Shardha Ram Phillauri

Shardha Ram Phillauri (Punjabi pronunciation:  ; September 1837 – 24 June 1881) was an Indian writer, poet and social reformer who is remembered for his contributions to Hindi and Punjabi literature. He is best known for his Hindu religious hymn Om Jai Jagdish Hare and Bhagyawati, one of the first novels in Hindi. Phillauri has also been called the "father of modern Punjabi prose." Born in Phillaur, he visited cities across Punjab and died in Lahore in 1881. Shardha Ram was born in 1837 to a Punjabi Hindu Brahmin family in the town of Phillaur in the Sikh Empire under the reign of Ranjit Singh. His father, Jai Dyalu, was an astrologer. Their gotra was Moudgil. He did not have any formal education as such. By age ten, he had studied Hindi, Sanskrit, Persian, astrology, and music. Later, he was also a missionary of traditional Hinduism (Sanatana dharma).