Poet & writer
Damodar Gulati
ਦਮੋਦਰدمودر
Wrote the earliest surviving Punjabi telling of Heer and Ranjha, claiming to have witnessed the story himself in Jhang.
Damodar Gulati was a poet of Jhang in the sixteenth century, in the reign of Akbar. He wrote the earliest surviving Punjabi version of the story of Heer and Ranjha.
In his poem he claims to have been an eyewitness of the events, a neighbour of Heer's family in Jhang, and tells the story with realistic detail. In his version, unlike Waris Shah's, the lovers escape together at the end.
His Heer is the ancestor of all later versions and an important early monument of Punjabi literature.
