Why is this book written in a poetic style? A straightforward prose book would be much easier to understand.

The author of the preface, Balkrishna Vishwanath Dev, directly addresses this choice in Chapter 0. While acknowledging that biographies can be written in either prose or poetry, he asserts that detailed poetic biographies are the most suitable format for devotional purposes. The text explains that there is a strong tradition of performing devotional readings like Parayans (hundreds of readings) and Saptahs (weekly recitations) with sacred texts. According to the preface, prose is difficult to memorize and there is no established tradition of performing these extended recitations with prose biographies. Therefore, the poetic form was deliberately chosen to facilitate these important acts of study, recitation, and memorization.