English
Krushnacharan Sahoo was born in,He is a teacher and scholar of Odia literature, is widely known for his scholarly work on the Ramayana tradition in Odisha and for showing new traits in medieval Odia literature. He has read Odia literature quite extensively and also medieval Indian literature, particularly Hindi, Bengali and Assamese. His knowledge of Sanskrit classics is also profound. As critic, he has concentrated mostly on ancient and medieval Odia literature and has contributed a number of articles to journals inEnglish, Hindi and Odia. He has five books of criticism and thirteen edited works to his credit.
As critic, Sahoo is original and has exerted a. great influence on his age. His emphasis is not on adherence of classical rules or on tracing the influence of the classics on a particular writer, but on the analysis of a text and in bringing out its literary graces, besides showing the impact of society and culture on it. As a writer with a socialistic vision; he concentrates on the interaction between tradition and culture, His work as an editor of the Palm leaf manuscripts also deserves special mention.
Sahoo’s critical works can be broadly divided into two divisions. One is the study of ancient and
medieval texts in Odia, and the other the editing of manuscripts with scholarly. introductions to the relevant texts. The works belonging to the first group are Literature and Social Life in Medieval Odisha (1971), Kahe Krushna Das kabi (1975),Prachina sabitya (1982), Madhyakalina sahitya (1983) and Kabi Balaram Das(1988). The works which can be assigned to the second group are Dharma gita (1977), Uddhabagita(1977) Charikhani (1978), Rudra-sudhanidhi (1978), Sri Jagannath lilamruta (1978), Srimadbhagvat Gita (1978),Rasa panchadhyayi (1981), Parimala (1982), Gobinda Chandra (1985), Brahmanda bhugola (1985), as also the Mahabharata (1978), Chandi purana (1985) and Jagmohan Ramayana (1980) edited by him.
Literature and Social Life in Medieval Odisha is in English, consisting of eleven papers out of which one is on the Odia dialect spoken in the Singhbhum district of Bihar and the others on the 15th and 16th century Odisha, particularly the social life of this period as portrayed in the two Odia epics, the Mahabharata and Jagamohan Ramayana. In his literary criticism, such as Prachina sahitya and Madhyakalina sahitya, he gives more attention to the presentation of contemporary social life. Thus, his studies on Sarala Das, the Panchasakha writings and Upendra Bhanj, exhibit a mine of information on Odia society, culture and religion.
Rasakallola, a famous 18th century kavya by Dinakrushna Das, has been assessed by him in a different
perspective in Kahe Krushna Das kabi. The work tries to identify the writer and his place in the 18th century Odia as well as the medieval poetic tradition. Prachina sahitya and Madhyakalina sahitya are respectively collections of 19 and 18 papers. While in the former he convicingly argues the date of compositon of some controvenial texts like Sisuveda, Amarakosha and Saptanga, in the latter the discussion is fixed solely on the contemporary socio-cultural and religious conditions, motivating the medieval poet. For the first time in Odia criticism Sahoo has traced the influence of Islam and Sufism also on the medieval Odia poets.
In most of his edited works Sahoo provides long introductions to the texts. While assigning the text to a particular period, he collects the views of earlier scholars. In the introduction to Rudrasudhanidhi, a 16th century text, he has concentrated on style and social ethos.
In his introduction to Rasa panchadhyayi his emphasis is on the art of editing. The long introduction to Sarala Mahabharata gives a detailed account of the differences between the Odia Mahabharata and its original sanskrit, and in the introduction to Jagamohan Ramayana he projects the epic as a comprehensive social document. He considers the characters of the two epics Mahabharata and Ramayana in Odia as the genuine products of a common humanity, unmodified by the customs of a particular place.
Sahoo’s criticism and edited works are original. He avoids a slavish application of the rules of the classics. He never forgets to discuss the language used in a text and sometimes takes the difficult and tiresome task of counting the number of times a particular word is usedin a text as in Kahe Krushna Das kabi. According to him, such usage is not a mere repetition, it shows the poet’s imagination at work. He is distrustful of a critic who, without entering the sense and the soul of an author, follows a few general rules or prescribes a theoretical design while writing about him.
Odia Books By Krushnacharan Sahoo
Kahe Krushna Das kabi
Prachina Sahitya
Madhyakalina sahitya
Charikhani
Parimala
Rasa panchadhyayi
Srimadbhagvat Gita
Chandi purana
Jagmohan Ramayana
