Sanskrit scholar Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri gets Sahitya Akademi award

Noted Sanskrit scholar and litterateur Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri has received the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award for his monumental work ‘Astadashi’.

Astadashi deals with 18 important female characters of Mahabharata and analysing them from all modern social perspectives, keeping in mind the perennial philosophy of the epic which has been replicated over the ages even in modern day society.

Talking to Millennium Post, Bhaduri said the website on Towards the history of Kirtan was almost ready. He is now busy with the translation of Mahabharata, a monumental work.

One volume of Purankosh, a unique dictionary on the various terms that are used in mythology has already come out and work on two more volumes is on.

Born in a Vaisnav family, Bhaduri has worked on Sri Chaitanya but his key interest has always been Krishna, one of the pivotal characters in Mahabharata.

The various shades of Krishna have always fascinated Bhaduri who has studied Sanskrit both in the University as well in the traditional school.

Bhaduri was the lone fighter to write on Mahabharata trying to analyse their relevance in today’s society.

He wrote in different vernacular newspapers and magazines on Mahabharata at a time when the erstwhile Left Front government had virtually imposed a ban on Sanskrit.

The government stopped the study of Sanskrit as the third language from 1979 within two years after coming to power on the ground that the language had become obsolete and was connected with Hindu religion.

The interest on the subject among students began to fall. Bhaduri had to face odds but despite that, he went on teaching the language with sincerity in Gurudas College.

His class became so popular that students from different faculties came to attend them. He was a guest lecturer in the Bengali department in Calcutta University.