Rashtrapati awardee Indologist Suniti Kumar Pathakpasses away at 101
Times of India | 6 December 2024
123 Kolkata: Suniti Kumar Pathak, an Indologist and former reader in the Indo-Tibetan studies department at Visva Bharati Universitypassed awayon Thursday morning. He was 101. The 2007 Rashtrapati Award recipient had specialised in Pali, Sanskrit, and Tibetan sources of Buddhism.
Born in 1924, Pathak started his career at Narajol Higher Secondary School soon after passing the matriculation examination.
He also joined as a junior pundit at Malighati Primary School at the same time. Later, he completed his studies in Tole (Sanskrit School) and achieved degrees as Kavya Tirtha, Puran Ratan in Sanskrit, and Sukat Bisarad in Pali with a gold medal. After completing BA (honours) at Sanskrit College, he studied Pali (Mahajan Goshthi) at Calcutta University.
He joined as a Sino-Tibetan research scholar at Calcutta University after securing a masters degree in arts. He received guidance from Prof Suniti Kumar Chatterji, a turning point in his life. From 1953, he started his career as a lecturer at Visva Bharati University in the Department of Indo-Tibetan Languages. At that time, he was called by the Indian Army to teach the languages.
He was the dean of Visva Bharati, Santiniketan, from 1972 to 1986. He taught in the department of Buddhist studies at Calcutta University as a guest faculty for a long time. He lectured in many states of India and abroad, including America, the UK, and Hungary.
He was also a Manjushri award recipient. As a linguist, he was honoured by The Asiatic Society, Kolkata.
He had received the Sahitya Parisad award, among many other recognitions. In 2018, Visva-Bharati honoured him with the Desikottam.
He was also the author of a numerous publications, including a Tibetan translation of selected poems by Rabindranath Tagore.
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