Puran Das Baul was born on 18 March 1933 in Birbhum district, West Bengal, India. He is an Indian musician and singer, in Baul tradition.
He is perceived as the successor to the once wandering mendicant minstrels, the Bauls of Bengal, a historical territory that currently is divided between the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (previously East Bengal / East Pakistan) and the Indian state of West Bengal, and the neighboring Indian states of Bihar, Assam, and Orissa. Das is a traditional surname among Bauls as well as among other members of the populace in this region.
He has traveled in 140 countries, throughout the world and presented the Baul tradition. He has also appeared in numerous films, and was personally fêted by Mick Jagger in England, and by Bob Dylan who told Purna Das that he himself would be ‘the Baul of America’.
