Krsna the Cruel Beloved: Harishchandra and Urdu

 Krsna the Cruel Beloved: Hariscandra and Urdu 1 I "B"  (-) of Banaras has been viewed in India as the "father of modern standard Hindi" because of his landmark works in prose; Hari…candra's enormous poetic output, however, was largely in Brajb^≥Ω≥, the courtly North Indian literary language which developed out of the V∞nd≥van-based K∞Ωøa-ite devotional (b^akti) poetry of S∑rd≥s and others in the sixteenth century.Born into a wealthy and devout VaiΩøava Agarwal family, Hari…candra received poetic training at home in Brajb^≥Ω≥ and Sanskrit, and learned Persian, Urdu, and English under private tutors. 2 Hari…candra was a facile and copious writer in Hindi, Brajb^≥Ω≥, and Urdu; he produced several pieces in Sanskrit, Bengali and English as well.Although he railed against Urdu as an inaccessible élite medium, 3 the intricacies of which created legal and 1 I wish to thank Christopher Schiff for commenting on an early draft of this paper.Helpful remarks were made by Linda Hess, Frances Pritchett and Martha Selby on a brief conference presentation of part of the material.I am also indebted to Griff Chaussée for his suggestions.2 The biographical information, unless otherwise noted, derives from LakΩmµs≥gar V≥∞Ωøey, B^≥ratendu Hari…candra (Il≥h≥b≥d: S≥hitya B^avan (Pr≥.)Limiªe≈, 