Ramai Pandit

Ramai Pandit (Bengali: রামাই পণ্ডিত Ramai Ponđit, Ramai the Wise was a medieval Bengali poet from the region of Bengal. The exact date of his birth is not known, but some scholars believe that he was born in the later half of the 10th century and also lived in the 11th century AD, as he is a contemporary to Mayur Bhatt, the court-poet of King Lausen. Some scholars believe that he lived in the 13th or 14th century AD. He is famous as the author of Shunya Purana, the scripture of Dharma Puja Bidhan, written in the 11th century AD. The extant Shunya Purana refers to events that occurred in the 15th century. American Sanskrit scholar Edward Washburn Hopkins wrote in his "Origin and Evolution of Religion" in 1923 that, According to a story, Ramai was the son of an unpopular Brahman sage; after his father's death, Ramai was Rama-kathai or Ramavataram Ramapala-charita. According to Ghanaram Chakrabarty's Dharmamangal, he was born in the Baiti caste. According to the traditional accounts preserved by the Bengali Dom caste, as well as Mayur Bhatta's narrative, Ramai Pandit was born to either an unpopular Brahmin family and after having lost his parents at an early age he was brought up by devotees of Dharma Thakur.