Laxmi Prasad Devkota jewel of Nepali literature

The jewel of Nepali literature, poet laureate Laxmi Prasad Devkota, who began to show poetic genius from a very tender age, is regarded as the creator of romanticism -- a progressive trend in Nepali literature. With his literary radiance, he has elevated the literary stature of Nepal in the eyes of the world and was perhaps the first writer in Nepal who rose to majestic heights, where no others had ever been before.

But perhaps his greatest possession was his heart -- for it is said that on one cold winter day he gave the coat he was wearing to a beggar shivering at the roadside. Devkota's poetry, in its simplest definition, is his heartbeat expressed in the form of verse.

	Laxmi Prasad Devkota
	©2005 Ketaketi.org

Devkota was a versatile and voluminous writer, who left no branch of literature untouched in the course of his brief career. He has numerous epics, long narrative poems, essays, stories, plays, novels, songs, criticisms and short poems in his stocks of literature. At the same time, he was a great prose writer and is regarded as the founder of the modern prose style.

Moreover, he was the first to begin writing epics in Nepali literature and his magnum opus "Muna-Madan" remains the highest selling book ever in the history of Nepal. There are several famous lines in "Muna-Madan," which have become catchphrases in the literary world. For instance, "A man is great by his heart, not by his caste." Today, many years after he said this, the truth of these words cannot be denied.

Devkota had the ability to write poems very quickly -- he wrote the Shakuntal in three months, the Sulochana epic in 10 days and Kunjini in a single day. Nepali poetry soared to new heights with Devkota's groundbreaking poetry. "Muna-Madan," challenged Sanskrit scholars who dominated the Nepalese literary scene before Devkota burst onto the mainstream scene.

He had command of Nepali, Sanskrit, Hindi, and English languages and volumes of Devkota's poems are written with sophisticated language, which precisely describes the diverse moods of life. Often to give life to his poetry, he did not even mind borrowing words from other languages including Sanskrit and Hindi. It is said that Devkota's poetry is a torrent of emotions that does not rain, but pours.

Laxmi Prasad Devkota was born into a middle class Brahmin family at Dhobi Dhara in 1909 on the auspicious day of Laxmi Puja, when Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, is honored. That's why he was named Laxmi Prasad Devkota. Though his name "Laxmi" stands for wealth, he remained a pauper throughout his life. Instead, goddess Saraswati (a deity of wisdom) blessed him and he was known as Mahakabi, the great poet.

'Make Me a Sheep, O God!' (in translation) Let me not jump to the void like a sage. Or with an artificial imagination. Let me not create distorted magic of variegated colors out of magic less truth. Let me not become a Brahmin to live on dirty water washing away other's sin. * * * Let me not reform to expose the world. Let me not patch up the old and tattered things. Let me lit the light of life, Like the simple, beautiful, and unbeautiful light of nature, When dying Let me reach higher up than the sage. / Laxmi Prasad Devkota

When Devkota was born in 1909, the country was ruled by the Rana oligarchy. The Rana administration was against mass education, so Devkota's family went through a lot of trouble to enroll him at Durbar School, the only school in the Kathmandu Valley.

Devkota wrote his first poem at this school, and it is said that he used to recite his poems before his friends and teachers. Many times his friends did not believe he had written such excellent poems, but all his teachers were greatly impressed with the young prodigy.

He is said to be a bright student. After passing out from school with high marks, Devkota enrolled in the science program at Tri Chandra College in 1925. He completed his Intermediate of Science degree and switched to arts. He received his bachelor's degree in arts in 1929 and went to Patna, India, in 1931 on a scholarship hoping to study English for his Master's degree. But seats were not available, so he studied for a Bachelor of Law, instead.

After he received the degree, he returned home and felt a series of shocks, one after another. His mother, father, and a two-month old daughter died within two years. Those tragic events shattered him completely and he became a chain smoker.

In later years, with the premature death of his two young sons, Prakash Devkota and Krishna Devkota, Laxmi broke down completely.

To add further misery, by 1958, Devkota was diagnosed with cancer and three inches of cancerous colon was removed in India, but he knew death was approaching him, so he stayed up late into the night to continue his writing.

He wrote to a friend while he was in Santa Bhawan Hospital, "Death stands before me. I search for constellations in the sky but can find none. I cannot give peace to myself. If I could rise, I would kill myself and my children."

Terrible pain left him emaciated and completely bedridden, and eventually Laxmi Prasad Devkota died in 1959 at the quite early age of 50. There was much pain towards the end of his life and he felt himself a beggar and died thinking that he achieved nothing. However, they say that if his works had been translated into English he might have received the Nobel Prize for literature.

But ironically, the truest spirit of his poetry has often been under expressed in contemporary Nepal. A great poem in itself isn't great. It owes its gleaming prominence to the greatness of the personality, which gave it life; for what we call a great poem is only the concrete cadence of his heart in the form of verse. Hence, we have to get to know his poems as an offering and value the socio-economic metaphors portrayed by him for the way forward

Paagal/Crazy (Lakshmi Prasad Devkota) - [2009-07-31]

Surely, my friend, I am mad,



that s exactly what I am!





I see sounds,



hear sights,



taste smells,



I touch things thinner than air,



things whose existence the world denies,



things whose shapes the world does not know.



Stones I see as flowers,



pebbles have soft shapes,



water-smoothed at the waters edge



in the moonlight;



as heavens sorceress smiles at me,



they put out leaves, they soften, they glimmer



and pulse, rising up like mute maniacs,



like flowers—a kind of moonbird flower.



I speak to them just as they speak to me,



in a language, my friend,



unwritten, unprinted, unspoken,



uncomprehended, unheard.



Their speech comes in ripples, my friend,



to the moonlit Gangas shore.



Surely, my friend, I am mad,



thats exactly what I am!





You are clever, and wordy,



your calculations exact and correct forever,



but take one from one in my arithmetic,



and you are still left with one.



You use five senses, but I have six,



you have a brain, my friend,



but I have a heart.



To you a rose is a rose, and nothing more,



but I see Helen and Padmini,



you are forceful prose,



I am liquid poetry;



you freeze as I am melting,



you clear as I cloud over,



and then its the other way around;



your world is solid, mine vapor,



your world is gross, mine subtle,



you consider a stone an object,



material hardness is your reality,



but I try to grasp hold of dreams,



just as you try to catch the rounded truths



of cold, sweet, graven coins.



My passion is that of a thorn, my friend,



yours is for gold and diamonds,



you say that the hills are deaf and dumb,



I say that they are eloquent.



Surely, my friend,



mine is a loose inebriation,



thats exactly how I am.

















In the cold of the month of Magh I sat,



enjoying the first white warmth of the star:



the world called me a drifter.



When they saw me staring blankly for seven days



after my return from the cremation ghats,[3]



they said I was possessed.



When I saw the first frosts of Time



on the hair of a beautiful woman,



I wept for three days:



the Buddha was touching my soul,



but they said that I was raving!



When they saw me dance



on hearing the first cuckoo of Spring,



they called me a madman.



A silent, moonless night once made me breathless,



the agony of destruction made me jump,



and on that day the fools put me in the stocks!



One day I began to sing with the storm,



the wise old men sent me off to Ranchi.[4]



One day I thought I was dead,



I lay down fiat, a friend pinched me hard,



and said, Hey, madman, youre not dead yet!"



These things went on, year upon year,



I am mad, my friend,



thats exactly what I am!





I have called the rulers wine blood,



the local whore a corpse,



and the king a pauper.



I have abused Alexander the Great,



poured scorn on so-called great souls,



but the lowly I have raised



to the seventh heaven on a bridge of praise.



Your great scholar is my great fool,



your heaven my hell,



your gold my iron, my friend,



your righteousness my crime.



Where you see yourself as clever,



I see you to be an absolute dolt,



your progress, my friend, is my decline,



thats how our values contradict.



Your universe is as a single hair to me,



certainly, my friend, Im moonstruck,



completely moonstruck, thats what I am!





I think the blind man is the leader of the world,



the ascetic in his cave is a back-sliding deserter;



those who walk the stage of falsehood



I see as dark buffoons,



those who fail I consider successful,



progress for me is stagnation:



I must be either cockeyed or mad—



I am mad, my friend, I am mad.





Look at the whorish dance



of shameless leaderships tasteless tongues,



watch them break the back of the peoples rights.



When the black lies of sparrow-headed newsprint



challenge Reason, the hero within me,



with their webs of falsehood,



then my cheeks grow red, my friend,



as red as glowing charcoal.



When voiceless people drink black poison,



right before my eyes,



and drink it through their ears,



thinking that its nectar,



then every hair on my body stands up,



like the Gorgons serpent hair.



When I see the tiger resolve to eat the deer,



or the big fish the little one,



then into even my rotten bones there comes



the fearsome strength of Dadhichis soul,[1]



and it tries to speak out, my friend,



like a stormy day which falls with a crash from Heaven.



When Man does not regard his fellow as human,



all my teeth grind together like Bhimsens,[2]



red with fury, my eyeballs roll round



like a half-penny coin, and I stare



at this inhuman world of Man



with a look of lashing flame.



My organs leap from their frame,



there is tumult, tumult!



My breath is a storm, my face is distorted,



my brain burns, my friend, like a submarine fire,



a submarine fire! Im insane like a forest ablaze,



a lunatic, my friend,



I would swallow the whole universe raw.



I am a moonbird for the beautiful,



a destroyer of the ugly,



tender and cruel,



the bird that steals the fire of Heaven,



a son of the storm thrown up



by an insane volcano, terror incarnate,



surely, my friend, my brain is whirling, whirling,



thats exactly how I am

The Pilgrim by Laxmi prasad Devkota(Poem)

Which temple will you visit, Pilgrim,
To which temple will you go?
What things will you take for worship,
and how will you do so?
Riding upon the peoples' backs,
To what heaven will you go?

The bones are the gorgeous columns,
The muscles are the walls.
The brain is the golden roof,
The senses are the doors!
The liquid waves of blood and veins;
The temple itself incomparable!
Which temple will you go to, Pilgrim,
To which temple's door?

In the glory throne of the spirit,
Reigns the Lord of the world.
The golden light of consciousness,
Is the crown on His head!
The gorgeous body-temple,
amidst the world.

God is inward; with outer eyes
What city do you seek?
God lives in depth; How far
on the surface will you drift?
Do you search? Arouse your heart,
light a luminous torch.

Pilgrim friend, God walks with you
on the middle of the road.
God kisses the hands
Doing the golden works.
He touches with his magic hands,
His servants' heads.

God sings by the roadside,
In harmony with birds.
God speaks in the songs
of human pain and sorrow.
But nowhere will he reveal himself
to your mortal eyes.

To which temple will you go, Pilgrim,
To which new, strange land?
Return, return! Go and hold
The feet of the people!
Put ointment in the rankling wounds
of the afflicted.
Be human, and make God's
divine face smile.

Poetry / Short Novels

1. bal jasto
2. Kunjini (कुञ्जिनि - खण्डकाव्य)
3. Gaine Geet (गाइने गीत)
4. Putali (पुतली)
5. bal jasto
6. Kunjini (कुञ्जिनि - खण्डकाव्य)
7. Gaine Geet (गाइने गीत)
8. Putali (पुतली)
9. Krishibala (कृषिवाला - गीतिनाटक)
10. Dushyant-Shakantula Bhet (दुष्यन्त-शकुन्तला भेट खण्डकाव्य)
11. Munamadan (मुनामदन - खण्डकाव्य)
12. Ravan-Jatayu Youdha (रावण-जटायु युद्ध)
13. Lakshmi Kavita Sanghrah (लक्ष्मी कविता संग्रह)
14. Luni (लुनि)
15. Sun Ko Bihani (सुनको बिहानी- बालकविता)
16. Raj Kumar Prabhakar (राजकुमार प्रभाकर)
17. Sita Haran (सीता हरण)
18. Mahendu (म्हेन्दु)
19. Dhumraketu
20. Pagal(Poem)
21. Krishibala (कृषिवाला - गीतिनाटक)
22. Dushyant-Shakantula Bhet (दुष्यन्त-शकुन्तला भेट खण्डकाव्य)
23. Munamadan (मुनामदन - खण्डकाव्य)
24. Ravan-Jatayu Youdha (रावण-जटायु युद्ध)
25. Lakshmi Kavita Sanghrah (लक्ष्मी कविता संग्रह)
26. Luni (लुनि)
27. Sun Ko Bihani (सुनको बिहानी- बालकविता)
28. Raj Kumar Prabhakar (राजकुमार प्रभाकर)
29. Sita Haran (सीता हरण)
30. Mahendu (म्हेन्दु)
31. Dhumraketu
32. Pagal(Poem)

Publications

Novels

1. Champa (चम्पा)
2. Gulzar

Introduction

Laxmi Prasad Devkota (November 12, 1909 – September 14, 1959), was a Nepali poet. He is arguably the best writer in the Nepali Language. He has written great works in the Nepalese Language. He is best known for the poem "Muna Madan."There are several tribute to the poem Muna Madan.This is a poem which shows poverty among the people of Nepal.
 Devkota was the third son of Pandit Til Madhav and Amar Rajya Laxmi Devi. He was born in Thatunati (now Dhobidhara), Kathmandu on the day of Dipawali, the Festival of Lights, which is a celebration of Laxmi, the Goddess of Wealth. His parents considered his birth as a gift [प्रसाद] from the goddess and named him as Laxmi Prasad [लक्ष्मी प्रसाद].He is well considered as one of the famous icons in the field of Nepalese literature.
After he received his bachelor's of law,he wrote to a friend while he was in Santa Bhawan Hospital, "Death stands before me. I search for constellations in the sky but can find none. I cannot give peace to myself. If I could rise, I would kill myself and my future prospects."
Laxmi Prasad Devkota was primarily a humanist who occasionally wrote from an atheistic point of view too. Some critics have mistaken his intellectual queries for atheism and have tried to line him up with Marxism or other similar politically leftist ideologies. This is why such critics were shocked when he dictated one of his last poems to a friend, "Aakhir Shree Krishna rahecha eka" (" in the end, Lord Krishna happens to be the only truth").