Acharya Ramlochan Saran

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Acharya Ramlochan Saran (1889 -1971) is a Hindi literateur, grammarian and publisher. He founded the Pustak Bhandar in Laheriasarai and Patna in 1915, which made the little known place like Laheriasarai prominent in Indian publishing. He shifted his publishing activities to Patna in 1929.

He also founded a number of magazines like Balak magazine (1926-1985), Himalaya (1946-1948) and Honhar (Hindi and Urdu) (1939). Through his publishing efforts he encouraged many other Hindi literateurs like Ramabrkksha Benipuri, Ramdhari Singh 'Dinkar', Acharya Shivapujan Sahay, and Pt. Harimohan Jha. He was a pioneer in encouraging young authors of Bihar and through his editing standardised the Hindi language. His Hindi primer Manohar Pothi is still the finest effort ever made to teach Hindi alphabets to beginners. He also published Some Eminent Bihar Cotemporaries by Sachidanand Sinha, books by Mahatma Gandhi and other Gandhian literatuers in Hindi and English. He published Tolstoy and Gandhi by Dr. Kali Das Nag in English. His classic Maithili rendering of all the books written by Goswami Tulsidas is unique. He edited and published Sidhant Bhasya in four volumes on Ramacharitamanasa by Tulsidas which is permanent contribution to the spiritual literature. He was first to start printing Maithili books in Maithili script.

On his death the noted English daily Indian Nation wrote in its editorial , “Had Ramlochan Saran not been born in Bihar the progress of Hindi Literature would have been delayed by a decade or two.”He was born on 11th day of February in the year 1889 in Muzzaffarpur District of undivided Bengal and passed away on 14th day of May in the year 1971 in Darbhanga ,Bihar.He was married to Chandramani Devi of Nepal.

The publishing house founded by him Pustak Bhandar still exists in Patna and is being managed by his son Siyaram Saran who is a B.Tech (Hons.) from IIT Kharagpur and MBA from IIM Calcutta .