Ganpati Kayasth was a notable poet in Rajasthani Literature. He was popular as a love poet and has amply contributed to the realm of secular love poetry which had emerged in the medieval age. Ganpati Kayasth was the son of Narasa. One of his notable poems which stand as a unique example of secular love poetry or laukik is Madhavanal Kamkandala Prabandh.
Madhavanal Kamkandala Prabandh is in epic style. The tale of Madhavanal and Kamkandala is linked with the Vikram cycle of stories of love and romance. The story of this poem, in brief, is as follows. Madhav, a Brahmin as handsome as the god of love, lived in Puspawati, where Govindcandra ruled. His principal queen, Rudra Mahadevi, solicited Madhav`s love in vain. The angry queen had him exiled. The men beseeched King Raycand to get rid of Madhav. The poem progresses in such a manner that King Vikram was mortified to think that he had been instrumental in causing the death of these lovers, one of whom was a brahmin and the other a damsel of divine beauty. His ghost friend Vaital came to his rescue and restored both the lovers to life. Vikram had them married and the couple lived happily thereafter.
The poem is significant from several points of view. Instead of invoking Goddess Saraswati or Ganes", as was usual with poets, Ganpati Kayasth hails Kamdev, the god of Love and Beauty in the mangalacharan. Expression of grief due to separation from the beloved has a style of its own in as much as it has been done in the regulated style of a barah masa. The third notable point is that in other such poems the beauty of the heroine alone is described.
In this poem, the charms and beauty of both the heroine and hero have been described at length. Description of both the aspects of Sringar, sanyog and viyog, is another feature of the book. The sixth anga dealing with Kamkandala`s agony of separation is remarkable. The love between the hero and the heroine is an ideal one. The samasya-prahelikas have been introduced at three places as teasers of the intellect of the hero and the heroine. Such a writing literary style was a literary feature of the medieval period. The poem contains ample material about the domestic chores, social customs and traditions, religious beliefs, courts, pranks of courtiers and the urban life. The poet has also given in brief stories of the previous births of Madhav and Kamkandala. The language of the poem is Maru-Gurjar.
This particular style attracted many other poets. There were two main reasons for this. Firstly, the tradition and the story include familiar erotic feelings of the lovers in their separation as well as in union. Secondly, the linking of the story to the familiar hero of medieval anecdotes, like Vikramaditya.
Ganpati Kayasth was thus such a poet who had influenced many other poets of Rajasthan and as a result they had started following his unique style of writing.
