Daulat Qazi

Daulat Qazi (c 1600-1638) medieval Bangla poet, believed to have been born into a Qazi family in the village of Sultanpur in Rauzan, chittagong. As his patronymic suggests, he was an educated person. Not getting any recognition at home, he left for Arakan, where he seems to have been received warmly. He was appointed a court poet of King Sri Sudharma (Thiri-thu-Dhamma, 1622-1638) for whom he composed the poem Sat'i'mayn'a' O Lorchandr'a'n'i. He was able to complete only two-thirds of the poem before he died. alaol completed the rest of the poem in 1659.

Satimayna O Lorchandran'i is a romantic narrative poem about the love of a feudal prince and princess. It is believed that the poet was influenced by two Hindi poems: Main'a'sat by Mian Sadhan and Ch'a'nd'a'in by Molla Daud. The Hindi poems, however, have a deeper spiritual meaning which is absent in Daulat Qazi';s poem about human love. Daulat Qazi';s genius is revealed in his measured verses and the beauty and charm of his descriptions.

A Sufi by faith, Daulat Qazi skillfully used in his poem the ramayana, the mahabharata, the epics of kalidasa and jaydev, as well as Vaishnava lyrics and folk tales. His language draws from the vocabulary of Arabic, Persian, Magh, Arakanese, Burmese, Sanskrit and the dialects of the Chittagong region. [Amrita Lal Bala] [Bala, Amrita Lal  Department of Bangla, Rajshahi University]