Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, one of the most celebrated Hindi novelists and great historians was born on August 19, 1907. He penned numerous novels, historical research on medieval religious movements of India especially Kabir and Natha Sampradaya.
Dwivedi belonged to the post-Acharya Shukla phase of the history of Hindi literature. He was a scholarly person who mastered many languages and was well acquainted with their literature such as Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit, Apabramsa, and Hindi. He was also well versed in Gujarati and Punjabi. Through his knowledge of English, he learned the classics of ancient Greece and also Western philosophy.
To qualify his Acharya degree in astrology as well as Shastri’s degree in Sanskrit, he had studied Jyotisha and Sanskrit at a traditional school. He had written a variety of novels, numerous essays had done many historical pieces of research on the medieval spiritual movements of India particularly the Kabir and Natha Sampradaya.
In 1957, Hazari Prasad Dwivedi was honored with ‘Padma Bhushan’. In 1960 he joined as the Professor and Head of the Department of Hindi of Punjab University, Chandigarh. Few years before his retirement, he again joined Banaras Hindu University as its Rector. In1973, he was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for his collection of essays Alok Parva. He was conferred with a D.Litt. by Lucknow University. He was chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Hindi Academy, till his death in Lucknow.