Hazari Prasad Dwivedi

Who was Hazari Prasad Dwivedi?

Hazari Prasad Dwivedi was a Hindi novelist, literary historian, essayist, critic and scholar. He penned numerous novels, collections of essays, historical research on medieval religious movements of India especially Kabir and Natha Sampradaya, and historical outlines of Hindi literature.

Besides Hindi, he was master of many languages including Sanskrit, Bengali, Punjabi, Gujarati as well as Pali, Prakrit, and Apabhramsa.

Steeped in traditional knowledge of Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit, and modern Indian languages, Dwivedi was destined to be the great bridge maker between the past and the present. As a student of Sanskrit, steeped in the Sastras, he gave a new evaluation to Sahitya-sastra and he can rightly be considered as a great commentator on the textual tradition of the Indian literature.

He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1957 for his contribution to Hindi literature, and the 1973 Sahitya Akademi Award for his collection of essays, 'Alok Parva'.