17 Facts About Haraprasad Shastri

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

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

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.

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

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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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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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