Durga Mohan Bhattacharyya was an Indian scholar of Sanskrit. He had served as a professor of
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
at the
Scottish Church College
Scottish Church College is a college affiliated by Calcutta University, India. It offers selective co-educational undergraduate and postgraduate studies and is the oldest continuously running Christian liberal arts and sciences college in A ...
in
Calcutta
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...
.
[''Teaching Staff: Sanskrit'' in ''175th Year Commemoration Volume''. Scottish Church College, April 2008. page 573]
He was a key figure in reviving many manuscripts of the
Paippalāda-Saṃhitā and its ancillary literature like the Āṅgirasakalpa after painstaking search over years in
Orissa
Odisha (English: , ), formerly Orissa ( the official name until 2011), is an Indian state located in Eastern India. It is the 8th largest state by area, and the 11th largest by population. The state has the third largest population of Sch ...
and south-west
Bengal
Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
. Durgamohan Bhattacharyya’s discovery of a living tradition of the Paippalāda-Saṃhitā, unknown until then, was hailed in the Indological world as epoch making.
Ludwig Alsdorf went so far as to say that it was the greatest event in Indology. Bhattacharyya died in 1965 leaving his edition of the text incomplete. This task was completed by his son Dipak, whose critical edition of the first 18 kāṇḍas was published by the Asiatic Society, Calcutta came out in three volumes in 1997, 2008 and 2011.
Early life
In the early 1900 he with other members of his family, migrated to Sahanagar, Lalbag in the district of
Murshidabad
Murshidabad fa, مرشد آباد (, or ) is a historical city in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is located on the eastern bank of the Bhagirathi River, a distributary of the Ganges. It forms part of the Murshidabad district.
During ...
. The family was poor and could not send its young children to an English medium school. His early education was derived from tols and chatuspathis, where the main subjects taught were
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
and Sanskrit, the medium of education primarily being Bengali. Durgamohan was an exceptionally brilliant student and by the year 1915 he had appeared at several Sanskrit Upadhi examinations and topped the list of candidates for the several examinations on Sanskrit conducted by the Government of Bengal. He acquired the highest degrees in Kavya, Sankhya and Purana and got the title of Bhagavataratna.
Durgamohan with his widowed mother (Sarada) and only younger brother moved to his maternal uncle's house in Calcutta. Coming to know about the keen desire of Durgamohan to study English, his senior maternal uncle took him to Suresh Chandra Kundu, then the headmaster of Town School, Calcutta, an institution of great reputation. It was an immense task for Durgamohan to achieve as he had already reached the age of 16 and he was required to complete the normal course of ten years in a single year. He successfully completed the task and in 1917 he sat for the Entrance Examination of the University of Calcutta and was declared successful, obtaining a place in the First Division of successful candidates.
The Intermediate Examination (F.A.) was achieved in 1919 at the
Vidyasagar College
Vidyasagar College (Bengali: বিদ্যাসাগর কলেজ) is a state government-aided public college, affiliated to the University of Calcutta, located in North Kolkata, West Bengal, India. The college offers both post-gradu ...
, the B.A. Examination with a First Class honours Degree in Sanskrit from the
Scottish Church College
Scottish Church College is a college affiliated by Calcutta University, India. It offers selective co-educational undergraduate and postgraduate studies and is the oldest continuously running Christian liberal arts and sciences college in A ...
was gained in 1921 and the master's degree in Sanskrit was obtained in 1923 from the University of Calcutta.
Career
Early career
After completing his studies in the University, Durgamohan decided to take up the educational line as his field of activities.
Having served as a Professor of Sanskrit in the
Narasinha Dutt College
Narasinha Dutt College is an undergraduate college in Howrah, West Bengal, India. Established in 1924, it claims to be the oldest college in Howrah district. It is affiliated with the University of Calcutta.
History
Narasinha Dutt College wa ...
of
Howrah
Howrah (, , alternatively spelled as Haora) is a city in the Indian state of West Bengal. Howrah is located on the western bank of the Hooghly River opposite its twin city of Kolkata. Administratively it lies within Howrah district, and is th ...
for some time, he joined the Scottish Church College as a professor of Sanskrit and Bengali and eventually became the head of the department of Sanskrit in the early thirties.
[ In 1952 he was inducted in the West Bengal Senior Educational Service as Professor of Vedic Language, Literature and Culture in the Postgraduate Training and Research Department of the ]Sanskrit College
The Sanskrit College and University (erstwhile Sanskrit College) is a state university located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It focuses on liberal arts, offering both UG and PG degrees in Ancient Indian and world history, Bengali, English, Sa ...
, which position he occupied till the date of his death.
He used to be invited by learned societies like the Asiatic Society of Bengal
The Asiatic Society is a government of India organisation founded during the Company rule in India to enhance and further the cause of "Oriental research", in this case, research into India and the surrounding regions. It was founded by the p ...
, the Asiatic Society of Bombay
The Asiatic Society of Mumbai (formerly ''Asiatic Society of Bombay'') is a learned society in the field of Asian studies based in Mumbai, India. It can trace its origin to the Literary Society of Bombay which first met in Mumbai on 26 November 1 ...
, the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute
The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) is located in Pune, Maharashtra, India. It was founded on 6 July 1917 and named after Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar (1837–1925), long regarded as the founder of Indology (Orientalism) in Indi ...
, and others to deliver talks on specific topics particularly the Vedas. He was awarded gold medals by the Asiatic Societies for his services in the field of Sanskrit.
Work on Paippalāda-Saṃhitā
He had come to infer from many sources that of the four Vedas, the Atharva Veda and its practice had not become extinct in India as many scholars of repute used to hold and propagate. To prove his conviction in this regard he visited a large number of places all over India, and, ultimately a few years before his death, he was able to locate a place in Orissa, Guhiapal to be precise where he found the Atharva Veda to be actively practiced and there he discovered several Oriya manuscripts in which the Paippalāda-Saṃhitā, one of the nine versions of the Atharva Veda was faithfully reproduced. The discovery was made known to the world and the belief about the extinction of the practice of Atharva Veda was proved incorrect. He was hailed for his painstaking effort and perseverance in the unearthing of the Paippalāda-Saṃhitā as an epoch making discovery.
He started serious work on the Paippalāda-Saṃhitā, and publications also started which received acclamations from scholars all over the world. But unfortunately Durgamohan fell ill with cancer and died on 12 November 1965. His task was completed by his son Dipak Bhattacharya whose critical edition of the first 18 kāṇḍas published by the Asiatic Society, Calcutta came out in three volumes in 1997, 2008 and 2011.
(Input source Mrs Lila Chakraborty, Mr Joy Bhattacharya)
Personal life
Durgamohan had five sons and four daughters. His wife Bhavani Bhattacharya died in 1992.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bhattacharyya, Durga Mohan
1899 births
1965 deaths
Scholars from Kolkata
Indian Sanskrit scholars
Vidyasagar College alumni
Scottish Church College alumni
Academic staff of Scottish Church College
University of Calcutta alumni
Academic staff of the University of Calcutta
20th-century Indian scholars