Acharya Chatursen Shastri

Acharya Chatursen Shastri Biography

Acharya Chatursen Shastri was a prolific Hindi writer and an Ayurvedic doctor from Bengal. He has published 186 books including 32 novels, more than 450 short stories, and many non-fiction books. He wrote books on Ayurveda, politics, religious books on Hindu sacred books and Islam as well as history. His historic fiction works are equally popular. Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu, Vayam Rakshamah, Somnath and Dharamputra are among his noted works. Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu is a work on the life of courtesan of Vaishali, Amrapali. Film Dharmputra is based on his novel with the same title. Vayam Rakshamah is a mythological work on Raavan of Hindu epic Ramayana. Vaishali ki Nagarvadhu, published in 1949 was dedicated to the then Prime Minister of India – Nehru.

He was born in a small village Chandokh near Sikandrabad of UP in 1891. He took degrees of Sanskrit and Ayurveda from Sanskrit College, Jaipur. After studies he moved to Delhi where he opened a dispensary and started his career as an Ayurvedic doctor. But it was not at all profitable. So he shut down his dispensary and joined a charitable dispensary at the salary of rupees 25 per month. In 1917, he joined DAV College, Lahore as senior professor of Ayurveda. But due to frequent insults from the senior management he resigned his job and moved to Ajmer where he helped his father-in-law in his dispensary.

It was during his stay at Ajmer he started writing. Later he came to be known as a prolific writer athn an ayurvedic physician. His first novel Hridaya-Ki-Parakh published in 1918 went unnoticed. But his second book, Satyagraha Aur Asahyoga published three years later gained him quick attention from public as it expressed contradictory options and ideas with Mahatma Gandhi and his ideology. Later he published a series of works with a total sum of 186 books till he died on 2 February 1960.

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Updated: September 23, 2014