[6][7] Vidyapati's influence was not just restricted to Maithili and Sanskrit literature but also extended to other Eastern Indian literary traditions.

[8] Vidyapati was born to a Maithil Brahmin family in the village of Bisapī (now Bisfi) in the present-day Madhubani district of the Mithila region of northern Bihar, India.

[10] A number of his near ancestors were notable in their own right including his great-grandfather, Devāditya Ṭhakkura, who was a Minister of War and Peace in the court of Harisimhadeva.

[9] This work contains an extended passage praising the courtesans of Delhi, foreshadowing his later virtuosity in composing love poetry.

[9] Vidyapati developed a close friendship with Devasimha's heir apparent Sivasimha and started focusing on love songs.

[9] As soon as Sivasimha ascended to his throne, he granted Vidyapati his home village of Bisapi, an act recorded on a copper plate.

[9] A story about that encounter relates how the king was held by the sultan and Vidyapati negotiated for his release by displaying his clairvoyant powers.

Vidyapati returned to serve Padmasimha and continue writing, primarily treatises on law and devotional manuals.

The Kīrttilatā makes reference to an incident where the Oiniwar King, Raja Gaṇeśvara, was killed by the Turkish commander, Malik Arsalan in 1371.

By 1401, Vidyapati requested the help of the Jaunpur Sultan in overthrowing Arsalan and installing Gaṇeśvara's sons, Vīrasiṃha and Kīrttisiṃha, on the throne.

[9] While working under his second patron, Devasimha, and especially under his successor Sivasimha, Vidyapati started composing Maithili songs of the love of Radha and Krishna.

[9] He seems to have ceased writing love songs after his patron and friend Sivasimha went missing in a battle and his court had to go into exile.

[9] Vidyapati also drew from the beauty of his home in Madhubani ("forest of honey"), with its mango groves, rice fields, sugar cane, and lotus ponds.

His songs were independent from one another unlike the Gita Govinda, which comprises twelve cantos telling an overarching story of the couple's separation and reunion.

[9] While Jayadeva wrote from Krishna's perspective, Vidyapati preferred Radha's; "her career as a young girl, her slowly awakening youth, her physical charm, her shyness, doubts and hesitations, her naive innocence, her need for love, her surrender to rapture, her utter anguish when neglected – all of these are described from a woman's point of view and with matchless tenderness.

The earliest composition in Brajabuli, an artificial literary language popularized by Vidyapati, is ascribed to Ramananda Raya, the governor of Godavari province of the King of Odisha, Gajapati Prataprudra Dev.

He recited his Brajabuli poems to Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, when he first met him on the bank of river Godavari at Rajahmundry, southern provincial capital of Kingdom of Odisha.

[14] The medieval Bengali poets, Gobindadas Kabiraj, Jnandas, Balaramdas and Narottamdas composed their padas (poems) in this language.

[citation needed] Vidyapati has been kept alive in popular memory over the past six centuries; he is a household name in Mithila.

[16] Another film, also titled Vidyapati, was made in 1964 by Prahlad Sharma, starring Bharat Bhushan and Simi Garewal in the lead roles.