Siddhidas Mahaju

Career

After a brief time in government service in 1886, Mahaju took over his family’s cloth shop. His frequent trips to Kolkata for supplies let him explore libraries and bookstores. Back in Kathmandu, he focused on writing poetry rather than running the business, which suffered. Struggling financially, he moved to Birgunj to work as a freight forwarder for a trader.

When that work ended, he returned to Kathmandu, where his money troubles deepened. In 1927, he found work as an assistant in a medicine shop. Plagued by poor health and an unhappy home life, he spent his final days with his sister and died at Pashupati.

Works

Mahaju wrote more than 44 books of poetry, epics, short stories and essays. Sajjan Hridayabharan, a book of poems on morals, was the only one published during his lifetime. It was published from Bettiah, India in 1920.

Mahaju composed Siddhi Ramayana, a translation of the epic Ramayana in Nepal Bhasa, in 1913. It was published by Thaunkanhe Prakashan in 2010. Other notable works include Satyasati (an epic on female education and considered to be his best work, written in 1913) and Siddhi Vyakaran (a grammar of Nepal Bhasa, written in 1927).

Did You Know?

• Mahaju was born in Kel Tol, Kathmandu to father Laxmi Narayan and mother Harsha Laxmi.
• He married Ganga Devi at an early age.
• A commemorative postage stamp of Mahaju was issued by the Postal Service Department of Nepal in 1980.
• A statue of Mahaju was erected in Hetauda in 2006, and another at Ratnapark, Kathmandu on September 29, 2015.