The Works of Narmadashankar Lalshankar Dave (1833 – 1886), popularly known as Narmad, consist essays, poems, plays and other prose were published in collections by Gujarati. He is considered as the founder of modern Gujarati literature.[1][2][3]
He introduced many creative forms of writing in Gujarati. He wrote pioneering work in such forms as autobiography, poetry, lexicography, historical plays and research in folk literature. He was also an outspoken journalist and a pamphleteer. Narmad was a strong opponent of religious fanaticism and orthodoxy. He promoted nationalism and patriotism with famous songs like Sahu Chalo Jeetva Jang, wrote about self-government and talked about one national language, Hundustani, for all of India, nearly five decades before Mahatma Gandhi or Nehru. He wrote a poem Jai Jai Garavi Gujarat in which he listed with a sense of pride all the cultural symbols that go into constituting the Gujarati identity. These symbols include even the things non-Hindu, implying that Gujarat belongs to all the castes, communities, races, religions and sects that inhabit Gujarat. The poem is now state song of Gujarat. Mahatma Gandhi had acknowledged him for his philosophy of nonviolence.[1][4][5][6][7][8]
His major collected works are Narmagadya (Gujarati: નર્મગદ્ય), collection of essays; Narmakavita (Gujarati: નર્મકવિતા), collection of poems; Narmakathakosh (Gujarati: નર્મકથાકોશ), collection of stories of characters of mythological literature and Narmakosh (Gujarati: નર્મકોશ), dictionary. His Mari Hakikat, the first autobiography in Gujarati,[A] was published posthumously.[B]
{{cite book}}
: |website=
ignored (help)
Cite error: There are <ref group=upper-alpha>
tags or {{efn-ua}}
templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=upper-alpha}}
template or {{notelist-ua}}
template (see the help page).