Hara Prasad Shastri | |
|---|---|
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| Born | (1853-12-06)6 December 1853 |
| Died | 17 November 1931(1931-11-17) (aged 77) Calcutta, Bengal Presidency,British India |
| Alma mater | Sanskrit College Presidency College |
| Occupation(s) | Academic, Orientalist |
Hara Prasad Shastri (Bengali:হরপ্রসাদ শাস্ত্রী; 6 December 1853 – 17 November 1931), also known asHara Prasad Bhattacharya, was an Indian academic,Sanskrit scholar,archivist, and historian ofBengali literature. He is most known for discovering theCharyapada, the earliest known examples of Bengali literature.[1]
Hara Prasad Shastri was born in Kumira village inKhulna district,Bengal (now in Bangladesh)[1] to a family that hailed fromNaihati inNorth 24 Parganas of the present dayWest Bengal. The family name was Bhattacharya, a commonBengali Brahmin surname.
Shastri studied at the village school initially and then atSanskrit College andPresidency College inCalcutta (now Kolkata). While in Calcutta, he stayed with the noted Bengali scholar and social reformerIshwar Chandra Vidyasagar, who was a friend of Shastri's older brotherNandakumar Nyayachunchu.[1][2]
Shastri passed entrance (school-leaving) examination in 1871,First Arts, the undergraduate degree, in 1873, received a BA in 1876, and Honours in Sanskrit in 1877. Later, he was conferred the title ofShastri when he received aMA degree. The Shastri title was conferred on those who secured a first class (highest grade) and he was the only student in his batch (class) to do so. He then joinedHare School as a teacher in 1878.[1][2]
Shastri held numerous positions. He became a professor at theSanskrit College in 1883. At the same time, he worked as an Assistant Translator with the Bengal government. Between 1886 and 1894, besides teaching at the Sanskrit College, he was the Librarian of the Bengal Library. In 1895, he headed the Sanskrit department atPresidency College.[1][2]
During the winter 1898–99, he assisted Dr.Cecil Bendall during research in Nepal, collecting information from the private Durbar Library of the Rana Prime MinisterBir Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, and the total registration of manuscripts was later published asA Catalogue of Palm-Leaf and selected Paper Manuscripts belonging to the Durbar Library, Nepal (Calcutta 1905) with a historical introduction by Cecil Bendall (including the description ofGopal Raj Vamshavali).[3]
He became Principal of Sanskrit College in 1900, leaving in 1908[4] to join the government's Bureau of Information. From 1921 to 1924, he was Professor and Head of the Department of Bengali and Sanskrit atDhaka University.[1][2]
Shastri held different positions within theAsiatic Society, and was its president for two years. He was also President ofBangiya Sahitya Parishad for twelve years and was an honorary member of theRoyal Asiatic Society in London.[1][2]
Shastri's first research article was "Bharat mahila", published in the periodicalBangadarshan when he was a student. Later, Shastri became a regular contributor to the periodical, which was then edited by the noted Bengali authorBankimchandra Chattopadhyay, authoring around thirty articles on different topics, as well as novel reviews. He was first introduced to research byRajendralal Mitra, a notedIndologist. Due to his ailing health, Mitra asked him for help working onThe Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal, where Shastri translated descriptions of manuscripts — written bypaṇḍits in Sanskrit — into English. Shastri was also Mitra's assistant at the Asiatic Society, and became Director of Operations in Search of Sanskrit Manuscripts after Mitra's death, continuing his work on theNotices of Sanskrit MSS beginning with volume X.[1][5][6]
Shastri was instrumental in preparing the Catalogue of the Asiatic Society's approximately ten thousand manuscripts with the assistance of a few others.[1] The long introduction to the Catalogue contains invaluable information on the history ofSanskrit literature.
Shastri gradually became interested in collecting old Bengali manuscripts and ended up visiting Nepal several times, where, in 1907, he discovered theCharyageeti orCharyapada manuscripts.[1] His painstaking research on the manuscript led to the establishment ofCharyapada as the earliest known evidence of Bengali language.[1] Shastri wrote about this finding in a 1916 paper titled "হাজার বছরের পুরোনো বাংলা ভাষায় রচিত বৌদ্ধ গান ও দোঁহা” (Hajar bochhorer purono Bangla bhasay rochito Bouddho gan o doha) meaning "Buddhist songs and verses written in Bengali a thousand years ago".[2][7]
Shastri was the collector and publisher of many other old works, author of many research articles, a noted historiographer, and recipient of a number of awards and titles.[1]
Some of his notable works were:Balmikir jai,Meghdoot byakshya,Beneyer Meye (The Merchant's Daughter, a novel),Kancanmala (novel),Sachitra Ramayan,Prachin Banglar Gourab, andBouddha dharma.[2]
His English works include:Magadhan Literature,Sanskrit Culture in Modern India, andDiscovery of Living Buddhism in Bengal.[2]
He also discovered an oldpalm-leaf manuscript ofSkanda Purana in a Kathmandu library in Nepal, written inGupta script.
