University of Calcutta Department of Sanskrit

The Sanskrit Department started with a provision for the study of the Vedas, for which little opportunity was available elsewhere. In 1907 the University appointed Acharyya Satyabrata Samasrami — who had devoted a lifetime to Vedic studies — to deliver lectures to advanced students on the Vedas, and along with him several other reputed scholars in Sanskrit for teaching in different branches of Sanskrit learning.

The department at first consisted only of lecturers. It was in 1926 that the Asutosh Professorship of Sanskrit was created and the first incumbent of the Chair was Bhagabat Kumar Goswami Shastri, M.A., Ph.D., who was followed in 1934 by Prabhat Kumar Chakraborty, M.A., Ph.D. After the premature and much-lamented death of the latter, Pandit Vidhushekhar Shastri was appointed to the chair and continued till 1942. After his retirement, Satkari Mukherjee was appointed and continued till 31st May 1955. There is a long list of legendary successors of this Chair. Later the Chair Professorship in Veda by the name of Pandit Gopinath Kaviraj was created; it is now open to teachers of all specializations.

During the next few years stimulus was given to Sanskrit studies by the appointment as University Readers of many Professors of European Universities, distinguished by their research in Indology — Professor Richard Pischel of Berlin, Hermann Oldenberg of Göttingen, Hermann Jacobi of Bonn, Sylvain Lévi of the Collège de France, and Winternitz of Karl Ferdinands Universität, Prague. It is a matter of great satisfaction that the history of Sanskrit literature which Winternitz had begun was finished after his death by two scholars of eminence of this University.