Gajendra Thakur (born 1971) is an Indian author. He writes in the

Maithili language Maithili () is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in parts of Languages of India, India and Languages of Nepal, Nepal. It is native to the Mithila region, which encompasses parts of the Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand as well as Nepal's easte ...

, a language spoken in Northern Bihar (of India) and South-Eastern

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

. He is an author, lexicographer, historian (of

Mithila Mithila may refer to: Places * Mithilā, a synonym for the ancient Videha state ** Mithilā (ancient city), the ancient capital city of Videha * Mithila (region), a cultural region (historical and contemporary), now divided between India and Nepal ...

- ancient

Videha Videha ( Prākrit: ; Pāli: ; Sanskrit: ) was an ancient Indo-Aryan tribe of north-eastern South Asia whose existence is attested during the Iron Age. The population of Videha, the Vaidehas, were initially organised into a monarchy but later ...

and of ''Maithili''); and palaeographer, he has deciphered ancient and medieval palm leaf inscriptions in Tirhuta script of ''Maithili'' Language ( Mithilakshar script). These

panjis Panjis or Panji Prabandh are extensive genealogical records maintained among the Maithil Kayasthas and Maithil Brahmins of the Mithila (region), Mithila region similar to the Hindu genealogy registers at Haridwar. Utility The Panjis have enormous v ...

are genealogical records of

Maithil Brahmin Maithil Brahmins are a Hindu Brahmin community from the Mithila region of the Indian subcontinent that comprises Tirhut, Darbhanga, Kosi, Purnia, Munger, Bhagalpur; Bokaro in Jharkhand and Santhal Pargana divisions of India and some adjoining ...

community of

Mithila region Mithila (), also known as Tirhut, Tirabhukti and Mithilanchal is a geographical and cultural region of the Indian subcontinent bounded by the Mahananda River in the east, the Ganges in the south, the Gandaki River in the west and by the foothill ...

and contain details of around 100 inter-caste marriages. Besides it provides written historical records of people and personalities, hitherto considered mythical ones. Besides he deciphered scripts inscribed on temples/ dilapidated buildings throughout the length and breadth of ''Mithila''. He has also compiled an English-Maithili Computer dictionary. He has helped in preparing Unicode application for Mithilakshar (Tirhuta) script. His ''English-Maithili'' Dictionary is only such dictionary. He has also contributed in social development work.

Literary activity

He wrote ''KuruKshetram Antarmanak'', a work in Maithili Language -in seven volumes (Vol.I-

Literary Criticism Literary criticism (or literary studies) is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often influenced by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of literature's goals and methods. Th ...

, Vol. II- a Novel- ''Sahasrabadhani''- translated into English by the name ''The Comet'', Vol.III Poetry collection- ''Sahasrabdik Chaupar Par'', Vol.IV- Short Story Collection- ''Galp Guchh'', Vol.V- Play- ''Sankarshan'', Vol.VI- two long

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film with heroic elements Epic or EPIC may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and medi ...

-verses ''(geet prabandh)'' ''Tvanchahanch'' and ''Asanjati Man'', Vol-VII- Children's literature- grown-ups literature- ''Balmandali-Kishor Jagat''). Thereafter his transcribed ''11000 palm-leaf inscriptions'' were published in a single volume with an explanatory introduction as “Genome Mapping −450 AD to 2009 AD- Mithilak Panji Prabandh”.; later its sequel "Geneological Mapping-450 AD to 2009 AD- Mithilak Panji Prabandh vol.II" was released. He also compiled "Maithili-English Dictionary" and "English Maithili Dictionary". The English-Maithili Dictionary was particularly notable as it included computer terminology, so far unavailable in any other dictionary. He is editor of ''Videha'', a fortnightly Maithili e-journal. Traditional Mithilakshar, i.e.,

Tirhuta The Tirhuta or Maithili script is the primary historical script for the Maithili language, as well as one of the historical scripts for Sanskrit. It is believed to have originated in the 10th century CE. It is very similar to Bengali–Assam ...

Script of

: He was pioneer in standardisation of Mithilakshar script. The Unicode encoding applicant (now the ISO has approved encoding of Tirhuta as Unicode) has acknowledged his contribution. and has included in the references as well.Pandey, Anshuman, (2009
an Encoding for the Maithili Script in ISO/IEC 10646; Anshuman Pandey''
University of Michigan; Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.;30 September 2009;ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2 N3765; L2/09-329; 30 September 2009 "7.references/ acknowledgement; Thakur, Gajendra. 2009. "Videha", a fortnightly Maithili e-journal. http://www.videha.co.in/" He has also translated from Maithili into English. He has translated poems and stories into Maithili from Kannada (Of Ashok Hegde), Telugu (of N. Aruna, Sheikh Muhammad Sharif, Annavaran Devender), Oriya (of Basudev Sunani, Bharat Majhi) and Gujarati (of Babu Suthar, Ajay Sarvaiyya, Rajendra Patel, Hemang Ashwin Kumar Desai) through English. He is a member of Maithili Lekhak Sangh, the organisation of authors of Maithili.

Major works

; Edited Works English-Maithili

Dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies ...

Maithili-English Dictionary Genome Mapping- 450 AD to 2009 AD- Mithilak

Panjis Panjis or Panji Prabandh are extensive genealogical records maintained among the Maithil Kayasthas and Maithil Brahmins of the Mithila (region), Mithila region similar to the Hindu genealogy registers at Haridwar. Utility The Panjis have enormous v ...

Prabandh: (11000 palm leaf manuscripts containing genealogical records) Videha:sadeha:1 Devanagari Videha:Sadeha:1: Tirhuta Videha:Sadeha:2: Videha Prabandh-Nibandh-Samalochna Videha:Sadeha:3: Videha Katha Videha:Sadeha:4: Videha Padya Videha:Sadeha:5: Videha Maithili Vihani katha (Videha Maithili Seed Stories) Videha:Sadeha:6: Videha Maithili Laghu katha (Videha Maithili Short Stories) Videha:Sadeha:7: Videha Maithili Padya (Videha Maithili Verse) Videha:Sadeha:8: Videha Maithili Natya Utsav (Videha Maithili Stage and Drama) Videha:Sadeha:9: Videha Maithili Shishu Utsav (Videha Maithili Children Literature) Videha:Sadeha:10: Videha Maithili Prabandha-Nibandha-Samalochna (Videha Maithili Research Papers/Essays/Criticism) Braille Maithili: (his novel Sahasrabadhani- Ist Maithili book in

Braille Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are Blindness, blind, Deafblindness, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on Paper embossing, embossed paper ...

). 222 issues of Videha Ist Maithili Fortnightly e Magazine- '' ; Authored KurukShetram Antarmanak- a seven volume work in Maithili Language:- ; Work in Translation His works are available in translation. His works have been translated into English ( 1.Maithili Novel ''Sahasrabadhani'' as "The comet" and 2.Maithili collection of poems ''Sahasrabdik Chaupar Par'' as "On the Dice-board of the Millennium". The readers of English translations of Maithili Novel "sahasrabadhani" and verse collection "sahasrabdik chaupar par" has intimated that the English translation has not been able to grasp the nuances of original Maithili. Therefore, the Author has started translating his Maithili works in English himself. After these translations are complete these would be the official translations authorised by the Author of original work) and others (Some Maithili short-stories as "The Science of Words" by the author himself). His novel ''Sahasrabadhani'' has been translated into

Konkani Language Konkani () is an Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Konkani people, primarily in the Konkan region, along the western coast of India. It is one of the 22 scheduled languages mentioned in the Indian Constitution, and the official language of ...

(by Seby Fernandes),

Tulu language Tulu () in Kannada script, ml, ത‍ുള‍ു ഭാഷെ in Malayalam script. ''bhāṣe'', , ''bhāśe'', and ''bāśe'' are alternative spellings for the Tulu word ''bāse'' in the Kannada script. The correct spelling for the word ...

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

(Pramila B.J. Alva),

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

and

Marathi Language Marathi (; ''Marāṭhī'', ) is an Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by Marathi people in the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the official language of Maharashtra, and additional official language in the state o ...

. His short-story collection "Galp Guchchh" has been translated into Sanskrit. Some of his stories have been translated into

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

by Subhash Chandra Yadav and Vinit Utpal. ; Some of his recent works: ''Ulkamukh'', play about the caste system ''Prabandh-Nibandh-Samalochna'' vol.II, (a collection of research papers/ essays/ criticism ); ''Dhangi Baat Banebaak Daam Agoobaar Pene Chan'', (a collection of Maithili Ghazal/ Rubai/ Kata ); Shabdshastram: (a collection of Maithili short-stories ); Jalodip: (three Maithili Children Plays ); Naarashanshi: (thought in verse ); Sahasrajit: (anthology of poems ); Aksharmushtika: (Children short stories ); Bangak Bangaura: (Children songs ); Genealogical Mapping:vol.II (transliteration/ decipherment of ancient age-old manuscripts ); Jagdish Prasad Mandal: Ekta Biography (Biography of Sh. Jagdish Prasad Mandal ).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thakur, Gajendra Maithili writers 20th-century Indian translators Indian male poets 20th-century Indian historians Writers of Mithila Maithili poets Indian editors Poets from Bihar People from Madhubani, India 1971 births Historians of India Living people People from Bhagalpur

Literary activity

Major works

See also

References