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Saraha or Sarahapa or Sarahapada (c. 8th century CE), originally known as Rahulbhadra, is considered to be the first poet of Hindi by Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan. His dohas (couplets) are compiled in Dohakosha. Padas (verses) 22, 32, 38 and 39 of Charyageetikosha (or Charyapada) are assigned to him. In the opinion of Rahul Sankrityayan, Sarahapada was the earliest Siddha or Siddhacharya. According to him, Sarahapada was a student of Haribhadra, who was in turn a disciple of Shantarakshita, a noted buddhist scholar. As Haribhadra was a contemporary of Pala king Dharmapala (770 - 815 CE), Sarahapada must be flourished in 8th century CE . From the colophone-page of a manuscript of Saraha’s Doha-kosha, copied in Nepali Samvat 221 (1101 CE) and found from Royal Durbar Library in Nepal (which is most probably the earliest Manuscript of Doha-kosha), we came to know that many dohas of Saraha were already extant by that time, and by the efforts of a scholar named Divakar Chanda, some of them could by preserved . He was born in Eastern India and studied at the Buddhist monastic university Nalanda. He is one of the Mahasiddhas, and is considered to be one of the founders of Buddhist Vajrayana. According to Mahapandit Rahul Sankrityayan and Dr. Dvijram Yadav, Saraha was born in Raggyee village of ancient Bhagalpur.
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