[INDOLOGY] Fwd: Prof. Dipak Bhattacharya's Sad Demise

[Madhav Deshpande]

This is very sad news indeed. Dipak Bhattacharya and his father Durgamohan
Bhattacharya were pioneers in the discovery and editing of the Paippalāda
Atharvaveda from Orissa. I met him several times at conferences, and he was
very generous in answering my questions regarding the
Atharvavedic tradition during my own editing of the Śaunakīya
Caturādhyāyikā and the Vikr̥tis of the Śaunakīya Atharvaveda. He also made
important contributions to Pāṇinian studies. His passing is a major loss to
Vedic studies. ॐ शान्ति: शान्ति: शान्ति: ।

Madhav M. Deshpande
Professor Emeritus, Sanskrit and Linguistics
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
Senior Fellow, Oxford Center for Hindu Studies
Adjunct Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India

[Residence: Campbell, California, USA]


On Sat, Apr 22, 2023 at 4:07 AM Arlo Griffiths via INDOLOGY <
indology at list.indology.info> wrote:

>
> Prof. Dipak Bhattacharya
>
> Prof. Dipak Bhattacharya, a renowned scholar of Sanskrit and Vedic
> Studies, passed away yesterday (April 21, 2023), at his daughter’s
> residence in Mumbai, due to prolonged illness and old age. He was
> eighty-two. He is survived by two daughters, son-in-laws and a
> granddaughter.
>
> Prof. Bhattacharya worked at the Visva-Bharati University, Santiniketan
> and devoted his life to teaching and research in the field of Sanskrit and
> Vedic Studies. He was known for his research in Vedic Studies,
> particularly, the first critical edition of the Paippalāda Saṃhitā of the
> Atharvaveda. He continued the work left incomplete by his father, Prof.
> Durgamohan Bhattacharya, who is credited with discovering the tradition of
> the Atharvaveda in Odisha. He collected several manuscripts of that Veda
> written in Oriya script, worked meticulously throughout his life and
> brought out a good critical edition of the entire Saṃhitā, consisting of
> twenty Kāṇḍas. The edition was published in four volumes by the Asiatic
> Society, Kolkata (1997-2016). This work evinces the mastery of Vedic and
> classical Sanskrit language, proficiency in textual criticism, colossal
> industry and insight on the part of that scholar. Despite the difference of
> opinion, the community of Vedic scholars will always remain indebted to
> Prof. Bhattacharya for his monumental work. Eminent Vedic philologists
> such as Prof. Michael Witzel (retired Professor of Sanskrit, Harvard
> University) and Prof. Georges Pinault (Paris) have expressed their feelings
> similarly.
>
> I had good personal relations with Prof. Bhattacharya. He participated in
> a national seminar on Vedic Śākhās I had organized in 2001 at the Tilak
> Maharashtra Vidyapeeth (TMV) in honour of Prof. C. G. Kashikar. He also
> participated in the Fifth International Vedic Workshop held in Bucharest in
> 2011. He worked as an external examiner and attended the Viva Voce
> examination of Dr. Shilpa Sumant for her Ph. D. from TMV. He always treated
> me like his younger brother. His sad demise is an unrepairable loss for the
> field of Vedic Studies and a personal loss for me.
>
> My deep condolences to his family, students, friends and colleagues.
>
> Shrikant Bahulkar
>
>
>
>
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