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Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri
Bhaduri in 2015
Born	(1950-11-23) 23 November 1950 (age 74) Gopalpur, Pabna, East Bengal
Nationality	Indian
Alma mater	University of Calcutta
Occupation(s)	Professor (retired), writer
Known for	Scholar of Indian epics and Puranas
Awards	Banga Bibhushan (2014)

Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri (born 23 November 1950) is an Indian historian, writer, and Indologist. He is a specialist in Indian epics, Vedas, and Puranas. In 2012, Bhaduri undertook the large-scale project of creating an encyclopedia of the major Indian epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. The project is freely available online. Due to the difficulty and complexity of the task, it took Bhaduri a decade to conceptualize the project. During the compendium's creation, several Indian journalists stated that the encyclopaedia was poised to challenge many long-held beliefs about the epics.

Personal life

Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri was born on 23 November 1950 in the village of Gopalpur in Pabna (now in Bangladesh). He earned a Master of Arts degree in the Sanskrit language from the University of Calcutta. He was a reader of Sanskrit at Gurudas College, Kolkata. He retired from his job on 30 November 2010.

Literary career

Bhaduri is noted for his scholarly but simple interpretations of ancient Indian tales, particularly those appearing in the Indian epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. He generally writes in Bengali and has written books like Balmikir Ram O Ramayan, Arjun o Draupadi, Krishna, Kunti Ebong Kaunteyo, and others. For many years, he has been writing essays on Hindu epic characters in Bengali magazines, including Sarodiya issues in Bartaman, Ananda Publishers, Anandamela, Desh, etc. In his book Dandaniti, Bhaduri deals with politics in ancient and medieval India. Bhaduri writes a regular column, Katha Amrita Saman, which is published in Sangbad Pratidin's Sunday supplement issue Robbar.

The deity Krishna has been a special interest to Bhaduri. He has written multiple books and essays on the character. In the book Mahabharater Bharat Yuddha Ebong Krishna, he discusses the role of Krishna in the Kurukshetra War.

Encyclopedia project

In March 2012, Bhaduri began directing a major encyclopedia project intended to compile the Indian epics Ramayana, Mahabharata, as well as the Puranas, which is being sponsored by Bengali book publisher Sahitya Samsad and the Netaji Subhas Institute of Asian Studies. Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey of The Times of India has said "The encyclopaedia will challenge claims of certain Indian scholars, who under Western influences have often tried to "sanitise" the character of Krishna. In Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's Krishnacharitra, for instance, Krishna is supposed to not have even a single consort." Jaideep Mazumdar of The Times of India said "the encyclopaedia will shatter the colonial hangover that a lot of the research into our ancient scriptures in recent times have suffered from and will present many historical figures in a new light."

Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri was quoted in an interview as saying–

"I thought it would be a good idea since all the smaller encyclopedias I came across on the Puranas were incomplete and didn't have proper reference labels. I started poring through the Puranas and making card entries. After some time, I thought I should include the Mahabharata also since the stories in the Mahabharata have a parampara (continuity and tradition) with the Puranas. For instance, names of some kings, conventions and rituals for marriages, childbirth and funerals that are found in the Vedas find mention in the Mahabharata as well. And gaps in the Mahabharata's stories, I discovered, can be filled from the Puranas and the Vedas. And since the story of Ramayana is found in a gist in the Mahabharata, I finally decided that a complete encyclopaedia of the epics and the Puranas is necessary since all these texts and scriptures complement each other."

Though the project was planned long ago, it started only in 2010. According to a report published in The Times of India in August 2012, Debojyoti Dutta, chief of the publication, requested Bhaduri to lead the project. Firstly, they planned to make the encyclopedia on the Mahabharata only, but found it was too difficult to cover only one of the epics. For example, the Hindu epic character Krishna is found in a section of the Ramayana as well.

Due to the complexity and difficulty of the project, it took Bhaduri a whole decade to work on the concept alone. Bhaduri received assistance from research scholars at the Netaji Subhas Institute of Asian Studies. The team felt they could finish the project by 2013, but Bhaduri later said – "after going full steam we realised that it is going to be more difficult than we thought. I think we will go well into 2015".

Books

Translated books

References

1. WB Government honours eminent citizens with Bangabibhushan and Bangabhushan awards. aitcofficial.org. 20 May 2014. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
2. ^ "Epic-pedia on a grand scale". The Times of India. 7 August 2012. Archived from the original on 15 February 2014. Retrieved 16 December 2012.
3. "Love in the time of epics". India Today. 24 November 2011. Retrieved 16 December 2012.
4. ^ Kartik Chandra Dutt (1999). Who's who of Indian Writers: 1999 : In 2 Vol. Vol. 1 A-M. Sahitya Akademi. p. 131. ISBN 978-81-260-0873-5. Retrieved 17 December 2012.
5. ^ "Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri Biography". veethi.com. Retrieved 4 February 2020.
6. Partha Chatterjee (30 September 2011). Lineages of Political Society: Studies in Postcolonial Democracy. Columbia University Press. pp. 71–. ISBN 978-0-231-15813-8. Retrieved 26 December 2012.

External links

• Media related to Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri at Wikimedia Commons
• Encyclopedia project online

• Indian Indologists
• Living people
• Bengali writers
• Bengali-language writers
• 1950 births
• University of Calcutta alumni
• Academic staff of the University of Calcutta
• Indian encyclopedists
• People from Pabna District
• 20th-century Indian historians
• 21st-century Indian historians
• Recipients of the Sahitya Akademi Award in Bengali