PREFACE -  The readers of this book may naturally be eager to know something about the celebrated author. The author does not require any introduction, but I feel it necessary to say a few words about him. Kedamath, who was subsequently known for his pre-eminence in the Vaishnava World as Thakur Bhakti Vinode, was born in 1838 in a well-known landed aristrocratic family who were the owners of Govindpur,
 
the present site of Fort William of Calcutta. Kedarnath in his fourteenth year was admitted in a Hindu Charitable Institution in Calcutta where he studied for four years during which period he began to write and compose articles and poems in English.
 
During these days, Kedarnath used to write articles for “Hindu intelligence”, a very famous newspaper edited by his relation Kaliprasad Ghosh, a well-known person in the learned society of Calcutta. He studied the works of Addison and Edward Young under Rev. Greaves. He studied the works of Carlyle, William Hazlitt, Jeffery, Macaulay and published his many English poems in the Library Gazette. Mrs. Locke admired very much his poem “Poriyed”.
 
Kedarnath entered the Hindu School as a student of the first class in 1856 when the university of Calcutta was just established. The late Mr. Satyendranath Tagore, the first Indian I.C.S. brother of the poet Rabindra Nath Tagore, Ganendra Nath Tagore and Kesava Sen, afterwards the famous Brahma Samaj leaders were his school friends.
 
Kedarnath wrote his first part of his English book “Poriyed” in 1856. He soon published his two other volumes. Rev. Duff highly praised it and asked him to compose such poems dealing with the Zamindars’ oppression and torture of their tenants. He came in close contact with Rev. duff and Mr. George Thompson who taught him how to become an effective orator. Mr. Thompson told him that he used to deliver lectures to the corn fields on his way from his house to the Parliament.
 
He was the most intimate friend of Dwijendra Nath Tagore, elder brother of his class friend Satyendra Nath Tagore. He studied the works of Kant, Goethe, Hizel, Swedenburg, Schopenhuer, Hume Voltaire and others with Dwijendra Nath. At that time Kedarnath used to lecture in the literary meetings. His friend Sir Tarak Nath Palit who bore all expenses for the establishment of Science College,
 
Calcutta persuaded him to lecture before the British Indian society of pro-British Zamindars of Bengal which many Europeans attended. At the next meeting of the said society he read his dramatic rendering of Vital Pancha Vingsati which was followed by a heated discussion.