FIRST FEMALE REVOLUTIONARY OF NEPAL- YOGMAYA NEUPANE

INTRODUCTION

Yogmaya Neupane was a well-known poet, women's rights campaigner, and religious figure in Nepal's Bhojpur district. Yogmaya is regarded as one of Nepal's pioneer female poets, with Sarwartha Yogbani, her only published collection of poems, being her most significant achievement.

YOGMAYA

Yogmaya's poetry is set during the reign of the Rana regime in Nepal and the British ruling in India. Her style was distinct and candid, informed by the cultural and political persecution of the time. Despite her religious concentration as a religious leader on the Hindu religious setting, her poetry and advocacy issues in the region mostly focused on female and minority rights, which resonated with many people at the time. In her later years, the government kept a careful eye on her activities, and officials working for the Rana rulers forbade her from writing.

FAMILY LIFE AND BACKGROUND

Yogmaya was born in 1867 to a Brahmin family in Majhuwabeshi, Nepaledada. She was the only daughter and oldest of her parents' three children, Shrilal Upadhyaya and Chandrakala Neupane

Yogmaya was married off by her parents to a guy called Manorath Koirala when she was just seven years old, according to popular Brahmin norms at the time. The youngster died not long after his marriage. Yogmaya was afterwards deemed unlucky by her in-laws and struggled to acclimatize in the home during her stay with her in-laws since she is alleged to have been a victim of domestic abuse, who followed traditional beliefs at the time. 

She lived with them for several painful years before escaping to her Maiti (maternal home) after opting to reject the miserable fate of a widow. Her parents notified her in-laws that she would be staying with them. But her in-laws were not interested in reclaiming her. Yogmaya chose to leave the abusive household and return to her mother home when she was in her mid-teens. 

Yogmaya, on the other hand, was not warmly received at home by her father and community, who urged on her returning to her in-laws. However, when her in-laws refused to let her back into their home, her father reluctantly agreed to let her stay at his house.

HER FIRST STEP 

Yogmaya's first significant attack on societal conventions followed. She eloped to Assam with a Brahmin lad. Her second husband, though, died, and she married again. She is thought to have had a daughter from her third marriage.

Yogmaya resolved to pursue a life of renunciation and live the rest of her life as an ascetic after having had enough of weddings and worldly ways. While male ascetics were reasonably popular in Hindu culture at the time, female ascetics were extremely uncommon. Yogmaya then went to Nepal with her daughter Nainakala to Majhuwabesi, where she handed over her daughter to her brother Agnidhar Neupane and sister-in-law Ganga. As a result, she relinquished all of her obligations and took on the life of an ascetic.

BEGINNING OF HER JOURNEY

Yogmaya later began her ascetic trek to various areas of Nepal. During her voyage, she met many prominent religious gurus, including Swargadwari Mahaprabhu Abhayananda Second, who was moved by her devotion and provided her with Yogic spiritual education in the Joshmani saint lineage. Yogmaya returned to her native village after her voyage to intensively practice her contemplative Sadhana.

Yogmaya engaged in some extremely rigorous meditation techniques throughout her Sadhana, such as meditating for days on end beside a fire in the summer and then without densely covered clothing amid frigid tunnels in the winter. She would meditate while fasting and drinking just water for weeks at a time. On other occasions, she would gather with friends and family members and perform her poetry to them. 

Her poems made an impact on many residents, and her fame increased quickly, unlike anything Majhuwabesi had ever heard or seen. One of her students, Bhim Bahadur Basnet, finally built a hut for Yogmaya and collected and published her works from Sikkim.