N. Kumaran Asan, also known as Mahakavi Kumaran Asan, was one of the triumvirate poets of Kerala, South India. He was also a philosopher, a social reformer and a disciple of Sree Narayana Guru.
Kumaran Asan was one of the makers of modern India. Born in a community condemned for centuries to untouchability, he fought against the inequities of a caste ridden society and passionately sang of individual dignity, social freedom and the brotherhood of man. Kumaran Asan was born on the 12th of April 1873 at Kayikkara, a small coastal village in Kerala. His boyhood was spent in learning Malayalam and Sanskrit, and after his contact with Sri Narayan Guru, the greatest Social Reformer of modern Kerala, he took to an intesive study of Hindu religious philosophy. This was followed by a strenous study of Hindu and Buddist philosophy and Sanskrit Literature, over a period of five years spent in Bangalore, Madras and Calcutta. It was at this time that he was also introduced to English language and literature with ehich he became closely acquainted. After his return to Kerala he plunged into the task of organising the S.N.D.P. Yogam for the allround uplift of the Eazhava community.
He married in his 45th year and settled down at Thonakkal. A boat accident on the 16th of January 1924, tok away his life at its prime. Asan's mature works include the ode, "The Fallen Flower", te elegy "The Lament", the monologue "The Meditations of Seeta", and the narrative poems "Nalini", "Leela", the "Tragic Plight", "The Outcaste Nun" and "Compassion". The Fallen Flower delineats, unde the symbolism of the flower, the vicissitudes of Human Life and the essential tragedy at the core of existence. "The Mediatation of Seeta" is an attemp to probe the whole gamut of the emotions of Seeta as she reviewed her past in the solitude occasioned by the departure of her sons to participate in Sri Rama's Ashwamegha Yaga.
While "Nalini" and "Leela" deal with the tragedy of young love, the "Outcaste Nun" and "Compassion" have Buddhist legends for there themes. Steeped in the ancient Hindu and Buddhist lore, he explored the essence of Idian thought, and came to his own vision of life, a vision which is essential tragic. Life is transient and darkened by man's cruelty to man; but life at its best is irradiated with love even under the shadow of sorrow and death; in fact love is the primal force that animates the whole universe. This vision he embodied in forms of rare freshness and power. In the face of the imitative stuff of the neo-classical poets, he asserted the primacy of individual imagination and in more ways than one symbolised the conciousness of modern Kerala.
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