Upendra Bhanja - Kavyas

Kavyas

Upendra Bhanja wrote some 52 books of which only 20 or 25 are available now. Due to the absence of a printing press, many of the hand-copied books have been lost. Some of his eminent Kavyas are Baideheesha Bilasha (with "Ba" initial for each line), Rasalila, Brajaleela, Subhadra Parinaya(with "Sa" initial for every line), Lavanyabati, Premasudhanidhi, Rasikaharabali, Subhadra-Parinya and Chitrakavya-Bondodhya Labanyabati, Koti Brahmanda Sundari, Kala Koutuka (with "Ka" initial for every line), Satisha bilasa" (with initial 'sa' initials every line), "Damayanti BiLasa" (with 'da' initial each line) and "Padmabati Parinaya" (starts with 'pa') etc.

The first published work of Upendra Bhanja is "Rasapanchaka". The first dictionary "Geeta Abidhan" was written by Upendra Bhanja in Oriya literature. Kavi Samrat is not the title of Upendra Bhanja. He was rather entitled as "Bira Bara" as admitted by Upendra Bhanja in his kavyas such as Baidehisabilas,Subhadra Parinya, etc. Kavi Samrat, the title is found in the early part of 19th century in a book written by Mahendra Patnaik. Upendra Bhanja contributed 32,300 words to Oriya language and literature.The obscurity of upendra bhanj, an incomparable poet of Oriya literature, may be attributed to the lack of proper research. Plot and character in Bhanja literature plays negligible role but imaginary ornamental expression by way of literary techniques of the classical Indian literature dominates with magnetic, lovable, intellectual manner. So study of Upendra Bhanja requires high academic pursuits as well as sensible appreciation of art and literary value of the reader along with wide study range in the field of classical Indian literature and appreciable order of morality and spiritual thought. So for Upendra Bhanja, plot and character are not important but momentous feeling influences the character as well as the plot in the structural poetic forms and techniques with explosive reason and emotion in a way of synthetic, stylistic approach in almost all aspects of his expression through Oriya language, literature, culture, socio-cultural behaviour, with high moral order and thoughts of superior human being. On the other hand his writings are being popularised by the commoners because of sensible, emotional touch with sympathetic unusual feelings of the human kind in the context of aesthetic sense and sensibility along with love and lovability of the mankind as experienced through the ages of time together.Strangely,without any deep appreciation of human value and literary appreciation with standard principles of study literature as prescribed in the research methodology and literary criticism with reference to classical Indian poetics, the poet Upendra Bhanja is being misunderstood by some pseudo critics/scholars and writers with biased opinions and unscrupulous baseless manners.

The first Phd. Thesis was submitted by Dr.Satyanarayan Acharya,The First Researcher on Upendra Bhanja,in the year 1978 under UGC sponsorship.