Kashiram Das
medieval Bengali poet
Kashiram Das or Kāśīrām Dās (Bengali: কাশীরাম দাস, pronounced [ka.ʃi.raˑm d̪aˑʃ]; born 16th century) is an important poet in medieval Bengali literature. His Bengali re-telling of the Mahābhārata, known as Kāśīdāsī Môhābhārôt, is a popular and influential version of the Mahābhārata legend in Bengal. Although the entire work is intra-textually ascribed to him, most scholars agree that he composed only the first four of the eighteen books (parvas). As with the Rāmāyaṇa of Kṛttibās Ojhā, Kāśīrām freely removed elements and added other legends to the story. Dās is not a last name and is a title meaning 'servant' of god.
Life
Kashiram Das was born into a Bengali Kayastha Vaishnava family in the village of Singi, near Choto Meigachi, adjacent to Katwa in the undivided Bardhaman district (Now Purba Bardhaman). His death anniversary is still commemorated in the region. Kashiram was the second son of Kamalakanta Das; two of his brothers were noted poets on their own, in the Vaishnava Padavali tradition.
His elder brother Ghanashyam Das, is the author of Srikrishnavilas, and his younger brother, Gadadhar, composed Jagannathamangal. Although Kashiram's topic was outside the mainstream Krishna legend, his work is stylistically in the same tradition and uses the payar chhanda (payar metre).
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6374348. VIAF identifies the subject as 25145911192827062998. None of the 2 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kashiram Das” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.