Editor’s Note
FOR ABOUT HALF A CENTURY, D.R. Bhandarkar was a name uttered with respect and reverence in the annals of Indian archeology and history. His discovery of four singular archeological sites in the general area of Vidisha and Sanchi proved path-breaking. D.R. Bhandarkar, like his distinguished father, R.G. Bhandarkar, was in every bit a titan of the New Indian Renaissance. Throughout his career, shunned lucrative jobs and like a Karma Yogi, stuck to teaching, research and study.
This evocative tribute, written by Sri A.N. Lahiri, gives a biographical glimpse of the quality of scholars that are almost nonexistent today.
Happy reading!
Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar: Biographical Sketch
Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar, son of the eminent Indologist Sir Ramkrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, was born on the 19th November, 1875. He grew up in a highly academic atmosphere created by his renowned father.
He passed the B.A. Examination of Bombay University from the Deccan College, Poona, in 1896, and began studying Law. But destiny conspired to divert the course of his academic life on to a different channel, and he was soon to give up his legal studies.
One day an advertisement for the Pandit Bhagawanlal Indraji Gold Medal and Prize attracted his attention, and he at once decided, without the knowledge of his father, to submit a thesis entitled A Brief Survey of the Ancient Towns and Cities of Maharashtra Country in the pre-Mahomedan Period, i.e. 1000 A.D. The thesis prepared in a short time could not, however, carry off the coveted Gold Medal, but was adjudged to be good enough for a prize.
Sir Ramkrishna, when he heard of it, found in young Devadatta a potential Indologist, and at once asked him to give up law and devote himself entirely to Indological studies. Devadatta, consequently, went in for the M.A. Examination,—took up ‘Languages’, i.e. English and Sanskrit, with optional papers in Pali and Palaeography,—which is somewhat similar to Ancient Indian History and Culture of the present day, and passed the M.A. Examination creditably in 1901.
The same year he got an appointment in the Bombay office of “Census of India, 1901” and soon became the Honorary Assistant Secretary of the Ethnological Survey of Bombay. Bhandarkar got himself interested in the study of ancient tribes like the Ahirs, Gurjaras, Guhilots, etc. While working on these tribes, he realised how these and various other foreign peoples penetrated India, ruled over parts of the country and were finally merged into the vast Indian population. These findings Bhandarkar successfully incorporated into the last of the Pandit Bhagawanlal Indraji Lectures, entitled Foreign Elements in the Hindu Population, which he delivered at Bombay University in 1904.
Bhandarkar was soon offered two alternative appointments—a lucrative post in the Revenue Department and another, less promising, in the Department of Archaeology. He chose the latter, and joined the Archaeological Survey as Assistant Surveyor, Western Circle, on the 20th June, 1904. He worked in the Archaeological Survey for 13 years.
Bhandarkar’s sincerity of purpose, hard work and scholarly exposition of his findings were much appreciated by the authorities, though there was no material gain for him. From 1904 to 1907 his services were renewed from year to year, and only in 1907 he was given a four-year extension of service. This is said to have been done for a European officer’s promotion to the post of Superintendent. In fact, Bhandarkar’s claim was superseded by the appointment of A. H. Longhurst as Superintendent in 1910. But with the transfer of Longhurst to the Southern Circle, Madras, in 1911, Bhandarkar was duly promoted as Superintendent, Western Circle, the same year. Incidentally, he was the first Indian to hold that post.
It is interesting to follow Bhandarkar’s activities in the Archaeological Survey as recorded in the Progress Reports of the Archaeological Survey, Western Circle, from 1904-05 to 1909-10 as Assistant Superintendent and from 1910-11 to 1917-18 as Superintendent.
As Superintendent of the Survey, Bhandarkar excavated at four sites, of which one round the ‘Kham Baba’ or Heliodorus pillar at Besnagar (ancient Vidisa) near Sanchi and another in the heart of that ancient town, yielded startling results. He unearthed on the north of the Vasudeva shrine a solid railing which was still then unknown elsewhere. One of the two wedges discovered underneath the railing proved on analysis at Sheffield to be genuine steel; and since the use of steel in India in the pre-Muhammadan days was then undreamt of, Sir Robert Hadfield made a special mention of Bhandarkar’s discovery before the Faraday Society on the 23rd November, 1914. The third discovery of Bhandarkar at that site was lime-mortar in a structure of the Sunga period, which rivalled that of the Romans. His fourth discovery at the second site was in the form of firebrick picked up from yajña-kuṇḍas (sacrificial pits) which were dug up about the second century B.C.
In 1911 Bhandarkar was made the co-editor of the Indian Antiquary with Sir Richard Temple. His first work as editor was to revise and publish his famous lecture on Foreign Elements in the Hindu Population.
On the 15th November, 1912, D. R. Bhandarkar was awarded the Sir James Campbell Gold Medal by Bombay University, and was, incidentally, the second recipient of the Medal, the first being Sir Aurel Stein, the famous archaeological explorer.
In 1917, Bhandarkar was appointed for the second time the Pandit Bhagawanlal Indraji Lecturer. The scholarship of Bhandarkar attracted the attention of the great educationist Sir Asutosh Mookerjee who considered Bhandarkar to be the most suitable person for the newly created post of Carmichael Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture in the University of Calcutta, and practically snatched him away from the Archaeological Survey against a stiff opposition from the authorities. D. R. Bhandarkar finally joined the University of Calcutta on the 1st July, 1917; but, according to a bilateral agreement, he was to hold simultaneously the post of Officer-in-Charge, Archaeological Section, Indian Museum, Calcutta. Bhandarkar held that Indian Museum post till 1920.
As Carmichael Professor, Bhandarkar delivered three series of extension lectures in the University of Calcutta. The first series was delivered in 1918 on Ancient History of India, from 650 B.C. to 325 B.C. The second series delivered in 1921 was on Ancient Indian Numismatics, while the third series relating to Aśoka was delivered in 1923.
In 1925, Bhandarkar was appointed the Manindra Chandra Nandi Lecturer of the Benares Hindu University. The series of lectures that Bhandarkar delivered at Benares was on Some Aspects of Ancient Hindu Polity. These lectures duly published in book-forms speak eloquently of Bhandarkar’s eminence as an exponent of ancient Indian history and culture. Bhandarkar was a Fellow of Calcutta University, and was conferred the Honorary Degree of Ph.D. in 1921 at a special convocation of the University.
D. R. Bhandarkar was nominated a Member of the Board of Trustees, Indian Museum, Calcutta, in place of Lord Carmichael, the first Governor of Bengal. He became Acting Treasurer and Acting Secretary of the Indian Museum several times and was the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Museum from 1925 to 1927.
Professor Bhandarkar was associated with the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. He was elected a Fellow of the Society in 1918, and was its Philological Secretary for five years from 1920 to 1925.
After rendering nearly twenty years’ service to the University of Calcutta, Bhandarkar retired from the post of Carmichael Professor in 1936. He was elected President of the Cultural Conference held in Calcutta the same year. He was President of the Allahabad Session of the Indian History Congress two years later. Bhandarkar delivered the Sir William Meyer Lectures (1938-39) at the University of Madras on Some Aspects of Ancient Indian Culture.
Bhandarkar was elected Honorary Fellow of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in 1943. He became Honorary Correspondent of the Archaeological Survey of India, and a Corresponding Member of the Indian Historical Records Commission. He was also elected Honorary Fellow of the Asiatic Society of Bengal as well as of the Indian Research Institute, Calcutta. The Calcutta Historical Society also elected him an Honorary Fellow. He was the Joint Editor of the Indian Culture for many years. Bhandarkar was awarded the Dr. Bimala Churn Law Gold Medal by the Asiatic Society of Bengal for his contributions to ancient Indian history and archaeology.
D. R. Bhandarkar contributed a large number of papers to various journals, some of the most important amongst them being those published in the Epigraphia Indica. Bhandarkar contributed as many as seventeen important articles to this celebrated journal between 1900-01 and 1935-36. Another very important contribution of Bhandarkar to epigraphical studies is his List of the Inscriptions of Northern India written in Brahmi and its Derivative Scripts, from about 200 A.C., which was published as an Appendix to the Epigraphia Indica, Volumes XIX–XXIII (1927-1928 to 1935-1936).
Bhandarkar lived up to the ripe old age of 75 years, and with his death on the 30th May, 1950, ended an academic career which was unique in many respects and full of activities for half a century.
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