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History

Surdas

1-Surdas was a 14th-century blind saint, poet and musician.

2- The poet was known for his devotional songs dedicated to Lord Srikrishna.

3- Surdas is learned to have written and composed a hundred thousand songs in his book named ‘The Sur Sagar’ (Ocean of Melody.)

4- The saint is considered a saguna bhakti poet and also known as Sant Surdas, a name which literally means the ‘servant of melody or expert of melody.’

5- The most famous work of Surdas was ‘Charan kamal bando hari rai’, which means I pray to the lotus feet of Shree Hari.

6- His birth and death periods are confusing. According to some scholars, they are believing it to be 1478 AD, with others claiming it to be 1479 AD as far as birthday is concerned.

7- In the case of the year of his death; it is considered to be either 1581 AD or 1584 AD.

8- There are reports that Surdas was born in 1478/79 in the village of Runakta,M thura although some say it was Runkta near Agra.

9-He was born in a Saraswat Brahmin family. His father’s name was Pandit Ramdas Sarswat.

10- As Surdas was born blind, he was neglected by his family.

11- This made Surdas to leave his home at the age of six.

12- According to the reports, the blind saint started living on the banks of Yamuna river (Gaughat).

13-One day in a pilgrimage to Vrindavan, Surdas met Shri Vallabhacharya & became his disciple.

14- He died in 1583/1584 near Parsouli village in Mathura.(period varies from source to source)

15- There is a saying that in one incident, Surdas falls into a well and is rescued by Lord Krishna when he calls him for help.

16-Surdas was called as the Sun in the sky of Hindi literature.

17- The poet is known for his composition ‘Sursagar’. This famous collection originally contained 100,000 songs. According to the sources only 8,000 remain today.

18- These songs present a vivid description of the childhood and brightness of Lord Shrikrishna.

19-He also composed Sur-Saravali (which is based on the theory of genesis and the festival of Holi), and Sahitya-Lahiri, devotional lyrics dedicated to the Supreme Absolute.

20-Surdas’ poetry was a dialect of Hindi language, Braj Bhasha, until then considered to be a very plebeian language.

21-Surdas being disciple of guru Vallabhacharya was a proponent of the Shuddhadvaita school of Vaishnavism (also known as Pushti Marg).

22-Eight Disciples of the Master-Teacher Vallabhacharya are called the Ashta-chhaap, meaning, eight reprints (of the Master). Surdas is considered to be the foremost among them

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