Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi

Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi Biography

Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi was a noted writer of Hindi language. His name is taken along with Munshi Premchand, who played a significant role in further development of Hindi language in the 20^th century. He belonged to the second phase of Modern period of the Hindi literature, known by the name Adhunikkaal. Hindi literature is divided into four phases and he belonged to Dwivedi Yug which is marked as the period 1893–1918. He was the mentor of Maithili Sharan Gupt, one of the greatest Hindi writers of Modern Hindi literature during 20^th century. He was also the mentor of great nationalist, Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi.

Swivedi was born in 1864 in Daulatapur Village of Raebareli District, Uttar Pradesh. During 1880’s, he worked in Indian railways of British rule in Jhansi. He joined the service in the year 1882 in Ajmer at a monthly salary of Rs 15. Then he worked in Nagpur followed by taking training in Signalling in Mumbai. He was posted to different places on GIP Railway and to Divisional Superintendent’s office at Jhansi, where he worked as head clerk. During his service in Jhansi, he got well recognized as a popular writer of Hindi language.

He wrote extensively on Kalidas and Bharathari and was regarded as one of the most prolific writers during this time. He was the ‘Dr Johnson’ of his time. He protested against the prevalent anomaly in Hindi, which was widely practised then. Kavyajanjusha, Kavitapalap, Sugandh, Mere Jivan ki Yatra and Sahitya Sandardh are his published works. Sahitya Sandarbh and Vichar Vimarsh are his critical works. In 1903, Dwivedi joined as the editor of the Hindi monthly, Saraswati.

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Updated: February 28, 2014