Suryanath Upendra Kamath (26 April 1937 – 21 October 2015) was an Indian historian who served as the Chief Editor of the Karnataka State Gazetteer from 1981 to 1995.

Early life

Kamath was born in a Konkani-speaking family on 26 April 1937. After studying history and economics at

Dharwad University Dharwad (), also known as Dharwar, is a city located in the north western part of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is the headquarters of the Dharwad district of Karnataka and forms a contiguous urban area with the city of Hubballi. It was merge ...

, Kamath joined the Bangalore University as a lecturer and reader in history in 1968. During his graduation in Dharwad University, Kamath came under the influence of historian

B. A. Saletore Bhaskar Anand Saletore (1900–1963), better known as B. A. Saletore, was an Indian historian from Mangalore, Karnataka. Early years B.A. Saletore was born in village named Saletore in the Puttur taluk of South Canara district (present Dakshina ...

who had written a comprehensive two-volume book on social and political life in the

Vijayanagar Empire The Vijayanagara Empire, also called the Karnata Kingdom, was a Hindu empire based in the region of South India, which consisted the modern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Goa and some parts of Telangana and ...

Career

Kamath served as lecturer and reader in history at the

Bangalore University Bangalore University (BU) is a public state university located in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. The university is a part of the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU) and affiliated by Univer ...

from 1968 to 1981. In 1981, he was appointed director of the Karnataka State Archives. He served as director of the Karnataka State Archives from 1981 to 1983 and was the Chief Editor of the Karnataka State Gazetteer from 1981 to 1995. He also edited the Karnataka District Gazetteers and since 1977, has been the editor of the Quarterly Journal of the Mythic Society. He founded the Karnataka Ithihasa Academy along with G. S. Dikshith in 1985. He was also the director of the Raja Ram Mohan Roy Public Library 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 ...

. Kamath edited the

quarterly A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combination ...

journal of the ''Indian Mythic Society'' from 1977 to his death. He was also a member of the Karnataka Gazetteer Advisory Committee.

Methodology

Kamath's methodology was Indian nationalist.He has authored many books on the

Indian independence movement The Indian independence movement was a series of historic events with the ultimate aim of ending British Raj, British rule in India. It lasted from 1857 to 1947. The first nationalistic revolutionary movement for Indian independence emerged ...

. He denied the existence of an

Aryan race The Aryan race is an obsolete historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people of Proto-Indo-European heritage as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern I ...

and considered the Indus Valley civilization to be simply an urban version of Vedic civilization.

Works

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Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kamath, Suryanath U. 1937 births 20th-century Indian historians Indigenous Aryanists 2015 deaths Bangalore University faculty Scientists from Karnataka