Sharan Sanskrit poet of the 12th century AD, possibly the same person as Saran Datta or Chirantana Saran, perhaps identical with Saran Dev, author of the Durghatavrtti, a grammatical work on anomalous literary uses. The poet jaydev mentions him among his contemporaries and describes him as having become famous because of his swiftness in difficult versification. Tradition speaks of Saran along with Govardhan, Jaydev, Umapatidhar and Kaviraj as the five gems of the court of laksmanasena. No major work of Saran is extant, but he is quoted in the Saduktikarnamrta of Shridhar Das, a governor under Laksmanasena and in the Padyavali of Rupa Goswami. [Pratap Bandyopadhyay]