Rāmprasād Sen
18th century · Hālisahar, Bengal · Śākta
Rāmprasād Sen of Hālisahar, near Kolkata, is the great poet-saint of the Goddess Kālī in Bengal. His Śyāmāsaṅgīt songs speak to Kālī as a child speaks to a mother — pleading, teasing, complaining and trusting — and created a style of devotional song, “Rāmprasādī”, still sung in every Bengali home and at Kālī Pūjā.
Tradition says he worked as a clerk in Kolkata and filled his account book with songs to the Mother; his employer, moved, sent him home with a stipend. Raja Kṛṣṇacandra of Nadia became his patron.
Tradition says that while Rāmprasād was mending a fence, a young girl helped him pass the ropes back and forth. Later he realised his own daughter had been elsewhere — and he believed the Mother herself had come to help him.
Bengal · Śyāmāsaṅgīt · Devotee of Kālī