17 Facts About Haraprasad Shastri

1.

Hara Prasad Haraprasad Shastri, known as Hara Prasad Bhattacharya, was an Indian academic, Sanskrit scholar, archivist and historian of Bengali literature.

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2.

Haraprasad Shastri is most known for discovering the Charyapada, the earliest known examples of Bengali literature.

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3.

Hara Prasad Haraprasad Shastri was born in Kumira village in Khulna, Bengal to a family that hailed from Naihati in North 24 Parganas of the present day West Bengal.

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4.

Haraprasad Shastri studied at the village school initially and then at Sanskrit College and Presidency College in Calcutta .

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5.

Haraprasad Shastri passed entrance examination in 1871, First Arts, the undergraduate degree, in 1873, received a BA in 1876 and Honours in Sanskrit in 1877.

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6.

The Haraprasad Shastri title was conferred on those who secured a first class and he was the only student in his batch to do so.

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7.

Haraprasad Shastri became a professor at the Sanskrit College in 1883.

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8.

Haraprasad Shastri became Principal of Sanskrit College in 1900, leaving in 1908 to join the government's Bureau of Information.

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9.

Haraprasad Shastri held different positions within the Asiatic Society, and was its president for two years.

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10.

Haraprasad Shastri was President of Bangiya Sahitya Parishad for twelve years and was an honorary member of the Royal Asiatic Society in London.

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11.

Haraprasad Shastri's first research article was "Bharat mahila", published in the periodical Bangadarshan when he was a student.

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12.

Later, Haraprasad Shastri became a regular contributor to the periodical, which was then edited by the noted Bengali author Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, authoring around thirty articles on different topics, as well as novel reviews.

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13.

Haraprasad Shastri was first introduced to research by Rajendralal Mitra, a noted Indologist.

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14.

Haraprasad Shastri was instrumental in preparing the Catalogue of the Asiatic Society's approximately ten thousand manuscripts with the assistance of a few others.

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15.

Haraprasad Shastri gradually became interested in collecting old Bengali manuscripts and ended up visiting Nepal several times, where, in 1907, he discovered the Charyageeti or Charyapada manuscripts.

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16.

Haraprasad 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.

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17.

Haraprasad Shastri discovered an old palm-leaf manuscript of Skanda Purana in a Kathmandu library in Nepal, written in Gupta script.

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