Ashapurna Devi was born in a Baidya family on 8 January 1909 in North Calcutta. Her birth name was Asha Purna Devi (Gupta). Her early childhood was spent in a traditional and extremely conservative family. Female children of the house were not allowed to go to school. Private tutors were employed only for the boys.^[

Ashapurna's father Harendra Nath Gupta was a famous artist of the time who worked for furniture makers C. Lazarus & Co. as a designer. Ashapurna's mother Sarola Sundari was a great lover of books.

Due to shortage of space, Harendra Nath shifted his family to a new house at 157/1A Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road (beside the Khanna Cinema Hall), which provided freedom to Sarola Sundari and her daughters. Ashapurna was self-educated.^[4] The period in which she was raised was socially and politically restless, a time of nationalist agitation and awakening.

According to Ashapurna, she and her sisters used to compete with each other by composing and reciting poems. This inspired Ashapurna to secretly send a poem to Sishu Sathi in 1922. Ashapurna was thirteen and her poem "Bairer Dak" (The Call from the Outside) was published.^[

Ashapurna was sent to be married in 1924 when she was 15, leaving Calcutta for her betrothed's family residence in Krishnanagar. She was married to Kalidas Gupta, and the couple moved frequently as they established themselves. In 1927 they settled in Calcutta where they lived until 1960. In 1970, they built their own house at 17 Kanungo Park, where lived until she died on 13 July 1995.