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Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t60: Prahlad Pradhan

Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t60

Language
English

Prahlad Pradhan

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Prahlad Pradhan (1910-1982) was a Sanskrit and Buddhist scholar who had made himself well-known by editing some Buddhist texts into Sanskrit while going through the original Chinese source.

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He was born in 1910 in a small town of Kamgaon-Antapali located near about 15 km away from Bargarh town of Orissa (present-day Odisha). He did his master degree in Sanskrit from Patna University and was then sent to Santiniketan in 1939 on an Odisha government scholarship to study Pali and Prakrit there as a research scholar of Vidya Bhavan. While in Santiniketan, he had also joined as Lecturer in Odia in Odia Department of Visva-Bharati in 1947.

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However, after a few months of stay in Santiniketan, he was sent to China in early 1949s as a Professor of Sanskrit and Hindi to teach Hindi and Pali in the Department of Oriental Languages of Beijing University. During the period of his three and half years of stay in China, he had learnt classical Chinese and Buddhist Chinese, and had acquired much proficiency in it. He returned back to India in 1952-53 and then joined Cheena Bhavan, Santiniketan as a research scholar for few months. Then, soon he received an appointment letter from the Odisha government to join the Revenshaw College, Cuttack as Lecturer in Sanskrit and Odia literature. However his interest in India-China classical studies continued to remain unabated and thereby edited and restored the Abhidharma Samuccaya text of Asanga, a Buddhist scholar from Peshawar (founder of Yogacharya School of Mahayana Buddhism) of 4^th century CE and Abhidharma Koshabhashya of Vasuabndhu, brother of Asanga, with the help of concerned Chinese, Tibetan and Japanese texts and commentary.

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In 1958 he joined Utkal University as Professor of Sanskrit and towards the last phase of his distinguished academic career he was appointed as Vice-chancellor of Jagannath Sanskrit University, Puri. He died in the year 1982.

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