Anantadas

(late 16th c.) Poet and hagiographer
who wrote “introductions” (parchais)
for some of the best-known northern
Indian devotional (bhakti) poet-saints,
among them Ravidas, Kabir, Namdev,
Trilochan, Angada, and Pipa. His era
can be fixed with reasonable assurance
since Anantadas himself gives 1588 C.E.
as the date of composition for his
Namdev Parchai. Anantadas was contemporary with another famous
hagiographer, Nabhadas, whom
Anantadas names as a “guru brother”
to his own guru, making Nabhadas a
“spiritual uncle” of Anantadas.
Although both hagiographers provide
valuable information, the descriptions
36
Anandamayi Ma
by Nabhadas are quite brief, whereas
Anantadas gives extended information
about his subjects. Anantadas’s works
are by far the earliest detailed accounts
of these literary figures, although the
marvelous events included in the
introductions render them suspect as
historical sources. Because his collected works have never been published,
he remains virtually unknown. For further information see David Lorenzen,
Kabir Legends and Ananta-Das’s Kabir
Parachai, 1991; and Winand Callewaert
and Peter G. Friedlander (trans.), The
Life and Works of Raidas, 1992.