eliciting fulsome praise for himself all round. It is seventy years the first edition of this work had appeared in 1933 from the Venkateshwar Steam Press, Bombay with the Sanskrit commentary Sana of Pandit Bhagawati Lal Sharma. Three years back its second edition appeared with the addition of a Hindi gloss of sorts by Shri Mohan Lal Sharma Pandey with a Foreword by Devarshi Kala Nath Shastri and an Editorial Note by Shri O.P. Acharya, Managing Trustee of Acharya Nityananda Smriti Sanskrit Shiksha evam Shodh Sansthan. And now, in 2005, appears its English translation by the undersigned under the auspices of the Sahitya Akademi, the National Academy of Letters, India.