Pandit Shardha Ram Phillauri

Shardha Ram was born at Phillaur in the Jalandhar district of Punjab into a Brahmana family and learned Sanskrit, the shastras and astrology from a young age. He became a popular kathavachak, telling the Ramayana and Mahabharata to large gatherings across Punjab, and he wrote on Sanatana Dharma in Hindi and Punjabi at a time when both languages were finding their modern prose. Accounts of his life say that his kathas, which spoke against foreign rule, brought him into trouble with the British authorities, and that he defended Sanatana Dharma in public debate. His novel “Bhagyavati” (1877), about the education and good sense of a young wife, is counted among the first novels in Hindi. He also wrote “Satyamrit Pravah” on dharma and a history of the Sikhs in Punjabi. Around 1870 he composed the aarti “Om Jai Jagdish Hare”, which has since become the aarti sung in more Hindu homes than any other. Its plain Hindi and easy refrain carried it out of Punjab into printed puja books in every region. He died in 1881, in his early forties. His birthplace remembers him as the author of the aarti.