Mukund Lath | |
|---|---|
Pranab Mukherjee presenting the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship to Shri Mukund Lath, at the investiture ceremony of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowships and Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards-2011, at Rashtrapati Bhavan | |
| Born | (1937-10-09)9 October 1937 Kolkata,West Bengal, India |
| Died | 6 August 2020(2020-08-06) (aged 82)[1] |
| Resting place | Bombay |
| Occupation(s) | Cultural historian, scholar |
| Years active | 1966–2020 |
| Awards | Padma Shri Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship Sangeet Natak Akademi Award Shankar Puraskar Naresh Mehta Vangmaya Puraskar |
| Website | Official web site |
Mukund Lath (9 October 1937 – 6 August 2020) was an Indian scholar andcultural historian, known for his writings onmusic,dance,aesthetics andculture of India.[2][3] He was honored by theGovernment of India, in 2010, with the fourth highest Indian civilian award ofPadma Shri.[4]
Mukund Lath was born on 9 October 1937[5] in Kolkata in the Indian state of West Bengal.[2] After completing his senior cambridge, Lath graduated (BA Hons) in English literature from theUniversity of Delhi. His master's degree (MA) was inSanskrit literature fromJadavpur University in 1965.[3] Later he enrolled at Institute for Comparative Music Studies and Documentation, West Berlin for research onDattilam, an ancient treatise on the music of India. Subsequently, he returned to India and secured a doctoral degree (PhD) on Dattilam from Delhi University in 1976.[2][3] He also had training in classical music, during a period from 1966 to 1968, under Pandit Maniram and Ramesh Chakravarti and later, had training in the genre ofKhayal Mewat Gharana under the guidance ofPandit Jasraj,[6] whom he has accompanied on many concert tours.[3][5] Lath started his career at theUniversity of Rajasthan by joining their Department of History and Indian Culture in 1973 where he worked till his retirement in 1997.[2][3][5][6]
Mukund Lath has authored several books and articles.[7][8][9][10] Some of his notable works are:
Lath's works have been subjected to critical studies[16] and many articles have been published in his honour.[17][18] He has also published two translations of ancient Sanskrit andPrakrit poems into Hindi.[2]
Lath has taught as a visiting faculty at many universities around the world such asOxford University,Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium,University of Bamberg, Germany andHebrew University of Jerusalem.[3] He has also delivered keynote addresses and lectures at many conferences and seminars and was a member of theProject of History of Indian Science, Philosophy and Culture, aGovernment of India initiative.[3] Mukund Lath is credited with evolving a new approach to cultural history and is known to have written on the history behind the musical instrumentTanpura and the relevance ofSarangi in Indian concerts.[6]
Mukund Lath received Shankar Puraskar fromK. K. Birla Foundation in 2000, for his work,Sangeet evam Chintan (Music and Thoughts).[2] He received another award, Naresh Mehta Vangmaya Puraskar, for the same work, from Madhya Pradesh Rashtrabhasha Prachar Samiti in 2003.[2] In 2008, he received theSangeet Natak Akademi Award.[2][19] Two years later, in 2010, theGovernment of India awarded him the civilian honour ofPadma Shri.[2][6] The Sangeet Natak Akademi honoured him again, in 2012, with theirFellowship ofSangeet Natak Akademi Ratna.[2][3][6]
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