Who wrote the medieval-era epic poem "Padmavat"?

Concept

The Sufi premakhyan (love-allegory) tradition of medieval North India produced long narrative poems in the Awadhi dialect of Hindi, where a worldly romance is told as an allegory for the soul's yearning for the divine. Identifying the author of such a work means matching the poem to the poet who composed it in that tradition.

Application

"Padmavat" (also spelled Padumawati), composed in 1540 CE in the Awadhi dialect, is the Sufi epic narrating the legend of Queen Padmini of Chittor and her pursuit by Alauddin Khalji. Its author is Malik Muhammad Jayasi, a Sufi poet of the Chishti order based in Jais (in present-day Uttar Pradesh). The romance of Ratansen and Padmavati is framed as a spiritual allegory, which is the hallmark of his authorship.

Contrast

Distinguishing the correct poet from the other medieval figures:

• Mulla Daud composed "Chandayan" (1379), an earlier Awadhi Sufi premakhyan, but not Padmavat.

• Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak was Akbar's court historian, author of the Akbarnama and Ain-i-Akbari, a prose chronicle rather than a Sufi verse epic.

• Amir Khusro was a 13th-14th century poet of the Delhi Sultanate who wrote in Persian and Hindavi, predating Padmavat by over two centuries.

Hence the poem belongs to Malik Muhammad Jayasi.