Page:The Sikh Religion, its gurus, sacred writings and authors Vol 6.djvu/12

4 concealed themselves. The era in which Chidghan flourished has not been accurately ascertained.

Mahipati was born in 1715 at Taharabad, in the Rahruri subdivision, about thirty-five miles from Ahmadnagar in the Bombay Presidency. He wrote the lives of saints in the Marathi language. His authorities were principally Nabhaji and Uddava Chidghan. He has himself given the Shaka year 1696 ( 1774) as the date of the completion of his Bhakta Lilamrita. He died in 1790.

Maharaja Raghuraj Sinh, son of Maharaja Viswanath Sinh of the Baghel dynasty, chief of the Rewa state, was born in 1823, and died in 1880. He inherited his literary talents from his father, who wrote a paraphrase of Kabir's Bijak, and about fifty tracts on Hindu religion, philosophy, and literature. Maharaja Raghuraj Sinh was one of the most renowned Hindi poets of his time, and he was also a most generous patron of the many Hindi and Sanskrit scholars who flocked to his court. In religion he was a strict adherent of Vaishnav tenets.

We shall attempt to give the Lives and Writings of the Bhagats in chronological order.

were two distinguished men called Jaidev, whose lives and acts are frequently confounded in Indian chronicles and biographies. One was a metaphysician and scholar who is said to have lived at the court of Vikramaditya. It is related of him that when a boy at school he was able to learn in a day as much as his schoolfellows could in a fortnight. Hence he was called Pakshadhar Misra. It is not with him we are at present concerned.

The Jaidev whose hymns are found in the Granth Sahib is the celebrated Sanskrit poet who wrote