Kavikarnapur

Kavikarnapur (16th century) Vaisnava pundit and Sanskrit poet, born in Kanchrapara, Naihati, son of Sivananda Sen, a poet and disciple of sri chaitanya. His real name was Paramananda Sen.

Kavikarnapur inherited his father's poetic skill from childhood. It is said that at the age of seven he composed a shloka describing the earrings of the milkmaids of Brajabhumi in just one couplet. Delighted at his genius, Chaitanya called him 'Kavikarnapur' (ear ornament of the poets). Srinath, a favourite of Chaitanya, was his guru. In 1542, nine years after the death of Chaitanya, Kavikarnapur wrote an epic entitled chaitanya charitamrita, based on the life of Chaitanya, in sanskrit. He subsequently wrote a ten-act allegorical drama named chaitanyachandrodaya, where abstract ideas such as devotion, irreligiousness etc are portrayed as characters. Since Kavikarnapur was close to Chaitanya, his writings are considered to be fairly authentic. His other writings include Gauraganoddeshadipika (1576), which describes the role of the followers of Chaitanya, Alabkarakaustubha, a book on alabkara, or rhetoric, and Anandavrndavanachampu, a poem consisting of 22 stanzas. [Kanailal Ray]