Haridas Bhattacharyya (1891–1956) was a Bengali Indian philosopher, author and educationist, known for his works on comparative religion.

Early life

He was born in an orthodox Brahmin family on 7 November 1891, at

Bhatpara Bhatpara is a city and a municipality of North 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). Overview Bhatpara is situated on the bank of Hoogh ...

West Bengal West Bengal (, Bengali: ''Poshchim Bongo'', , abbr. WB) is a state in the eastern portion of India. It is situated along the Bay of Bengal, along with a population of over 91 million inhabitants within an area of . West Bengal is the fourt ...

to Pandit Ramprasanna Bhattacharyya, a scholar at the princely court of Krishnanagar and a Sanskrit scholar.

Education

After school, Bhattacharyya joined Calcutta's

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 ...

from where he graduated in 1912. He obtained a master's degree in philosophy from the

University of Calcutta The University of Calcutta (informally known as Calcutta University; CU) is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate State university (India), state university in India, located in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. Considered ...

in 1914, and a law degree in 1917. During this time, he passed the poetry examination of the Board of Sanskrit Studies. He also won the Roychand-Premchand scholarship and the Mowat gold medal at the Scottish Church College for his thesis on the ''Evolution of the Soul''.

Career

Bhattacharyya joined the Scottish Church College in 1915, as a lecturer of philosophy and logic.''Teaching Staff: Philosophy'' in ''175th Year Commemoration Volume''. Scottish Church College, April 2008. page 574 Later in 1917, he began teaching philosophy and experimental psychology at the University of Calcutta. After the

University of Dhaka The University of Dhaka (also known as Dhaka University, or DU) is a public research university located in Dhaka, Bangladesh. It is the oldest university in Bangladesh. The university opened its doors to students on July 1st 1921. Currently i ...

was established in 1921, he joined the department of philosophy as a

Reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...

. He served as editor of the journal ''Dhaka University Studies'' and as a member of the editorial board of ''Philosophical Quarterly Journal''. Bhattacharyya delivered many prestigious lectures such as the ''Stephanos - Nirmalendu Ghosh lecture''s on ''Foundations of Living Faiths'' at the University of Calcutta (1933–34) and the ''Madanmohan Malavya Commemoration lecture'' at the

Banaras Hindu University Banaras Hindu University (BHU) IAST: kāśī hindū viśvavidyālaya IPA: /kaːʃiː hɪnd̪uː ʋɪʃwəʋid̪jaːləj/), is a collegiate, central, and research university located in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India, and founded in 1916 ...

. After the partition of 1947, he relocated to the department of

Indology Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the History of India, history and Culture of India, cultures, Languages of South Asia, languages, and Indian literature, literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a ...

at the Banaras Hindu University. He died in Calcutta on 20 January 1956.

Works

Books

* ''The Foundations of Living Faiths - An Introduction to Comparative Religion'', Calcutta, Motilal Banarsidass, 1938
Cambridge University Press reviewFull text in the Internet Archive
* Editor of the six volume series ''The Cultural Heritage of India'' published by The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Calcutta, 1936-1940; 2nd enlarged and revised ed. 1958-196
Full text in the Internet Archive
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Journals in which he published

*''

The Philosophical Quarterly ''The Philosophical Quarterly'' is a quarterly academic journal of philosophy established in 1950 and published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Scots Philosophical Club and the University of St Andrews. Since 2014 its publisher is Oxford Acade ...

'' *''Review of Philosophy and Religion'' *''Religions of the World'' *''Dacca University Journal'' *''Dacca University Studies'' *''

Calcutta Review The ''Calcutta Review'' is a bi-annual periodical, now published by the Calcutta University press, featuring scholarly articles from a variety of disciplines. History The ''Calcutta Review'' was founded in May 1844, by Sir John William Kaye an ...

'' *''Visva-Bharati Quarterly'' *''Indian Journal of Psychology'' *''Journal of the Madras University''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bhattacharyya, Haridas 1891 births 1956 deaths Bengali writers Bengali-language writers Bengali philosophers 20th-century Indian philosophers 20th-century Hindu philosophers and theologians Scottish Church College alumni University of Calcutta alumni Academic staff of Scottish Church College Academic staff of the University of Calcutta Academic staff of the University of Dhaka Academic staff of Banaras Hindu University 20th-century Bangladeshi philosophers Scholars from Kolkata