Dhruvswamini

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Jaishankar Prasad is widely considered in India as one of the four pillars and as a proponent of Chhayavad in Hindi literature. Prasad, a profound thinker, reformist, and multifaceted literary talent, published poetry, dramas, stories, and novels in Braj Bhasha, Khadi Boll, and Hindi. This includes his notable works such as Premrajya (1909), Kanan Kurum (1913), Rajyasri (1915), Aansu (1925), Pratidhwani (1926), Skandagupta (1928), Kankal (1929), Chandragupta Maurya (1931). Aandhi (1931), Lahar (1933), Dhruvawamini (1933), Titli (1934), Kamayani (1937), and Inavati (1940).

Jaishankar Prasad was born on 30 January 1889 in a simple but well-to-do Vaishya family.' His father, Babu Devi Prasad, dealt in sugar and tobacco. His grandfather, Shivratan Sahu, was famously known as 'Sunghani Sahu for inventing an additive that, added to a paan, enhanced its taste. Prasad himself was, childhood onwards, interested in languages, literature, history, music, and the Vedas. The family was very religious and often gave donations to local Brahmins, hermits, and people in need. In addition, many musicians, poets and writers also found patrons in the Sahu family. Prominent fiction writer Amritlal Nagar (1916-1990), who became friends with Prasad in 1936, observes that Prasad too continued his family's tradition of durbar (court) and donations:

Prasad was serious by nature. However, he was very adept at extending help to the needy in an extremely unobtrusive manner. Many a time I have seen him at his durbar in Kasi. I remember how people came and asked him for something or the other and he never turned down anyone.

It is said that esteem for his family rivalled that extended to the court of Kashi-Maharaj. Because of their generosity, the family was publicly greeted with a salutation otherwise reserved for Kashi-Maharaj: 'Har Har Mahadev' or 'Jai Shankar

When Prasad was eleven, and in the eighth grade at Queens College, his father passed away. His elder brother, Shubhratan, decided Prasad should leave the college and study English and Sanskrit, including the Vedas and the Upanishads, at home. By the age of fifteen, however, Prasad had also lost his mother; Shubhratan too passed away soon after. At a very young age, Prasad was the man of the house responsible for taking care of the entire extended family and stabilising a debt-ridden business. Prasad was married at twenty, but ten years later his wife died. He married again around thirty, but his second wife too passed away, barely a year into their marriage. After much deliberation, and on the Insistence of his widowed sister-in-law, Prasad married for the third time. This marriage was successful and the couple were blessed with a boy, Ratanshankar. The constant disruptions in his married life and monetary troubles within the family.