Zinda Kaul (1884–1965) was an Indian

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

, writer and teacher. He composed in Persian, Hindi, Urdu and

Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...

. Kaul also translated works of Kashmiri into English, Persian and Hindi.

Personal life

Zinda Kaul was also known as ''MasterJi'' by his students and friends. Kaul was born on August 1884 in Habbakadal, a city in Srinagar into a

Kashmiri Pandit The Kashmiri Pandits (also known as Kashmiri Brahmins) are a group of Kashmiri Hindus and a part of the larger Saraswat Brahmin community of India. They belong to the Pancha Gauda Brahmin group from the Kashmir Valley, a mountainous region l ...

family. His father, Lakshman Pandit, was indifferent to his formal education and Kaul had to face many difficulties in his life. He was a school teacher for a long time. After that, he worked as a clerk. In 1939, Kaul retired from the Publicity office of Kashmir as a translator.

Death

He died in Jammu in the winter of 1965.

Literary work

Zinda Kaul was the first Kashmiri poet to win the

Sahitya Academy award The Sahitya Akademi Award is a literary honour in India, which the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, annually confers on writers of the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the 22 languages of the ...

in 1956, for his book of poetry compilations ''Sumran''. It was first published in Devanagari, and later the government had it printed in the Persio-Arabic script. The

Sahitya Academy The Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of literature in the languages of India. Founded on 12 March 1954, it is supported by, though independent of, the Indian government. Its of ...

of India gave Kaul an award of five thousand rupees for this book. Kaul initially wrote in Persian, Hindi, and Urdu. His first poem was ''Unity and Sympathy'', written in 1896 and recited it at the Sanatan Dharm Sabha meeting in Srinagar. Masterji started writing in Kashmiri in 1942. In his Kashmiri poetry, he has written primarily on devotion, philosophy and peace. Masterji's poetry has been published in all these four languages. However, he made his name by writing in Kashmiri. Kaul composed poetry only for his own pleasure. Critics say that his poems in Kashmiri were better than those in Hindi and Urdu.

Translations

Zinda Kaul translated the works of the mystic Kashmiri writer and poet Nand Ram Parmanand into English, in three volumes.

Award

* Sahitya Academy Award for Kashmiri literature (1956), for ''Sumran''.

Notes and references

External links

Zinda Kaul
by

Braj Kachru Braj Bihari Kachru (15 May 1932 – 29 July 2016) was an Indian-American linguist. He was Jubilee Professor of Linguistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He published studies on the Kashmiri language. Personal life Braj ...

Sumeran (Master Zinda Kaul)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaul, Zinda Kashmiri people Kashmiri poets Kashmiri Hindus Kashmiri Pandits 1884 births 1965 deaths Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Kashmiri 20th-century Indian poets Poets in British India