- Lived:
- birth and death years unknown — a working life placed around 1440–1470 from the Gajapati world his verses describe; born Siddheśvara Parīḍā in the village of Kanakavati Patana (Kanakpur), near Jhankad in coastal Odisha's Jagatsinghpur district, and so far as we know he never left that countryside
- Field:
- poetry — the Ādikavi, "first poet," of Odia; author of the Sarala Mahābhārata, the Vilaṅkā Rāmāyaṇa and the Chaṇḍī Purāṇa
- The Big Idea:
- A farmer with no Sanskrit schooling retold — not translated — the Mahābhārata in village Odia, all eighteen books, and a language that had never had a literature began with a masterpiece.
- In their words:
- "Śūdramuni Sarala Dāsa" — the signature he set into his own verses: the śūdra sage, servant of the goddess Sāralā. Caste stated as credential, not apology.
- If you remember one thing:
- Every other founding poet in this book so far worked for a court. Sarala worked a field — and the Mahābhārata he made there, reimagined village by village, is still being sung in the villages he made it for.