Laxmi Prasad Devkota Janma Jayanti

Devkota Jayanti 2083 falls on Kartik 22. That is Sunday, 8 November 2026.

It is the birth anniversary of Mahakavi Laxmi Prasad Devkota, the poet Nepal calls its greatest. Every Nepali who has been to school has read him. Muna Madan is on the syllabus, his lines get quoted in speeches and on posters, and his face is on stamps and statues. He is about as close to a household name as a poet can get in any country.

The day itself is unusual in one respect. Almost every other birth anniversary in Nepal is marked on a fixed Nepali date, the same date every year. This one is not. Devkota was born on the night of Laxmi Puja, the main night of Tihar, and his jayanti is observed on Laxmi Puja rather than on the calendar date he was born on. So it moves with the festival, and every year it lands in a lit-up house somewhere in the middle of Tihar.

His name comes from the same night. He was born on the evening the goddess Laxmi is worshipped, so his parents named him Laxmi Prasad, a gift of Laxmi.

Quick Facts

When Is Devkota Jayanti 2083?

Kartik 22, 2083. That is Sunday, 8 November 2026.

Devkota was born on Kartik 27, 1966 BS. In that particular year, Kartik 27 happened to be the night of Laxmi Puja. Those two things lined up once, in 1966, and they have been drifting apart ever since.

The reason is simple enough. Kartik 27 is a solar date, fixed in the Nepali calendar and landing on roughly the same English date every year. Laxmi Puja is a tithi, tied to the new moon of Kartik, so it moves by a week or more from year to year. Nepal marks the jayanti on the tithi, on Laxmi Puja itself, which means the date changes every time.

So if you are looking for the date, do not look for Kartik 27. Look for Laxmi Puja.

Those two dates sit nineteen days apart in the Nepali calendar, which is a bigger jump than usual. It is the effect of Adhik Jyeshtha Maas, the extra lunar month that fell in 2083 and pushed every festival after it later rather than earlier.

What else falls on that day this year

Kartik 22 in 2083 is a crowded date. It carries Laxmi Puja, and this year it also carries Kukur Tihar and Narak Chaturdashi, because two tithis are compressed into one. It sits inside the Tihar public holiday block as well.

In practice, this means Devkota programmes run in the daytime. By evening, every household in the country has turned to lighting lamps and setting out the puja, and the poet gives way to the goddess he was named after.

His Life

Born into the Rana years

Laxmi Prasad Devkota was born on Kartik 27, 1966 BS, which is 12 November 1909, at Dhobidhara in Kathmandu. His father was Tilmadhav Devkota, his mother was Amar Rajya Laxmi Devi, and he was their third son.

The Nepal he was born into was ruled by the Ranas, and it would stay that way for the first forty-two years of his life. Schooling reached very few people, literacy was low, and what could be written and published in Nepali was watched closely. A writer of that generation was not working in an open field. He was working in a narrow one, for a small readership, under a government that had no particular interest in a literature that spoke to ordinary people.

That is the background against which everything he did should be read.

Education

Devkota studied Sanskrit grammar and English at Durbar High School, which put him early on the two tracks that would run through all of his work: the classical Sanskrit tradition on one side and English literature on the other.

He went on to Tri-Chandra College, where he completed a BA and an LLB. His degree came through Patna University, where he sat as a private examinee. That was the usual route for Nepali students of the time, since Nepal did not yet have a university of its own.

Teaching, writing and public office

He spent his working life teaching and writing, and for most of it he was short of money. His financial difficulty is not a detail that admirers added later to make the story better. It runs openly through his own writing, and it shaped how and what he wrote.

After the fall of the Rana regime, he was drawn into public life. In 1952, King Tribhuvan appointed him a member of the Nepal Salahkar Samiti, the advisory assembly. A few years later, from 26 July 1957 to 15 May 1958, he served as Minister of Education and Autonomous Governance in the cabinet of Prime Minister Kunwar Indrajit Singh.

It is a short entry in a life list, but it is worth pausing on. The man who wrote Muna Madan in a village tune spent ten months in charge of the country's education.

Illness

In 1939, Devkota spent time in a mental hospital. His best-known free verse poem, Pagal, which means madman, is connected with that period of his life.

The poem has outlived the episode by a long way. It is now one of the most quoted pieces of writing in the language, and it reads as a defence of seeing the world differently rather than an account of an illness.

Death

Devkota died on Bhadra 29, 2016 BS, which is 14 September 1959. The cause was cancer. He was forty-nine.

He died at Aryaghat, on the bank of the Bagmati at Pashupatinath, having been brought there in his final days as is the custom. He had written for roughly thirty years, across nearly every form the language had, and he died without money.

His Work

Devkota wrote across almost the entire range of Nepali literature. Mahakavya and khandakavya, essays, short stories, plays, novels, songs, criticism and a great many loose poems. Few writers in any language cover that much ground, and fewer still do it in thirty years.

Three works carry most of his reputation.

Muna Madan

Muna Madan, published in 1993 BS, which is 1936, is the one everybody knows.

It is a khanda kavya, a long narrative poem rather than a full epic. Madan leaves his wife Muna and his mother in the hills and goes to Lhasa to earn money. He falls ill on the way, is cared for by a stranger, and by the time he gets home, the journey has cost far more than it earned. The poem follows what that separation does to all three of them.

What made it remarkable was not the story but the form. Devkota wrote it in jhyaure, a folk tune of the Nepali hills, instead of a classical Sanskrit metre. At the time, serious poetry in Nepali was expected to sound classical. Writing a major work in the rhythm that people actually sang in the villages was a deliberate decision, and it worked. The poem could be read aloud to people who could not read, and it was.

Ninety years later, it has not dated, largely because the thing it is about has not gone away. Nepalis still leave home to earn money somewhere else, and families still wait.

Muna Madan is the best-selling book ever published in the Nepali language.

Shakuntala

Shakuntala, published in 1945, is the first mahakavya written in Nepali, and Devkota completed it in three months.

The mahakavya is the long classical epic form, the most demanding structure in the Sanskrit tradition. Until Shakuntala, Nepali literature did not have one. Devkota wrote it, in that form, in a single season.

This is the work that makes the title Mahakavi literal rather than flattering, and it is the exact opposite of what he did in Muna Madan. One took the highest classical form and proved Nepali could carry it. The other took a village tune and proved it could carry literature. Both arguments were about the same thing: that the language was capable of anything asked of it.

Pagal

Pagal is his best-known free verse poem, connected with his time in hospital in 1939. It sits apart from the other two, with no classical form and no folk tune behind it, and it is the piece people most often quote from memory.

Other works

Among his other published works are Sulochana, Pahadi Pukar (2005 BS) and Bhikhari (2010 BS), which means beggar.

Why He Is Called Mahakavi

Mahakavi translates as great poet, but in Nepali it carries a narrower sense as well. It points to a poet who has written a mahakavya, the classical epic.

Devkota qualifies by the technical definition, since Shakuntala was the first mahakavya in the language. But the title stuck to him, and not to others who also wrote in the form, because of the range underneath it.

He moved between the most formal register the language had and its most ordinary one, and he was convincing in both. He wrote the epic, and he wrote the folk song. He was Education Minister, and he died poor. That combination is why the title is his.

Two Different Devkota Days

These get mixed up, and it is worth keeping them apart.

His 67th Smriti Diwas was marked on 14 September 2026.

The two days have different characters. The jayanti falls inside a festival and tends to be celebratory. The memorial day falls in a quiet part of the calendar and is usually the more serious of the two, with lectures and academic programmes rather than public readings.

What Happens on Devkota Jayanti

The day belongs to literary and educational institutions rather than to households. There is no ritual attached to it, no puja and no family observance.

The Nepal Academy, writers' organisations and literary societies hold programmes and discussions. There are public readings, usually from Muna Madan and from his shorter poems. Schools and colleges run special sessions, which for many students is the first time they hear his work read aloud rather than taught as a text. Wreaths are laid at his statues and memorials, and newspapers and broadcasters carry features on his life.

It is not a public holiday in its own right, though in 2083 it happens to fall inside the Tihar holiday anyway.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is Laxmi Prasad Devkota Jayanti 2083?

Kartik 22, 2083, which is Sunday, 8 November 2026.

Why does the date change every year?

Because the Jayanti is observed on Laxmi Puja day, which follows the moon. Devkota was born on Kartik 27, 1966 BS, and that date happened to be Laxmi Puja that year. The observance follows the tithi, not the fixed date, so the two no longer coincide.

When was Laxmi Prasad Devkota born?

Kartik 27, 1966 BS, which is 12 November 1909.

Where was he born?

At Dhobidhara in Kathmandu.

Who were his parents?

Tilmadhav Devkota and Amar Rajya Laxmi Devi. He was their third son.

Why is he named Laxmi Prasad?

Because he was born on the night of Laxmi Puja, when the goddess Laxmi is worshipped. The name means a gift of Laxmi.

Where did he study?

Durbar High School for Sanskrit grammar and English, then Tri-Chandra College, where he completed a BA and an LLB. His degree came through Patna University, where he sat as a private examinee.

What government positions did he hold?

King Tribhuvan appointed him to the Nepal Salahkar Samiti in 1952. He then served as Minister of Education and Autonomous Governance from 26 July 1957 to 15 May 1958, under Prime Minister Kunwar Indrajit Singh.

When did he die?

Bhadra 29, 2016 BS, which is 14 September 1959. He died of cancer at Aryaghat, on the Bagmati at Pashupatinath, at the age of forty-nine.

What is his most famous work?

Muna Madan, published in 1993 BS, which is 1936.

Is Muna Madan an epic?

No. It is a khanda kavya, a long narrative poem. His epic, in the classical mahakavya form, is Shakuntala.

What is Muna Madan about?

Madan leaves his wife Muna and his mother behind and travels to Lhasa to earn money. He falls ill on the journey and is cared for by a stranger, and by the time he returns, the trip has cost far more than it earned. The poem follows what the separation does to all three of them.

What metre is Muna Madan written in?

Jhyaure, a folk tune of the Nepali hills, rather than a classical Sanskrit metre. That choice let the poem be read aloud to people who could not read it themselves.

Is Muna Madan really the best-selling Nepali book?

Yes. It remains the best-selling book ever published in the Nepali language.

What is Shakuntala?

The first mahakavya, or classical epic, written in Nepali. It was published in 1945, and Devkota completed it in three months.

What is the poem Pagal about?

Pagal means madman. It is his best-known free verse poem and is connected with the period in 1939 when he spent time in a mental hospital. It reads as a defence of seeing the world differently.

What does Mahakavi mean?

Great poet. In Nepali, it also carries the specific sense of a poet who has written a mahakavya, the classical epic form. Devkota wrote the first one in the language.

What are his other works?

Among others, Sulochana, Pahadi Pukar (2005 BS), and Bhikhari (2010 BS). He wrote across mahakavya, khandakavya, essays, stories, plays, novels, songs, and criticism.

Is Devkota Jayanti a public holiday?

No, not in its own right. In 2083, it falls on Kartik 22, which is inside the Tihar holiday block.

What is the difference between Devkota Jayanti and Devkota Smriti Diwas?

Jayanti marks his birth and is observed on Laxmi Puja day. Smriti Diwas marks his death and is observed on Bhadra 29. His 67th Smriti Diwas was marked on 14 September 2026.

What else falls on Kartik 22 in 2083?

Laxmi Puja, Kukur Tihar, and Narak Chaturdashi. It is the main night of Tihar.